Financial Samurai

On the way home from dropping my friend off at the airport, I took a 10 minute detour to Lucky Chances Casino.  Lucky Chances Casino is located in the foggy city of Colma in South San Francisco.  If you love to play poker, blackjack, and paigow, this place is for you.

I go about once a quarter on average to play $1-2 no-limit poker.  I used to be hooked on the game three years ago, but after one too many bad beats on the river, and the launch of Financial Samurai, I no longer crave playing.  In fact, before this visit, I hadn’t been in over 18 months.

The one thing that always piqued my curiosity was how every time I went, no matter what time during the day, I would always see the same 10-15 people there!  At first, I thought that perhaps they were all gambling addicts who just couldn’t stay away.  Sometimes I’d go in the morning.  Other times I’d go at 1:30pm like this time, and other times I’d head over at midnight and they’d always be there!  What gives?!

MONEY FLOWS FREELY Read more…

If you want to know what’s wrong with people’s personal finances, just observe those who are willing to borrow money in order to borrow more money!  One example is using a credit card you can’t pay off in full each month, for a downpayment on a car.  Since the limit for credit card use for buying at the car dealership is usually $3,000, and given most downpayments on vehicles range from $0 to $3,000 to buy or lease, using the credit card is a tantalizing proposition.

Forget the fact that these car buyers don’t make 10X the value of the car in annual salary.  They can’t even pay cash for the car or come up with even 10% of the value of the car as a downpayment!  Look, I know more than anyone how alluring it is to buy a nice car.  I used to be a car addict with 7 different cars in as many years.  It’s just irresponsibile of consumers to use their credit card for a downpayment when they don’t have a healthy savings account balance to match the entire value of the car before purchase.

BANK OF MOM AND DAD FOR REAL ESTATE Read more…

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), your San Bruno gas pipeline blast killed my friend’s wife of over 20 years and his daughter in 2010.  Thousands of people depend on you for energy to heat their homes and cook their food.  How can you let this negligence happen?  Is this a case of profits before safety?  What the hell.

We have been silently grieving for the past two years, and we were healing until I get a notification from my refinance bank that you guys screwed me on my credit score due to a $7 late payment from 2009 which was never sent to my correct address.

The $7 late payment, as later explained to me was due to a “landlord service continuation fee” where I take over all PG&E charges between the time my tenants vacate the property and when a new tenant arrives.  News to me guys.

PG&E TOO LAZY TO DO THE RIGHT THING Read more…

My friend is leaving his job of the past five years to work on his own start-up.  When he got an e-mail solicitation from his mortgage officer about whether she could come by his office with a set of boxed lunches for him and his colleagues, he told her “no thank you” because he was leaving.  He purposefully kept his plans vague and hoped she’d just leave him alone as he attends to his new life.

Instead, she came back with the following response,

“I am sorry to hear that? When you land at another organization, please let me know.  Also, let me know if I can help through the transition. Since you are still on payroll, I always suggest putting a Line of Credit in place. And if you need a brokerage account to rollover your 401K, we can certainly assist.”

Pretty thoughtful right?  Or is it?  My friend responded,

“Thanks.  It’s actually voluntary.  Doing my own thing.  I’ve got enough saved up for the next 8 years, so I don’t think I need a HELOC, unless the rates are super low.  Even then, I don’t need it because I have the cash.”

Seems like a nice way of saying he’s fine and does not need the banker’s help.  Instead, the banker comes back and says,

“I always suggest putting a line in place even if you have cash on hand. Especially since you are still on payroll as it makes the process much easier. I recommend investing your liquid savings in higher yields within your comfort zone and instead put a home equity line in place for say $100,000 to act as your emergency line.  If you need it it is there for you, if you don’t great it does not cost you anything.”

At this point, my friend is starting to get annoyed.  He’s been polite about saying “no thank you” twice now, and yet the banker keeps on pushing.  She recommends my friend use his 8 years of excess liquidity to invest in riskier assets, so he can borrow money from the bank via his home to keep liquid!?!  This seems to make no sense.

“Sure, give me a risk free 4% yielding security and I’ll take out as big a Line of Credit as you want!”

No response from the banker yet, and it’s been a week………

Readers, do you think it’s wise for someone to take out a home equity line of credit when he is leaving his steady paying job, and already has 8 years worth of living expenses saved up?  Is the banker being thoughtful or just trying to make a commission off of my friend?  

Regards,

Sam

Photo: Turkish Delight & Backlava in Istanbul.  Someone ate more than half.  SD.

I’ve decided to start a new series entitled, “Credit Card Enlightenment” revealing a portion of what I spend on a monthly basis from my personal credit card and any enlightenment that is found through the analysis.  This monthly series will be a good way to track expenses and keep things from getting out of control as peripheral income grows.  In other words, tracking credit card expenses is one way to battle lifestyle inflation.

The use of credit cards is critical in the way I spend.  I buy items with confidence knowing that I have 30 days interest free to pay it off.  I also like how credit cards provide reward programs and buyer protection in case of product dissatisfaction and fraud.  Finally, I do not like carrying much more than $80 in my wallet.  Credit cards are easily replaced if my wallet is lost or stolen, whereas cash is usually gone forever.

Besides my mortgage, my credit card is my largest monthly expense.  I own three cards: a corporate card for work, a corporate card for my online business, and a personal card.  The discretional spending really comes from my personal credit card, hence this card is what I will focus on in this post.  I try and put everything other than business expenses on my personal credit card because the credit card tracks all my expenses, provides free financing, and produces rewards points.

PERSONAL CREDIT CARD EXPENSES FOR NOVEMBER, 2011 Read more…

Alas, after 8 weeks my primary residence mortgage refinance is now done!  It took so long that I actually forgot I was refinancing my mortgage until the bank called to ask when I could meet the notary to sign all the documents.

The process was pretty painless since I refinanced with the same bank.  I sent them the general paper work such as my W2, bank asset statements,  and pay stubs.  They did one appraisal which took all of 20 minutes and all I had to do was wait four more weeks to get it done!  The refinance this year was much easier than the refinance in 2010, boding well for the thousands of others out there who are also looking to refinance their mortgages.

I learned some new things beyond the basics which you might find useful in your mortgage refinancing or initial mortgage application process.

MORTGAGE REFINANCE TIPS TO THINK ABOUT Read more…

Debt and bankruptcy are two words most people frown upon.  After all, debt is usually the cause of bankruptcy followed by an excuse of a lack of income.  I look at debt as a key motivator.  Debt is something that has driven me to work harder.  Without debt, I would ironically feel a little empty making money because it doesn’t take much to make me happy.  Before buying rental properties 10 years ago, I sometimes questioned the point of working one’s entire life away.  It felt pointless logging onto a computer screen just to see your savings go up.

When you are single, you really don’t need that much money to survive.  Even in big cities like San Francisco, Manhattan, London, and Tokyo, $45,000 is enough to live a happy life as a single person.  There’s only so many fancy meals you can eat a year before you start getting sick of eating out.  Your Macbook and gigantic big screen LED TV should last you at least 4 years.  Meanwhile, the ladies love guys with bus passes since it shows that we are enviro-friendly and keep it real! A black Porsche 911 Turbo is so 2007.

So how does one go from a happy life to utter financial ruin?  Getting obnoxiously way over our heads in debt, that’s what.

BE CAREFUL WITH DEBT, IT MAY GET YOU DRUNK Read more…