Although 2018 ended on a down note with the stock market selling off, I feel good about how things unfolded. I’ll take the ratio of three good quarters to one bad quarter any year.

Believe it or not, my theme for 2018 was: back to early retirement life. I pushed myself to the point of burnout in 2017. But the funny thing about hard work is that it’s over. I only remember bits and pieces of how difficult 2017 was.

At year-end, it’s easy to forget our accomplishments and our failures. With this post, I’m excited to relive the good and the bad in the following categories: Finances, Family, Health, Business, and Odds & Ends.

This post is like a 4-for-1 special. It needs to be thorough so I can prove to my son his old man wasn’t a deadbeat when he inevitably starts rebelling or when I’m no longer here to defend myself. 

My dad is in his 70s and he mentioned he wish he’d started a Roth IRA when he was young. When you’re in your 70s, you must take required minimum distributions from your pre-tax retirement savings accounts and pay taxes. Given nobody likes to pay taxes, I empathized with his regret. It’s also a good idea to listen to your elders.

But I don’t have a problem paying taxes on income earned. It’s only when I have to pay a surprise tax where the liability wasn’t properly budgeted where I have a problem. This only happened to me once when the state of California passed a retroactive tax of 2.9% for the 2011 tax year.

I’ve been a long time opponent of contributing to the Roth IRA. However, now that I’m older and wiser, let me share some of my excuses and encourage you to contribute to a Roth IRA if you are eligible. 

When I first started writing about achieving  financial independence early in 2009, I never thought the FIRE movement would reach such a huge level of interest a decade later. After all, only misfits decide to aggressively forgo material pleasures, save 50% or more of their incomes, and retire from well-paying jobs in their 30s and 40s.

Back in 2009, the “lifestyle design” movement was all the rage because people were getting blown out of their jobs left and right. Some people went back to graduate school to save face. Others decided to start lifestyle businesses after getting laid off. I figured there was a good chance my head would also roll, which is one reason why I started Financial Samurai that summer.

Thanks to a raging bull market that ensued, life turned out fine and the FIRE movement picked up steam. Today, we are at peak FIRE, perhaps similar to peak crypto reached in December 2017. Unfortunately, when you’re at the peak, there’s usually nowhere to go but down.

If there’s a car in your blind spot and you swerve suddenly, there’s a good chance you’ll get into an accident. Your accident will not only cost time and money to fix, you might also suffer an injury or even die. If you have a financial blindspot, the consequences can be just as severe.

I can’t teach you how to be a better driver except to encourage you to slow down. But I can point out some financial blindspots to allow you to live a better life.

Here are five of the most common reoccurring misses that I’ve observed over and over again.

Living a comfortable retirement life is all about managing expectations. You generally don’t need as much as you think to be happy because the freedom you gain more than makes up for lost income.

However, if you retire at the top of a bull market, and don’t change your risk profile, you’re screwed. The day you retire will be about as good as it gets.

If you retire at the bottom of a bear market, even if you change your risk profile to be conservative, your financial days will likely only get better. A recovery makes retirement living so much easier.

No matter how good we get at forecasting the future, we tend to extrapolate too positively for too long when times are good. While those who retire in a bear market will likely forecast lower returns than reality.

There are some people who think that only people with high incomes can achieve financial independence before the age of 65. They’ll go on and on about how it’s not fair that other people are able to escape the rat race early, while they’ve got to grind on because they’re earning less than six figures a year.

News flash! Nothing good comes easy! You’re either going to bitch and moan about why life is not fair or you’re going to do something to better your situation. In a world where you can only depend on yourself for retirement, having a weak money mindset is devastating for your financial future.

Let me share with you a story about some dude who was able to save for retirement while earning $40,000 a year in Manhattan, New York, the most expensive place in America. It can be done folks, and I’ve got the budget to prove it.

The old three-legged stool for retirement consisted of:

1) Pension (Company)

2) Social Security (Government)

3) Personal Savings (You)

Given less than 15% of Americans have pensions or will receive pensions, no longer is having a pension part of most Americans retirement plan. Therefore, we can throw pensions out the window for future generations. For those of you with a pension, bless you. Your pension is perhaps more valuable than you realize.

Given our Social Security system is underfunded by ~32%, the government will either cut the average Social Security benefit by ~32% or raise the minimum age eligible for collecting Social Security by at least several years. As a result, relying on a government that has perpetually mismanaged our finances is not a wise retirement strategy. Besides, the average monthly Social Security benefit for 62 – 70 year olds is only $1,000 – $1,300 according to the Social Security Administration.

Personal Savings (You) is the only leg of the old three-legged stool that’s able to provide support. Everybody who has the opportunity to contribute to a 401(k) plan should. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 55% of the American workforce has access to a 401(k) and only about 38% of the total workforce participates.

Meanwhile, for those who do participate, the average 401(k) contribution was only about 6.5% of salary when employers didn’t contribute and 11% of salary when employers contribute. Only 18% of 401(k) participants save more than 10 percent of their salary for retirement.

When toddlers close their eyes, they think others can’t see them. But I wouldn’t expect grown adults to think the same.

Despite half the United States population living in expensive coastal cities and other high-cost areas of the country, there is somehow disbelief and even outrage a family might need multiple millions, let alone $5 million dollars, in order to retire early comfortably.

I recognize the attractiveness of lower cost areas, hence why I’ve aggressively invested in the heartland of America. Migration to the heartland is a multi-decade trend I want to be a part of. But I hope more folks can also recognize some of the reasons why people live in higher cost areas as well: higher pay, more job opportunities, greater diversity, sometimes better weather, amazing food selection, and family to name a few. 

Every so often, the stock market will take a dive when you least expect it. When we sense danger, the natural tendency is to run the other way, preferably in a herd for survival. As a result, sell-offs often intensify as computer algorithms now join us humans in rushing out of positions.

As I’ve gotten older, despite much larger absolute dollar swings, I’ve become more sanguine in times of stock market volatility.

Here are some things you can do to reduce your fear and not sell or buy at inopportune times.