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Every week I come across some great articles. Here are some of the posts I feel you will enjoy reading as much as I did.
My 13-year-old has an $800 phone
Buying a phone is expensive, especially if you are a 13-year-old who wants an iPhone. Ruth shares a story about how her daughter could contribute 50% to an $800 iPhone purchase in 2 months.
This article shows how we can teach our children the habit of saving while also teaching them it's OK to spend money they have budgeted.
Key Takeaways
- Teach your child to save/invest a percentage of every dollar they earn.
- For expensive purchases, agree to pay half the amount.
- For massive targets, break them into smaller digestible chunks by using a "savings tracker".
- Look at employment opportunities available to them, and if it needs the help of an adult, offer to help if they are willing to work.
- For a kid, who have all their needs taken care of, it is the best time to teach them the habit of saving a percentage of their income.
Do I Need a Financial Advisor
How do we know if we need a financial advisor? Ramit Sethi explains the criteria for needing a financial advisor and why most people don't need one.
Key Takeaways
- We need an advisor only if we have over $1 million in investable assets, have a complex financial situation, need a second set of eyes or a behavioural coach.
- Get a fee-only advisor who is a fiduciary, meaning they are legally required to put our best interests first.
- Reach out to at least 10 advisors and set up calls with 5.
How To Learn Stuff Quickly
It is easy to get stuck either in tutorial hell or reinvent every wheel when learning new things. Josh Comeau shares a few tips on how he has been able to pick up new skills quickly.
Key Takeaways
- In the beginning, focus on guided learning. Once we are comfortable with the fundamentals, we should spend more time building interesting things and seeing tutorials only when encountering new problems.
- A tutorial fade is effective, but we are building the same things over and over. Basically, after following a tutorial, you try to repeat it without looking at the tutorial.
- We can add additional functionality to the tutorial project.
- We can build a similar project to the tutorial project.
- By publishing what we learn, we can uncover gaps in our mental model.
When it Pays to Choose Microservices
Microservices are extremely popular, with a lot of big companies adopting them. But when is it worth switching over to microservices? Victoriia Zaripova outlines the pros and cons of developing a microservice-based solution.
Key Takeaways
- If microservices don't solve the business tasks, this is a waste of time and money.
- Don't use microservices for a new solution.
- The minimum pool for one microservice is a team of six to nine persons. One team should support a maximum of two microservices.
- Consider using a microservice when
- there are critical requirements for the application's resistance to loads and/or support of integration with external services
- the business requires significant acceleration of development.
- it's necessary to use a heterogeneous technology stack.
- different points of the application require different rates of changes in various points of the application.
The Nine States of Design
When designing UI, we tend to focus on the ideal state. Vince Speelman shares his list of the 9 different states that we should plan for to create a better experience for users who hit the unhappy path.
Key Takeaways
- The different states that we should consider when building UI
- Nothing state
- Loading
- None
- One
- Some
- Too many
- Incorrect
- Correct
- Done
Hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I did.