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Fight Your Property Taxes And Don’t Let The Government Screw You!

Published: 02/09/2020 | Updated: 09/09/2020 by Financial Samurai 16 Comments

fight property taxes

I love being a property owner. But I don’t love paying property taxes. Alas, they’re unavoidable. However, you should always fight your property taxes if the government over inflates your assessed value. This happened to me and I wasn’t about to let the government screw me over.

Last year, I scored a victory against tyranny when I successfully fought sans lawyer to get the city to lower my assessed property value by 12%. If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you know I’m persistent as hell and will fight to the end for what I believe in. 

My insurance company tried to cheat me by saying my house was 50% larger than reality so they could charge 50% higher home insurance premiums. Nuh uh tricky dick! I was able to increase my coverage by some 30% and in the end only pay 13% more from the original cost.

Time To Fight Your Property Taxes



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Productive Things To Do If You’ve Been Furloughed With Back Pay

Published: 01/15/2019 | Updated: 05/31/2019 by Financial Samurai 37 Comments

One of the greatest benefits of full-time work is getting paid whether you work or not. I miss that.

How awesome is it to paid when there is a snow day? How good does it feel when you’re out sick or injured for a week and the paycheck continues to roll in? When you’re sipping Mai Tais on the beach thanks to your four weeks of paid time off plus national holidays, life is pretty good!

Now imagine if you got furloughed for a month or more during the holiday or busy season. What a wonderful opportunity to spend time with the people that matter the most to you.

Although you miss the bi-weekly paychecks, you’ll eventually get paid once the government reopens for business. Almost all government workers got paid during the previous government shutdown. Expect the situation to be no different during the 2019 shutdown.

Now compare this work and pay situation with that of an entrepreneur or freelancer. If the entrepreneur doesn’t work, and if his or her employees don’t work, the entrepreneur does not get paid. Entrepreneurs don’t have a safety net as their full-time colleagues do. And therefore entrepreneurs must always have contingency plans.

In 2018, I got something worse than a furlough. I freelanced the entire month of October but didn’t get paid because the company I partnered with decided not to pay their contractors. But not to worry, the company paid all its employees for the work they did in October and provided 1-2 weeks of severance pay.

Freelancers like myself, however, got screwed.

So you see, if you are furloughed with back pay without having to work, life could always be worse. Therefore, it’s always good to focus on the positives and take every opportunity to do good.

In my case, I took my October robbery and decided to aggressively diversify my clientele. Further, I now insist on more upfront payment just in case. And don’t worry about me. I have plans to make them pay me what they owe.

Nobody swindles a Financial Samurai and gets away with it.



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I’ve Seen The Future And It Looks So Bright

Published: 09/06/2018 | Updated: 11/20/2020 by Financial Samurai 72 Comments

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.

With President Obama in power until 2016, he can be more aggressive with his policy initiatives given he no longer has to compete for another term. If Obama gets his way, taxes will go up for higher income citizens, government spending will go up to help care for our most impoverished, debt will increase, and more people will be saved from the perils of capitalism.

In other words, America will become more like 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!

Disclosure: Financial Samurai has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Samurai and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.



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A Way To Level The Playing Field: Create A Wealth Identification System

Published: 05/23/2017 | Updated: 04/15/2019 by Financial Samurai 81 Comments

dog-tag-hidden-war

Wealth Identification Program

A long time ago, one of my tenants who drove a BMW SUV told me, “I need an extra day to pay rent in order to withdraw money from my trust fund. Can you wait?”

I thought to myself, you knew today was move-in day when rent would be due, couldn’t you have planned ahead? This is not how a new tenant / landlord relationship should start.

“OK, please send in your portion of the rent the following day,” I responded, trying to hide my annoyance. This was the first time anybody ever admitted to having a trust fund. Why was I taking the credit risk when his roommates could have covered for him? Did he really not have an extra couple thousand dollars in his bank to honor our agreement given he drives a $50,000+ car? Was he lying on the rental application when he said he has $20,000 – $30,000 in liquid savings? What the F is going on?

The next morning, his father’s assistant e-mailed me asking how she could deliver the rent for my tenant: Fed Ex or wire? Wow, talk about having everything done for you. At least I got paid by the Bank of Mom & Dad.

This little episode reminded me the world is never going to be fair. There will be people who work their asses off, say all the right things, and still won’t get ahead because they don’t have the finances or connections like the rich.

The rental situation for my place was highly competitive. Had I known my tardy tenant had a trust fund, perhaps I would have rented out the place to someone else who wanted the place just as much, but whose financials were all her own. In the past, I’ve rented an apartment out for way below market because the tenant was a middle school teacher. They get paid way too little for what they do.

As a way to help make the world more equal, I’d like to introduce The Trust Fund And Inheritance Identification Program.

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Tuition Hike For The Poor Is Like A Tax Hike For The Rich

Published: 11/23/2016 | Updated: 12/23/2019 by Financial Samurai 57 Comments

Living Paycheck To Paycheck On $500,000 A YearIn a stunning move to shore up a $535 million budget gap, the UC Regents in 2009 voted to raise student undergraduate tuition by 32 percent (to $10,302/yr)!  Nothing like a little 16X increase over the rate of inflation to get blood boiling.  And now in 2011, the UC Regents voted to raise tuition by another 18% over 2010 to a total of $13,500 a year.  Talk about runaway inflation as just two years ago that figure was sitting at $8,000.

It’s really sad that during a difficult economic climate, the University of California Regents can conceivably raise tuition by such a magnitude.  Part of the reason why many of these fine students attend the UC system is because of cost.  Students from UC Berkeley or UCLA, for example, can easily get into many of the best private schools in America.  But for many, $40,000 a year in tuition is just too hefty a burden to carry.

The reality remains that due to careless spending by the state, budget cuts and a competitive market place for attracting top professors, tuition increases are inevitable.  The California state government has messed things up for so long that it’s now time for students, who have no money of their own to pay the price.  As a result, there is a fantastic silver lining to this tuition hike: the grooming of future conservative leaders of America and more empathy towards hard working, tax paying Americans.

TUITION HIKE FOR THE POOR IS LIKE A TAX HIKE FOR THE RICH

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Donald Trump Wins! Moving To Canada Is Out Of The Question

Published: 11/09/2016 | Updated: 11/10/2018 by Financial Samurai 108 Comments

Wow! Donald Trump will be the 45th President of The United States. The polls were wrong. The political pundits were wrong. And I was wrong as well. We’re now going to experience a hammering in all stock markets around the world due to policy uncertainty. Hopefully the sell-off is very temporary like Brexit’s. The only thing I was right about was aggressively saving cash all year and nibbling on some bonds. I’ve been waiting to build a large bond portfolio for a while and am surprised the 10-year yield is surging to ~2%.

If you stayed up late enough to listen to Donald’s victory speech, you should come away feeling better that everything will be OK if you are a Hillary supporter. Donald spoke with a lot of humility. He talked about bringing the nation back together, working with every country, and helping every citizen. In a word, he sounded presidential. Have a listen if you haven’t already.

With Republicans winning the Executive Office, Senate, and House, we should expect lower income tax rates and the potential repeal of Obamacare, which is truly costing middle class Americans much more than expected. I’ll write more about this later. Donald said he’ll raise tariffs, get tough on immigration, and decrease oil and gas regulations, among many other things. We shall see.

As financial freedom seekers, we should accept the outcome and look at the bright side of change. Out with the status quo and in with the new. Let’s see what a businessman can do versus a career politician.

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How Does Your Financial Life Change After The Presidential Election?

Published: 11/07/2016 | Updated: 11/10/2018 by Financial Samurai 81 Comments

Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump

Credit: DonkeyHotey/flickr

Some people have told me they plan to retire abroad if Donald wins. Others have said they’ll just stop working so much if Hillary gets elected. Will you be doing anything differently if Hillary or Donald gets elected now that Donald is going to be the POTUS for the next four years? I’m curious to know whether your life changes at all after the presidential election.

My post college work career started during Bill Clinton’s second term and ended during Barrack Obama’s first term. Irrespective of who was president, I was focused on aggressively saving and investing as much as possible in order to escape the rat race early.

I didn’t obsess about whether our president would do the right thing for the people because I believe everything is rational long term. Politicians crave power; therefore in order to stay in power, they must do right by the majority. I just focused on what I could control. You should too. 

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Investment And Economic Outlook Post President Obama Victory

Published: 11/06/2016 | Updated: 07/18/2019 by Financial Samurai 45 Comments

Now that President Obama has won, I’d like for us to have a mature discussion on the investment and economic outlook for the next four years. Let’s also touch upon how we should act in public now that big government is here to stay.

In order to create wealth, we must make reasonable assumptions about the future and invest accordingly. It’s important to remove our biases from the equation given we often see what we want to see and ignore everything else. We shouldn’t harp on the fact that over $2 billion dollars of campaign spending went into this election, which could have gone to help people in need.

If you are a raging right wing Republican, sorry, but your guy lost. Get over it. I got over the fact I stopped growing in the 9th grade. Your hope for smaller government, less taxes, less red tape, less welfare, less marriage equality, and a supposed balanced budget isn’t likely going to happen!

Remember to keep an open mind because creating wealth is the name of the game. Don’t let your stubbornness blind you. Let us begin.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

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Should We Still Be Spending Money And Having Fun While Deep In Consumer Debt?

Published: 08/21/2016 | Updated: 09/18/2018 by Financial Samurai 49 Comments

During the depths of the financial crisis, one of the proposals I sent to the Obama administration was to institute spending curbs based on high school or college grade point averages. It didn’t matter whether you went to Community College or UC Berkeley since everybody’s circumstances are different. What matters is how well you did in school to justify want based spending as opposed to need based spending.

For example, if you were a D+ student (sub 2.0 GPA out of 4.0) you are only allowed to buy generic clothing and ride public transportation to work for the rest of your life. No car or lollipops for you. If you were a B student, then suddenly that new $20,000 Honda Civic is available to you after the dealer scans your ID to check the government GPA database. If you are an A student, then you are free to buy whatever you want because logic dictates that if you are smart enough to study hard in school then you are smart enough to practice good financial habits.

I was shocked Obama never acknowledged my letter because my proposal would only help the government expand their authority (think PRISM) over the people of this great nation. We voted for Big Government and I wanted to support the cause as much as possible as I figured out a way to go John Galt. Although Washington DC stayed silent, fellow patriotic Americans voiced their opinions in the comments section of the post, Tax Rates Based On Work Ethic Shall Fix The World. It’s all about creating incentives.

Just imagine a world where everything is rational. Imagine everybody reading their mortgage contracts before signing so that they are aware of their financial obligations instead of blaming others when they can’t pay. Imagine if everybody adopted the attitude of not deserving something until worked for? Now imagine a country where everybody is middle class and pitches in to support our country. There would be no socioeconomic warfare, just equality. We can always dream right?

DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH YOUR FINANCES, JUST DON’T HURT OTHERS

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Why Are The Employed So Smug About The Unemployed?

Published: 07/26/2016 | Updated: 06/27/2020 by Financial Samurai 86 Comments

Hear that? That is the sound of another self-righteous employed person complaining about the unemployed sucking up resources and driving the government deficit further into the red.  Who cares employed people??  You guys aren’t the ones who are struggling to find a job in this economy!

There are several tautologies here:

1) Few can live a comfortable lifestyle off of unemployment benefits which average $200-300 a week

2) The vast majority of people who are unemployed want to make more money, find jobs, and do something meaningful with their lives.

3) Our budget is headed towards a $1.8 trillion+ deficit, so who cares if we’re going to spend another $50 billion to help millions of unemployed people survive for up to 99 weeks?

Budget Deficit Doesn’t Matter When You Have No Job

The big debate over the Republicans and Democrats on the latest unemployment benefit extension is how the government will pay for the bill?  The Democrats say don’t worry, it’ll come from somewhere while the Republicans say cut spending elsewhere to not add to the deficit. 

Whatever the case may be, the budget deficit doesn’t matter if you’re struggling to survive, and at the margin are going to cost the economy an even bigger burden.  We’ll have to provide for shelters and more public safety officers when crime creeps higher as desperation kicks in.

The ramifications of a budget deficit are only theoretical.  People say the government will need to raise interest rates to attract foreigner capital to fund our greedy spending. 

With higher rates by government, a crowding out effect occurs where efficient capital doesn’t get directed to the private sector.  Meanwhile, borrowing costs for citizens increase, also choking off investments. 

Last I checked, the 10-year yield is close to 3.4%, and foreigners are happily funding us.  Meanwhile, plenty of people are smartly refinancing their mortgages and saving money.

People say budget deficits are also bad for our children.  How can we live with ourselves knowing that our children are the ones who are going to fund our bad spending habits? 

We live with it just like we live with the fact that the older generation will happily collect their social security checks, while the younger generation continues to pay without expectations of anything in return!

Once again, all this budget deficit talk is just theoretical nonsense that carries very little weight in determining whether or not we should help our fellow needy citizens or not.

Let’s Care For The Unemployed

A portion of our paychecks are paid for by the employer.  This expense (unemployment insurance) is effectively calculated into a working person’s total compensation. 

If the unemployment insurance expense is 6% per annum, one can assume that if an employer didn’t have to pay this expense due to 0% unemployment, perhaps a couple percent of the 6% may lead to a higher paycheck.

So here is the thing for those who argue it’s a bad thing to spend another $50 billion bucks extending unemployment benefits. Would you rather have the Federal Government pay or pass a bill to increase the unemployment insurance paid by employers by another several percent? If you choose the latter, prepare for MORE layoffs.

Be Empathetic With Those Who’ve Been Laid Off

It continues to perplex me how vocal some employed people are about not helping the unemployed.  Unless you’ve been unemployed yourself, you have no idea what you’re talking about!

When you’re unemployed for an extended period of time you start doubting your self worth. You ask yourself what’s the point of life if nobody is willing to give you a chance. You give up looking because you can’t bare another non returned phone call or e-mail.  Each rejection is like a blade jabbed and then turned in the soul.

As I come to the end of this article, I realize why so many employed people are so smug about the unemployed.  The reason is they are very unhappy with their own jobs.

They can’t stand the fact that someone is getting $1,200 a month to “do nothing” while they have to work 40 hours at their miserable jobs to only earn $3,500.  Miserable people like to make other people miserable.  The next time you see someone irrational complaining why helping others is a bad idea, just know that they are going through their own torment.

If you were happy with your job and made millions of dollars, don’t you think you’d be more supportive of trying to help your brothers and sisters out? I think so!

If You Want To Quit Your Job

If you want to leave a job you no longer enjoy, I recommend negotiating a severance instead of quitting. If you negotiate a severance like I did back in 2012, you not only get a severance check, but potentially subsidized healthcare, deferred compensation, and worker training.

When you get laid off, you’re also eligible for up to roughly 27 weeks of unemployment benefits. Having a financial runway is huge during your transition period.

Conversely, if you quit your job you get nothing. Check out, How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye.

It’s the only book that teaches you how to negotiate a severance. In addition, it was recently updated and expanded thanks to tremendous reader feedback and successful case studies.

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