500 days of Boring Money + MYSTERY POSTS
I mostly avoid cliches but for this one time
Every writer dreams of being paid to write. Sometimes it works out. Mostly it doesn’t. For a while seemingly many aeons ago, I used to be a business journalist at The Ken. It was a tough gig, I learned a lot, but overall if you ask me if I enjoyed it, I’d say, “Eh it was okay.”
There would be a few reasons for this but the biggest is that writing for any publication within the bounds of its rules meant losing my voice and imagination. Pick anything I wrote at The Ken, or pick anything that anyone writes for most publications, do you sense a voice that you can identify? How much of the writer is in the writing?
It has been more than 500 days since I began writing Boring Money. Since then, I’m either thinking about what to write, or reading about what to write, or writing, or deleting what I’ve written so that I can write it again. I get a warm, fuzzy feeling when SEBI or NCLT or even RBI come up in the news.1
I think I’m at that stage where Boring Money has become a part of my writing habit. I think this is also the stage where I’m at least partly confident about this next bit.
You can now sign up for a paid subscription to Boring Money!
Before you’re worried about being unable to read Boring Money anymore—my main finance related posts will continue to remain free. But if you choose to subscribe, you’ll get at least one MYSTERY POST every month (on average).
BTW I have totally stolen the idea of mystery posts from Experimental History. Not just the idea but even the style. The author
is sorta kind so I have a feeling he won’t mind. He’s also one of the finest writers out there, so check out Experimental History if you haven’t already.Coming back—here’s my last post which is an example of a MYSTERY POST. Here’s some of the stuff that you can expect in one of these posts:
“Behind the scenes” posts. A lot of my writing is derived from official documents like court records or regulatory orders. THERE IS A TON OF STUFF that is interesting that I have to leave out. You’d get some of it here.
Book recommendations and/or reviews. I’ll try to stick to finance but not necessarily.
Ideas for my next post! If you want to read about something you can tell me and I’ll probably write about it before I write about something else.
Overall, you can expect MYSTERY POSTS to be more personal, less polished, and hopefully just as interesting as the rest of Boring Money.
What have I even written?
If you’re a recent Boring Money subscriber, you might want to check out some of the older posts. Here are three evergreen ones:
YouTube is great for pump-and-dumps
The actor Arshad Warsi was part of a group that pumped-and-dumped. But he was also part of the investors that bought into the pump-and-dump. This was a funny story!
Brightcom made a profit by hiding its expenses
This was such a nice, classic story on accounting fraud. SEBI recently published a final order about Brightcom Group and confirmed that it had committed fraud.
Byju’s is sued by its lenders, then sues its lenders
I really like this one because it was so difficult to source the court documents that the post is ultimately derived from. I also discovered that the US has way too many courts. This one has a beautiful voiceover (on the same link) that I hope to revive someday.
“Vote with your money”
It’s a cliche at this point but I really do believe that the the easiest way to increase the amount of good in the world is by voting with your money. I totally understand if you’re not ready for it, or can’t afford it, just don’t want to, or whatever. But if you do choose to pay for Boring Money, know that you’re voting in favour of a little more funny finance writing in the world. There isn’t a lot of it!
Okay, here’s a few questions that I think you might have on your mind:
What’s the price of the subscription?
₹4,000 or $50 annually.
That’s expensive!
Yes, I know. I understand if you wouldn’t want to pay this much. You can continue to read Boring Money the way you always have. While I do run the risk of no one subscribing and the whole thing falling flat, I don’t want this to become a volume game.
I’m a student, can I get a sub for cheaper/free?
You can read Boring Money for free! Nothing changes.
But I do understand (and appreciate) the curiosity for the MYSTERY POSTS. Write to me at boringmoney@substack.com and we’ll work something out.
Why do I see three upgrade buttons below?
A combination of RBI making life hell for (recurring/foreign) payment collection and Substack not caring enough about the Indian market to comply. We’re stuck with three separate ways to subscribe depending on how you’d prefer to pay. Pick whichever button looks prettier to you!
Thank you everyone for reading Boring Money. I hope you enjoy reading it just as much as I enjoy writing it.
Cover Photo by jasmin chew/Pexels
PS - I have an updated About page if that’s the kind of stuff you’re into.
Also Byju’s and Adani but it sounds less appropriate for them.