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Exploring seesaws, our possessions, and strengths
Logan
March 14, 2024
Exploring seesaws, our possessions, and strengths
Welcome to the Intentional Dollar weekly newsletter — great work taking this small step to move your money forward. I’m Logan, a Certified Financial Planner™, and I’m excited you’re here!
What’s inside?
One tool to experiment with
Two quotes from others
Three questions to dig deeper
Four lines of poetry for the point
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One tool to experiment with:
Seesaws:
Are you moving around a lot, but not going anywhere?
Movement is not necessarily an indicator of forward progress. However, since it’s an easy proxy to latch onto, we assume most of our motion is forward leaning.
Instead of forward-oriented motion, it’s like going up and down on a seesaw. You feel like you’re doing something, but when you get off the seesaw, you’re in the same spot you were before. Unfortunately, your money, and the latent compound interest that it courts, isn’t as generous to the passage of time that occurred while you jostled around, up and down.
This rustling about has a cost — sometimes real, sometimes in the form of missed opportunities.
To be clear, seesaws can be fun, but they are meant for use at parks. They don’t belong in your financial house, so you should prioritize their prompt removal.
The time you spent moving around and not going anywhere was unintentional time that interrupted the snowballing nature of forward-oriented motion.
How can you know if you’re just moving around? What counts as seesaw motion?
Below are some questions to help you sift through the motion, to help distinguish that which feels good for that which is good.
Do you adjust your contributions, or savings rates, up and down frequently? Seesaw motion.
Do you cycle out of your investments frequently? Seesaw motion.
Do you continue to add or dollar cost average into long-term holdings? Good motion.
Do you have your retirement savings set to increase annually? Good motion.
Do you systematically review your expenses? Good motion.
Do you transfer money in and out of savings frequently? Seesaw motion.
Do you log into your investment accounts frequently? Seesaw motion.
Do you take loans against the balance you’ve saved in your retirement plan? Seesaw motion.
Do you pay off a car just to turn around and buy a new car with a new loan? Seesaw motion.
Do you increase your credit card usage after you pay it off? Seesaw motion.
Do you track your net worth systematically? Good motion.
Not all motion is good. It’s like the concept we explored in the busy bee. Being busy does not mean you’re being effective. Moving does not mean you’re going forward.
If you engage in seesaw motion, and don’t know the cause — start with a strong look at your media consumption.
The financial news, and media in general, maintains a singular focus, and that’s to maintain your singular focus for as long as possible. The platforms that do this stand to cash the biggest checks. Your time is their money.
This attention cycle induces movement. It means there will always be news, there will always be stories, there will always be an attention vacuum cleaner.
Some news is good, most is not. This never-ending news cycle makes a lucrative, but false case that to make money in the market, you need to be an active trader.
Reading 100 stories/blurbs about a company and what an analyst thinks won’t tell you more than reading the most recent 10-K. There is a difference in signal and noise.
Since it’s tax season, take a little extra time to audit your movements and challenge yourself with a few honest questions about the orientation of these movements. Are these good motions, or are you simply seesawing up and down?
don’t let your money seesaw around
Two quotes on our possessions:
Having more possessions requires more dollars, more dollars means more work, more work means less time, less time means less freedom. We think we own our possessions, but they often own us.
“Singer Rihanna nearly went bankrupt after overspending and sued her financial advisor. The advisor responded: “Was it really necessary to tell her that if you spend money on things, you will end up with the things and not the money?””
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.”
Three questions on strengths:
What are my two biggest strengths?
How might I use one or both of these to advance my money this week?
How could my strengths become an obstacle on my money path? (i.e. strength is being analytical, but it prevents me from taking meaningful steps forward — analysis paralysis)
Which question stuck with you? Questions like these are spotlights for the mind. Reply to this email and let me know which one shined light on a previously dark cave.
Four lines of poetry for the point:
Going around and around and up and then down,
Feels like you’ve gone somewhere, but take a look around;
The ground is the same that lies beneath your feet.
You’ve fooled yourself, master of deceit.
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