230 | Give Me Snail Mail

Technology makes things faster, but not always better.

Dividend checks used to show up in the mail every month or quarter or year.

If the market was up, there was a check.

If the market was down, there was still a good chance of a check.

Real income that repeats year after year after year…even when our investments are down in value.

That sounds sort of nice, particularly in a world of people who spend income more freely than they spend their savings.

Dividends haven’t gone anywhere, but their automatic reinvestment has made it feel like they’re being returned to sender or forwarded to the wrong address.

Instead of a paper check reminding us that we own real businesses making real money, we watch account balances move in apps like modern-day Monopoly money.

And Monopoly money is hard to spend in the real world.

Sometimes a little friction enables a lot of freedom.