Financial Samurai

I’ve been recently thinking about incorporating a business and wondered what steps I should take to make it happen.  Conveniently, Greg McFarlane from Control Your Cash wrote a terrific guest post on being an entrepreneur and advice on what type of business classification one should choose.

At the end of the post, I’d love to hear your thoughts on which type of incorporation is best and how much you spent registering your business and so forth.  Hope this post helps those who plan on pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams!  Cheers, Sam

If you’re about to go out on your own and create a business, congratulations. Once you’re here, on the side of the entrepreneurs and others who make the economic engine run, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start sooner. Salaried employment is great for some people, less so for others.

But if you’re going to do it, do it right. There’s more to creating a business than buying a license (you do know you have to buy a license, right?) and creating a website.

Most general contractors, plumbers, electricians, gardeners and graphic designers who set up shop don’t even think about what legal form their new business is going to take. (That’s legal “form” as in “organization or arrangement.” We’re not talking about a piece of paper you have to fill out, at least not directly.)

Making the wrong decision about legal form can cost you serious money even before the first sale. While you might have learned the terms “sole proprietorship” and “corporation” in high school, back when they meant nothing to you, now would be a good time to determine what they do mean and how organizing your business under one or the other can hurt or hinder you.

Don’t Go The Default Route Read more…

A 6-6 Washington team beat Nebraska 19-7 in the Holiday Bowl.  Stanford demolishes ACC Champion Virginia Tech 40-12 in the 2011 Orange Bowl and now we have Oregon playing Auburn in the BCS National Championship game.  Clearly, the PAC 10 is the most dominant athletic/football conference in the country.  In 2010, Stanford also pounded Notre Dame 37 to 14 and UCLA crushed Texas 34 to 12.  Statistics don’t lie, no matter how biased you are living in middle America or on the East Coast.

If you compare academic match ups, the Pac 10 wins as well.  Not only are Stanford, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon academically superior to Notre Dame, Virginia Tech,  Texas, and Auburn based on polls by every single college ranking system available, they also have superior athletic programs to boot.  Furthermore, the campuses of Stanford, UCLA and Oregon are like country clubs, with phenomenal facilities and fantastic weather all year around.

Notre Dame, Texas, Auburn and Virginia Tech are fine schools in their own right.  However, if you compare the four against their Pac 10 match ups, there simply is no comparison.  Hence, why is it that athletic recruits would ever go to a school other than one in the PAC 10 if they had a choice?  Let’s find out.

DISCOVERING WHY THEY DON’T GO TO THE BEST Read more…

Good day brilliant minds!  I thought it would be helpful to do a recap of the conclusions from this past week’s posts given we had over 200 comments.  We talked about three important subjects: Happiness, Taxes, and Net Worth.

The purpose of these articles is to get people thinking about issues so we can be more open minded.  If anybody has ever participated in the case study method of learning in graduate school or elsewhere, you’ll know that there isn’t a right answer so much as a right direction.  It’s so easy to get caught up in your belief that your way is the right way.  That’s a dangerous, dangerous path to take!

The Ideal Income For Maximum Happiness Read more…

The Wall Street Journal came out with another boring article talking about how the average US net worth per person was down some 1.3% this quarter.  Whoopdeedoo.  What I found surprising was not so much the decline in net worth, but the actual average net worth per person in America is $182,000!  Regulars here know that I’ve been pretty positive about the economy for a while, and this stat just makes me even more so.

Originally, I had my doubts about the $182,000 figure.  Could it be that everybody in America can all buy new Porsche 911 Turbos with plenty of money left over if they wanted to?  After some thought, I tweeted out the story to see what the community would say, and the responses astounded me!

NOBODY BELIEVES IN REALITY Read more…

Every winter and spring, millions of homeowners across America pay their property taxes.  In California, homeowners have to fork over roughly 1.2% of the assessed value every year to the local government.  Put it another way,  in just 83 years, a homeowner will have paid 100% the value of his or her home in taxes!  How sick is that?

It is the American way for all citizens to pay their taxes, except for the 47% people who don’t.  So why is it that homeowners, many of whom initially struggle to pay their mortgages, have to pay extra taxes while renters don’t?  Let’s explore and discuss, shall we?

WRONGLY PERCEIVED CLASS DIFFERENTIAL Read more…

It hit me the other day that maybe the government is benevolent and not a bunch of self serving, two-faced, power hungry crooks.  For the longest time, I thought the government was sexist because they don’t provide an equal amount of deductions or leeway once a couple gets married.

If I make $250,000 and my wife makes $250,000, why is the government penalizing couples making more than $250,000?  $250,000 plus $250,000 is $500,000 in household income numb nuts!  Do you expect one spouse to make nothing or a fraction of the other spouse’s income once they get together?  That’s kinda silly and totally presumptuous you sexist pigs.

And another thing.  What about if one spouse has a $1 million mortgage and the other spouse has a $1million mortgage.  $1 million + $1 million is $2 million, so why is the mortgage interest deduction on income capped at $1 million for couples?  Isn’t it logical to conclude that two people living in $1 million mortgaged houses might seek to live in an even more expensive house when they marry?  Heck, the couple might even want kids too which warrants a bigger house.  Guess not.

DON’T LISTEN TO POLAR ENDS Read more…

It’s been a hectic second week back after labor day and I’m so encouraged by what I’m seeing in the economy.  It’s as if the world decided to suddenly get back to work after a long dormant summer.

The one tip I want to leave you guys with is that no matter how rich your client, your boss, or your prospect is, they cannot resist free.  It doesn’t matter whether you take them out to lunch, buy them a drink, take them to a baseball game, or send them a book.  He or she can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and that small $20 gesture will do the world for you!

You may think it’s odd that you are giving something to someone who can afford anything, but you are mistaken.  Those who are richer than you and can afford anything are generally the ones who are always giving.  Hence, as soon as you give them something, you’ll stir up their appreciation that they never knew they had.

In the spirit of free, here are some of the posts out there which do just that.

Yakezie Giveaways Galore! Read more…

To all the ladies in the house, you’re in for a real treat!  To all the fellas thinking about proposing, maybe not!  It all depends on how materialistic you are in the first place.  Even if you are already married ladies, point your hubby to this article and you might just get a ring upgrade!

So what’s the new rule for engagement ring buying you ask?  Well before we get into the most obvious new engagement buying rule all of society should follow, let’s discuss some of the current ridiculous rules that must be thrown out the window!

CURRENT ENGAGEMENT RING BUYING RULES Read more…