Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

Paying For Height Is A Waste Of Money: The Many Benefits Of Being Short

Posted by 46 Comments

The Benefits Of Being Short: Spending $300K For 3 Inches Is Ridiculous

I’m 5’10”. If I played in the NBA, I’d probably be listed at 6′. When I was growing up in Kuala Lumpur and attending middle school, I would sometimes get comments about how tall I was. It was nice to hear, but I didn’t think much of it until I stopped growing in the 8th grade.

I clearly remember my dad making me feel bad for not being taller. At the time, he was 6′ 3″. Today he’s closer to 6’1″. In another 20 years, maybe we’ll be the same height so long as I continue to stretch.

Perhaps he was mad at my height because I didn’t eat my entire lunch one Saturday before playing with my friends. I remember telling my two friends how my dad thought I was too short. So they did what any good friends would do and pulled me like a tug-of-war rope to see if they could stretch me out!

To my father, my height was a disappointment. He made me think I was the one to blame. As a result, I ate as much as I could to grow taller. But it did not matter.

As a father to a son now, I find this whole height ordeal strange. I’d never make him feel bad about his appearance. After all, height is mostly genetically determined. The way our son looks is because of me and my wife!

We might have the ability to grow taller by an inch or so based on our diet, but that’s about it. Further, it wasn’t my fault that I grew up in Asia, where fatty foods and diary products were not common.



Read More…

The Healthiest Foods To Make You Fit And Rich

Posted by 82 Comments

Well now, it looks like some people weren’t very happy with my defense of people who like to eat out to win business or order food delivery to save time and their marriages.

I’m not sure whether the true anger lies in going against the food preparing norm or highlighting the truth about how we can all be doing more for our health and our finances.

I don’t shout angrily on the internet when I disagree with something. Nor do I insult people with different beliefs. Instead, I like to listen carefully to feedback and adopt any good ideas to improve my life. And I’ve got a good one that could really make a difference!

In the near future, I plan to drop my writing frequency from 3X a week to once a week and stop podcasting once a week in order to cook more for my family and to save money.

I calculate by cooking at home, I’ll save between $500 – $1,000 a month, equivalent to the monthly cash flow savings I’ve earned from refinancing my mortgage. Not bad! Although I might also suffer revenue loss 10X greater, that is neither here nor there. All good things are worth the initial sacrifice.

Further, I’ve been looking for a good reason to give up my posting cadence after reaching the 10 year mark. I’m tired and want to mix things up. After the second year of writing, I started consistently getting thank you e-mails or comments every week from readers saying how XYZ article helped them. As a result, I started feeling guilty that if I didn’t post regularly, I would be letting people down.

Thanks to reader feedback, it’s time to make a change for health and wealth!



Read More…

The Average Cost Of Family Health Insurance Is Now Outrageously High

Posted by 88 Comments

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average cost of family health insurance offered by companies is now a whopping $20,576 a year, or $1,714.66 a month. Employers paid for 71% of that cost on average.

Meanwhile, the average premium for single workers was $7,188 a year, or $599 a month. Employers covered 83% of that cost on average.

The KFF surveyed over 2,000 companies.

If they had asked us what we paid, we would have brought up the average because our health insurance cost is jumping by 7% to $23,131.38 a year, or $1,927.64 a month for a family of three! Previously, we were paying “only” $21,788.88 a year, or $1,815.74 a month.

With one child we have a PPO Platinum plan with a $250/$500 deductible (single/family), a $3,200/$6,400 out-of-pocket max (single/family) and 80% co-pay insurance.

The Average Cost For Healthcare Soars


Read More…

Solving The Happiness Conundrum In Five Moves Or Less

Posted by 65 Comments

Solving Happiness: Things That Will Make You Happier And Wealthier

After a tense 14-12 softball victory, the six of us went to a nearby brewery for some beers and burgers. I ended up sitting next to our centerfielder who told me he used to hate his life. Let’s call him Biff.

In high school, Biff was a popular guy. At 6′ 5″ tall, he played varsity baseball and varsity basketball. But he admitted he was sometimes cruel to the smaller kids and exchange students. He wasn’t proud of his actions and wished he could apologize to them today.

After the financial crisis hit in 2008, Biff fell into a deep depression. The house he had bought when he was 27 years old ended up losing half its value. He was told he couldn’t lose and that real estate was the surefire way to riches. Not only had he lost all his equity, but he also owed more than the house was worth.

He was so deep under water, all he wanted to do was turn in his keys and walk away as so many Americans did. There was just one problem. Florida was not a non-recourse state. As such, the lender could easily obtain a deficiency judgment and garish his future wages and non-exempt assets.

Biff proceeded to gain over 100 pounds as he literally locked himself within his rapidly depreciating prison. At 30, he was morbidly obese, broke, and girlfriend-less. Life had no more meaning to him.

Then one day out of the blue, the state of Florida threw him a lifeline by offering him a free $75,000 to pay off some of his mortgage if he promised to keep up with regular payments. He took advantage of this tax payer’s money and fulfilled his side of the deal.

Despite feeling a little guilty for getting a bailout, Biff started gaining positive momentum in his life again. Over the ensuing two years, he lost 70 pounds, got a promotion, and finally at 32 found a girlfriend. He also stopped hating on anybody who seemed to be doing better than him because he was finally in a better place.

The first step to him feeling happy was to make sure his finances were no longer going in reverse. Once his finances had stabilized, Biff’s happiness grew because he found someone who loved him despite all his flaws. Today they are married and have a daughter.

Being rich didn’t matter anymore to Biff. Making progress did. Oh, and being able to crush a softball 350 feet as our cleanup hitter makes Biff and the rest of the team ecstatic.



Read More…

How To Qualify For Healthcare Subsidies Under The Affordable Care Act (Even As A Multi-Millionaire)

Posted by 51 Comments

How To Get Healthcare Subsidies Under The Affordable Care Act

One of the biggest concerns early retirees have is the cost of healthcare. It is estimated that the average annual healthcare premium is roughly $19,600, largely subsidized by the employer.

We currently pay about $1,750 a month, or $21,000 a year in healthcare premiums for a family of three for a no-deductible platinum plan despite both of us being healthy with no pre-existing conditions.

Before the birth of our son in 2017, our healthcare premiums weren’t much cheaper at roughly $1,625 a month. In a way, we feel slightly better paying a higher premium because we feel we are getting more of our money’s worth with all his pediatrician and ophthalmology visits.

But just like how paying $23,000 a year in property tax for an old rental property made me want to sell, paying $21,000 a year in healthcare premiums makes me want to eat a lot of jelly donuts, sleep in more, and stop working so much.

Let’s see if there’s a better way for all of us to get healthcare subsidies, even if we have millions of dollars in assets.



Read More…

Is It Worth Having A High Deductible Health Plan To Be Eligible For A Health Savings Account?

Posted by 116 Comments

Is It Worth Having A High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) To Be Eligible For A Health Savings Account (HSA)?

Everywhere I go, I hear the benefits of the Health Savings Account, or HSA for short. People say it’s one of the best ways to save for retirement and pay for inevitable medical expenses given the tax benefits.

Not wanting to miss out on an obvious financial benefit, I did what most lazy husbands do and asked my wife about it. She is, after all, the CFO and COO of our online business. As such, she is also in charge of our healthcare plan.

She told me we aren’t eligible for Health Savings Accounts because we don’t have a High Deductible Health Plan. Hmrph. Well that doesn’t seem right. Based on what I heard, everybody is eligible, otherwise, that would be discrimination!

But then I realized the government consistently discriminates against some of us all the time. For example, if you make over a certain income threshold, you cannot contribute to a traditional IRA or Roth IRA. What’s up with that? We should all be allowed to save for our financial future.

In the past, if you made over $75,000 as a single filer or $110,000 as a joint filer, you couldn’t receive a child tax credit. Children are already expensive and stressful enough. Why was the government incentivizing lower-income households to have more children and disincentivizing higher income households to have fewer children?

Maybe they were looking to increase the divorce rate due to powerful lobbyists in the legal community.

Luckily, the child tax credit income threshold is now a more reasonable and logical $200,000 for single filers and $400,000 for joint filers. Why the government thought 1+1=1.5 in the past made no sense. Same thing with the marriage penalty tax that has since been abolished with the passage of the Tax Cut And Jobs Act.

Slowly, we are heading towards equal treatment of all American citizens. But not yet when it comes to healthcare.



Read More…

Mental Illness Deserves A Sick Day Just Like A Physical Illness

Posted by 33 Comments

Mental Illness Deserves A Sick Day Just Like A Physical Illness

What’s great about America is that we’ve got a highly productive workforce that grinds like no other. We invent some of the greatest products and consistently build some of the largest companies in the world.

What’s sad about America is that we’re working ourselves to an early death. We pride ourselves on working double digit work hours a day. We pack our schedules to the brim and never give ourselves a break.

I’m guilty of adopting the “always be grinding” mentality because I landed a dream job in New York City after college and then migrated to San Francisco, another hyper-competitive city. I didn’t want to take my luck for granted, so I tended to constantly push myself to the limit.

Even after I left full-time work in 2012 after 13 years of 60-80-hour work weeks, I still wanted to keep the intensity up with my writing on Financial Samurai. I was free to kick back and do whatever thanks to passive income, but I refused to live a life of leisure after the first six months of freedom.

Unnecessary self-imposed pressures are why so many of us aren’t as happy as we should be. As soon as I let go of my perennial goals of outperforming the S&P and reaching ever higher website growth, I started to feel happier.



Read More…

Happiness By Age: Stay Away From 35-60 Year Olds

Posted by 89 Comments

Happiness by ageWould you rather be perpetually happy for the rest of your life with no guarantee of great fortune? Or would you rather have great fortune for the rest of your life with no guarantee of ever being perpetually happy? Choosing money is obviously the answer! Just kidding.

Today if I were to rate my happiness on a scale of 1 – 10, 10 being deliriously happy, I would give myself an 8. Historically, I’d say my happiness probably fluctuated between a 5-7 during my high school years, a 7-9 in my college years, and a 6-8 in my 20s and early 30s.

High school was stressful because I knew so much of my future was riding on getting good grades and SAT scores. Combine academic pressure with athletic demands and peer pressure to be “cool,” I wonder why more kids don’t fall into the deep end, especially with absentee parents working all the time.

College was pretty exhilarating due to all the sudden freedom. Food was plentiful and the parties outrageously fun. Being able to date so many people was a blast. Oh yeah, and learning new subjects was a nice benefit too. The only real pressure came from the expectation of finding a good job. Spending four years of time and lots of money only to end up with nothing would be a great disappointment.

The relief of actually getting a full-time job catapulted my happiness to a 9. But the happiness didn’t last due to the 70+ hour work weeks. Getting in before sunrise and leaving after sunset got depressing after a while. My happiness tumbled to a 6 when I realized all my work in college had led to one big endless grind.

Even a generous promotion at age 27 only made me a 9 level happy for a couple months. Then it was back to being a whipping boy for clients and playing corporate politics. By 2011, my happiness again dropped to a 6. The financial crisis had taken its toll and I was tired of doing the same crap.

It was in October 2011 while drinking an overpriced Mythos beer at the top of Santorini, Greece that my happiness rocketed to a 10. I was overlooking the crater on a sunny 78 degree day and had just earned $1,200 via Paypal from an advertising client in the span of 30 minutes. It wasn’t the money that made me happy, it was the realization that I found a way out of prison.

Read More…

Subsidy Amounts By Income For The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)

Posted by 231 Comments

Patriotic dog and US flagUpdated for 2019 and beyond.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is a potentially great way to help lower income individuals afford health care. I’m a supporter of ACA despite the trappings of ever bigger government running our lives because disease and accidents do not discriminate between rich or poor. In a nation as rich as ours, nobody should die or get stuck in a permanent loop of poverty just because they can’t afford medical treatment.

The two most common reasons why people don’t retire earlier are: 1) Lack of money and 2) Uncertainty regarding health care access and costs. As an early retiree in 2012 with a full 30 years to go before being eligible for Medicare benefits, I was worried about health care until I did some research on cheap health care alternatives.

Now that I’ve spent a good amount of time studying what healthcare.gov has to offer, I’m not worried but thrilled for the potentially millions of other people who don’t have health care or who have no desire to work into their 60s.

I’ve also discovered that even millionaires will be eligible for health care subsidies. More equality is a welcome relief from the constant class warfare rhetoric and discriminatory policies we hear from Capital Hill.

Read More…

Should I Get Long-Term Care Insurance?

Posted by 43 Comments

Old Man In SantoriniI spoke to my father yesterday and curiously asked him about his thoughts on assisted living facilities. “Absolutely depressing!“, he said. I couldn’t agree more that assisted living programs are depressing given it reminds us everyday about our mortality.

Who wouldn’t want to stay put in a home they’ve lived in for years instead? I know I would. Home is a special place that makes us feel comfortable and warm. Ideally, you own your home outright in retirement and no longer have payments. However, this is a topic for another post.

We can only hope that we remain healthy for the rest of our lives, but we’ll eventually need some help thanks to injuries or illnesses. Some of us will have the financial strength to comfortably pay for our healthcare in retirement. Others might have wealthy children to rely on. But what if you do not want to burden anybody, and don’t have that much money to last?

Buying long-term care could be an ideal solution for your retirement years.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LONG-TERM CARE INSURANCE

Read More…