Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Staying ahead

I was disappointed to see the Greek yogurt - my go-to breakfast food of choice - increasing in price at my local Whole Foods. The staples are getting pricier again! At least my staples are. I’m still smarting over the price of coffee jumping 20% thanks to President Trump’s tariffs. Priced out of a coffee? That would take a whole lot.

I don’t expect rich people to have scars from the high inflation of the post-COVID period. Which is why we shouldn’t expect the Trump administration to back down from import tariffs. These people understand fully well that it’s the American customers paying the tax. They’re just all wealthy enough to absorb it without care.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are simply, hopelessly, trying to stay ahead of inflation. Especially during this time of uncertain labor markets (unless you are a genius A.I. engineer). My place of employment is going through a budget contraction. I’m lucky to have a job, never mind any hope of yearly salary increases to keep up with inflation.

That means the purchasing power of my current salary will continue to decrease. To combat it means having to let go of some other spending. The aforementioned pricier Greek Yogurt? Well, I typically buy a can of something to drink whenever I enter Whole Foods. I gave that up soon as I saw the 50 cent increase. I have water at home, thank you.

Similar choices who have to made in the future, so long as inflation continues, and my income remains static. Perhaps Progressive will raise the insurance on my car again. To compensate, the Disney Plus subscription will have to go.

Big hats for big heads

As a dude with a sizable head, the one-size-fit-all hats that tend to be given out as freebies annoy the heck out of me. Because obviously those hats never fit my enlarged noggin. One size fit all is blatant false advertising! There are dozens of us!

I didn’t realize my head size is abnormally large until hats started to irrecoverably squish down my hair into an unsightly shape after wear. Why doesn’t my hair bounce back up like most other people do? Well, not when the hat is effectively putting a tourniquet on my dome.

Fitted baseball hats solved my problem. (They are individually sized, much like a shoe would be.) Finally, a hat that comfortably and completely covered my head. But there was a problem: I didn’t want to be a guy that wears baseball hats outside of a baseball stadium. I’m simply not of that age anymore.

A good thing about this online shopping era of ours is that you can find absolutely anything. If there’s a need, someone probably already solved it. Major clothing retailers aren’t likely to cater to the ends of the bell curve like me. An online shop that’s dedicated to a specific kind of clothing is where it’s at. (Long ago, I found appropriately-sized glasses frames for my large head.)

A Google search for “hats for large heads” gave me Oddjob Hats, so kudos to their marketing team for excellent SEO execution. Oddjob is a purveyor of headwear targeted specifically towards folks with larger than average head size. Finally, I am able to wear a “regular”, adjustable cotton hat without it looking ridiculous. I too can, on a bad hair day, quickly put on a cap and look somewhat stylish with it.

Do I still wish my head isn’t out of proportion with the rest of my body? Of course. Since head-shrinking surgery isn’t (yet?) a reality, I have to make do with what I’ve been given. Thanks, mom and dad!

Don't waste our money

Doesn’t it grind your gears when you see auto insurance advertisements? These companies raised our rates like crazy post COVID, and then have the audacity to spend money on ads! Here’s an idea: stop spending money on marketing, and lower the premiums for your customers. I don’t care if I’m only seeing cents in return. It’s not right!

I didn’t forget about you, PG&E! How dare you raise utility rates on Californians, and then run adverts on TV. Why even do marketing when most of us have no choice but to buy electricity and gas from you.

I’ve been lucky so far in my two years of weightlifting to avoid any major injury (knock on wood). The worse has only been a right shoulder impingement due to heavy upright rows. Despite my fondness for the exercise, I had to eliminate it from my rotation. Soon as I did that, the impingement was over.

The other chronic issue was minor golfer’s elbow. The culprit is the classic barbell flat bench. Every new increase in weight means a new stimulus for my elbow tendons to acclimatize. Unlike the upright row, I did not want to get rid of the flat bench. Barbell benching is part of the big three compound lifts (squat, bench, deadlift), and it’s as classic as it gets. The movement also happens to be fantastic for my chest growth.

Fortunately, this $20 piece of rubber completely solved my problem. A few sets of Reverse Tyler Twist with the Theraband FlexBar (per day) seems so uncomplicated to be effective, but it really did cure my chronic golfer’s elbow. Obviously, everybody’s anatomy is different, but for such a low price it’s worth a shot if you too suffer from the same malady.

God willing that’s all the injuries I will ever suffer from weightlifting. It’s not the pain that I am fearful for. Rather, it’s the missed time in the gym that an injury would undoubtedly result in. The proverbial gains must go forever onwards and upwards.

Not an emergency

I think the holy grail of personal finance is having an emergency fund. Obviously that comes after spending less than you make, and paying off whatever debts existing. But the emergency fund, at least for me, has always been a difficult nut to crack. Six months’ (or one year) worth of spending saved in a savings account. That’s a tall order, because it’s a lot of money, even for a miserly person like myself.

It’s easy on paper: I already spend less than I make, so it’s just a matter of slow accumulation. But something always interrupts the process. An errant rock flung into the windshield of the car means a thousand dollar replacement. It’s not always something unfortunate! Earlier this April, I unloaded my entire emergency fund into the stock market because it experienced a 20% correction. The perfect time to buy more. That also means I had to start from scratch vis a vis the emergency fund.

Maybe we’re being too strict about it? In some ways my investments can be an emergency fund. (Some would argue I shouldn’t have investments - that aren’t tax advantaged - before an emergency fund?) It’s not as liquid as a savings account, sure, but there are other monetary vehicles to use in an actual emergency. The first thing to come out of the wallet is the credit card anyways. That gives at least a few weeks lead time to then liquidate the necessary investment to pay for that spend.

It’s not ideal for sure, because any time you sell securities, you have to pay capital gains tax.

The safety and stress-reduction in having a proper emergency fund is undeniable. In fact, it can feel eerie because it leaves you with nothing to worry about financially. No debts, investments are automatic, and there’s enough in savings to sustain me for half a year, should I lose my job. Peace of mind can be surprisingly disconcerting when you first shut off the noise completely.

Kingdom of Heaven

I am reading this book on the Crusades, the many quests to reclaim the Holy Land during medieval Europe. The overwhelming takeaway from the book is my astonishment at the massive carnage done in the name of god. (A supposedly all-powerful, benevolent god.) Though I guess it isn’t secret that in the history of the Catholic Church, there’s much blood on its hands.

Muslims on the other side of the belligerents list are no better in terms of cruelty inflicted.

Of course, we can’t take our modern lens to view history. To the populace of the Middle Ages, large casualty events by sword blades might be a normal thing. Potential terror that would paralyze modern humans is simply the price of doing business way back in those days. We can’t imagine living in city where every few years another siege army comes to wreck havoc. Men are expendable. Women tradable. Children disregarded.

And yet people of the medieval period carried on living. Far simpler times, I suppose. The only salient things in life is enough food to eat, and a roof over the head. There’s nothing more than that. Even if the next day some Venetian ships might show up on the town coastline, ready to plunder your city. Danger is something you accept.

I suppose the citizens of Ukraine in this current war with Russia can relate. Amidst many bombs and tragedy, Ukrainians must keep it moving. Stomach needs to be fed, homes need rebuilding, should it be unfortunately destroyed.

Those of us sitting pretty in the first world have lots to be thankful for. It seems petty to complain about big city crime when medieval people’s very existence hangs on so delicately.

Subsidized lifestyle

Word on the street is the Chase Sapphire Reserve card - the preeminent travel rewards credit card - is increasing its annual fee. What started at an already hefty $450 per year is now a whopping $795 per annum. COVID-era inflation comes for everything eventually.

Of course, Chase has all sorts of new card benefits to potentially offset the price jump. But it’s all predicated on one thing: cardholder spending. This is a classic case of spending money to save money, which only works if that money is what you would have spent regardless. If you wouldn’t have in the first place, then you really shouldn’t have.

I did sign up for the Sapphire Reserve when it was first introduced many moons ago. The signup bonus was super generous: 100,000 points on a $4,000 initial spend (worth a thousand dollars in cash value.) Coupled with the $300 travel credit per year, the true annual fee was only $150 at the time. As an annually traveler, it was not difficult to for me to “break even”, so to speak.

That 100,000 bonus point allowed me to fly first class to Korea in 2017. Truly living the champagne life on a beer budget. But that was during a time when lots of capital was going toward subsidizing a rich person’s lifestyle for the mundane middle class earner. Surely you remember: UBER rides used to be cheap, thanks to the company continuously burning through VC cash to hide the real cost.

Did we honestly think we can afford to have our burritos hand delivered from the taqueria for only a few bucks? DoorDash fees used to be not so exorbitant, too.

Well, those sweet subsidized days are over. The premium travel reward credit cards are now only for those who can comfortably spend the high amount necessary to reap the rewards. Good news for me, I cancelled my Sapphire Reserve soon as COVID prevented any sorts of traveling.

Row my own gears

In this blog I often write about how life is about tradeoffs. If you choose to have a kid, you must wave your single lifestyle goodbye. Trying to have both will only end in misery. To move out of my parents’ house, I had to sell my car, one that I still miss to this day. But it had to be done.

Speaking of cars, a typical mark of a car enthusiasts is the ability to drive the manual transmission. My first three cars all came with the row-yourself stick. On my fourth car (don’t waste your money on cars, kids), the manual was not an option. And since then, I’ve not had to select my own gears for the past six years.

And I really miss it! There’s an incredible joy to the stick shift. A perfectly executed heel-toe downshift is satisfying every single time. In order to experience this joy again, it would mean buying a manual transmission car. But that’s when the pros and cons start to factor in.

Ideally, I would buy a second car to supplement my current BMW M2 Competition (automatic). However that’s not a good use to money because I don’t even drive the M2 much as is. Having another car to simply sit around? I don’t have the kind of income level to support such luxury.

I can replace the M2, but then I would have to drive stick-shift all the time. Part of why I bought the BMW in automatic - manual was an option - is to avoid the pain of constant clutch use whilst stuck in traffic. There’s no doubt the automatic gearbox is superior in any situation that isn’t a spirited drive on windy mountain roads.

We truly cannot have it all, can we? We pick a path, and try to forget all the tradeoffs and might have beens. Sad to say, but I think I’m okay with never owning another manual transmission car again. The pleasure I got from my previous manual gearbox cars are memorable chapters in the book of me, and it’s fine for those chapters to close.