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In this issue: I made 10 pounds of homemade bacon this week... and somehow it became the clearest financial metaphor I've ever written. Plus the one budget change that will quietly save you money starting this month.
PERSONAL
Let's talk about bacon.
Yes. Bacon. Stay with me.
If you know me at all you know I am a foodie who makes almost everything from scratch because homemade is just better. Everything except sushi... that stuff is harder to nail than it looks and I have the failed attempts to prove it. But bacon? Bacon we have figured out.
Our youngest Croix single-handedly consumes about two pounds of bacon a week. By himself. Which... is not cheap. So about a year ago I decided to teach the boys the process of making it from scratch. Buy pork belly in bulk, learn the craft, save some money in theory. The math made sense.
Here's how it works.
You start by trimming the belly into sizes that fit your smoker. Not one giant slab... multiple pieces sized to what actually works for you specifically. Then you build your cure... we do 2% salt, 2-3% sugar (honey, brown sugar, maple syrup, whatever you have), and 0.25% pink curing salt based on the weight of the meat. Sometimes a splash of Worcestershire. Rub it all in, vacuum seal it or put it in a sealed container, and let it cure for 10 days.
After that comes the smoke. We use apple and oak mostly. Apple brings sweetness. Oak brings that deep smoky flavor. Low and slow at 200-225 degrees until internal temp hits 145 and the color is exactly where you want it. Clean white smoke, low heat, patience. Then you let it cool to room temp, put it in the fridge uncovered overnight so the smoke can fully penetrate and the outside can dry. Then the slicer comes out.
Ten pounds of bacon in the freezer. We'll do it again in three weeks before this batch runs out.
Now. Why am I telling you this in a financial newsletter?
Because every single step of making bacon is a near-perfect metaphor for how money actually works. And I need you to see it.
The trim. Before anything else you cut the belly to sizes that fit YOUR smoker... not someone else's equipment, not the standard cut, what actually fits your setup. This is exactly how financial planning should work. You trim your finances to fit YOUR life... your income, your goals, your household, your risk tolerance. Not whatever some generic article says is the right recipe. What fits you.
The cure ratios. There are baseline ratios you cannot ignore. Too little curing salt and the meat rots. Too much and it's inedible. There are survival expenses in your financial life that work the same way... food, shelter, utilities, insurance. Non-negotiable. But within those ratios there is flexibility. What kind of sugar you use. What additions you make. Those choices are yours based on your actual weight... meaning your actual income.
The 10-day cure. Here's the one nobody wants to hear. Once the belly is trimmed and seasoned and sealed... you cannot rush it. You cannot open it every day and check if it's done. You cannot speed the process up. It takes exactly as long as it takes and your job is to leave it alone. The financial parallel is patience. You build the plan, you fund the accounts, you set up the structures... and then you have to let time do its job. We are collectively terrible at this. We check our investment accounts daily during market volatility as if watching the numbers will make them move faster in the right direction. It won't. Leave it alone. Let it cure.
The smoke. This is implementation. The plan is in place. The foundation is solid. Now you execute... low and slow, making small adjustments when needed, watching the temperature, not burning it and not undercooking it. The goal is hitting the right internal temp. In financial terms that might be a retirement number, a business valuation, a savings milestone. Small tweaks along the way. Trust the process. Get it to temp.
The rest and the slice. And here is the part I want to sit with for a second. In our house... the bacon is not just for some future retirement moment. We eat it now. We enjoy it now. We build it every few weeks and we use it because life is happening right now. We are not waiting for some magical age to start enjoying the things we built. That philosophy runs through everything we do financially. Yes we plan for the future. And yes we live in the present. Multiple plans that adjust over time. Just like making bacon every few weeks because Croix eats it all.
Build the plan. Follow the process. Have patience. And for God's sake... enjoy some of it along the way!
WHAT I'M SEEING
The Country Is Exhausted. That Is Not a Small Thing.
I keep coming back to this topic because someone has to keep saying it out loud.
We are not okay. Not as individuals, not as a country. Mass shootings, war in Iran, fuel prices squeezing every household, markets behaving in ways that don't fully make sense, political chaos that feels like it never stops... all of it is landing on top of us simultaneously and we are absorbing it whether we want to or not.
The data backs this up. A national survey conducted by the American Psychological Association in 2024 found that the future of the nation was the leading cause of significant stress among adults, with nearly 8 in 10 reporting it as a major source of anxiety. CNBC
In diary studies tracking daily emotional and behavioral responses to political events, researchers found that politics triggered at least some negative emotions on 81% of days surveyed. On those days participants reported higher levels of fatigue, sickness, dissatisfaction with life, and depression. NPR
81% of days. That is not background noise. That is a chronic condition.
As political instability rises, so does fear, cynicism, and disengagement... an emotional fatigue wholly linked to national turmoil. NBC News
And here is what that emotional fatigue does to your finances that nobody is talking about. Chronic stress impairs decision-making. It shortens your time horizon. It makes the future feel abstract and unreachable so you stop planning for it. It makes the present feel unsafe so you either hoard cash out of fear or spend impulsively for relief. Neither one is a financial strategy. Both are survival responses.
The chaos around you is real. Finding your balance inside of it is not optional... it is the work. It is what allows you to take a step forward instead of just hiding in place.
📌 Receipts:
THIS WEEK'S DROPS
NoBS Wealth — Tax Day Reality Check: What You Missed and What's Coming
Tax day came and went and a lot of people either filed on autopilot or asked for an extension and called it a day. This episode is your reality check. Because what you did or didn't do on April 15th has consequences that run well past April 15th.
Here's what we got into:
The most common mistakes people made this tax season that are going to cost them next year
What you should be doing RIGHT NOW in April to set yourself up for a better tax outcome in 2027
The deductions and strategies that most people miss because nobody explained them in plain language
Why your tax return is not a bonus... and what to do with it if you got one
The Big Boys Channel
Lincoln and Croix are out here doing their thing. Filmed, edited, and produced entirely by two kids who figured it out themselves. Go subscribe, drop them a comment, and if you have kids... show them. There is something genuinely powerful about watching young people create something from nothing.
MONEY MOVES TO MAKE
This week's move is simple. One change. Real results.
Stop separating groceries and eating out into two budget line items.
Combine them into one line item. Call it Food.
Here's why this works. Both categories have one job... to feed you. When you split them into two separate buckets your brain treats them as two separate problems to solve. You go over on groceries... still have the eating out budget. You go over on eating out... but you were under on groceries so it evens out. Except it doesn't. You keep finding reasons to spend in both categories and you keep going over on both.
One bucket. One job. Feed yourself.
When it's all one line item you start making actual decisions. Do I cook tonight or do I go out... both come from the same pot so the choice is real. You will naturally start to balance the two because the money is finite and visible and it all serves the same purpose.
Try it for two months. Don't judge it after two weeks. Give it the full cure time.
You will spend less. Not because you're depriving yourself... because you're making intentional decisions instead of two separate sets of rationalizations.
If you want help building a budget structure that actually fits your life and not someone else's recipe... that is exactly what the Modern Family Office is for. BlackMammoth.com/modernfamilyoffice
MONEY MINDSET
The bacon doesn't rush for anyone.
Ten days in the cure. Low and slow in the smoke. Hours resting before the slice. Every single step takes exactly as long as it takes and any attempt to speed it up produces something worse than what you started with.
Your financial life works the same way.
You built the plan. You followed the process. You put the right ingredients in the right ratios and now you have to let it do its job. The market is going to swing. The news is going to be loud. The world is going to feel like too much some days... most days lately.
None of that changes what's happening inside the cure.
Trust the process. Adjust the small things when you need to. Keep the temperature right.
And when it's done... enjoy it. Don't wait until some perfect future moment to taste what you built.
Life is happening right now.
See you next Tuesday.
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