People Don’t Notice Your Purchases as Much as You Think (Humble Dollar) – “If I come home with a new Mercedes, my neighbors probably won’t notice and, if they do, they probably won’t care. This, I think, is liberating. If you’re stretching yourself financially to gain social acceptance, there’s no point since most people won’t notice anyway.”

How You Can Trick Yourself Into Trying to Beat the Market (Of Dollars and Data) – “Being smart doesn’t imply that you will be a good stock picker, but it does imply that you could be susceptible to believing so.”

A case study in opportunity costs and conscious spending (Get Rich Slowly) – J.D. Roth shares a personal case study on deciding whether or not to continue buying season tickets to the Portland Timbers – a professional soccer team whose organization increases ticket prices by 7.44% per year, on average.

The Joy of Doing Financial Independence Wrong (Ditch the Cave) – “Financial independence is a great thing to try to achieve, but I am not prepared to sacrifice my happiness for it. I’m going to put aside my fraudulent feeling and do my journey my own way. If it means I’m doing Financial Independence wrong, then I’m OK with that.”

10 Charts About Retirement Every Retiree Should See (Retirement Field Guide) – 10 helpful charts on life expectancy, spending patterns, and working trends that every retiree should see.

A Life With Moving Sidewalks (The Retirement Manifesto) – Just as moving sidewalks break up the monotony of walking in airports, you should pursue metaphorical “moving sidewalks” in your daily life that add variety to your journey.

The Right Way to Quit a Job (Bitches Get Riches) – How to quit a job with dignity, poise, and tastefully subtle shade.

Investing Lessons from Three Weeks of Fatherhood (Bps & Pieces) – “The exercises of investing and parenting are in reality worlds apart. But what they do share in common is that they are both done in earnest to improve expected future outcomes for the people you love. And while neither is easy, nothing worthwhile ever is.”

The End of History Illusion (A Wealth of Common Sense) – People consistently underestimate how much they will change in the future. Psychologist Dan Gilbert termed this the “end of history illusion” where we believe our current selves have it all figured out to the point that this is who we’ll be for the rest of our lives. However, your preferences will change as you get older. Having money in the bank allows you to accommodate these changes.

Why you shouldn’t leave your money management up to someone else (Financial Mechanic) – “The consequences of small dependencies, like that on a noisemaker to sleep or a cup of joe to wake up, are minor. But the consequences of being dependent on others for something big, like your financial wellbeing, can be dire.”

The value of international stocks, in pictures (Bogleheads) – The U.S. stock market has crushed the international stock market in recent history, but that hasn’t always been the case. These visuals show how U.S. stocks have performed relative to international stocks since 1970.

Millionaire Charges Lime Scooters for Beer Money (Retire by 40) – Joe shares how he made $207.85 in 15 days by charging lime scooters with his son.

It’s Hard to Think Long-Term (The Irrelevant Investor) – “You don’t dig up a young tree every time it storms. It needs time to grow. The roots can handle wind and rain and thunder. Likewise, a diversified portfolio needs time to grow, and can also withstand some discomfort.”

A tweetstorm explanation of the inverted yield curve (Heidi N. Moore) – The inverted yield curve is making its rounds in the major financial news outlets, yet few people actually understand what it means or why it’s significant. This tweetstorm provides a plain-language explanation.

Visualizing the 25 least expensive U.S. cities to live in (Yahoo! Finance) – New research ranked the top 25 least expensive U.S. cities based on a cost of living index. No cities west of Amarillo, Texas, made the list.