When in Rome …
Welcome to Three Things Monday — three things worth knowing as you start the week
(and it’s technically still Monday on the West Coast!) … (and actually, there are 5 things this week!)
“how would you invest $100,000?“
Every quarter-ish, Bloomberg rounds up a panel of experts and asks: if you had an extra $100K laying around right now, how would you invest it?
Their answers are meant to shed light into this particular moment in time, though in actuality they shed more light into the respondent’s priors.
On this latest round, most answers focused on tangible assets — things that can’t get obliviated by AI. One person talked about “picks and shovels” companies like agriculture. Another discussed construction, materials, utilities and other small infrastructure. Another talked about a value tilt, which is mostly “real-world” industries like health care, utilities, energy and industrials.
Big picture: in an AI world, these experts want to invest in physical, real, tangible items.
“Old-economy sectors are often cash-generative, asset-heavy and less exposed to disruption,” Bloomberg wrote, making the same points that I frequently make about tangible assets like real estate — the returns bias towards cash flow, the valuations are less volatile than stocks, and its “real world physicality” protects its value in times of high inflation.
What I think is interesting is that there are two reasons — one inflation and the other AI — why people are coalescing around real-world physical assets.
You’ve got pressure from two sides.
On one side, you’ve got inflation quietly eroding anything that isn’t tied to something real.
On the other side, you’ve got AI putting pressure on anything that can be spun up with code — like content, software, music, film, and huge categories of knowledge work.
And because of this, I’d want a meaningful portion of money tied to assets that exist in the real, physical, tangible world. And those need to be assets that create cash flow (not just speculative assets like art).
“is gold a speculative asset?”
Okay, piggybacking off the above idea: Is gold a speculative asset?
It’s undoubtedly a real-world asset. But it doesn’t create cash flow — no dividends, no income stream, no productive use. It’s value comes from everyone collectively agreeing that it’s valuable, not from intrinsic usability.
So is it speculative? Answer: it depends.
If you’re buying and selling, then yes, you’re speculating. You’re buying it because you think someone will pay you more for it later — not because it creates any productive use (income stream). That’s pretty much the definition of speculation.
But if you’re holding it as a long-term store of value, you’re not asking it to grow. You’re asking it to not go to zero. You’re asking it to hold purchasing power across time, even as the value of the dollar weakens over time with inflation.
So “is gold speculative?”
— do you expect it to rise in value? (yes, speculative).
— do you simply expect it to hold its value? (nope, not speculative; it’s in your portfolio as a store of value, not a creator of future value.)
when in rome …
Hello from CampFI Italy – a three-day conference of financial independence enthusiasts in scenic Assisi, Italy.
I’m here with author Rachel Richards (I wrote the forward for her book!) and mini-retirement expert Jillian Johnsrud (a two-time podcast guest; here’s the most recent interview) alongside 70-ish FIRE enthusiasts.
I’ll be speaking on Wednesday about negotiation skills for people pleasers, which is (after much testing and iteration) the new direction that our negotiation course, Your Next Raise, is heading towards.
Around two years ago, when we opened the doors of Your Next Raise to our first of two cohorts of beta testers, we emphasized the “get a raise” outcome – after all, this is a financial community, and “increasing your income” is one of Afford Anything’s 5 core pillars, so it seemed like the ideal fit.
But in practice, what we’ve seen in our live practice sessions is that students are showing up to learn how to speak up in all types of uncomfortable conversations – from the “who’s hosting Thanksgiving dinner?” debate with siblings, to talking to a spouse about their spending.
There’s a contingent who are ‘people pleasers’ – agreeable, conscientious – and this cohort has a strong overlap with the FIRE community, which generally tends to draw highly-conscientious folks. Anecdotally, at least, there seems to be some overlap between the FIRE community and the “people pleaser” disposition.
All of this to say – I’m giving a talk at CampFI Italy on Wednesday on negotiation skills for people pleasers.
In next week’s issue, I’ll share the slides. Stay tuned!
when in texas … (the fourth thing)
In the meantime —
We made some fun videos from our live podcast recording at Texas A&M — here’s a glimpse and here’s another.
Here’s how I answered a question from a college student on how to save money. More to come!
when online … (omg a fifth thing?!)
Oh alllllso … I’m hosting a live webinar on Tues, May 12th, to answer the question: Can you still buy profitable rentals in 2026? Sign up for free at that link.
This is the Fifth Edition of Three Things Monday.
If you know someone who’s starting to take their finances seriously, forward this their way.
And if you’re reading this as a forward — welcome. You can subscribe for free here
