Thought Archives

620
HOW THE ECONOMY WORKS

The flow of the circular economy.

How the Economic Machine Works [YouTube, 30 Minutes] 

• This video explains the economy in a nutshell in 30 minutes.

• Economics always seem like something “you should know more about”

• But there’s only so much time in a day to learn, and only so many things you care about… for most, it’s not economics.

• This is a great animated short that basically explains the way money, debt, credit, the stock market, housing crashes occur using simple digestible language

630
FINANCES

631 - SALARY BASICS

• Khan Academy on Investment Vehicles [investments]
  Awesome videos and broken down content on what ETFs, Mutual Funds, IRAs, 401ks etc. If you fear messing up financial responsibility, this should give you the basics.

• Finance 101 for Recent College Grads [investments]
  Carey Nachenberg is a UCLA CS professor, he wrote this introductory guide to landing your first tech job, and knowing what to do with that first $100,000 out of college.

632 - BUDGETING

• Here’s much money you should save at every age [CNBC] [saving methods]

  • By age 30, save as much as you make

  • Increase that multiple by 1 at every 5 year increment

  • 2x your salary by 35, 3x by 40, 4x by 45 etc.

  • You should have roughly 8-10x your salary by the time you’re 67 as a robust retirement plan
    
    This method works well whether you’re making 50k or 200k because even though you make more, odds are your expenses also go up, so it guides by ratio not an arbitrary ‘above the water’ number

• Budgeting with 50/30/20 [mint.com] [saving methods]

• 50/30/20 is a simple ration concept to help you save

• 50% of your salary towards basics, 30% towards living expenses, 20% saved

• Though if you work a tech job, you can easily do better than that so this should be a bare minimum – or try apply this to your take-home income (not your pretax total annual comp)

• Aggregated Best Tips for Budgeting [NY Times] (submissions by people)

633 - CONTROL SPENDING

• Everything Things You Should Stop Paying For [YouTube Vid]

634 - STOCKS

• ETF Data Base

635 - HSA Health Savings Account

• HSA Asset Allocation Calculator

• You might have an HSA option with your health insurance. These can be another great investing tool since their triple-tax deductible. They come directly from payroll so are tax deferred, you can invest them/grow these funds tax-free, and you can reimburse yourself without paying tax for medical expenses.

• The best way to leverage an account like this is to maximize the contributions with benefits (sometimes your employer will match $1000 or $X-amount if you contribute your own $X-amount). When I was at Microsoft, I think if you put in $1500 they will match $1000 so you end up contributing $2500/year into a new HSA. Over 4 years, this base alone comes out to 10K and if you invested it during this time, you’ll see whatever $X-amount growth based on this. Instead of paying for current medical expenses using your HSA, you should just pay out-of-pocket using tax-ed dollars. Meanwhile your HSA will grow over time and you’ll be able to grow it more with greater compound interest. Then at a later date… in 20, 30, 50 years… you can pay yourself back. And that $50 dental visit practically paid for itself from gains over the years.

• The bad side is you can only really manage this through medical expenses and reimbursements. But the good side is you can grow it, you get free employer contributions (depending on your company) and you can leverage the tax-advantage.

640
NEWS EXPLAINED

• Is Hong Kong a part of China? [YouTube] 5 minutes

• NAFTA explained by Avocados and Shoes [YouTube] 5 minutes

650
LIFE HACKS

651 - LIFE HACKS

• IKEA Hackers If IKEA is your favorite store, you have to check out IKEA Hackers.

• 99 Life Hacks – These legitimately changed my life.

• The Points Guy – Full blown travel deals, loopholes and hacks

• Turn your old computer/laptop into a Chromebook [Quartz]

652 - EMAIL PRO TIPS

Filter out all marketing emails by filtering for term “unsubscribe”
Create a rule to separate those. Now you don’t need to use Gmail’s categories or sorting methods to take control of your inbox!

653 - WIFI ON PLANES

How to get free Wifi on your Laptop on Airplanes.

[T-Mobile users only] Ok, so you’re on T-Mobile and they give you an hour of complimentary mobile WiFi while you’re in the air. Congrats. But you’d really like to send something from your computer or laptop? Now what? Pay for Go-Go internet?? That’s extortionate. Here’s a simple life hack:

1. Launch Chrome on your laptop

2. Right-click anywhere and select “Inspect” (or enter developer tools)

3. Click on the “toggle device” icon (you’ve just changed your browser tab to render as a mobile device)

4. Now navigate to Gogo Internet in this mobile view

   • BAM! Now you’ve tricked your computer to connect as a mobile device… when you open a new tab you can browse normally, and your laptop is otherwise connected to free WiFi – you can now use all your connection-required apps/programs/services as needed in the air.

   • Sign in, enter your T-Mobile info, do the “I’m not a robot” dance

What you’ve effectively done is simulate logging in to Gogo Internet as a mobile device (but actually done so from your laptop). Once you close that tab, you can browse normally in web view. You've now at least got a free hour in the air!

660
RANDOM

• How to Wash Your Hair [NY Times]