September's Great Reads
In my world, September is a BIG month. Summer effectively ends on Labour Day, the kids are at school, and it’s time for a hard reset (what I privately think of as a second New Year) to prepare myself for the whirlwind of the last three months of the year.
In your world, September might still be summer, the school calendar might be a distant memory, and there might still be plenty of time to fit a few good reads into your schedule. Fear not, I’ve got you covered.
The list is shorter this month (see above), but still has fiery little gems like this one from my friend Chris about fighting even though it might be too late to win, this one from Kate asking when “being good at money” started to mean “not spending it,” and the first GIF in this reading list’s three year history.
The whole list is below, as usual. If you don’t have time to read every piece, read these:
How Filter Bubbles Distort Reality: Everything You Need to Know
From Farnam Street
It’s a bit rich to link to an article about filter bubbles in a monthly curated reading list, I grant you, but bear with me, since I suspect that the few people who read this list every month are looking for more than just confirmation of their own opinions:
“As technology improves and the ability of someone like the NYT, say, to show the same story to 100 different people using 100 different ways, the filter bubble becomes deeper. We lose track of what's filtered and what's not as the news becomes tailored to cement our existing opinions. After all, everyone wants to read a newspaper that agrees with them.
“Systems — be they people, cultures, or web browsing, to name a few examples — naturally have to filter information and thus they reduce options. Sometimes people make decisions, sometimes cultures make them, and increasingly algorithms make them. As the speed of information flowing through these systems increases, filters will play an even more important role.
“Understanding that what we see is not all there is will help us realize that we're living in a distorted world and remind us to take off the glasses.”
Read the full article here.
Income Volatility in Canada: Why it Matters and What to do About It
From Prosper Canada
This is that webinar I was tweeting about so much in the middle of August. It’s worth watching for anyone who wants a more compassionate understanding of what it’s like to have volatile income and ways that individuals, institutions, government, and industry can collaborate to mitigate its adverse effects. Built on broad American research and budding research in Canada, it’s well-developed and smoothly presented - a must watch.
Watch the video here.
Change the Portfolio, Or Change the Investor
From Daniel P. Egan
One of the most popular episodes of Because Money we ever recorded was the episode on behavioural finance with Preet Banerjee. I suspect it’s because we all know our brains are tricking us, and want to find ways to Trick Back. (Just me?)
This post from the head of investing and behavioural finance at Betterment is a good place to start. Dan lists four different strategies for mitigating the trouble we can get ourselves in when we let our brains trick us into being bad investors:
“We need to be thoughtful about how we arrange our decision making. We should protect ourselves from our weaknesses, and leverage our strengths. When performing this personal optimization there is generally a compromise or balance between:
Changing ourselves as investors or
Changing the portfolio we invested in”
Read the full article here.
You can read this month's entire list below,:
The Complex Motivations Of Money And Retirement As The Freedom To Pursue Non-Monetary Work Rewards|Michael Kitces
"Our relationship with money is far more complex than is commonly understood – such that it can even leads us to pursue goals that we think we want, only to find out that we don’t enjoy once we get there."
It sounds smarter to be pessimistic and brace yourself and everyone around you for the next crash, but is it?" I wonder how much money has been left on the table by investors positioning for low probability events over the past 7-8 years."
The Biggest Common Investment Errors | Ben Carlson
"I’m going to sound like Captain Obvious here but portfolio management is about managing a portfolio, not just the individual parts."
Why You Feel Richer or Poorer Than You Really Are | Caroline Beaton
"An accountant, looking at somebody’s overall spreadsheet of debt and assets and net worth and income, and balancing all that out, is going to miss some important features of the psychology of money."
When Did We Decide Being 'Good at Money' Meant Not Spending It? | Kate Smalley
"Frugality isn’t some virtuous badge. It can just as easily be a crutch, a vice, a way to hide. A box to tick without actually tackling the underlying habits, emotions, and fears that drive you."
The first GIF to appear in the reading list!| @ReformedBroker
It’s not too late to start fighting (even if you might not win) | Chris Enns
"You should fight because your finances are so much more complex and run deeper than just answering the question: will I have a funded retirement or non-funded retirement?"