Rockstar Rumble, Round 2, Posts 33-40

Here are the latest games in the second round of the 2018 Rockstar Rumble. We've listed each "game" (one post versus another) along with wording provided by the author when the post was submitted. Also listed is a keyword after each post title to make it easy to vote. Be sure to vote for your favorites since you will help determine the winner! Criteria for the best article is what makes Rockstar content which includes these factors:

  • Starts with an interesting title
  • Includes unique content — we like posts that are edgy, feisty, funny, failure-focused, and super helpful
  • Easy to read
  • Positive/uplifting (vs. negative)

The voting will run for 48 hours. At that point, a winner will be named and will advance. You can follow the results in the brackets here. Please note, there is ONE VOTE PER PERSON. To be sure you see all games, click on the Rumble category link and scroll down. If you like great posts like these featured, you can subscribe to the Rockstar Finance weekday email and get the best personal finance articles delivered to your inbox. Today's games are brought to you by Mediavine, a full-service ad management solution for digital content creators. Here are today's games: GAME 17

  • How I Retired In My 30s – From Ugly Crying To Retiring Just 10 Years Later (Crying) - In 2000, JT was down to his last dollars living in a hostel, ugly crying with just a few dollars to his name because he thought he was a failure. He was rejected from job after job and was having a tough time in life. Just 10 years later, he hit his retirement number and retired in his 30s. Here's how he changed his life around.

VERSUS

  • How To Trick Your Lizard Brain Into Saving More Money (Lizard) - The lizard brain is a really fun way to talk about why people fall into bad financial habits. Plus, I use self-deprecating humor and make fun of my wife's Lululemon shopping addiction. Lizard brain makes us do the same things – good or bad – over and over again so it’s the king of bad habits. It makes us act emotionally and live each day as if it were our last. Think of it as the original proponent of YOLO. Here are three ways to block your lizard from making poor spend-or-save decisions.

[poll id="85"]   GAME 18

  • The Happiness Fund (Fund) - Sometimes you just have to remember that money can buy you a little bit of happiness, and it doesn't mean spending big bucks in doing so. When everybody is doing great in saving and earning more, we do need to find the right balance to spend, and not be miserly in our finances. It's time to live it up and be part of the YOLO or treatyoself movement sometimes.

VERSUS

  • The Dog Years of Investing (Dog) - Using a simple example, illustrates that Compounding isn’t what it’s often sold as by mainstream finance. You need this “key behavior” mentioned in the article - in measures far beyond what you even thought you may have - to really benefit from investing. If you don’t get this one right, almost everything else doesn’t matter.

[poll id="86"]   GAME 19

  • An Interactive Guide to Early Retirement and Financial Independence (Guide) - Imagine a calculator, a choose your own adventure book, a series interviews and a guide to early retirement and financial independence all rolled into one. This article is an experiment - an interactive way of exploring your own numbers through visualizations with the hope of discovering what FI is and how you could retire a little earlier.

VERSUS

[poll id="87"]   GAME 20

  • It's Not a Cheapskate Contest (Contest) - It's a short, sweet response to why frugal living is important. The answer to your friends and family on why you didn't upgrade to the latest phone, don't have a cable package, and drive a used car.

VERSUS

  • Average Net Worth by Age – A Look at American’s Wealth & How You Stack Up (Worth) - When you ask Americans to share what they think of as the average/median of anything, they always over-estimate. One of those over-estimates is median net worth (and income!) - it's much lower than you'd expect. I took data from the U.S. Census, charted it out, and really dig into the data across age, education and other factors. It was a fun post to write, I learned a lot, and was shocked how much of American's net worth is home equity.

[poll id="88"]