Catastrophic Care
Jim Wasserman | Aug 17, 2021
YOUR PETS CAN’T TELL you when they don’t feel well, and yet somehow they do. One of our cats, Sangria, seemed to have no energy for several days. Part Siamese, she’s usually a loud crier. But lately she’d taken to quietly hiding in a closet. My wife Jiab—the cat attendant responsible for intake—reported her eating as normal. I, in charge of the litter box, noticed that outflow was a bit irregular. We thought it would pass. But after a couple of days, we decided to take her to the vet to make sure. We’ve used the same vet office for more than 20 years, and we love all the vets. Unfortunately, they were on vacation. We met with a fill-in vet—we’ll call her Dr. FIV—whom we didn’t know. Dr. FIV did a cursory look-over. No temperature. Things seemed normal. To help Dr. FIV be thorough and narrow down the possible causes, I mentioned that Sangria had been eating a lot of the house plants. But I also explained that Jiab is meticulous about researching our plants to make sure they aren’t toxic. Dr. FIV, however, latched on to the possibility of poison and wouldn’t let go. She said Sangria could drop dead that night. She recommended bloodwork, as well as injecting liquid in Sangria that would flush her out. Total cost? Just over $300. If we knew Sangria was possibly dying, absolutely. But what do you do when you feel it’s a bogus diagnosis that’ll cost hundreds of dollars? We didn’t want to take her to another vet we didn’t know, only to pay for another office visit. Do we risk her health? Do we pay? If you’re a pet owner, you already know the answer. One of our regular vets called the next day. He said the bloodwork didn’t…
Read more » Divide and Conquer
Jim Wasserman | Jul 29, 2022
IF WE GO TO THE movies and buy a mega-tub of popcorn, we’ll eat a lot, probably too much. If, however, that same amount of popcorn is packaged into four bags, we won’t eat nearly so much. Why? With the four bags, we keep arriving at a decision point—that moment when we have to ponder whether it’s worth opening a new bag. This is the insight of behavioral economist Dilip Soman of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, who offers the popcorn example to illustrate a simple yet profound insight into our decision-making. The separation of bigger decisions into smaller choices is called partitioning. It gets us away from automatic or abstract thoughts, such as “I like popcorn,” to a more specific decision: “Do I like popcorn enough right now to open a new bag?” At that moment, we make a cost-benefit analysis of our choice. We might weigh the enjoyment of more popcorn against the effect it may have on our waistline. Somewhere before the fourth bag is opened, people tend to realize that they’ve already eaten enough. Partitioning has obvious benefits for money management, too, and saving in particular. If we earmark funds for “house purchase,” “kids’ college” and “retirement,” it lets us visualize our goals. That’s better than thinking of our wealth as one collective pot available for any need. Naming our goals also makes them more tangible, which can encourage us to direct more money toward them. With this kind of intention, we might even achieve our goals faster. In addition, having a named savings goal gives us a yardstick to measure our progress. For example, we might compare the growth rate of our college fund to the rise in tuition costs to see how we’re doing. On the spending side, inserting partitions is helpful,…
Read more » Me Fighting Me
Jim Wasserman | Dec 12, 2021
PSYCHOLOGISTS and biologists call it a supernormal stimulus response. Basically, organisms evolve in the direction of what’s good for them. There doesn’t seem to be an off switch to this instinct, however, so organisms can pursue these “good things” even to their detriment. For instance, field researchers have shown that birds instinctually drawn to colorful eggs will roost on more colorful fake eggs—and ignore their own. And, no, humans aren’t immune to such mistakes. Sunlight is good for us, but many know the pain of sunning to the point of sunburn. Advertisers know we have basic urges for sugar, salt and sex. They use these urges to nudge us to consume, say, sugary foods and salty snacks. Instinct can push us to crave more abstract things, too, that are higher on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Financially, we can be nudged to go further than a healthy budget would allow. Our rush for a secure home can cause us to overspend. Biology and aesthetics say we desire a fit, attractive partner. But many cried “too far” at Peloton's sexist Christmas advertisement a couple of years ago. There’s also that strong desire to be viewed as “successful.” How that looks is ever-changing, but in a material world it almost always comes down to money and goods. We go into debt to be alpha peacocks, taking out huge mortgages so we can show the world an ever-bigger nest. On the road to success, we’re all accelerator and no brake. Even those who don’t crash aren’t “winners” because there is no finish line to this race, just the next urge to spend. If we don’t seem to have a natural off switch to our instinctual desires for more, can we create artificial ones? Even if we can't train ourselves to stop throwing good money after bad, could we at…
Read more » Still Resolute
Jim Wasserman | Apr 7, 2022
AT THE BEGINNING of 2022, I wrote about our resolution to go back to grad school. The short update: Jiab and I are indeed doing it. We’re enrolled in the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program at the University of Texas at Dallas. We scrambled to get the application paperwork done before classes started Jan. 18. Neither of us had applied to school for ourselves since the introduction of online registration, but we found it fairly easy. The only holdup was getting our prior transcripts submitted. My undergrad university and law school both said they didn’t have electronic transcripts “that far back,” so I had to have hard copies mailed. A full load is three classes. We opted for two our first semester, so we could get acclimated to school again. Good thing we did. We have a regular weekly assignment load of about 100 pages to read and then writing reflection essays of at least 500 words each. We now complain to our kids that we want to do something but can’t “because we have homework.” The age of the students ranges from just out of college to 60—that would be me—with people from all over the world. The exchange of ideas from so many perspectives is magical, though I sometimes listen to the theoretical descriptions of life and think, “Sorry, it doesn't work like that in the real world, but you’ll find out in your own time.” One of the most intriguing assignments so far was writing an intellectual autobiography. Basically, it’s a review of the events of your life—both academic and personal—that have shaped how you think today. It was daunting at first, especially as I had almost three times as much life to cover as the fresh-out-of-college kids. But connecting the dots of events and influences…
Read more » Pay to Play
Jim Wasserman | Feb 27, 2023
EVEN IN OUR consumer-driven society, some things are looked down upon if bought. One of those things is companionship. I’ll leave the topic of sexual intimacy for another day. What I’m talking about here is paying—directly or indirectly—for social interaction. We might buy a younger colleague lunch simply to have somebody to dine with. We might continue therapy long after we’ve finished exploring the issues that prompted us to sign up. We all have a need to connect with others and thereby have our own existence validated. It’s a basic human need and yet, if folks admitted they pay to have such companionship, many would cluck their tongues and argue it’s not genuine friendship. People would then feel shame and not do it. But in truth, we all need human interaction and we all pay to have it—one way or another. For more than 15 years, I’ve belonged to the same United States Tennis Association (USTA) team. In that time, we’ve had a core group of guys playing together. Record-wise, all we have achieved is new heights of mediocrity. We’ve played in 100-degree heat and near-freezing cold. We’ve all sidelined ourselves with embarrassing injuries. For those losses and discomforts, we must pay ever-rising USTA membership dues and player registration fees for each league we compete in, plus we split the cost of tennis balls. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love tennis. But it’s the interaction with the guys—the jokes about how lousy that shot I made was or how incredibly lucky my opponent was to eke out a 6-1, 6-1 win—that I’m really paying for. We text like schoolboys before and after matches, inventing words like “pushdink” or WOOF (winner off of frame) that become our inside jokes. The COVID-19 lockdown exposed and exacerbated a hidden…
Read more » Bored Games
Jim Wasserman | Oct 7, 2019
THERE’S AN ONLINE forum where writers of articles can request “expert” opinions for pieces they’re working on. Recently, a reporter was seeking recommendations for gadgets parents can buy to keep their children amused on family vacations. Normally, I either send what I hope is a helpful reply or I move on. In this case, however, I responded—but my answer wasn’t positive. I first railed against the idea that children needed anything beyond the trip itself, in which the parents had no doubt invested considerable time and expense. I also asked when boredom became a disease that had to be prevented, rather than an occasion for introspection or imagination. My major concern, however, was as someone involved in financial literacy education. Buying such gadgets was a terrible economic decision, I told the writer. These electronic opiates are almost never cheap—especially knowing that what you’re buying isn’t satisfaction, but temporary placation and fleeting amusement. The cost, however, goes way beyond money. The parents are modeling spending as a non-thinking, quick response to a perceived temporary discomfort. Many parents say they’ll teach their children responsible money management “someday.” But instead of taking those positive steps forward, they take far too many “just this once” steps backward. All the while, their children are watching and learning. What else could be done? I suggested to the article’s author that one alternative would be for the kids to keep a journal of the trip, with the goal of recreating the vacation as a board game when the family gets home. This makes the opportunity cost of buying a gadget enormous: The materials for a board game are cheaper. The activity makes the kids active participants in the vacation, as they observe and take notes, rather than passive heads being ordered to look up. Game design taps…
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Adam M. Grossman is the founder of Mayport, a fixed-fee wealth management firm. Sign up for Adam's Daily Ideas email, follow him on X @AdamMGrossman and check out his earlier articles.
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