Morning!

Here’s a bunch of great reading material to feed your brain over the weekend :) Amazing what you can still learn about money and life even after being around for thousands of years…

Lemme know if you’ve read anything great lately!

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Most popular articles on Budgets Are Sexy:

What Haters Are Like — Tell me if you don’t know people like this…

Utterly Useless Facts About Money & Life — Picked up a fact book at my local thrift store and it did not disappoint ;) See if you can slip the facts on wombats or tampons into normal conversation today!

Something ALL stores should do! — Just found out that my favorite local bookstore will accept ANY gift card from ANY place in lieu of cash, so long as it’s active and they can verify how much is on it! How incredible is that??

A cool way to use your tax refunds — “I use that tax return to pay all my bills for a year. I multiply my cell, internet, Netflix, and car insurance by 13 months (I like an extra months padding), then take that amount and add the cost of my contacts and vision exam, dental costs, and life insurance. I then deposit that amount into a Capital One 360 account and pay my bills directly from it.”

New Book & Giveaway: “Don’t Fall For It: A Short History of Financial Scams” — The latest book from Ben Carlson of A Wealth of Common Sense blog fame… You have until Sunday night to enter for one of the 3 copies we have!

Are you cool with stores going cashless?! — Lots of talk lately about stores going cashless and wondering where you stand on all this? Are you a big cash and coin lover like me, or do you say good riddance to it all?!

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Favorite finds from around the web:

From Junkie to FIRE via Millennial Revolution — “The thing about being what we call a “hope to die dope fiend” is that you create wreckage in literally every dimension of your life. I had to rebuild everything. My credit, health, finances, living arrangements, familial relationships, and yes, my criminal history.”

12 Shocking Things I Learned by Working as a Butler at the Plaza Hotel via Pocket — “Serving the world’s rich and famous, it turns out, plumbs the depths of an alternative universe that readily embraces the absurd without even batting an eye. And that was only the beginning of what I learned.”

U.S. renters are richer, older, and have larger households via Curbed — “Perhaps the most significant change in the nation’s rental landscape is the shift in just who is renting today. The rental market has welcomed increasing numbers of high-income renters, with the percentage of renter households making $75,000 or more in 2019 hitting 22 percent, the highest level on record.”

Instant Blog Post Index in a Google Sheets Spreadsheet via Spreadsheet Man — “This spreadsheet – which you can see here and get your own copy (use the File / Make a Copy menu) has a simple formula that you don’t even have to change yourself – you can just enter the new blog RSS feed URL on the sheet and the formula will use that! The IMPORTFEED() function does have a limit of grabbing just 250 posts – but it’s still pretty powerful!”

If your cash gets damaged, this Treasury team will make sure it’s not a lost cause via The Washington Post — “Every week, the federal office in Southwest Washington receives hundreds of padded envelopes, boxes and even safes stuffed with cash ravaged by water, fire, shredding machines, insects or a canine’s teeth… Last year, the agency issued checks for more than $35 million to businesses and individuals who had submitted their battered money…”

Warren Buffett says Berkshire is ‘100% prepared’ for his death via Yahoo! Finance — “Today, my will specifically directs its executors — as well as the trustees who will succeed them in administering my estate after the will is closed — not to sell any Berkshire shares… The will goes on to instruct the executors – and, in time, the trustees – to each year convert a portion of my A shares into B shares and then distribute the Bs to various foundations… I estimate that it will take 12 to 15 years for the entirety of the Berkshire shares I hold at my death to move into the market.”

Every $1 You Invest Now Will Be Worth $7.61 in 30 Years via Four Pillar Freedom — “There is actually a name for this investment & lifestyle approach: Coast FIRE. The whole idea is to accumulate enough money at an early enough age that you no longer need to invest any more to achieve financial independence by age 65 (or whatever you define as a retirement age). Once you have enough money invested, you can simply “coast” your way to retirement.”

https://neal.fun/ – a randomly awesome site by Neal Agarwal… Here are a few of the simulations off it you might enjoy. Click to check ’em out!

(A showcase of things that have happened since you were born)

(A way to visualize rates from minimum wage to the national deficit)

(Where you have $90,000,000,000 to blow on whatever you like!)

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Happy spending :)

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