Should We All Be Fat Bears With Our Money?
Bear with me as I talk about the fat-bear mindset of your finances. (Sorry.)
The topic of "fat bears" recently came up in Kiplinger's staff messaging system. Eleven months out of the year, you might expect that if we're talking about "fat bears," we're talking about people who are overly pessimistic about the future performance of the stock market, or maybe a really bad time period for stock market performance, i.e., a "bear market."
But summer has ended and snow is starting to trickle down from the outer reaches of Alaska, which means we weren't talking about stocks but, naturally, real-life, actual bears. Of course: We're talking about Katmai National Park's annual Fat Bear Week.
In case you aren't living in a house like mine, where Explore.org's livestream from Katmai plays on the TV every night from July to October, allow me to explain. Fat Bear Week began about a decade ago, run by Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. It is, quite simply, a bracket-based tournament where people can vote online for which bear did the best job of gaining weight over the course of the summer, the better to survive winter hibernation (hi-bear-nation?). If you'd like to do more "research" before you vote, you can watch the bears fish on the livestreams, though the river has been less crowded in recent weeks as the bears begin to hunker down.
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Fat Bear Week started September 22 and ends the evening of September 29. Inspired by this momentous annual event, I had to wonder: Should we all be fat bears when it comes to our finances?
Bear with me here (ha). During Fat Bear Week, we celebrate accumulation. These bears spent the summer eating as much as possible in preparation for a down period. This is much like human beings building up an appropriate emergency fund and making efficient use of their investment portfolio to grow, grow, grow. Or, perhaps, it's more like human beings building up their retirement fund to sustain their dreams. Or both!
But what also amazes me watching these bears all summer is that, for them, it's not a winner-takes-all situation. Despite being solitary creatures, the Katmai bears cohabitate on the river together because they know it's the easiest possible place for them to get food. Sure, they jockey for space and dominance, but they know there's enough salmon for all of them to coexist and get fat together.
This is much like us human beings and the stock market. It's an open place for all of us to accumulate together, especially since online brokers and trading platforms have further democratized the market, making it easier for more people to join in and invest in their own futures (and invest in futures, if they so choose).
The bears also represent a diversified portfolio. Yes, bears eat a lot of salmon. But they also eat a whole lot of berries and sedge grasses. It's important not to go all-in on any one investment.
There is also quite a lot of family and community happening in Katmai. Twelve years into Fat Bear Week, many of today's contenders are the progeny of previous winners. Dedicated viewers have watched these competitors grow from their first summer on the river as cubs into the thousand-pound behemoths they are now.
What you can also see on the livestream (or if you're lucky enough to get out there and visit yourself) is mother bears getting fish for cubs and teaching them how to fish. These mother bears show cubs smart places to situate themselves in order to get their own fish, and they train the cubs in how to fend for themselves.
This brings to mind two things we do as humans. First, we have the drive to provide for our children. Many of us are building net worth not just for fun, but to provide for families and future generations.
Second, we hope our legacies can live on, which is why we try to demonstrate values and teach hard-fought lessons to younger people and children around us, just like those mother bears. These are both worthy impulses (and are why we've been talking so much about The Trillion Dollar Talk here at Kiplinger).
But that brings me around to an unavoidable fact: Bears are wild animals. As one park ranger put it, discussing an incident of infanticide (cub-icide?) this summer, "These are wild animals in wild spaces doing wild things."
We are, at the very least, domesticated animals, which means we do not have to act like fat bears all the time.
Bears survive by staying fairly singularly focused on eating and preserving energy during the months in which they are awake. We, however, get to do other things besides accumulate. We can take on inefficient passions, like running or, well, catch-and-release fishing, just because we want to do it and it makes us happy. We can take work sabbaticals and lower-paying jobs because they allow us to spend more time with people or on activities we value beyond money. We can host dinner parties!
We also get to actually enjoy using what we accumulate. We get to use money on fast cars and slow travel — or further education and hobbies. Or vacations to national parks to try to spot a bear! Or, ahem, maybe some of you are more like bears and want to use what you've accumulated to rest: I hear "sleepcations" are on the rise.
We don't have to be checking market performance every hour, and, as long as you're in a reasonable financial place, it's OK to spend $7 on a ridiculous latte every so often.
The point is, life for us humans is not all about gathering as much money as we can and stockpiling for winter. We also, if we're lucky, get to live full, well-rounded lives, which is a privilege. And for a little bit today, I plan to use some of that privilege to marvel at these full, well-rounded bears.
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