Thank you for being a friend!

Welcome to the Cutting Room Floor, a newsletter where I'll be rounding up all my personal finance articles, putting out exclusive content and interviews, and flagging my favorite job listings from around LinkedIn.

Did the Golden Girls have it right?

I pity young people who are starting out these days. With housing prices where they are -- around 3/4 of listings are too expensive for the middle class, according to the National Association of Realtors -- it seems impossible to get an affordable roof over your head.

Maybe that's why 29% of people are open to the idea of co-living and co-buying with people who aren't their spouses or significant others, according to a new survey from LendingTree . It's always tricky to mix friendship and finances though, so check out my new Reuters article here:

Best Vanguard Funds

I admit I'm a sucker for Vanguard products, and not only because I got to spend some time with its legendary founder Jack Bogle once (this was for a feature for the dearly departed magazine American Way). A true giant and one of the few people out there with a real moral compass.

For the vast majority of investors, something low-cost and broad and indexed is probably the way to go, rather than trying to beat the market. But the sheer volume of funds out there can be pretty overwhelming, so for The Wall Street Journal Buy Side I look at some of Vanguard 's best, with the help of some old friends like 晨星 and LSEG Data & Analytics :

Quote of the Week

It's hip hop's 50th anniversary, which reminded me that I talked to legendary DJ Grandmaster Flash once about the first job he ever had -- a pretty important one in the history of rap, as it turned out:

“I got a job as a delivery boy for a fabric store at Broadway and 38th St. I was walking around the garment district looking for work, and luckily I met the owner of that company, who needed someone to deliver swatches around Manhattan.

“I don’t even want to remember how much they paid me – probably around $150 a week. But that money went towards buying my first turntables. I had seen them in the window of an electronics store in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, and they cost $75 apiece. I had to do a lot of deliveries for that money.

“These were the first turntables that had enough torque, to put my fingertips on the record and start repeating the breaks, all this stuff I was envisioning in my head. That was the beginning of rap music.

“I still have those turntables. What I learned from that time: what is in your head may be what the world is waiting for – so see it through.”

Jobs of the Week

People keep telling me that I'm known on LinkedIn as someone who shares a lot of job listings, so here are a few I've come across recently that are pretty darn cool:

Associate Editorial Director for Martha Stewart

PR Manager for Rihanna's SavagexFenty

Features Writer for The Economist

Social Impact Specialist at Beats by Dre

Host at CBC News Network's Canada Tonight

I've been around a long time in the business, but this newsletter thing is, well, new ... so if there's stuff you'd like to see or stuff you don't, get in touch and let me know what you think.

And in the immortal words of the theme song that plays in Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia ... thank you for being a friend!