Saving Money

Not a fan of ESG Investing 👎

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Lately, there has been a growing interest in people investing in various Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance (ESG) funds. They are usually sector funds, that only invest in businesses that have been selected based on their environmental, social, and corporate governance performance or actions. The idea is you invest in things that make the world a better place, rather then a worse place.

ESG funds are heavily marketed. It’s hard to open Facebook without a targeted ad, trying to play on your emotions and feel good about investing in these kind of businesses. But often if you look more then skin deep, they are highly scammy with few environmental and social benefits, despite the marketing hype. Often the products sold by ESG companies are hardly better then sold by those businesses not chosen by the ESG fund marketers.

But a bigger problem is that ESG companies aren’t well diversified compared to most market indexes, and that investing doesn’t actually decide which businesses have good business models and make money. Ultimately, it consumers, not investors that decide if a business is profitable and make sense. By buying an index fund, you end up with both ESG and non-ESG, and will profit when either one makes money. Risk is lower, because you have a wider range of stocks then only the ESG funds.

The gap between the rich and the poor

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I am not particularly concerned about the wealth gap between the rich and the poor. The problem is not wealth, its income and the ability to save rather than consume. Too much promotion is put on consumption, too little is put on savings and investments.

Ortho Don\'t You Hate The Lack Of Parking At Colonie Center

People are bombarded with advertising constantly, asking them to go out and buy more stuff that they subsequently have to pay to get rid of at the landfill. Stuff that could instead be turned into investment and future gain – both in economic growth and personal savings.

Dramatic Landscapes

Most poor people today have fancy, enormous color televisions and cable TV that blasts in advertising and violence to one’s home 24-7. They get caught up in upsetting news stories and think they need fancy things to live the good life. They pay enormously for high speed internet service and keep their homes toasty all winter with fossil fuel heat and frigid all some with coal powered air conditioning.

Manhattan and George Washington Bridge

To be sure, I wish primary schools would invest more in financial education and budgeting. Education should emphasize frugality not consumption. People should be educated about the evils of debt, encouraged to invest rather than borrow.

Clouds

I understand poor people live with very tight budgets due to limited income. But budgets can be stretched, savings can be prioritized over spending and borrowing. Wealth can be grown, even in the most megar of budgets.

I often wonder how my friends from years past made out with their Crypto assets…

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I often wonder how my friends from years past made out with their Crypto assets… 💵

I stayed away as I have a hard time believing its a sustainable investing strategy. It’s not a diversified asset, it’s not based on a physical product and it has few government regulations. So I stayed away.

Granted the people I knew years back who bought Crypto probably did pretty good if they sold it at the high point although if they got out too early or too late they probably would have not made out too well. Seems more like gambling than actually a long term investing strategy. Boring and understandable is good when it comes to money.

I’m also more than a little bothered by the amount of natural resources – electricity, fossil fuels and electronic waste that goes into making the currency grow. The idea that so much resources going into essentially useless mathematical computations seems like such a waste. While many economic activities actually produce real value to real people, Crypto mining just solves useless math equations in the search of monetary growth.

Pay Myself First

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Ever since I got my first job, I always “paid my future first.” In other words, at least part of my paycheck was automatically deposited into one kind of savings account or another, only to be touched when making a long-term purchase after allowing the money to grow for a number of years. 🤑This day of age, paying your future first is pretty easy — automatic deposits can withdraw money from the account where your direct deposit goes in, and it’s like the money never existed — except it does and it’s being saved.

As I’ve gotten older, made a little more money, gotten promotions and the alike, I’ve increased the amount I’ve been doing to “pay my future first”. Normally if I get a raise, a cost of living adjustment, or a bigger tax break, I always put the majority of increased funds towards “paying my future first”. 🏦 0Sure I like having a little more money to spend, but I figure I am mostly content with my life now and no need to blow the money — when I can invest it and have more later on, compounded by interest and growth in the markets.

I’ve also diversified where I “pay my future first” money to. Diversity is a good thing because it ensures if any one investment doesn’t work out, there is another one to fall back on. If one goes down, one other is likely to go up. Some are tax-advantaged, like my ordinary IRA deferred compensation for retirement, while others like my Roth IRA are not tax-advantaged, at least not until I retire and take money out of that account. Some are very stable but have very modest returns, like my FDIC-insured savings account, or the FDIC certificate of deposits. 💸Some are mid-term investment accounts — things that are maybe have some substantial short-term risk but are investment vehicles that will grow at the rate of the market growth. The later will help me down the road in 10 or 15 years when I go to buy land and my off-grid cabin.

Some people say I should rush into my future. But I don’t know, I’m pretty happy the way it is. I’d rather consume less and put more towards a better tomorrow, in a series of diversified investments.🚜🏡 Even if the money today that I’m “paying towards my future” I understand the benefits of compounding, and I know that eventually I will get towards my life goals.

I wish more people would be focused on making money and not their community.

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I wish more people would be more focused on making money and not their community.

I think people often seek out community and political involvement as an excuse to cover up their own personal failings.

Rather than focus on self improvement, the personal goal of too many becomes fighting for something that gives them indigestion on the evening news while eating dinner. The news might be a distraction but it’s not a way to self improvement. But making money is key to liberating oneself, actually making a better world for the oneself. Money is a means, it allows one to better support one’s needs and offers greater choices in lifestyle and where a person chooses to live.