🍑They're rich but still nice🍑
Hi friends!
Welcome to Better Have My Money, my Monday night newsletter about stocks, investing and feelings about money.
I finally watched Parasite on the weekend and loved it, despite being an absolute scaredy cat with all horror movies and needing to stop it at various moments to cope (yes, I did have to rent it twice because I didn’t finish it within the allotted 36 hours, I’m extremely cool ok).
And what a joy it was to see Bong Joon-ho and his team scoop up all the Oscars last night! As my colleague Michael Blackmon, who was there in the crowd when Parasite won best film, wrote, part of that joy was “the shocking feeling that the Academy had done what it was supposed to do: reward a movie that was actually good.
Why am I writing about this in a stocks newsletter?
Because ultimately, Parasite is a film about capitalism. Through the lens of a poor family working for a rich family, it looks at class warfare, including how climate change affects the poor more than the rich. In a great interview with Gabriella Paiella for GQ, Bong Joon-ho said:
I think all creators, all artists, and even just everyone, we are always interested in class, 24/7. I think it would actually be strange if we're not. You know, when we're seeing people on the subway, on the streets, complete strangers, we wonder, how rich are they? Or you know, people we encounter in the airports, did they ride economy class, business class? We always wonder about this, because we live in the era of capitalism. I think we all have a very sensitive antennae to class, in general.
If you’re reading this you probably have a sensitive antennae to money, and class.
And one reason I like investing so much is that it (and the compound interest that comes with it) feel like the most viable way that non-rich people can eventually become “rich” (whatever that terms means to me. To me, it basically means being financially independent). A little bit of money, regularly, over many years can become a lot.
But, obviously, investing also means embracing capitalism and sometimes putting your money into companies who may also not treat their workers well, or treat the environment well, or democracy, but love to pay their (white, male) CEO millions of dollars.
I struggle with figuring out the balance between overthrowing capitalism and fighting for workers, and also ensuring my own long-term financial independence and lifestyle.
But for me the answer lies somewhere in education, aka this newsletter. By trying to write about it and share tips and encourage people (particularly women!) who did not know about investing to gain knowledge and change their long-term financial circumstances in some way.
And this week’s episode of Get Money, the podcast I co-host about getting your financial shit together, is alllllll about investing.
I learnt some tips while recording this ep:
Think about stocks as ownership.
Studies show that investors who check their investments less frequently do better (gonna ignore this one cause I love checking mine and I never sell or take out my investments, I’m just more likely to put more in).
Your first investing step should always be a 401(k) or other retirement fund (since I’m not sure if I’m going to retire in the US, I’m always torn about this one, and I also want money in the next 5-15 years, but …. it’s good advice)
If you’ve got high-interest credit card debt then pay that off first, cause you want compound interest working for you not against you
Try investing with friends as a group!
Know yourself and how much you can handle risk.
You can listen to the whole thing here!
And this week I suggest throwing some dollars to Women In Film, which advocates for female directors and filmmakers, even if the Academy didn’t deem any of them worthy of a director nom.
Hope the rest of your week is full of joyful surprises,
Amber Jamieson
Better Have My Money is on Twitter @bhavemymoney, so please tweet nice things (aka the link to our sign up page) and tag us. Got a mate who hates horror movies? Forward this onto them and tell them to subscribe.
And shameless referral code time! You can use my referral code to get a free stock when you sign up to Robinhood, which has free trading. If you open an account with Ellevest using this link, we both get $20. And sign up to Acorns here and we both get $5. As always, if you've got any questions about stocks, this is a shame free zone. Just reply and ask away.