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Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

Why You Should Play Pickleball: The Best Sport Today

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Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America. If you’re looking for an easy sport to pick up that’s loads of fun and inexpensive, pickleball is the sport for you.

After playing 29 USTA league tennis matches in 2022, my shoulder, knees, and feet began to break. The wisest thing would have been to take time off to heal.

However, I need to play sports to feel happier. If only there was a low-impact sport that also has a wonderful community. Enter pickleball!

Let me share with you why pickleball is one of the best sports today. I’ll also share some downsides, explain the rules and suggest some equipment.



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How To Enjoy Your Life After The Fed Ruins The World

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Enjoy your life, no matter the economic situation. If you do, then you’ll always be winning. The key is to recognize reality and take appropriate action.

The Fed hiked another 50 basis points to 4.25% – 4.5% on December 14, 2022. Despite two consecutive lower-than-expected monthly CPI numbers, the Fed indicated it will hike to a terminal rate of 5.5%. Most investors were hoping the Fed would stop at 5%.

Meanwhile, the 10-year bond yield is only at 3.65%, meaning there is a huge yield curve inversion. It’s the largest inversion in over 40 years. The bond market is screaming for the Fed to stop hiking, but it just won’t listen. Even with the bank run at Silicon Valley Bank, the Fed won’t stop.

As a result, the United States will likely go into a recession again in 2023 thanks to the Fed’s overly aggressive tightening. Over a million people will lose their jobs, banks will go bust, and trillions of wealth will evaporate. Instead of expecting inflation in 2023, we should start worrying about deflation again.

All the good done by governments to support billions of people during the pandemic will have been for nothing. Can you imagine struggling through a pandemic for three years, finally coming up for air only to be run over by a speedboat driven by a rich central banker?

When you are worth ~$100 million, as Fed Chair Jerome Powell most certainly is, you may not care as much about the middle class as you do about your legacy. Instead, you want the history books to emphasize how you were tough on inflation and gloss over the human suffering caused by your decisions.

Federal rate hike speed versus other times in modern history. Fed is hiking further and faster than any other time.


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Where Are All The Adult Athletes? Sports And Your Career

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For over 20 years, I’ve been a tennis club member. Player levels range from beginner to ex-professionals. Everybody gets along and rallies around a sport they enjoy, no matter their level of wealth.

But I just realized something odd. And the realization wouldn’t have come had I not become a father. After three years of mingling with preschool and kindergarten parents, I’ve been wondering where the heck are all the adult athletes?

Maybe I’ve lived in a sports bubble for too long. Because the vast majority of my friends play sports. Tennis and softball are what we do for fun. It’s so much better than going to the bar and drinking all night!

I was also taught the importance of learning tennis or golf because they are lifetime sports commonly played in business settings. If I didn’t know how to play either, I might be left out from career and client events.



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Overcoming Blindness: Achieving Financial Independence With A Visual Impairment

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One of my goals on Financial Samurai is to share different perspectives. Roughly 15% of the world’s population (1+ billion), lives with some form of disability, of whom 2-4% experience significant difficulties in functioning. This is the minority group I’m most passionate about fighting for in this extremely competitive world. My hope is that more awareness will create a more loving and compassionate society. – Sam

My name is Adam. I run the website BlindLuckProject.com where we discuss all things FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) and how to make your own luck despite the odds.

Financial Samurai has asked me to share my story of how I went blind and still achieved financial independence at age 32.  

I’m sharing this story to spread awareness about:

  • Visual disabilities.
  • What it was like to slowly go blind in my young adult years.
  • How I went about successfully finding engaging work.
  • Seeking reasonable accommodations when needed.
  • What my retirement looks like

I will also review my thought process at various stages of my path to financial independence. Hopefully, sharing what I’ve learned along the way can inspire other blind individuals, people with other disabilities, and anyone facing adversity in their lives.

While every situation is different having a strong process to evaluate opportunities at critical times is important. You can do this!  



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I Found Out I’m Autistic As An Adult And I’m Glad

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April is autism acceptance month and I’m grateful to share a personal and eye-opening post written by my wife Sydney. She found out she is autistic in her 40s, which came as a surprise to us both.

It has been an enlightening discovery that has explained and taught us so much about how to better communicate. Further, I have more empathy and understanding of the way my wife does things.

I hope her story will help spread awareness and acceptance of just how diverse and remarkable the spectrum truly is. The better we can understand other people, the less conflict there will be. – Sam

Discovering Autism As An Adult Woman

How did the height of the global pandemic affect your life? I’d wager it was aggravating and down right exhausting. But, hopefully you turned some of those endless barrels of lemons into lemonade.

Maybe you picked up a new hobby, switched careers, really focused on your family, or KonMari‘d your whole house.

What did I do? I did a heck of a lot of homeschooling, stress-eating, research on ambulances and the broken EMS system, bleary-eyed reading at 12-1am, oh and I discovered that I’m autistic.

Yes. I discovered at age 40, right smack dab in the middle of the global pandemic, that I’m on the autism spectrum and have been my whole life. Phew! It was quite a lot to experience.



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Using A Health Savings Account As A Retirement Vehicle

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You may not realize this, but a health savings account (HSA) can be used as a retirement vehicle. If you’ve maxed out your 401(k) and IRA contributions, maxing out an HSA could be another source of retirement funds.

A health savings account offers triple tax savings because you contribute pre-tax dollars, pay no taxes on earnings, and withdraw the money tax-free now or in retirement to pay for qualified medical expenses.

Given the vast majority of us will incur qualified medical expenses as we age, contributing to an HSA to address these expenses is a good idea.

You can use your HSA to pay for eligible health care, dental, and vision expenses for yourself, your spouse, or eligible dependents (children, siblings, parents, and others who are considered an exemption under Section 152 of the tax code). Qualified medical expenses encompass almost everything you can think of as well.

You can even use the money for nonmedical expenses after age 65, such as buying a Lamborghini. However, be aware this expense will be adjudicated as nonmedical and taxed as ordinary income. Further, be aware if you are under age 65, there is a 20% penalty on nonmedical withdrawals in addition to the tax.



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Curing Chronic Pain And Getting Your Life Back On Track

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Between the ages of 18 – 32, I experienced chronic back pain, sciatica, tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, and TMJ. It was only after reading Dr. Sarno’s book, Healing Back Pain, did my chronic pain eventually went away. Now, at 44, I hardly have any chronic pain. And when some ailment does flare up, I review my notes about Dr. Sarno’s book to heal.

If you’re unfamiliar with Dr. Sarno, he is a pioneer in treating back pain. He practiced for 50+ years at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation at NYU. His research and treatment program are featured in four bestselling books which instruct patients to address their emotions to break the cycle of chronic pain.

The following is a guest post from JayCeezy, a regular reader who experienced his own bout of chronic pain. Dr. Sarno also helped him overcome his persistent ailments and feel healthy again.

Cure Your Chronic Pain To Get On With Your Personal Finances

Cure Chronic Pain Boost Finances

One thing stands out to me, as I consider Sarno’s work. His patients have high intelligence and are motivated high achievers, who score quite high on the conscientiousness and neuroticism traits scales. The readers here are not just a cross section of people with aching backs. Many of you fit the profile of Sarno’s clients.

Have you ever missed a day (or more) of work because of an unspecified back injury? A physical ailment that prevented you from getting out of bed? Never mind the hours missed, let us consider the cost to our reputation of reliability and consistency. 

“Don’t get sick at crunch time!” is pretty real. At the very least, everyone knows someone who is hindered by recurring back pain. 

Keep in mind I’m not selling anything or stand to gain from this post. But like Sam, I had a very real struggle with chronic pain that I was able to cure thanks to Dr. Sarno.

And since I’m sure some of you out there are also suffering from chronic pain, I wanted to share my thoughts and experience. If you find this of interest, please watch the documentary All The Rage: Saved By Sarno and/or check out the book Healing Back Pain which I highlight below. 

It’s truly worth it if you are struggling with painful ailments. Not only will your lifestyle likely improve, so can your work and personal finance goals as well. Everything is easier without chronic pain.



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Be Risk-Averse With Health, Risk-Loving With Money

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When it comes to your health, be risk-averse. When it comes to your money, you can be more risk-loving. After all, if your investment returns take a hit, you can always spend time earning back your losses through work.

However, if you lose your health, you might never recover fully. Sure, having money to pay for medicine and ongoing medical bills is huge. But if you are chronically sick, money becomes an afterthought.

We should all remember the saying, “A healthy person wants a thousand things, a sick person only wants one.” Every time I’m sick, all I want is to be is healthy again. Nothing else really matters.



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Health And Fitness Stocks: The Last Reopening Trade

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To be savvy investors, we need to learn how to connect the dots. There are so many investment clues to discover all around us if we spend time observing. One of the dots I think I’ve connected is that old school health and fitness stocks are an intriguing laggard reopening trade. I’m not talking Peloton, but gyms.

We are clearly in a bull market. You may chase momentum if you want. I’ve certainly kept buying many of the tech growth names on the way up in my portfolio. However, the contrarian in me also likes to buy unloved stocks that eventually could come around.

Since the beginning of 2021, I’ve been steadily diversifying into banks and old economy stocks after tech did so well in 2020. But I’m still too overweight tech. Therefore, I’m still looking for new names.

As a disclaimer, this post is not investment advice. Please do your own due diligence and invest at your own risk.

I am writing out my thoughts on why the health and fitness sector looks like a buy today. I always go through a similar type of analysis before I make any investment decision. It’s the financial analyst in me from my days working on Wall Street. I find the exercise fun and also helpful for uncovering blindspots.



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If You Want To Naturally Be Nicer, Get Richer: A Surprise Apology Letter

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They say money can’t buy happiness. But what if having money can make you less stressed, less jealous, less combative, less anxious, and more joyful? Then surely having more money can at least make you nicer right? I think so.

My first realization with this correlation between niceness and wealth occurred at the end of 2015 when I wrote, Once You Have F You Money, It’s Hard To Tell Others To F Off!

Ever since I began working on Wall Street in 1999, the term, “f*ck you money” has been thrown around.

Here’s a conversation example:

“Did you hear about Tommy? He just made Managing Director. Now he’s really got some f*ck you money!”

“Nah, he ain’t making f*ck you money until he makes Partner MD at Goldman. That’s when he’ll get the real money through profit sharing.”



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