Welcome to
Loose Change, a new newsletter by YNAB. You won’t find hot investing tips, prognostications about interest rates, or scathing takedowns of other people’s “irresponsible spending.”
Hi, I am a human named Dan, and I have kept a Christmas ornament in my sock drawer for more than 20 years. It’s a plastic ball with holes in it, and when I moved out of my mother’s house after college, she stuffed 50 bucks in it and said, “Keep this in case you ever really need it.”
I’ve moved five times since then and though I’ve lost many things, including bicycles and whole boxes of dishware, I still have the $50. She raised me as a single mother and though this ornament (thankfully) does not comprise my emergency fund anymore, it does give me a sense of security that I suppose I connect with her steadfastness. (Consider subscribing to my wife’s newsletter about my sentimental hoarding.)
Money is funny. Sometimes a $2 can of Coke can feel priceless, while cash reserves in the bank don’t help you feel more secure at all.
Money is also, of course, another way that we rate ourselves. How much we have. How “smart” we handle it. But judgment tends to obscure a crucial YOLO question: How do you
want to feel about money? Generous? Secure? Uninhibited? Nonchalant?
So in this newsletter which, like
neap tides, comes out twice a month, I’ll be exploring the psychology and stories we tell ourselves about money, as well as celebrating ordinary people who connected their money and life goals in an interesting way. It ain’t easy, people!
Thanks for reading.
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