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These Professionals Aren’t Retired, They Just Have Zero to Prove

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They came, they saw, they conquered work. Then they shrugged.

Some strivers who piled up money and status say they’re over the endless hustle and are embracing what they call a “post-achievement” lifestyle with family, health and passion projects taking priority over career accomplishments.

Another promotion? Too busy surfing. Deferred compensation that’s oh-so-close to vesting? Slipping the golden handcuffs is less painful than you might think.

Post-achievement professionals aren’t necessarily retired, even if they’re financially set for life. Many have transitioned to roles with fewer hours and responsibilities to make time for pursuits they find more meaningful such as podcasting, meditating and playing guitar.

Rather than grab every available dollar and accolade, Kevin Dahlstrom quit a seven-figure, round-the-clock job in 2018. He prefers to be seen as a bold, slightly mysterious figure who could have risen higher but opted out on his own terms.

“I’d be lying if I said that doesn’t stroke my ego,” says Dahlstrom, who left a chief-marketing-officer role and moved to Boulder, Colo., to rock climb. Professional acquaintances sometimes refer to him as a legend because he jumped off the corporate ladder in a way that most people only dream about. “Who wouldn’t like being called a legend, right?”

At age 53, he estimates that he passed up more than $10 million of future earnings but says he doesn’t need to make another penny. He recalls an executive meeting where he looked around the room, saw high-powered colleagues who seemed unhappy, and thought: What’s the point of grinding if it doesn’t bring joy?

He’s still ambitious and recently accepted a more flexible marketing-executive position at a smaller company that allows him to be on task as needed, and on a mountain whenever climbing conditions are good.

“To me, that’s nirvana because I still want to do hard things and work on fun projects,” he says. “But I also want that to be only one part of my life—and not the biggest part of my life anymore.”

Less money, more passion

Here’s the thing about getting to post-achievement status: You have to earn it by doing something impressive first.

The former go-getters I’ve met aren’t the types who could have coasted through middling careers from day one, despite being full of potential. (That would make them quiet quitters or, perhaps, masters of work-life balance .) They needed to prove, to themselves and others, that they could excel at high levels. Only then—with killer résumés and F-you money—could they make dramatic life changes.

Khe Hy , who helped popularise the term post-achievement on his website and YouTube channel , RadReads, says it’s hard not to look back. He left his job as a hedge-fund managing director in 2015 and still feels the occasional pang of envy when he considers the riches that former colleagues have accumulated. Hy, 44, says he’s sitting on about $5 million, probably enough to retire to a frugal lifestyle, but likely not enough to sustain his family forever in pricey, coastal California. Had he remained on Wall Street for a few more years, he might never have to work again.

Still, he moves past those feelings by remembering how numb he’d become to big paydays in finance.

“The key moment is when you realise that no next achievement will significantly change your baseline happiness,” he says. “I consider myself post-achievement because I’m not really striving for anything.”

That’s not entirely true. Hy is trying to bulk up but struggles to add weight to his 155-pound frame. Between running 25 miles a week and surfing almost daily, it’s tough to sculpt more than a lean six-pack, you know?

His RadReads business, which includes coaching for hard-charging professionals who want to rebalance their lives, generates about $200,000 annually. He works about 35 hours a week but controls his schedule and no longer fixates on career advancement.

Rachel Barek , 44, isn’t ready to step down as chief executive of Said Differently, the marketing agency she co-founded, anytime soon. But the majority stake she and her partner sold to a private-equity firm comes with a lifetime of financial security, she says.

“I could very easily fall into the trap of being a serial entrepreneur. I was born that way,” she says. “A lot of serial entrepreneurs are scared of the white space in their lives, and I’m really excited by that white space.”

In her future post-achievement phase, Barek plans to do something radically different: beauty school. She developed the interest while cutting her son’s hair at home during the pandemic and wants to offer pro bono barber services for children with special sensory needs and others who can’t afford to pay. But she concedes her clipping skills could use some work.

Avoiding the success trap

Kristopher Abdelmessih says he was six months shy of collecting about $1 million of deferred compensation when he walked away from his job as an options trader in 2021.

“Maybe it was rash, but I’ve replayed this in my head many times, and I don’t think I would do it any differently,” he says. “I was done.”

Abdelmessih, 45, was motivated to succeed by his modest upbringing in an immigrant household. There would be no safety net if he sputtered professionally, so he picked a field that paid well, played to his strengths and didn’t require graduate school.

But trading was never a calling. Leaving wasn’t so much about losing ambition as it was about a desire to chase fulfilling interests, like tutoring low-income students, gaining the confidence to play guitar on stage for the first time and traveling with his family six to eight weeks a year.

He and a business partner are in the early stages of developing a trading software tool that Abdelmessih hopes will become profitable. If it takes off and demands more of his time someday, that’s OK with him because it’s a passion project.

Jason Chow , a financial-services firm vice president, isn’t post-achievement yet, but he wants to be. Chow, 45, and many others say they’ve climbed high enough to realise each progressive rung brings new hassles and fleeting satisfaction.

“It resonates with me because my life is work, and I know there’s more,” he says. “I just haven’t found what that is yet.”

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The 15-Minute Living Room Makeover—That Costs You Zip

THE DECOR doldrums hit hard as the weather lollygags toward spring. “We spend so much time in our most lived-in spaces, like the living room, that they begin to feel monotonous after a long winter,” said Malorie Goldberg, an interior designer with Noa Blake Design, a firm in Marlboro, N.J.

Fortunately, rearranging your stuff can significantly shake up a stale space , and all you need is 15 minutes to do it.

“We get used to where things are and overlook potential in objects we already have,” said Leslie Martin, of M+M Interior Design in Kenilworth, Ill. The pro calls this state of inertia “house blind,” and asks rhetorically, “Does the chair you have piled with laundry in your bedroom suddenly take on new life when moved to your living room?”

Here, interior designers share their fast fixes for breathing new energy into your tuckered-out living room decor.

1. Flip your layout from one side of the room to another to “create new traffic patterns and sightlines,” said New York designer Kimberly Bevan. “Don’t forget to rotate your rugs along with the furniture.” Adds Ariel Okin, another New York designer, “Map the arrangement out in blue tape beforehand to make sure you like the look.”

2. Don’t be afraid to pull in pieces from other rooms. “Two dining chairs and a side table can become a game-table vignette,” said Kristine Renee, of Design Alchemy in Sacramento, Calif. Add a side chair or ottoman underneath a console table to get a “new” writing desk.

3. Group flowers , a few coffee table books and a small dish on a big, handsome tray, said Okin, for a “styled moment that feels considered.”

4. Swap lampshades from one room to another, suggests Bevan. “Imagine the difference between a simple linen shade and one that’s patterned ,” she said.

5. For a coffee table refresh , “throw a beautiful tablecloth over it and let the edges drape on the floor,” said Toronto designer Justine Alexandra Dunk. A couple of books or decorative catchall on top will layer in the “super cozy, Old World English feel.”

6. Beware the “dorm-room phenomenon,” said Pittsburgh designer Leanne Ford. “We never stopped thinking we had to push everything against the walls.” Moving your furniture just 6 inches off the wall “will actually make your space feel bigger.”

7. Clean exterior windows , says Jacu Strauss, creative director at hospitality company Lore Group, in London. “You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much extra light the room receives.”

8. Steal a throw blanket from a guest bedroom and swap it for the one currently in your living room, says New York interior designer Emma Beryl. “Artfully drape it, either on the corner of the sofa or over the arm of a chair to make it look purposeful.”

9. Use your printer to reproduce a few favourite photos in black and white, and swap them for what’s currently in your frames, says Okin. “Black and white brings an instantly classic, clean and edited look to the room.”

10. Shuffle your art. “This will breathe new life into the space,” said Boston designer Honey Collins.

11. “Deflect attention from the TV by repositioning artwork and light fixtures to create new spots that draw the eye,” said Lindye Galloway, a designer in Newport Beach, Calif. Lean a bold art print against the wall on the credenza or move a mirror so it doesn’t reflect the television, says Goldberg. “Then the TV just exists in the room instead of owning it.”

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The TikTok Bill Targets China’s Cultural Influence. That’s a Big Shift from the Tech War.

Congress’ new swing at social-media app TikTok might seem like more of the same old U.S.-China tech war that’s been running for several years—just that now it has come for dancing teens.

But what leading advocates of the new TikTok bill want would significantly expand the scope of the U.S. government’s interventions into the economy in the name of national security. The law would effectively ban TikTok if it didn’t change owners out of Chinese hands. The hallmark of China-focused regulation in recent years has been to keep American stuff—advanced technology, data, and intellectual property—out of the hands of the Chinese military. The TikTok bill would attempt to do something different: regulate companies’ ability to wield cultural power over Americans.

U.S.-China competition has already been hugely consequential for both countries’ economies and the world. Flows of trade, capital, information, and people between the two have fallen by 28% over the past decade, a report out today on the state of globalisation by logistics company DHL finds. The rise of industrial policy and other political interventions in markets are helping keep inflation high worldwide. Any expansion of regulation into new areas could add to that pressure.

To be sure, the bill is still far from becoming law. It passed the House today with overwhelming margins, but it must still pass the Senate and be signed into law by the president. Its advocates make a strong case that something really is new when it comes to TikTok. But given the stakes, it’s worth understanding exactly what that new thing is.

The bill’s leading advocates want it for two reasons . One, they argue TikTok is effectively a vast data-collection tool that can hand information about Americans directly to the Chinese Communist Party, whose requests TikTok’s management can’t refuse. This is a familiar issue in tech regulation. It is also why U.S. government employees aren’t allowed to keep the app on their phones.

The other issue is more novel. This is the idea that TikTok can be used “to mobilise public opinion,” as one of the bill’s lead sponsors, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D., Ill.), put it in a hearing with the leaders of the U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday.

Many TikTok users saw a pop-up last week urging them to contact Congress about the pending legislation, and quite a few did. Doesn’t that show exactly how the Chinese Communist Party could manipulate Americans, Krishnamoorthi asked? “While I can’t speak to the specific example,” responded FBI Director Christopher Wray, “I can tell you that the kind of thing you’re describing illustrates why this is such a concern.”

Avril Haines, U.S. director of national intelligence said that she couldn’t rule out that the CCP would use TikTok just like that to intervene in the 2024 election, something the intelligence community warned about in a new public threat assessment issued this week.

The TikTok legislation would resolve that worry not by taking away TikTok’s ability to influence Americans—only a full ban would do that. Instead, it would give the government leverage to force ByteDance, the app’s parent company, to hand ownership to an American company. Americans could still be influenced— Meta , X, and other social-media companies have been the target of other foreign-influence campaigns—but they could at least be more confident U.S. enemies aren’t secretly try to push them ideas.

TikTok’s leadership doesn’t see the issues this way. It believes the legislation is intended to ban the app, not just force divestment, and says it doesn’t take orders from the Chinese Communist Party in any case. Its CEO is from Singapore, not China, and the company is working with U.S. tech company Oracle to keep its data local to the U.S.

What no one seems to dispute is that TikTok really is wildly influential. Its 170 million users care deeply about what happens on the platform.

The question Congress is raising is whether some of TikTok’s users have been manipulated. This is a version of the argument Democrats made when it became apparent that Russia tried to intervene in the 2016 election to favour President Trump. The problem with that logic, as Republicans pointed out at the time, is that it’s not clear where it leads. If a bunch of Americans vote for the wrong reasons, does that mean the election is illegitimate? That’s a dangerous road to go down.

The point of the TikTok bill is to essentially head the debate off at the pass. Let there be no questions about the legitimacy of voting, because there wasn’t any illegitimate foreign influence behind it in the first place.

As Chris Fenton, a former Hollywood executive-turned-China critic who advised the bill’s sponsors, points out in an essay for RealClearPolitics , there is some precedent here. The Federal Communications Commission prohibits control of U.S. broadcasters by hostile governments. “Why should TikTok be an exception?,” he asks.

That’s the question the Senate will have to answer, while considering the costs of a major expansion of the U.S.-China fight and the risk that calling into question the political judgment of millions of U.S. social-media users will backfire in unexpected ways.

This decision will matter for much longer than the next dance craze.

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If You’re Buying a Home Near a Nightmare Neighbour, You Might Want to Think Again

Q: Have you ever had to deal with a nightmare neighbour while showing a home?

Arthur Greenstein, broker associate, Douglas Elliman Real Estate, Dallas

In April 2022, I showed a four-bedroom duplex unit in University Park, near Dallas, to one of my clients. From the second we arrived, I knew there was going to be a serious problem because the next-door neighbour, who lived in the other half of the Midcentury Modern house, was nosy and angry. She would barge into the unit each time I was there with my buyer, trying to find out who her neighbour would be, and she would stand outside the duplex yelling at us about how we parked our cars. She was retired and had a lot of time on her hands, and she acted like she was the mayor of the block. It was difficult because I didn’t want to be confrontational with anyone when showing a house, and she was being intrusive. After she did this a few times, I tried to convince my client not to buy the property because I’ve seen in other situations what an unpleasant neighbor can do to the value and enjoyment of a property. But he purchased it anyway because that area had limited inventory and great schools. After the closing, the problems continued. The neighbour shut off my client’s water and electricity and put a lock on the water meter. He had to call the police to get the utilities turned back on. Over the past year, things have not calmed down. My client is involved in a lawsuit now with the next-door neighbour and the previous owner for not disclosing the adverse condition of having a nightmare neighbour living next-door.

ILLUSTRATION: DAVE URBAN

Tom Stuart, associate broker, The Corcoran Group, Brooklyn, N.Y.

In June 2020, I listed a two-bedroom co-op in Brooklyn. This was during Covid, and the neighbour next door was very angry that buyers were coming in and out of the building. At the very first open house, when I was buzzing individual buyers into the building one by one, a buyer informed me that there was a note taped to the door of the apartment. When I went to look, I found a piece of notebook paper taped to the door that said in scrawled handwriting: “Don’t buy this! Rats and Bugs!” I had no idea how many people saw it. The neighbour also called building management and my manager to complain, but everything was being done properly. He started posting signs on the walls of the hallway that said things like “You are being watched!” and “Area under surveillance.” More than once, I caught him with his door cracked open, peeking through, which spooked potential buyers. My sellers were perplexed, but didn’t want to confront him. I was eventually able to sell the apartment, but he didn’t do himself any favours since his efforts certainly meant it took longer to sell the property and, ultimately, more people came through than might have without his interference.

Melvin A. Vieira, Jr., real-estate agent, Re/Max Destiny, Boston

In October 2019, I sold a two-bedroom, Cape Cod-style home in the Hyde Park neighbourhood of Boston. I was representing the seller. Every time I would go over to the house, the seller would yell, “Melvin, close the door, close the door!” I didn’t know what he was talking about, but then he would shout, “It’s too late. She’s there!” And then, his next-door neighbour would appear, a middle-aged woman who was nice, but quirky. She would just walk into the house and start talking about everything going on with the house and the neighbourhood. My client said she was just making it up. It got to the point where I had to sneak into the house. It became a game, almost like an episode of “Mission Impossible.” I would pull up, check for her car, and if I saw it, I would park my car down the block and then walk to the house and go in a side door just to avoid having her see me and come over to interrupt a showing. My client told me she was doing that because she didn’t want him to move. He had lived there since 1996, and she didn’t like change, so she was trying to kill the deal. My strategy was to become friendly with her and have conversations with her away from the house. If I knew someone was going to show the house, I would stop her outside her house and talk to her to distract her. The market was strong, and the house sold within a few days of being listed, so she didn’t slow anything down. And, ironically, she and the new owners get along now.

—Edited from interviews by Robyn A. Friedman

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Concrete Is One of the World’s Worst Pollutants. Making It Green Is a Booming Business.

Bill Gates , Jeff Bezos and former Los Angeles Laker Rick Fox are part of a new wave of investors and entrepreneurs looking to make one of the world’s worst pollutants greener.

Concrete accounts for more than 7% of global carbon emissions, according to some estimates. That is roughly the same as the CO undefined produced by all of India and more than double the amount produced by the global aviation industry.

Most of those emissions are caused by cement, the glue that binds together sand and gravel to make the concrete used to build roads, bridges and tall buildings.

Concrete, the second-most-used material in the world after water, is popular because it is cheap, relatively easy to produce, fire-resistant and extremely strong.

“It’s the most democratic material,” said Admir Masic , an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It is also very, very dirty. Cement is made by heating limestone and clay at around 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit in giant kilns and turning them into marble-sized granules called clinker, which are then turned into a powder and mixed with other materials. As it heats up, the limestone releases a lot of CO undefined , and the whole process is often powered by fossil fuels such as coal or gas.

Big cement producers and startups including Brimstone and Partanna, a startup based in the Bahamas and headed by three-time NBA champion Fox, are developing new technologies to produce cement while producing less CO undefined . Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which was founded by Gates and is backed by Bezos, Jack Ma and Michael Bloomberg among others, Fifth Wall and other venture firms have poured tens of millions of dollars into these companies.

These companies are being motivated in part by the federal government, which is dishing out grants and setting aside billions to decarbonise materials such as cement. Local regulators are also encouraging these new technologies. California in 2021 passed a law to cut emissions from cement and New York in 2023 issued rules that limit emissions on concrete used in state-funded construction projects.

Some companies are trying to make cement from different materials that are less polluting. Brimstone said it developed a way to make cement from rocks that contain no carbon. The company said it has raised around $60 million in venture funding to date.

Others are selling substitutes for cement so that concrete mixers need less of it. Eco Material Technologies, for example, harvests coal ash from landfills and volcanic ash from mines and sells it to concrete mixers. These substitutes aren’t new, but the company says it has worked out ways to increase its share in concrete.

“Our goal is to be able to use the last several generations of trash as the next several generations of greener concrete,” said CEO Grant Quasha .

Still others are removing pollutants from the air. The Halifax, Nova Scotia-based startup CarbonCure came up with a process to pump CO undefined into concrete as it is being made and raised $80 million in venture funding this past year.

CarbonCure pumps CO2 into concrete as it is being made. PHOTO: KENT NISHIMURA FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Partanna, which uses brine from saltwater desalination to make concrete, said homes made from its material suck carbon out of the air.

It is unclear if the greener concrete alternatives will ever catch on broadly. Building codes have rigid rules on what concrete must contain, and many builders don’t like to try out new materials, Masic said.

Cost is another issue. Eco Material’s most environmentally friendly cement alternative, for example, costs around twice as much as standard cement, according to Quasha. CEO Cody Finke said Brimstone’s cement will be as cheap or cheaper than the common sort, but the company has yet to build a factory.

“If I go to the developing world and tell them you’re going to have to pay 20% more for your cement, they won’t do it,” said Eric Toone , a managing partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Even if some of these new technologies succeed, the startups have yet to prove that they can produce green cement at the vast quantities needed to make a dent in global warming.

Still, Toone said cement makers have no choice but to find cheap ways to cut emissions because ditching the material isn’t an option.

“Cement is sort of this wonder material,” he said. “It’s so cheap, it’s so valuable, it’s so good for what we need that it’s really hard to think of ways around it.”

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The Couples Embracing the DINK Label

Natalie and Keldon Fischer have no debt other than the mortgage from their Seattle condo, where they live with their Pomeranian, Noble. They each have six-figure salaries and hefty savings accounts. Last year, they traveled nearly every other month, including to Italy, Mexico, Thailand and Finland.

“I really enjoy being a DINK,” says Keldon, a 30-year-old software engineer.

DINK, of course, stands for “dual income, no kids.” It isn’t new slang, but suddenly, vocal DINKs are everywhere as more couples like the Fischers not only embrace the label but boldly let their DINK flags fly.

“Being DINKs means we just have a lot of freedom, time and money,” says Natalie Fischer, 25, a full-time content creator. She’s open to having children, but is first focused on building a net worth of $1 million by age 30. “I know that once I have a kid I will have to assume a lot of the caregiving responsibility and work less.”

Videos touting the DINK lifestyle now rack up millions of views on TikTok and Instagram. Most feature married couples sending the message that they don’t have kids yet (so stop asking), possibly never will, and life is fantastic, thank you very much.

Life as ‘DINKWADs’

The lexicon has ballooned to include DINKWADs (DINKs with a dog), SINKs (single-income, no kids). Some DINKs prefer “DINO,” for dual-income, no offspring.

There is even DINKY—for dual income, no kids, yet.

The public pronouncements represent a shift, says Zachary P. Neal, a psychology professor at Michigan State University who studies child-free adults. Though not all DINKs are strictly child-free, as some may have kids later, he says there is overlap in the groups.

“It has been for a very long time a sort of stigmatised category,” says Neal. “There are all sorts of stereotypes—things like…they’re self-absorbed, they have no stake in the future, they’re too focused on their career.”

But these days, DINKs are leaning into the label, thanks in part to the snowball effect of social media, Neal says, where DINKs are finding safety in numbers. “As some people start to openly identify as child-free, it creates an environment more open and welcoming.”

In a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, 44% of non-parents ages 18 to 49 said they were not likely to have kids ever, up 7% since 2018. Reasons included economic obstacles, concerns about the state of the world and simply not wanting to. And many young adults who do want children are having them later in life than previous generations.

The recent vocal DINK-dom is also generating backlash.

On social media, parents argue they do much of what DINKs do, just with kids in tow. Internet commentators and comedians are using DINKs as material.

“Childless couples are even more annoying than the imaginary children they complain about not even having,” said Lewis Spears, an Australian comedian. “They don’t seem to do anything with their free time except make videos about how much free time they have.”

‘We go where the wind blows’

Brenton and Mirlanda Beaufils, both in their 30s, have been together for over a decade, and say that they’re often questioned about whether they plan to have children.

But they are not ready to give up the flexibility of the DINK lifestyle.

On a trip to Las Vegas, for instance, they partied poolside, dined at the renowned Nobu restaurant, visited casinos and totally lost track of time and went to bed after 5 a.m.

And when Brenton, who is 32 and works in property management, was offered a new job that started in two weeks in another city, the couple made the move—from Boston to Dallas—happen in one week.

“We go where the wind blows,” says Mirlanda, a 30-year-old real-estate agent. “We love that about our relationship.”

In Dallas, they’re closer to Mirlanda’s sisters, including Preciana Prinstil, 29, who often jokingly wonders when Mirlanda will give her children some cousins.

“I want her to feel the love of kids and how they bring joy,” says Prinstil. “Even though they can be a headache.”

Others in the couples’ orbit are also curious. Mirlanda, who wants to be a mom one day, but isn’t in a rush, has a stock retort. “I’m like, ‘Oh, you guys ready to babysit for us? If you can’t answer that question, then stop.’ ”

Free to give mom a car

When Norelle Marquez was younger, she imagined having children at around age 24 or 25. But lately, the 26-year-old hasn’t seen them in her future.

Norelle, a professional photographer, and her husband Robert Marquez, a 28-year-old Marine Corps service member, have no debt, and stick to a firm budget for their Dallas household. “It’s fairly easy being DINKs,” says Robert.

Norelle appreciates that DINK life allows her to provide for family, including her mother, who raised her and her brother as a single parent. She has given her mother a new washer and dryer, house floors, an almost new Toyota RAV4 and more.

The couple posted a video on TikTok about the benefits and quirks of being DINKs, such as, “When we tell people we’re going to Disneyland on vacation, they think we’re weirdos.” It drew nearly 4,000 commenters, including some critics, but many declaring themselves DINKs.

“That TikTok has solidified my feelings about being a DINK and knowing that it’s OK,” says Norelle. “Family doesn’t have to be bloodline,” Robert adds.

Ultimately, whether to have children is a decision that can evolve, says Holly Hummer, a Harvard University Ph.D. candidate who studies women without children.

“We’re all sort of a SINK or a DINK for a portion of our lives,” she says.

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Airlines Need to Boost Revenue. They’re Coming for Your Bags.

Airlines facing tough financial comparisons after a bumper year have a plan to boost revenue that fliers will hate. They’re raising the price of checking your bag.

Delta Air Lines , the latest company to announce a price hike, announced last week it was increasing the cost of a passenger’s first checked bag to $35 from $30 and a second bag to $45 from $40. The company last increased checked baggage fees in 2018. American Airlines and United Airlines made similar changes, raising baggage fees by about $5, and JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines have also raised prices.

Airline companies are dealing with a double whammy. Higher labor costs and an uptick in maintenance costs are eating into revenue. Meanwhile, domestic demand has softened , hitting pricing power for airlines.

Fees are a significant and growing source of revenue for airlines. U.S. airlines generated $6.8 billion from bag fees in 2022, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics , up from $5.3 billion in 2021. American Airlines generated $1.4 billion from baggage fees that year, which accounts for less than 3% of its 2022 revenue. United made $1.1 billion, or 2.6% of its 2022 revenue; Delta pocketed $980 million, or 2.1% of its 2022 revenue.

It’s likely those figures grew in 2023, a record-breaking year for travel with six of the 10 busiest days in U.S. aviation history, according to the Transportation Security Administration. With airlines hiking prices on the first checked bag by an average of 17%, that number could rise again this year.

That should help offset the decline in airfare. Ticket prices were 6% lower in January compared with the year-ago period, according to January’s consumer price index data. Online travel agency Hopper expects domestic fares to remain below 2023 and prepandemic levels for at least the first half of the year.

Hopper’s lead economist Hayley Berg said more planes in the air have helped bring prices down. “Price relief on domestic airfare comes as domestic seat capacity has maintained at least a 5% lift over 2019 levels throughout 2023,” she said.

Ultimately, baggage fees account for between 2% and 3% of revenue for the largest U.S. airlines. But the market will be judging United, American, and Delta against a strong 2023, so every little helps. All three stocks have risen between 7% and 10% in 2024. And there are other more important factors, such as costs, demand, and capacity constraints, that will have a larger impact on earnings.

Of course, earnings aren’t the first thing on the minds of travelers who are now getting hit with higher fees.

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Australia Will Avoid Recession Thanks to Gen X, BlackRock Says

SYDNEY—Australia’s commodity-rich economy is on track for a soft landing, despite an alarming slowdown over the last year, supported by a household savings and an injection of pension funds as members of Generation X join baby boomers in retirement, according to the world’s biggest asset manager BlackRock .

Craig Vardy, a portfolio manager for BlackRock based in Sydney, told reporters at a briefing that with swarms now tapping their retirement funds, the pool of savings in the economy is rising and is acting to ward off a recession.

Payouts of retirement savings rose by around 7% through 2023 to a record $149 billion Australian dollars (US$98 billion), which is equivalent to about 10.0% of household income, Vardy said. Despite rising interest rates, the total stock of household savings now stands close to A$260 billion.

“There still a lot of savings…which will be a tailwind for the economy, ” Vardy said.

His comments come after data this week showed the economy grew just 0.2% over the fourth quarter of 2023, and by 1.5% compared with the same period a year earlier, the weakest pace in 30 years.

The economic slowdown has developed as the Reserve Bank of Australia has delivered 13 interest rate increases, while surging inflation has fuelled the fastest rise in the cost of living since the 1980s.

“Even though we’ve had a really sharp rise in interest rates, household spending has not collapsed,” Vardy said. And while unemployment is rising, it remains low by historic stands.

“That doesn’t feel recessionary to me. A soft landing is the base case,” Vardy said.

The federal government will also deliver income tax cuts midyear which will further bolster funds sitting in bank accounts, he added.

Given that the economy looks unlikely to fall into a ditch, there is no reason to expect that the RBA will move quickly to cut interest rates, he added.

“If you’re a central bank now, the last thing you want to be doing is cutting interest rates now. You will want a higher degree of confidence that inflation is falling,” Vardy said.

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‘Too Many Hours Waiting for Gelato in Capri.’ America’s Affluent Travellers Head Home.

Affluent U.S. travellers may be sticking closer to home for their big trips this year, travel industry experts say.

Blame it on the soaring cost of travel, unease about the war in the Middle East, or a desire to avoid the headache of sold-out hotels and crowds in popular tourist destinations..Whatever the reason, numerous signs indicate that more Americans with an eye toward luxury travel are opting for domestic vacations this year compared with last, when they ventured abroad in the wake of pent-up demand following the pandemic.

The Arhaus Lounge on courtyard at the White Elephant in Nantucket.
Chi-Thien Nguyen/Elkus Manfredi Architects

Lindsey Ueberroth , the CEO of Preferred Travel Group, comprising more than 1,000 high-end hotels, says that while the group’s international business remains strong, domestic stays have grown so far in 2024, with bookings for the months ahead showing the same rise.

“Airfare is pricey, and some people are avoiding international travel because of the uncertainty in the world,” she says. “As a result, they’re spending their money on pricey resorts in the U.S. instead.”

Ueberroth noted that Brush Creek Ranch in Wyoming’s scenic North Platte River Valley and Montage Kapalua Bay in Maui are two Preferred Travel Group properties that are proving to be top choices among its clientele.

The Harborview room located at the White Elephant in Nantucket.
Chi-Thien Nguyen/Elkus Manfredi Architects

Travel advisors also report a rise in bookings of domestic getaways.

Erica Neher, an advisor with Altour in Paris, is also seeing a renewed interest in domestic getaways from her U.S.-based clients. She says she thinks that the prohibitive cost of top hotels abroad is partially a cause. “I’m hoping the hotel prices start to come down because [uber luxury] travel is becoming unattractive to even those with no or unlimited budget,” she says.

Michael Holtz, the founder and CEO of the global travel firm SmartFlyer, says that its business is up 25% so far this year compared to last.

“Our U.S. bookings are robust. Domestic travel is easier than going abroad, and it can also be less expensive yet more luxurious,” he says.

Holtz cites the all-inclusive Twin Farms in Barnard, Vermont, as an example of a coveted U.S. hotel and says that it’s a scenic resort with great accommodations, cuisine, and service—a place where “the staff accommodates every guest need or want, plus more.” Destination-wise, he says that SmartFlyer’s clients are favouring Hawaii, Jackson Hole, Charleston and Nashville for their stateside forays.

The most significant evidence that affluent travellers have returned to domestic escapes comes from luxury properties themselves, many of which saw a wane or decline in business because their usual guests chose to go abroad as the world opened up from pandemic shutdowns.

Take Post Ranch Inn, a scenic 40-room oceanfront resort in Big Sur, California, where room rates start at US$1,625 a night. Co-owner and managing partner Mike Freed says that occupancy has consistently averaged about 80% a year since the property opened in 1992. Last year was the exception when the number softened.

“There’s no question that many of my regular guests over the years opted for international travel in 2023. Most went to Europe—Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal,” Freed says. “However, they’re back in 2024. Bookings are ahead of last year and already solid for our peak summer season.”

The living room of the Park suite at the White Elephant in Palm Beach.
Chi-Thien Nguyen/Elkus Manfredi Architects

Bill Hayward of Pebble Beach, California, and the president of a lumber company is among the return clientele. He has been staying at Post Ranch Inn since the early ’90s with his wife and says that they usually check in three times annually for between two and three nights each. “Last year, we changed it up by taking several trips to Europe,” he says. “It was catch-up travel after not doing it for so long, but now, we’re back on the Post Ranch Inn bandwagon.”

International air travel can be aggravating, Hayward says, and the couple agreed that it’s more convenient to take a break that’s closer to home.

“We pay around US$7,000 for a three-night stay. It’s cheaper than going to Europe and so much less hassle,” he says, saying the inn is their “happy place.”

Similar to the Big Sur hotel, White Elephant Resorts, inclusive of several properties on Nantucket in Massachusetts and one in Palm Beach, Florida, also saw a dip in demand in 2023, according to president Khaled Hashem . “2022 was a killer year for us with a 20% to 30% increase in business across the resorts, but in 2023, that number stayed flat depending on the property or rose marginally to 3%,” he says. “That is historically low for us as we usually go up between 7% and 8%, even during times of economic distress.”

Fast forward to today, and occupancy is up again at all resorts—Hashem says that the White Elephant in Palm Beach, where nightly room rates average US$1,200, is currently seeing 92% occupancy compared with 78% during the same period last year.

More evidence of this pattern is everywhere.

Brian Honan, the sales and marketing director for Ocean House, set on the water in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, says that currently, confirmed business on the books for the peak months of July and August is almost double what it was last year at this time. And booking pace is up approximately 40% compared to last year. “We are seeing not just increased demand but also that business is being confirmed nearly twice as fast,” Honan says.

At Baccarat New York, demand is growing even further after levelling out in 2023, says director of sales and marketing Rafael Nader. “For 2024, we may be seeing a return to 2022 levels, with our booking pace up nearly 10%,” he says. “This could be tied to a softening of the demand for European destinations, which saw hotel and airfare price points that were tremendously high, even for the luxury traveler.”

Irrespective of prices, Karon Cullen, a marketing consultant who lives in Savannah, says that travelling in America has made her recognise how “varied, beautiful, and rich” the country is. Her domestic trips have also been more enjoyable and leisure-filled. “My husband and I learned our “stay in the U.S.A.” lesson last year after too many hours in the past waiting in lines for gelatos in Capri, museums in Paris, even for the fishmonger at a tiny town in Croatia,” she says.

Cullen and her husband recently stayed in a suite at Ocean House where they savoured long beach walks and has more local escapes in the works for the months ahead.

“The more we travel in the U.S., the more we appreciate the relative ease and diminution of stress,” she says.

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Chasing Passive Income, Americans Turn to Vending Machines

With a brick of cash in his hand and a grin on his face, Jaime Ibanez shows his half-million YouTube subscribers a path to earning money without burning many calories: Vending machines.

In videos with titles such as “This Is HOW MUCH My Vending Machines Made IN 7 DAYS!!” the swoopy-haired 23-year-old Texan makes the rounds to his 51 machines, stocking them and taking the profits.

His channel promotes the idea that with diligence and luck, anyone can go from snacks to riches.

Vending machines might seem an unlikely candidate for trending investment of the 2020s, but the idea has captured the imagination of Americans dreaming of easier money. Some pursue chips and soda as a side hustle because their regular paychecks aren’t enough for them to get by. Others bet on vending machines as a ticket to upward mobility, to quitting their jobs and becoming their own boss.

The startup cost is low and the formula simple. Buy a used machine for $1,500, load it up with products from Costco , charge a 100% markup and let the crinkled dollars roll in. But turning a profit takes real work, and the machines can be a losing proposition when stuck in locations without enough hungry foot traffic.

There is a fair amount of competition, too. America has three million vending machines, an $18.2 billion industry, with the average machine generating about $525 in monthly revenue, according to the National Automatic Merchandising Association.

More than half of operators bring in less than $1 million a year, according to trade publication Automatic Merchandiser. Many are individuals who have other jobs.

Social media has fuelled the notion of finding financial freedom in vending machines. Between 2019 and 2023, the number of posts or comments mentioning passive income and vending machines more than tripled on X and increased by a factor of six on Instagram, according to Sprinklr, a social-media management platform. Google search interest in passive income increased some 75% during that same period.

“There’s a real sense that doing things the so-called right way won’t necessarily land you in the middle class,” said Lana Swartz, a media-studies professor at the University of Virginia who researches financial technologies. “If the old rules no longer apply, then there’s a searching for new rules to get ahead or to get by.”

Some vending-machine newbies say they are on their way to building an automated empire. Others’ dreams get snagged like a bag of Funyuns on a faulty coil.

Making sales while you sleep

Last spring Rob Smith, a 30-year-old truck driver in Orlando, Fla., spent $4,000 on his first machine, a credit-card reader and a load of snacks and drinks.

He recently acquired his fourth machine, which is at an industrial bakery. His first three machines take up three to five hours of his week and bring in about $1,500 a month in revenue, which works out to roughly $750 in profit.

“I’ve made sales at four o’clock in the morning, when I was sleeping,” he said. “That machine is still working whether I’m there or not.”

He hopes to scale up to 30 machines and quit his job.

Smith started looking for extra income because his goal of buying a house felt out of reach with only his day job’s pay. He chose vending specifically after he witnessed a colleague complain about a malfunctioning machine at work and then use it anyway.

“He still put his $2 in,” Smith said. “I was like, ‘I need to get a vending machine as soon as possible.’ ”

Some budding vendors pay $300 or more for online courses to learn the trade. Smith relied on YouTube, Instagram and Reddit to get going.

At one point, he stocked a machine with orange soda against the advice he got in an online forum. When it didn’t sell, he and his family had to drink three dozen cans themselves.

Empty calories

Tom and Missi Hakes of Midway, Ala., started vending after Missi, 40, saw videos on YouTube about the business. The idea seemed more appealing than their stints driving for Uber, shopping for Instacart and trying to make it as YouTubers.

The Hakes, who both have full-time jobs in health insurance, scouted out locations in Atlanta, the closest big city and two hours away. After their best lead fell through, they paid a woman they found on Facebook Marketplace $500 to find a location for them.

She sent them to two spots that didn’t work out, including a cheerleading gym. The manager there was on board until she learned that the Hakes hadn’t operated a vending machine before.

Tom, 48, posted on a forum wondering how to address questions about their industry experience. At their next meeting, with the owner of a gym, they reluctantly followed some of the forum’s advice: They lied and said they had a few machines.

“We didn’t want to get another no,” said Tom.

He then spent a month repairing a used machine they bought for $1,400, staying up on some nights until 2 a.m.

When it was ready, Tom and Missi struggled to wrangle it into the 15-foot U-Haul truck they rented.

“Two people is not enough to move an 800-pound machine,” she said.

The Hakes spent about $2,500 on their vending business, as well as 20 to 30 hours a week for much of last fall.

They pay $50 a month to park it in the gym and it costs about $330 to fill up. It is currently grossing about $30 a week.

If anything, the income has been too passive, Tom said, “because it’s not really doing a lot of sales.”

If the machine isn’t selling more by summer, the Hakes will consider leaving the location, or perhaps vending machines overall.

Hit Facebook Marketplace, then Costco

Used vending machines of questionable quality sell online for as little as $500. More reliable ones cost in the range of $1,000 to $2,000, according to veteran vendors. A new machine with a touch screen and a robotic arm could cost upward of $7,000.

Many used machines have a maintenance issue about once a year, and they need to be cleaned. Cash is dirty, said Ben Gaskill of Everest Ice and Water Systems, a vending-machine maker. “Somebody digs around for coins in the bottom of their purse and it’s got grape jelly on it.”

Vendors shop warehouse stores like Costco and Sam’s Club to stock up. One machine’s worth of snacks or drinks can cost $200 to $300 a month. Owners then charge about twice what they paid for each product, or more. Prices of food from vending machines were up 10.6% year over year in January, according to Labor Department data.

The top-selling items in vending machines are cold drinks, snacks and candy, according to the latest data from Automatic Merchandiser magazine.

“No matter how healthy you try to make the machines, people are going to buy that Snickers bar,” said Lory Strickland, who sells courses and one-on-one coaching with her husband, Barry, under the name The Vending Mentors.

A never-vending story

Selling online classes and coaching can sometimes be more lucrative than a given moneymaking idea itself, said Swartz, the University of Virginia professor.

In online forums, she said, “there’s the joke that if there are people making courses about it, then it’s already oversaturated as a side hustle.”

To capitalise on interest in vending, some experienced operators started selling their expertise to supplement the income coming in from their machines. Some transitioned primarily to training.

Hyping the vending-machine dream predates the internet, though. The first machines in the U.S. sold gum and appeared on train platforms in 1888.

In the 1940s, media outlets cautioned about “get-rich-quick schemes” promoted by “unscrupulous agents involving vending machines.” In 1960, the magazine now known as Kiplinger Personal Finance warned of “vultures in the business” who promised “that an $800 investment may produce $200 a month, and that only a few hours of work a week are required to enjoy such rich pickings.”