Incognito Money Scribe (I.M.S.) is coming to an end. I will keep it live, but will no longer update it with new posts. After a great year and a half, I am sorry to put it to a stop. But I am much more excited about what’s coming next. Tomorrow (2/18/22) I am officially launching The Root of All on Substack. The Root of All will cover similar topics in the same writing style as I.M.S., though with some creative variations. (I’ve already moved over some of the most popular pieces published on I.M.S.) It will also include much more content, including Q&As with notable finance/business writers ..read more

Here’s a mental tool for improving your relationship with money that I learned from a saint.  Money plays a major part in all our lives. Yet, no one really masters it. Even the richest among us are prone to inconceivable financial blunders. You just get a little better at it as time goes on. A major reason why is psychology, for which most prescribed financial tools are terribly inadequate. This is a fact that became more apparent to me when I started a religious conversion to Catholicism, which introduced me to the saints. (For some of you, don’t worry. This isn’t some kind of attempt to ..read more

Tired hands, young and old; tired hands to assemble each plastic piece and screw every tiny screw; tired hands to pull levers and activate conveyor belts; tired hands to pack cardboard boxes and stack containers on steel ships; tired hands to navigate the weathered steering wheel of a semi-truck; tired hands to deliver it to my doorstep; all of which is jumpstarted by a performative gesture as a consumer with a well-rested index finger on a digital button. It is the cycle of a normal holiday shopping season. The only way to break it is to individually not participate. Often, what is most effec ..read more

The premise for investing is pretty simple: to grow your money. It’s as simple as the reason for eating: to satisfy your hunger. Yet, choosing from the myriad investments out there can be as confusing as choosing among the thousands of items stocked on grocery store shelves.  The fact is not everything is good for you. How can you tell? One qualifier to consider: the source. The origin of our investments matter. Perhaps, as much as it matters for our food.  For a minute, consider the apple I’m eating as I write this. It was organically grown at a local apple orchard. No pesticides. N ..read more

How much money is enough?  It’s a philosophical money question that often arises out of discontent. We see someone of substantial means, like a celebrity, live a troubled life. Or, we ourselves experience great fortune yet feel unhappy. It makes us wonder where the finish line is, the point when you can stop striving for more and settle into a life of satisfaction. There are some great financial blogs that provide good answers, such as here and here. And then there are a variety of books that tackle this question in their own ways: Ego Is the Enemy, The Last Lecture, the Bible, to name a ..read more

I love scotch; she hates it. There are many things my wife and I don’t agree on, but money isn’t one of them. We are intentional spenders, buying only what mutually aligns with our needs or values. For instance, disinterested in paying for the trappings of an ostentatious wedding, we tied the knot at New York’s City Hall; our reception was watching our first son play at a public playground in the East Village on a warm fall afternoon. We’ve been happily together for 16 years, which makes me wonder: Does love make the financial side of marriage work, or is it the other way around? The most impo ..read more

Data, data, everywhere data. Blockin’ out the imagination. Breakin’ my mind. Do this, don’t do that. Can’t you read the data?  Here’s one childhood dream of mine that hasn’t died: to dunk a basketball. Just one glorious flush on a rim at regulation height. To realize this dream, I would have to vastly improve my vertical performance.  With each attempt, I could analyze my speed, foot placement, distance, angles, etc. All reasonable data points. But, alas, none of them provide the most pertinent information: I am just too short to reasonably expect to dunk a basketball.  When it ..read more

One thing I love about my neighborhood is all the dogs. As anyone with a heart and soul knows, good “boys” and “girls” can make a good neighborhood. Sometimes in the evening, when I and many of my neighbors walk our dogs for the last time of the day, I feel pangs of envy. Each dog performs a similar dance, ambling from one smell to the next wagging its tail like windshield wipers in a downpour. How happy they are. It makes me think how easier life would be to live like dogs with a one-track mind — to simply act out of love or hunger or basic bodily needs.  But, alas, humans are left to ju ..read more

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large. I contain multitudes.) – Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” The world asks us to be quickly readable, but the thing about human beings is that we are more than one thing. We are multiple selves. We are massively contradictory.  – Ali Smith A group of economists analyzed trades made by 783 elite investors over a period of around 16 years. These were investors who managed the assets of billionaires and large institutions, with an average portfolio size of $600 million. The performance of these big league investors was comp ..read more

An oak tree can grow to 100 feet tall and live for more than 100 years. In a mast year, an oak tree can shed as many as 10,000 acorns, hard little squirrel delicacies raining down dozens of feet on your lawn (or head) like tiny missiles. These are things I learned only after shipping a young oak tree to a best friend and his wife to plant in their yard as a gift to celebrate the announcement of their first baby. I didn’t consider whether they had room for such a large tree or even had the desire to deal with the maintenance. Instead, I only thought about the cost. How much should you spend on ..read more