Early Retirement
The Master Archive!
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You sold a stock or rental property with a massive gain. You deferred/avoided tax on the complete capital gain by investing said gains in an Opportunity Fund. Then you decide to use the basis from the original investments as a down payment on an income property and conduct a cost segregation study. This equates to a $300,000 deduction on your tax return while avoiding tax on the capital gains!
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In recent times we were told the U.S. was caput because a womanizer like Clinton was president. Did anyone take the time to research Franklin and Jefferson? Caput! I think not!
Then Bush was a sign of the End Days. Nope! President George W. Bush proved to have human failing, but we did fine.
President Obama was the worst. I had clients who came into my office saying their life;s mission was to prevent Obama from getting a second term. What a waste of time! The economy grew, the stock market was up and America and the world did great after a serious economic debacle.
And now we have the hated President Trump. Many tears have been shed. The Supreme Court is forever tainted (unless you read few history books where you’ll discover it was always tainted). I’m not a fan of Trump. I disagree with many of his policies. But not all! An honest person will find issues where agreement exists. Who doesn’t like lower taxes? We can debate who gets how much and the fairness of taxes, but com’on! I also agree with more infrastructure spending. I’m against tariffs which are nothing more than a tax on consumers. Call it a quasi value added tax, if you will.
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Large conferences are hard to understand before attending first. FinCon has multiple cultures under one roof. Virtually every interest in the financial community is covered. Finding people with similar interests is easy. Finding sessions tailored to your goals is equally easy. So why did I fail the first year and sail the second?
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I have a confession; I’m a hypocrite. My greatest platform has been a complete lie. Please don’t blame me. It got out of control and before I knew it the lie was so big I had no way out with the exception of telling the truth.
From the beginning I railed against traveling while I’ve visited most of the U.S. states, Canada several times, Jamaica and Costa Rica. And here I am pounding out a post while traveling and sitting at the kitchen table of my first Airbnb stay. For a guy who whines so much about traveling I certainly do a lot of it.
Traveling has certainly been a love/hate relationship for me. The anxiety is almost overwhelming (sometimes it is and I collapse). This post will publish Thursday and I’m writing Tuesday night and the clock claims the night is closing in on 10:30. For several weeks leading up to FinCon the anxiety increased. Sleep turned fitful, my thought disorganized. I dreaded the flight. Most of all I dreaded all the people. Farm boys from the backwoods of Nowhere, Wisconsin never truly adjust when pushed into civilization. The savage is always there.
It is in this fog of insanity I realized I travel too damn much, but also realized I travel to places even the most seasoned travelers rarely go.
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One of the most difficult decisions you can make as you struggle toward financial independence is deciding between paying off the mortgage quickly or investing the excess funds instead. The water is more muddy when we see a roaring stock market for as far back as the eye can see coupled with low interest rates. The answer seems simple and obvious: pay off the mortgage as slowly as possible and invest the difference in broad market-based index funds.
You might also think people well past the mile-marker of financial independence would have an even easier choice. Once the risk of a market decline passes due to your excessive net worth, it is tempting to automatically choose the course with the greatest opportunity for maximum gain.
Your favorite accountant has struggles with the same decision: pay it off or invest. It all came to a head recently when the topic came up on Facebook. I gave my opinion and the fur flew. Before long my inbox was stuffed with requests for a fully fleshed out explanation of my position.
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If you’re reading this the day it’s published it means this is the due date for extensions for partnerships and corporations. If you work in a tax office and things are quiet you might want to consider another job. (This is an inside joke directed at a former employee who struck out on her own. If you need bookkeeping in Vegas I know a qualified person to handle that. Seriously.)
I thought today would be the perfect day for me to announce my candidacy for president with a few tax policies I’ll sign into law via executive order if elected. Some of you might be darn excited about this unwelcome event as you think I’m a Democrat. Other might be excited because they think I’m a Republican. The truth is I’m neither. I prefer to waffle between both side of the aisle or as the police call it: walking in a drunken stupor.
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I preempt our regular programming. I had an awesome post planned for today, but then my oldest daughter returned from college and told me something that made my mouth sweat. (You can enjoy the planned awesome post Thursday.)
Regular readers may remember I swore off commercial television decades ago, including my beloved football (not to be confused with soccer, my non-North American friends). Still, football is a massive part of the backwoods lifestyle of Phuket, Wisconsin. (Can you blame us? It’s all we have! Either that or admiring our frozen tundra.)
Now I know what you’re thinking. You like football and if you enjoy the sport you should be able to enjoy the sport. I agree. But readers around here are frugal and it takes a king’s ransom to get into the game! If you’re lucky enough to be in the 1% it’s still affordable, but if you’re in the 1% somebody else paid for those tickets or you don’t attend such extravagant events. Paying for NFL game tickets is for the 99% and chumps.
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Call it First World problems; the minor inconveniences of life: the traffic light turned red at the last moment, you’re surprised by a repair, you discover you have to work past the age of 30. We live in such opportune times it’s easy to forget real difficulties exist. Some right in our own communities.
September is National Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month and Melanie Lockert of Dear Debt is asking personal finance bloggers once again to take up the keyboard to prevent unnecessary tragedy. I participated in the first two Suicide Prevention Blog Tours but intended to sit this one out when I got the email. I had no idea what I wanted to write. I said what I needed to say and had no more to add to the heap of literature on suicide prevention. Then I walked to the mailbox.
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