I’m Thinking it Over (Scenes From a Marriage Part Seven)

Robber: “Your money or your life.”

[pause]

Robber: “Well?”

[pause]

Jack Benny:  “I’m thinking it over!”

That’s an old joke about being frugal. Sometimes, we are faced with that exact question, in other terms, and we have to come up with a logical answer.  Chances are, the pause will be longer than it was in the joke.

The real joke is that, at some point, your money is your life. The problem with it is that you don’t always know when it will come to fruition.  My advice to young people would be, “assume that the time is tomorrow.”

Generally, we go through life thinking that we will live forever and that we can continue to live the way we always have.  It’s difficult to see into the future and imagine a time when we will have to get by from week to week with nothing but what we have saved and what little the federal government will be giving us.

I remember (back to my marriage again) sitting in our living room, making out checks for our bills, and writing one for $50 to American Century to contribute to my IRA. The wife sees it and says, "What's that for?"
When I told her, she replied, "What do you need that for?"
You wouldn't think it would be difficult to explain, but it was for a 30-something who was overly concerned that he wouldn't have enough saved for his retirement and thought that an extra fifty bucks here and there could actually amount to something.
For the record, the S&P 500 was at 420 in 1992. It sits at around 2,800 today - so you tell me.

It was discouraging, so say the least, that I thought enough about my (and her) future to dare invest money in such a scam as the stock market.  She worked for the state, and had some 503[something] state-funded retirement plan to lean on.  My counter-argument was "well, don't depend on the state government to take care of you in your retirement."  Hate to tell you, but I was right.  The state is having difficulty funding its retirement plan and is in the process of cutting it.  Nevertheless.

In a year or two, I found that she had taken a life insurance policy out on herself.  Fine, I thought.  Good thinking - in case you accidentally fall down a flight of stairs or that gun misfires into your face for some odd reason.
When I asked, "Who is the beneficiary?" I thought it would be a rhetorical question:  "Why, you dear, of course," was my mythical in my head answer.

Instead, what I found out was that her sister was the beneficiary.  OK, then.
When I asked, "Why?" [a reasonable question] I was told that "you don't believe in life insurance."  I never reconciled that answer, and told her that she was not only the beneficiary of my insurance policy through my job, but also the beneficiary of my retirement plan at work AND the IRA that I had opened - as noted earlier.

The moral of this little tale is:  Look out for yourself, because you're all you have.

Returning to the Mundane for a Minute

I've been following the stock market and investing for decades.  As they say, I've seen them come and go.  Rarely have I seen an IPO that has angered and incited opinion like the one of Beyond Meat (BYND) that took place last month.

I don't know if it's the product, the idea that it's a "millennial" thing, or that the value of the stock has skyrocketed since its IPO, but something has set-off the ire of the investing community.

I'm reading comments about how horrible the product is for our health, how it will be a flash in the pan (pun), and how it isn't any better than eating meat.  At least two of those things are fallacy.

I've been eating these burgers for about a year.  Not every day, of course.  They're kind of expensive ($6 for two in the freezer section) so I generally buy a package every two weeks or so.  I enjoy the taste, and I feel good about eating something that isn't either clogging my arteries or my intestines.  Win-win.

Some of the derogatory comments I have seen focus on the idea that it's a "processed food."  OK, it's a veggie burger, and as such, it has to be processed.  Burgers don't grow on trees.  Next.

Some say, "I can't pronounce the ingredients, so I'm not eating it."  Well (above) there is a list of the ingredients.  If you can't pronounce them, I blame the education system.  

Big companies like (my favorite) DelTaco have been using their product in their meatless tacos, and other fast-food joints have embraced it as an alternative for health-conscious diners.

Investments aside, there is something about eating healthy that angers people.  I'm not sure what it is, but I've experienced it first-hand.  It's a kind of resentment that we aren't mainstream - buying take-out food, eating giant plates of who-knows-what -- I hear it. "Oh, you eat healthy," as though it is some sort of anti-social behavior.  "Come on, join us in poisoning yourself."  No, thank you.  

Hey, I know pizza tastes good, and I love a fast-food burger every now and then (had one two weeks ago and hated myself for the past two weeks) so, it isn't beyond me (pun) to enjoy so-called "bad for me" food.  I choose not to make a habit out of it.

Frankly, I'm glad that the stuff tastes good to me.  I've heard it referred to as "eating cardboard," "tree bark" or something worse that makes me want to go off and eat somewhere else.  Like John Candy's Uncle Buck character who admitted, "There's something about this hat - it angers people," my food angers people, and I don't know why.

I'm not asking you to eat it - I'm just asking you to allow me to eat it.  Is that too much to ask?  Maybe.

I'm not asking you to invest in BYND - quite the contrary.  It's way up since its IPO and headed back to earth.  There might be a point at which it's a value, but it will have little to do with the product itself and mostly to do with the public's acceptance of it.  That's kind of sad, since alcohol, tobacco, and recently, pot stocks have garnered a lot of attention and continue to trade lustfully on the market.

Why isn't there room for something that might actually be good for you?