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Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

Tax Refunds Are Good For Most People Because Most People Can’t Save

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Tax refunds are good for most people. The simple reason is that left to our own devices, people don’t save or invest their tax refunds. People tend to go the easiest route and spend.

The average tax refund is $2,950 a year as of 2020. Meanwhile, 74% of Americans get a tax refund. I’ll consider you average for argument’s sake.  At today’s typical savings rate of 1%, you’re missing out on a whopping $12 bucks in interest income!

Why $12, and not $24? It’s because you have to calculate the average balance of the year if you saved every $200/month payment diligently starting January 1st i.e. January $200, February $400, March $600 etc.

I’m definitely not a proponent of giving the government more money than they deserve, but missing out on $12 bucks in interest is something I can live with and so should you.

You have to ask yourself whether you have the discipline of saving that extra $200 a month, or using it to pay down debt. Most people are not disciplined enough to pay down debt and avoid buying junk.

This is why we have such massive debt problems in the first place!  The government is essentially helping you “go broke to win big” by protecting 75% of American tax payers from blowing $2,400 a year without even knowing it.



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Book Review & Giveaway: “Your Money Ratios”

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your-money-ratios

Your Money Ratios is a book by Charles Farrell. Your Money Ratios can help you get a better handle on your finances.

Publisher: The Penguin Group.  Hard cover. 257-pages. Price: $26.

Author: Charles Farrell, JD., LL.M., investment adviser with Northstar Investment Advisors, in Denver. He writes the “Retirement Roadmap” column for CBS Moneywatch.

Review: “Your Money Ratios” sings to me!  For someone who loves using ratios such as the 1/10th rule for car buying, and 30/30/3 rule for home buying, I absolutely adore this book. Charles’ writing style is very balanced and easy to understand. When it comes to math, many people, including myself fall asleep. But, if you can just do simple division and multiplcation, this book will keep you on the right path towards financial security.

Charles’ “Unifying Theory of Personal Finance” is his core philosophy that all decisions you make should help move you from being a laborer to being a capitalist. In other words, make money work for you, and not the other way around. It’s important that with every single monetary decision you make, you ask yourself will this help you become a capitalist or not.

Let’s go through Your Money Ratios with the key money ratios from the book.

Capital To Income Ratio

The first ratio Charles introduces is the Capital to Income Ratio (CIR). Capital is defined  as the savings in your 401K, IRA, annuities, CDs, cash value of your life insurance, savings, equity in commercial and rental real estate, and the fair market value of any business interests. 

Capital does not include the equity in your primary residence because it does not generate income.  The real return of your home is the rent-free use of the property once you pay off your mortgage.

The underlying goal is for everyone to have a CIR of 12 by age 65 i.e. $1.2 million in capital if you average $100,000. With a CIR of 12, one should be able to retire financially secure while living off 80% of your pre-retirement income due to the returns from capital and social security. While working we probably live on about 60% of your actual income due to expenses such as one’s mortgage, which will no longer be there when we retire.

Your finances hit a tipping point when your Capital to Income Ratio hits 2. At a CIR of 2 your earnings from you capital will generally add more to your wealth than the amount you save each year. Over a 40yr savings cycle, you contribute 30% 70% are from earnings.

See: Ranking The Best Passive Income Streams

The Savings Ratio

To get to a Capital Income Ratio of 12, Charles highlights on two savings rates: Save 12% of your annual income ever year from ages 25-40, and save 15% every year after wards. The math works, and obviously the math works even better if you can save more of your annual income.

To clarify, the Charles’ 12% and 15% savings ratios include your 401K contribution..  Charles believes that your 401K is key to financial independence due to employer matches and tax free contributions.

I challenge readers to max out their 401K and save an additional 12-15% of their gross income. Mentally write off your 401K amount, and pray it’s there at age 59.5. My strong belief is that your net worth is an illusion, except for the cash and most liquid of assets.

Also see: How Much Savings You Should Have Accumulated By Age

Your Debt Ratios

One needs to differentiate between income-producing debt and income-reducing debt  When you take on debt, you need to leave enough for you to meet the savings ratio 

Owning a home and paying of your debt increases your retirement income and helps move you from laborer to capitalist.  “Deemed Income” is the investment income you get to keep in retirement because  you don’t have to use that income to pay a mortgage or rent.

Education debt, is good debt, but aim to keep it to 75% or less of your average 10 year gross income.  Financially, it is better for your kids to take on the debt than you provided they stick to the Education Debt Ratios.

Charles, like others believes there is an education bubble. Tuition costs are ridiculous and will eventually fall because income growth doesn’t support the cost. Charles advises not saving for your kids education before you save for your own! If you don’t save enough for yourself, your kids inherit your financial burden and have to take care of you. Your financial independence is a great gift to your kids.

Your Investment Ratio

It’s all about playing offense (stocks) and defense (bonds) to come out ahead. Charles recommends a permanent 50%/50% allocation your entire working life. I find this too conservative. I like following your age as a percentage to allocate to bonds i.e. if you’re 35, somewhere around 35% of your investments are in fixed income securities.

Charles is super risk adverse because he wants to avoid big losses. As an investment adviser, and given his age, I have a feeling he has seen tons of carnage over these past two investment cycles. A 50% portfolio decline requires a 100% increase to get back to even. A 80% portfolio decline requires a 400% increase!

Social Security – The Point of Contention

Charles fears Congress will go overboard in fixing SS, and create one large wealth-transfer. Despite the “fix”, SS will survive. Lower paid workers get much more out of the system than higher paid-workers, based on their actual contributions. 

It’s important for everyone to understand the basics of SS, to not change the program from a long term retirement program into a welfare program.

Your FICA tax is 7.65% from you, 7.65% from employer of which 12.4% goes to SS, and 2.9% goes to Medicare. You need to work for at least 10 years for a covered employer before you can receive benefits. Cap is on $142,800 of the income you pay in 2021, thank goodness for many. 

SS adjusts for inflation is great. And if you’re married, your spouse has the right to benefits equal to the higher of his or her OWN benefit, or one half of yours. Not bad!

By the way, if you were born after 1960, the full-retirement date to receive social security benefits is 67! You can decide to take reduced benefits starting at age 62.

Your Money Ratios Conclusion

“Your Money Ratios” has the potential to be one of 2010’s best sellers in the personal finance space. I love everything about the book, from the tone of the author, to his simple instructions, to the way the book is packaged. 

There’s no doubt in my mind that if you follow Charles’ instructions, whether you are 25 or 45, you will be able to reach financial independence by 65. Go to your local bookstore or Amazon and check it out!

Go to www.yourmoneyratios.com, type in the code 778811 to check out your ratios and see where you stand!

Recommendation To Build Wealth

Manage Your Money In One Place. Sign up for Personal Capital, the web’s #1 free wealth management tool to get a better handle on your finances. You can use Personal Capital to help monitor illegal use of your credit cards and other accounts with their tracking software. In addition to better money oversight, run your investments through their award-winning Investment Checkup tool to see exactly how much you are paying in fees. I was paying $1,700 a year in fees I had no idea I was paying.

After you link all your accounts, use their Retirement Planning calculator that pulls your real data to give you as pure an estimation of your financial future as possible using Monte Carlo simulation algorithms. Definitely run your numbers to see how you’re doing. I’ve been using Personal Capital since 2012 and have seen my net worth skyrocket during this time thanks to better money management.

Personal Capital Retirement Planner
Is your retirement plan on track? Find out for free after you link your accounts.

How To Lower Your Property Taxes – Adventures In Assessor Land

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As a homeowner, your goal is to keep your operating expenses as low as possible. Property taxes is one of those expenses that never goes away, but can be managed. As someone who has successfully fought the property assessors office multiple times before, let me share how you can lower your property taxes as well.

The Government Always Wants Your Money

The goal of local governments is to get every single penny in tax revenue from you! When I got my property tax bill in 2009, I was astonished to see that the City is taxing my primary residence based off an assessed value 7% HIGHER than in Armageddon 2008!  In the biggest economic downturn ever, the San Francisco assessors office believes my property actually increased?!  What a sham!

Like clock work, assessed values increase 2-3% higher every year, regardless of the economic environment.  It’s as if the City is punishing me for succeeding to lower my assessed value last year by 3%. 

Too bad for the city, because they are messing with the WRONG person.  The tax collectors office counts on citizens to roll over and listen to their every whim, but not me, and certainly not you!

I want to share some tips on how you too can fight against the machine.

How To Reduce Your Property Taxes In 5 Steps

1) Google “<Your City’s Name> assessor’s office.” San Francisco’s site is here. It’s important you proactively find out what the city/county is assessing your property first before you get your bill.  You need as much time to prepare for battle.

2) Go to their contact page and call and e-mail them every single day until you get a response. I’m not kidding here. They are sloooooow. Make sure all your v-mails and e-mails are polite, but stern saying you disagree with your assessment with proof.

3) After they respond, you must specifically ask how they came up with their ridiculous assessment value. Ask them to provide comps.  Also, ask them what you need to do to make your case. There will undoubtedly be appeal forms to fill out.  Fill them out and make copies for yourself (important as they like to tell people they never got it 2 months later, hoping you’ll give up and be too late!)

4) Like any good negotiator, you must highlight the lowest comps and negotiate accordingly. Let’s say your house is worth $1 million bucks. Go in with horrific comparables that look like bomb shelters in terrible locations, such as a house next to a firehouse that may be worth $500,000.  Your comparables need to be similar in dimensions and as close to your home as possible. Set your anchor low. The more comps you can provide, the better.  The assessor doesn’t usually have time to verify the comps physically, and just uses online comparisons.

5) After sending in the appeal forms and providing comps to your assessor, make sure you courteously follow up every month until you get confirmation of receipt. After reaching out this February, I failed to follow up with more comps until July (big mistake). By then, the assessor had moved to valuing a different district, and another person was recommended to me.  Good thing the new person had the forms, and  decided to e-mail and call me back. Otherwise, I would have wasted a lot of time.  Therefore, don’t forget to back up all your data!

*** This is exactly what real estate lawyers do if you’ve ever got those “lower your property tax” letters in the mail. Don’t be lazy and just do it yourself.

Never Give Up On Fighting To Lower Your Property Taxes

Persistence pays off. These guys don’t have to do anything for you so it’s important you approach them in a polite, but stern manner.  The new assessor could have said it’s too late since I got my bill already, but he worked with me given my unwavering commitment to fight. 

After several months of going back and forth, they lowered my assessed value back down to last year’s value, thereby saving me $1,504 ($94,000 X 1.16%).

Use any downturn (like a pandemic) to your advantage. Fight like hell to lower your property taxes. If you’re not selling anyways, who cares if you convince the city to believe your property is worth 30 cents on the dollar? You should be rejoicing instead!  Don’t roll over and accept what the city bills you. Take action now!

Shop Around For A Mortgage

Check the latest mortgage rates online through Credible. Credible has one of the largest networks of lenders that compete for your business. You can get free, no-obligation quotes in minutes. The more lenders compete for your business, the lower your rate. Mortgage rates continue to be near all-time lows.

Take advantage of the 15-year mortgage in particular. It’s an abnormality that it is average below a 5/1 ARM, which I usually like the best.

Latest mortgage rates

Invest In Real Estate Wisely

If you’re looking to buy property as an investment or reinvest your house sale proceeds, take a look at Fundrise, one of the largest real estate crowdfunding platforms today. They allow everyone to invest in mid-market commercial real estate deals across the country that were once only available to institutions or super high net worth individuals.

They are the pioneers of eREIT funds and they are creating an Opportunity Fund to take advantage of tax-efficient Opportunity Zones. Thanks to technology, it’s now much easier to take advantage of lower valuation, higher net rental yield properties across America.

Fundrise Due Diligence Funnel
Less than 5% of the real estate deals shown gets through the Fundrise funnel

Do Higher Taxes Lead To Socialism In America?

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Do higher taxes lead to Socialism in America? This is the question I had on September 1, 2009 when I was still slaving away at my corporate job. Paying lots of taxes while the world was falling apart wasn’t sitting well with me. I had also just started Financial Samurai in July 2009.

Now that the world is falling apart again 2020 thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s more than likely we will have higher taxes in the future to pay for our spending. Therefore, I’m once again asking whether the grind is worth it.

Higher Taxes And Socialism

Someone once said, “nothing is certain except pressing the reply all button by mistake and taxes.” How true the saying as we face rising taxes under the Obama administration. 

Supposedly 32% of Americans filers pay ZERO TAXES! I doubt this statistic sits well with the other 68% of files who pay taxes. I also doubt the percentage of non-tax payers could be that high, but either way, even 15% is a lot.

The good thing for high income earnings is that the highest marginal tax rate has come down by almost half  since the 70’s. Furthermore, generally if you are paying no taxes, your adjusted gross income is less than $8,350 as a single, or $16,700 as a married couple.  

Wouldn’t you rather make more money and pay taxes than make little money and pay nothing?

It just feels bad that the average American pays a higher percentage of his or her wages in taxes than in savings.

Given we don’t blog for a living, and several readers asked me this afternoon “whether I think higher taxes lead to Socialism in America, Yes or No only”, my answer and thesis is therefore: “Yes, higher taxes do lead to socialism in America.”



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Obama’s Universal Healthcare Proposal

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In Sarah Palin’s first online post since quitting her job as Governor of Alaska, she writes that Obama’s Healthcare Plan is “Evil” because of its support for euthanasia. Obama later explains, “Nobody is going to be forcing you to make a set of decisions on end-of-life care based on some bureaucratic law in Washington.”

What’s interesting to note is how this story has garnered so much more attention rather than the costs and implementation of Obama’s healthcare plan. I have admittedly not paid attention to this debate, but feel I should. In this post, I attempt to provide a brief understanding of this controversial topic, along with various viewpoints.

THE SKINNY ON UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE:

WHAT IS IT?
* Universal health care is also known as single-payer system, united health care system, or national health care. Universal health care is similar to the current US Medicaid program for low-income folks, and would apply to all citizens of the US regardless of the ability to pay.

WHY HAVE IT?
* Supposedly 50 million or so Americans, or almost 20% of the country’s population is without healthcare. People will argue that it should be the right of every American to have coverage, just like the Canadians and the British.

ADVANTAGES
* With a single Universal Healthcare system, Americans will save money because the new system will slash billions of dollars in administrative costs. Furthermore, 50 million people will have coverage.

DISADVANTAGES
* To provide 50 million more people with free healthcare, someone has got to pay for it. Some don’t believe big government will be able to run the new system as efficiently as the private sector.

With this quick understanding, here are various opinions from real people I’d like to share with you.



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Move to Nevada And Make 10% More Money Per Annum Forever

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With California heading towards the abyss and taxes rocketing to the moon, I’ve toyed with the idea of moving to Nevada. Here’s an article in the San Francisco Chronicle highlighting homeless 24 year olds and rising unemployment even in a rich suburb such as Marin County.

From this other article, we learn that from the first stimulus package alone, the gov’t has borrowed $10,000 from each individual so far, and it is doubtful that the majority of people have felt a return on their $10,000 loan yet. 

At any rate, it’s clear that taxes are going up in California and perhaps NYC, and we residents in troubled states should think long and hard about whether to stay or go.

Move To Nevada Or A No-Income Tax State

Did you know that seven states have no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming? Two others, New Hampshire and Tennessee, tax only dividend and interest income. Alaskan residents even get an annual oil credit for goodness sakes.

If you’re earning $100,000 a year, you’ll automatically save $10,000 bucks just by setting up shop in another state. Multiply this by 20 years, and bake in a 4% annual return, you’ll come out with $310,000 more in the bank!

Even 10 years provides you with about $125,000. Hey, who wouldn’t want an extra $125,000 laying around. I could finally buy that Porsche 911 Turbo I’ve always wanted! Must resist temptation.

Obviously relocating to save money is easier said than done. Hence, another strategy should be to simply set up residency in one of the 7 states after one retires. This is one of the key benefits of retiring early.

Amass the financial nut and save 10%/annum on your interest income every year for the rest of your life. In this low interest rate environment, you may want to first grow your net worth to 5 million dollars or even 10 million dollars.

Setting up residency is easy. Just buy a place, or rent some cheap studio. Maybe even a habitable closet and call it home. The more money you make, the more you should consider moving.

Seattle, Incline Village in Lake Tahoe would be my top two choices. I’ll just get in trouble in Vegas!

Related:

Why I’m Investing In The Heartland Of America

People Are Migrating Back To California Again

Track Your Net Worth For Free

The other action item wealthy people do is track their net worth. You can only truly optimize your wealth if you know where all your money is going! Sign up for Personal Capital, the web’s #1 free wealth management tool to get a better handle on your finances.

I’ve been using them since 2012 and have made much wiser financial decisions since. In addition to better money oversight, run your investments through their award-winning Investment Checkup tool to see exactly how much you are paying in fees. I was paying $1,700 a year in fees I had no idea I was paying.

After you link all your accounts, use their Retirement Planning calculator that pulls your real data to give you as pure an estimation of your financial future as possible using Monte Carlo simulation algorithms. Input various expense and income variables to see how you stand. Your goal should be to get to a 90% probability of achieving your goal. Try it out yourself for free.

Your future is too important not to take it seriously. You don’t want to end up old and not have enough money because there is no rewind button!

Retirement Planner Personal Capital
Is your retirement on track? Check for free after linking your accounts

Regards,

Sam, Financial Samurai – “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”