I dig this story, “Gift to help cover tuition for students in lab medicine” for a few reasons. Mostly because the donors wanted to remain anonymous. Such a refreshing choice in this “look at me” day and age. I also like how targeted and thought out the gift is. There will surely be positive ripple effects. And of course, the recipients’ gratitude is heartwarming.
Both are interesting in the context of this The Nation pod, “Liberal Philanthropy and the Fight for Democracy“. Sentence-long summary, “As powerbrokers of the elite, liberal philanthropists are averse to challenging ‘the systems that spawned them.'” One does not have to be as far left as the typical The Nation reader/listener to conclude that we’re far too dependent on the capriciousness (and ego) of the oligarchy for the infrastructure and safety nets we desperately need. What we need is the the dependability of a more progressive tax structure.
Yours truly just sold some AAPL purchased in 2011. The initial investment was small, but the shares appreciated over 2,000% in the fourteen years, resulting in a large sum. Which I will now gift to several nonprofits.
In revealing that, I’ve violated my fave philanthropic move, remaining anonymous. And, I’ve also sidestepped considerable capital gain taxes.
I can live with those demerits because I do not aspire to be in any pantheon of modern-day philanthropists. My aim is simpler. It’s to honor the memory of those who’ve been generous with me and to transmute the incredible luck I’ve had as an investor into tangible contributions to the common good.
After my last musing, SW, a close friend, texted me, “Please be more specific. I’m curious just how crazy you are.” Which made me smile.
The return text, “Where to begin?”
But then, I pressed pause. And thought about self compassion. And how I need to muster more of it given this most challenging chapter of my life.
And so I started to think about both sides of the ledger, the “irrational” and “rational”. The irrational mostly consists of what most objective observers would conclude is poor time/money decision-making. Meaning, I regularly do things that I could pay others to do for far less money than my increasingly limited time is worth.
But sometimes I just like popping the AirPods in, cranking up the Biebs, and washing my car in the driveway. Or washing the windows. Or cleaning the house. Which brings a documentary to mind about Japanese elementary schooling. When asked why young Japanese students clean their school at the end of each day, one Headmaster said, “Cleaning creates a calm and gentle spirit.” Love that. Sometimes there are less obvious, less tangible benefits to laboring yourself.
Without detailing the “rational” side of the ledger, suffice to say, there would be many more entries. In retrospect, I think I’ve done an extremely good job picking my parents, picking my in-laws, earning, saving, and investing. The first two highlight the role LUCK has played in my life. I wasn’t anywhere near perfect with respect to the other three, but I have made disproportionately more thoughtful decisions than thoughtless ones.
In my early twenties, when I was gifted some money from my parents for the first time, I had this deep-seated impulse to make the most of it. As an educator, I knew I’d never make bank. As a result, I educated myself about investing, and as our assets grew, we assiduously avoided lifestyle creep.
So much so, that family and friends get infinite amusement from teasing me about being too frugal for my own good. Yeah, I admit, often I am, but we still have lived posh lives, even by Western, late 21st century standards. And what my “friends” always fail to mention is that I’ve done a very good job growing our assets and taking the long view.
Which means now, we can pay for 24 hour care for The Good Wife without losing sleep. Which is a real blessing and one of the clearest indicators that my rational side has more than compensated for my irrational quirks.
For SW, here’s a lil’, lil’, on the quirk front. Yesterday, I traded in the Elonmobile for a new rig. I concede, I have a car prob, specifically, churning through them. The new rig comes in eight colors. I ended up with only my fifth or sixth fave color because it was the best deal I could find in Western Washington. By about $3k. I consciously told myself, configure the rig in whatever way will increase the odds of keeping it longer than my sad (sick) average. So I got the top trim, points for that. But deduct the same points for settling for a bottom-half color.
Also, SW, I spent way too many hours watching reviews, thinking about alternatives, and alternatives to alternatives, and then ultimately, interacting with dealerships.
Now, my “friends” are ripping me for being an ICE ICE Baby again. Mr. Fossil Fuel. A retrograde. To my many critics, take a number. Two of my fave “new car” texts today were, “He is milquetoast and has completely given up.” And “Your car matches UCLA’s performance” which was just mean.
Shifting gears, pun intended, I aspire to be more like my mom and wife, meaning way more generous. I took a baby step two weeks ago when I gave Olga a $3,000 (the money saved on the dud color?) bonus for being such an amazing help with Lynn over the last year. Because she lives check-to-check, it was like I had given her $30,000. As tough a Russian-Ukrainian woman as you’ll ever meet, at least on the surface, she broke down in tears.
So, forgive me if I cut myself some slack. Savings to soften the devastating blow of MSA. Savings to help the hijas and lighten others’ burdens. Savings to enable Olga to breath a little easier for a few months.
Just not enough savings for a bitchin’ colored rig.
I need help testing out the idea that I’m unique in that I’m keenly aware of the fact that a lot of my behavior around saving money is irrational. And yet, despite that keen awareness, the same irrational behaviors endure.
Most people, I think, are resistant to labeling any of their behavior irrational. They are convinced they’re entirely rational. Right?
I also have a strong suspicion that the outliers like me who are in touch with their irrationality are better at remedying their behavioral quirks. Correct?
Why, I wonder, does my money saving lunacy endure despite its obvious irrationality?
I don’t care that my personal finance posts never resonate, I will continue to write about it when the spirit moves me. Deal with it.
Nick Maggiulli could teach me a lot about how to write about personal finance. His first book, Just Keep Buying, sold 400,000 copies. And his brand new book, The Wealth Ladder, is getting tons of attention on several of the pods I listen to.
The inspiration for this post is a friend, let’s call him, IE. IE is planning to retire in the spring of 2027. He appears to have his personal finance shit together. Good paying job. Lots of passive income. And he’s been riding equities up.
On the downside, he’s showing signs of irrational exuberance. He seems to think the stock market, near all-time highs, will continue its run. Or maybe he’s just trolling us in the group text?
His target retirement date was carefully determined based upon his normal “spend rate” combined with lots of planned post-retirement traveling.
I’m guessing he hasn’t modeled exactly what a market worst case scenario might do to his plan. Before retiring, model exactly what a market worst case scenario might do to your total net worth. Put differently, don’t tip-toe around “sequence of returns” risk, dive head-first into it.
How to do that? Calculate your net worth, excluding your residence(s)* because as the saying goes, you have to live somewhere. Adding in any home equity only makes sense if you plan to seriously downsize upon retiring.
Next, take the total amount of money you have invested in equities and divide it by two as if there was a 50% correction. So, in IE’s case, let’s make a wild ass guess and say he has a net worth of $3m, $2m in equities, $800k in fixed income, and $200k in cash.
IE would create a second spreadsheet showing his adjusted net worth after a 50% correction in the stock market. He’s “post-market correction” net worth would be $2m or one-third less than today. Print the “Bear Market spreadsheet” and let it sink in.
Only then can can IE determine 1) whether his asset allocation makes sense and 2) whether the spring 2027 timeline still makes sense.
Because he’s a friend, I will not be charging him for this advice. Some, no doubt will say, my advice is worth what I’m charging for it.
*plural if your DDTTM and have an extensive real estate portfolio
His net worth is reported to be $400m. That should generate $20m/year in passive income. Maybe $12m after taxes? With the price of Celtics’ tickets, it’s hard to get by in Boston on $1m/month.
One question for Mr. Hyperbole. What exactly, after paying taxes, can’t you afford?
More proof, the hardest part of being honest is being honest with one’s self. If O’Leary was honest with himself he’d say he doesn’t want to pay Massachusetts’ taxes. And maybe he wants to be surrounded about other right wing fabulists.
To which I say, have at it. Watch out for wayward amphibians, don’t forget to ask for the Senior Discount, and enjoy the humidity.
Yesterday was an especially nice Saturday. The sun broke out at the end of the long, wet run with great friends who uncharacteristically didn’t complain about the elements. The YMCA hot tub was glorious. Fully recovered, I picked up some raspberry chocolate and deep chocolate chocolate gelato and other essentials, before heading home for a late breakfast and hit of caffeine.
Then I put an ass groove in the couch watching the pros flail at Pinehurst #2. “How do you like making double bogey sucker!”
Then I connected with the GalPal and got fully updated on the Coffee Klatch. Then we rolled down the hill to Well 80 where I ate an order of brussels sprouts and a whole pizza. And maybe a little of someone’s Impossible Burger. Of course I positioned myself so I could watch the Mariners win again and further extend their American League West lead without the GoodWife suspecting a thing. “Yes dear, you don’t say.” Inner voice, “Come on Julio, where’s the power?!” The American League West is one sad (sick) division, but I digress.
Then I prepped a giant bowl of popcorn and watched episode 3 of the second season of Netflix’s Tour de France documentary which taught me sprinters are not likable.
But of all of those highlights, one towered above the others. It was this discovery.
Are you shitting me? Kirkland Rolled Oats (KRO)?! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Good riddance Quaker Oats, oh ye of the .62 cents per ounce. These babies are .50 cents per ounce! For the numerically challenged, that’s .12 cents an ounce cheaper. I eat 8 ounces of oats about 6x/week. The Kirkland Rolled Oats nutrition info says 1/2 a cup is 40g. So when we convert my 80g into ounces we get 2.8. Then we multiply that by our savings of .12 and get a grand total of 33.6 cents saved. Every damn morning. Costco for the win! And Ron!
In a few days, after I’ve finished all the remaining Quaker Oats, I will launch Operation KRO which consists of three phases. Phase one, invest my KRO savings in NVDA. Phase two, in a year or so, sell all my NVDA. Phase three, buy this.
‘member when I said one huge advantage of the new crib is the time I’ll save maintaining the much smaller yard?
The truth of the matter is, I kinda like yard work because the results are immediately visible, the exact opposite of my efforts to educate the next gen. Or my efforts to contribute to the common good more generally.
Right now, I’m bouncing back and forth between the old, still unsold house, and the new one. Yes, as a matter of fact, it does take real muscles to lift the mower in the back of the hatchback.
Yesterday, post shitty weather, I hit the Nature Park hard. There were an infinite number of brown pine seeds, leaves, branches, weeds, overgrown shrubs, but they were no match for me. First, blow. Then recharge batt. Then, pick up branches, pick largest weeds, toss pine cones over the outfield wall. Second, trim bushes front and back. Third, take recharged batt and blow a second time, moving bush clippings, leaves, and pine cone seeds into yard. Fourth, suck up said detritus while mowing with bag (verus the usual mulch). Fifth, pick up small branches that mower missed. Sixth, blow again because you can never blow enough.
It looked like like a million dollars. Or more.
A friend in North Carolina referred to “Mow, blow, and go” guys with derision. Screw that. It’s all about mowing, blowing, and going as fast as possible. Get the heart rate up and don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the pretty good.
Maybe when I close the classroom door for the last time, I’ll start a lawn business. Running between two houses is fun, but I imagine running between 10 would be 5x as fun. I’m workshopping names, let me know what you think. I saw a sign/advert yesterday while cycling for Lawn Boys and immediately thought of “Lawn Boy”,” a “take that” to that evil woman at Burgerville. Or maybe,”Mow, Blow, and Go”? Catchphrase, “Let me mow, blow, and go for you.”
The best part of this plan is I’ll have to buy a pickup truck. Well, that and what the GalPal is going to do when she sees my sweaty self get out of the truck after a long day of mowing, blowing, and going. Hubba hubba.
“The nearly 150-year-old University of the Arts in Philadelphia will close its doors June 7. Many of its 1,149 students and about 700 faculty and staff members got the news from an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Friday or on social media, only later getting official word from the school.” The New York Times.
Less than two students per faculty/staff member. How did UAP last as long as it did?
Long after I’m gone, when historians gather to rank PressingPause’s Top Ten Most Knuckleheaded posts, a very recent one will, in all likelihood*, rise to the top.
I said Melinda Gates was so done with Bill that she was also cutting bait with the male gender.
Every year this time of year, Mount Bachelor calls, and some crazed cycling friends and I answer. I will not run or swim this week, just turn the pedals. Over and over. Big ups to the daughters for looking after their momsie.
When I travel, I mentally prep by imagining all the bad things happening, canceled flight, middle seat, etc. In this road trip case, construction delays, accidents, and who knows what else.
And therein lies the problem, my imagination wasn’t up to anticipating today’s crisis. There I was pulling into Burgerville for an early lunch before juicing up the electric whip in Sandy. Because I always try to eat healthy during Big Weeks, I said to the speaker, “I’ll have a 16 ounce strawberry shake.” Don’t judge me, it’s fruit, right?!
“$5.99 at the second window.” “Okay, thanks.”
Then, right as I began to finally empty my bulging coin purse, it happened. The crisis I did not anticipate.
“Oh. Senior discount. $5.39.”
Nevermind the carbon fiber bike in the back of the $40k car, Oregon thinks I deserve an “old person” rebate of 60 cents. Hey Oregon, how about discounting Millennial milkshakes since most of them, unlike me weren’t born at the right time to the right two parent family.
Senior discounts don’t make any sense for the half of seniors doing well. But this story isn’t about flawed economic and tax policies. It’s about my ego and how a woman at Burgerville shattered it. It may take all week to recover.
Pressing Pause 