EoR No. 6: Reading for winter doldrums
Webinar replay, a Q&A with Aja Evans, why consumer boycotts aren’t working, should we have a maximum wealth and more
I’m probably barreling toward burnout? I should be more tuned in to my emotional state, I imagine, but honestly even taking the time to name burnout with any certainty right now sounds exhausting. For me, it’s because of a book launch and two months of press that eats up my spoons every day, while I still have to keep freelancing to make money and continue to write this newsletter because that’s what I most want to do. But I know I’m not alone.
Just two weeks of the new Trump administration made January feel like a thousand COVIDs. And that’s on top of how excruciating January is under normal circumstances: the dark days of winter, recovery from the holidays, financial guilt, the vulnerability of naming your biggest aspirations, the humiliation of trying to achieve them. Maybe February is the shortest month of the year because, by this point, we desperately need to feel movement away from the doldrums of January.
To take your mind off it, this week’s round up.
News and upcoming events:
Like reading ebooks but don’t want to support Amazon? Get the YDNAB ebook1 from the new Bookshop.org app!
I’ll be in Portland, Oregon, next week at Annie Bloom’s Books in conversation with author Marian Schembari. Please come out if you’re in the area!
🥑 ICYMI at Healthy Rich this week
A Q&A with Aja Evans, financial therapist and author of Feel Good Finance: Untangle Your Relationship with Money for Better Mental, Emotional, and Financial Well-Being.
New class! Preparing our finances for a fascist regime live recording is available for paid subscribers! (Get a preview in this week’s podcast episode.)
🔗 Things to catch
- nailed it: “Your individual consumer choice will not change how capitalism works, because capitalism designed itself to absorb that choice.”
- lays out the very simple argument for having a maximum wealth cap.
For Salon, I talked with experts about which types of financial accounts you actually need in your life.
“Neither lentil stews nor homegrown tomatoes are going to lift you out of poverty. But if you’re financially struggling, your food budget is one thing you have reasonable control over.”
💬 Let’s discuss
Do you think we should have a maximum wealth cap?
(Even if you don’t think we possibly could.) Inspired by Hamilton Nolan’s piece: When you imagine capping the wealth an American is allowed to accumulate, what thoughts or feelings come up? Do you feel resistance to the idea? Where do you think that comes from? If you’d be excited to support this idea, why?
This post contains affiliate links for Bookshop.org, so if you buy a book mentioned here, you support the author, local bookstores and Healthy Rich!
Absolutely yes.
If you follow the FIRE people, and are reasonably good at math, it is ridiculous how little you need to have in order to never again need a job.
We like to keep score. There has to be another way to do that, other than piling up enormous “wealth”.
Yes, but I think it goes hand in hand with a good social security net: if your are not afraid to have to pay a ridiculous amount of money for hospital, your kids education or a place to live, it makes it a lot easier to have a cap.