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Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

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How To Befriend Politicians So You Can Do What You Want

Updated: 10/01/2021 by Financial Samurai 11 Comments

The more money you have, the more you can do what you want. The more power you have, the more you can do what you want as well. Perhaps ideally, you have so much money and power that you’re able to consistently be above the law.

Here at Financial Samurai, we’re able to help readers build wealth over the long term. Sometimes we get lucky by calling bottoms in the short term. But what Financial Samurai isn’t capable of doing is directly giving you power. Then again, knowledge is power.

With all the double standards that have involved politicians since the beginning of time, I’ve got a solution for all of us to become more free. Befriend more politicians.

After all, if you can’t beat politicians, you might as well join them.



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How Rich Do You Have To Be To Attend The Met Gala?

Updated: 10/01/2021 by Financial Samurai 32 Comments

The Met Gala is an annual fundraiser for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute of New York City. If you want to attend, a ticket costs $35,000 and a table costs between $200,000 – $300,000. However, even if you have the money, you might not be able to go.

Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue and Gala chair since 1995, controls a tight guest list of around 600 people. These people often include celebrities, artists, politicians, and obviously very rich people.

Given tickets cost $35,000 and up, I thought it’d be fun to calculate the minimum amount of rich you need to be to attend.



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Invest Like The Richest Members Of Congress To Make Big Returns

Updated: 03/29/2022 by Financial Samurai 33 Comments

One of the great things about being a member of Congress is having power. The more power you have, the more influence you have. And the more influence you have, the more money you can make.

Most senators, representatives, and delegates make a salary of $174,000 per year. However, the speaker of the House makes $223,500 per year. And the president pro tempore of the Senate, majority leaders, and minority leaders in the House and Senate make $193,400 per year.

These are healthy salaries that come with fantastic benefits. But in no way do these types of salaries create mega-millionaires out of members of Congress during their time in office. Instead, it’s their outside investments that make them way richer than the average American.



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How To Convince People You Are Middle Class When You’re Actually Rich

Updated: 01/10/2022 by Financial Samurai 94 Comments

As the wealth gap continues to widen, it may be beneficial to learn how to convince people you are middle class when you’re actually rich. Otherwise, you might become target enemy number one when the revolution comes!

To get things out of the way, I feel rich. Not only do I feel rich, but I also have enough passive income to be time rich. Being time rich is my favorite form of wealth.

After chronicling my journey to financial independence since 2009, there’s really nowhere for me to hide. Hopefully, people will give me some credit for all the years of hustle since graduating from college in 1999.

To avoid the guillotine, my hope is that consistently writing free content 3X a week to help everyone achieve financial independence will be appreciated. After all, I’ve got nothing to sell, except for a severance negotiation book, which many readers have said gave them the courage to change their lives for the better.

Even when many large media sites put up a paywall during a global pandemic, Financial Samurai stayed free. My goal has always been, no matter your level of wealth, to provide access to anybody looking to improve their personal finances.

Besides, as a minority, there should be more leniency as well when the uprising comes. It’s cool to be a minority nowadays. That is, unless Asians are considered not enough of a minority worth fighting for. In which case, please have mercy!



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The Four Different Ways To Spend Money By Milton Friedman

Updated: 08/09/2021 by Financial Samurai 56 Comments

Back in 2010, I first addressed the four different ways to spend money by Milton Friedman because I was frustrated by how much I was paying in taxes. I was regularly working ~70-hour weeks and faced an ever-higher marginal income tax rate. I was burning out and needed a change.

Who knew that two years later I would negotiate a severance and permanently leave the well-paying finance world behind.

In 2021+, I’m much happier because I no longer have to work or work nearly as much, don’t make as much, and don’t pay as much in taxes. I was able to successfully quit my maximum money potential to live free!

With likely higher taxes and higher spending on the horizon with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in power, it’s worth revisiting the four different ways to spend money by Nobel prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman.



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I’ve Seen The Future And It Looks So Bright

Updated: 08/08/2021 by Financial Samurai 72 Comments

I've Seen The Future And It Looks So Bright
Copenhagen Sunrise

Part of creating great wealth and happiness is anticipating the future, understanding the future, betting on the future, and adapting to the future. Well I’ve seen the future and it looks so bright.

With President Joe Biden in power until 2024 at least, the government will be getting bigger. Taxes will be going up and there will be a larger social safety net. Thanks to trillions of dollars of stimulus and an accommodative Fed, the best time to retire may be under a Democratic President! Why keep grinding so hard if your taxes are going to go up? Not me. No sir.

The Future Of America Looks Like Europe

America will become more like Europe. And that’s not a bad thing given the top 5 happiest countries in the world all hail from Europe.

We just need to be careful not to be Europe in its existing form where too much debt torpedoes our entire economic livelihood. But even if we go overboard, there will always be the Federal Reserves of our greatest nations to help us out. As the world police, they owe us!

Given America is becoming more like Europe, I decided to go to Europe and see for myself what our future might be like. You thought I was just going on a 2.5 week vacation to inject $10,000 into the Eurozone to help save the world didn’t you?

Au contraire mon frere. My main purpose was to conduct some front lines investigative reporting to provide readers with unique, real-time insight into how to live and prosper over the next four years!

The funny thing about seeing the future is that I originally wrote this post in 2012 and talked about President Obama. Now that we’re in 2021, it seems like all my predictions hav come true. And, we’ve gotten rich as a result!



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A Self-Publishing Book Scam That Took Down A Greedy Politician

Updated: 03/17/2021 by Financial Samurai 8 Comments

Many of us are now looking for viable ways to make money from home. One way is by self-publishing a book. During my research I came across a fascinating self-publishing book scam every crooked politician would be proud of.

I’m assuming that the more dire the economy gets the more scams there will be. The same thing goes with the more free stimulus money that gets pumped into the economy. When desperation increases, it’s just human nature to do shady things.

However, right before the pandemic began, there was this fascinating self-publishing book scam I came across. On February 27, 2020, ex-Baltimore Mayor Pugh was sentenced to three years in federal prison and three years of probation for a fraud scheme involving a children’s book series.

Trouble for Pugh began when The Baltimore Sun reported the University of Maryland Medical System bought 100,000 copies of Pugh’s book, Healthy Holly for $500,000.

100,000 is quite a lot of copies for a children’s book. The University of Maryland Medical System would need to have 1,000,000 young students to potentially justify a 100,000 buy.

If I sold 100,000 copies of How to Engineer Your Layoff in one tranche, I’d use some of the $9.7 million in gross profits to charter a Gulfstream 700 to Hawaii to see my family. We’d rent a beachfront mansion and live the good life until an effective vaccine ever becomes available.

OK, enough fantasizing for now. Let’s go back to the self-publishing book scam.



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Survival Of The Richest: Why Some Support Indefinite Lockdowns

Updated: 01/14/2021 by Financial Samurai 165 Comments

One of the main reasons why I’ve turned more cautious on stocks is due to a growing number of extended lockdowns around the country.

However, investing is all about beating expectations. I had been secretly hoping most of the country would reopen by June 15, after roughly three months of staying at home. Unfortunately, in 2021, there are still country-wide shelter-in-place orders!

The economic destruction so far has been immense. Keeping the economy closed for much longer than three months feels like an extreme overreach by our politicians.

We’ve slowly gone from locking down in order to flatten the curve to locking down indefinitely until there is a vaccine for COVID-19. What happened to locking down until there is enough hospital bed and ventilator capacity? The healthcare system is no longer overwhelmed. Tens of millions of lives are being ruined.

If Congress successfully passes another massive stimulus package with enhanced unemployment benefits extending through the end of the year, we know that lockdowns around the country will be extended. Be mentally prepared for what’s to come.

In an effort to provide different perspectives, I reached out to folks who support indefinite lockdowns to fight the coronavirus. Their stories will also help explain why the stock market has held up so well, in spite of so much economic disaster we hear in the news on a daily basis.

If you’ve been on the fence to support keeping the economy shut for longer than three months, perhaps these stories will persuade you to help minimize the risk to our essential workers. Or, maybe these stories will have an opposite effect and piss you off. Perhaps we’ll find a middle ground.



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Lessons From The Rich Who Took Advantage Of Free Government Money

Updated: 01/17/2021 by Financial Samurai 63 Comments

If you want to get rich, you might as well learn from the rich. Here are lessons from the rich who took advantage of free government money. In 2020, there was over $3 trillion in government stimulus money. In 2021, there will be at least another $1.9 trillion in stimulus “rescue money.”

Thanks to the additional $600/week in enhanced unemployment benefits, there are now some people who are making more in unemployment benefits than they did while they were working. Although the enhanced benefits are only temporary, this is still great news! Free government money is hard to turn down.

The never-ending pressure in America to hustle has taken its toll. Our bodies are breaking down, mental illnesses are ubiquitous, and our children are being neglected all by the desire to make money.

As someone who stepped off the treadmill in 2012, although I’m sad millions have lost their jobs, I’m also excited that millions will get to experience what it’s like to finally be able to stand still in adulthood. May we all experience a period of meditative calmness until the worst of the coronavirus is behind us.

With trillions of dollars of government assistance going to individuals and companies, there will inevitably be some who will take advantage of the system. So long as they are doing so legally, like millionaires receiving health care subsidies or millionaires receiving stimulus checks, people don’t seem to mind. There’s so much money to go around.

But when mega-millionaires and fake small businesses owned by very wealthy individuals take advantage of government assistance despite knowing the money was not really meant for them, that’s where I see many seem to draw the line. Let’s have a look at what’s going on.



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How Millionaires Will Spend Their Coronavirus Stimulus Checks

Updated: 01/13/2021 by Financial Samurai 138 Comments

If you want another reason why having a high net worth is better than having a high income, all you’ve got to do is look at who gets stimulus checks from the new CARES Act. That’s right. There are millionaires getting coronavirus stimulus checks.

If your latest tax return shows an adjusted gross income of under $75,000 for single filers or $150,000 for joint filers, you get a $1,200 or $2,400 stimulus check. With each child, you get an additional $500. Once you make over $98,000 as an individual without children, and $198,000 as a couple without children, you no longer get any benefits.

To make between $75,000 – $150,000 a year in investment income at a 4% rate of return requires having a portfolio of $1,875,000 – $3,750,000. At a 3% rate of return or withdrawal rate requires having a portfolio of $2,500,000 – $5,000,000. Therefore, plenty of millionaires who are retired or semi-retired will be eligible for stimulus checks.

Yes, many of these people are the same millionaires who are also getting healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Even though the ACA is supposed to help make healthcare affordable to the middle class and poorest of Americans, I guess you can’t blame these millionaires for legitimately taking advantage of the system.

Based on all these benefits offered by the government, if you want to be a millionaire who lives the best lifestyle while also getting continuous maximum government benefits, then strive to have a net worth between $2,000,000 – $5,000,000.

Out of curiosity, I asked several millionaire stimulus check receivers about what they plan to do once the free money arrives. Here are their profiles and what they had to say.



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