Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

Search Results for: early retirement

Hunting For The Best CD Rates

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Once a week I go yield hunting. I’m always looking for the best rates possible for my cash because I know that if I save X amount with a Y percentage yield, I’ll eventually reach my magical yearly cash flow number which will allow me to retire early if desired.

To get to your magical retirement number quicker, you can either save more or look for better returns.  Currently 80% of my cash hoard is locked up in 5-7 year CD’s yielding on average 4%.  The “problem” I currently have is that every year I work, is another year’s worth of savings I have to figure out what to do with it.

As you can see from my nifty CD banner to the right, I don’t have to look very far at all to keep track of what the best CD rates are in the entire country.  The widget keeps track of all the rates for me and for all of you who visit this site regularly.

DURATION, YIELD, AND DEATH AS IT PERTAINS TO CDs

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Why Did Oil Collapse And How Low Will Gas Prices Go?

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Finally, oil has gotten crushed in 2015 and 2016 and remains depressed in 2017. We haven’t seen this large of a decline in oil in years as momentum speculators rushed out like someone discovering their Match.com date looks nothing like their picture. Nobody would have guessed oil prices would have declined by 50% over the past 10 months.

Oil Price Collapse In 2014 And 2015

Let’s try and understand WHY oil prices collapsed so much when global economies are largely recovering.

WHY DID OIL PRICES COLLAPSE?

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Small Business Credit Card Issuers: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

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Searching for a new home. Canoe on the lakeWe all know the old adage, “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” What you might not know is that banks apparently had this in mind when branding business credit cards. You see, one would think there’d be significant differences between general-consumer and business credit cards. However, according to a recent Card Hub study, the only thing that really distinguishes a business credit card from a general-use card is the fact that a company is liable in addition to an individual cardholder.

Oh, and the fact the new credit card law (CARD Act) only applies to consumer credit cards. In light of this, a clear hierarchy of business credit card issuers actually emerges when you compare the extent to which issuers recognize the bond between consumers and business credit cards and in turn proactively apply CARD Act protections to these spending vehicles despite their branding.

Ultimately, you are left with a list of the good, the bad and the ugly business credit card issuers.

The Good

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Should Unemployment Benefits Be Phased Out After A Certain Age?

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An AP article highlighted how several 45-50 year old people were so thankful to have unemployment insurance extended further.  They talked about how it was “their life line” after being out of work for over a year.  I’m really proud that unemployment benefits are working and going to people who need it most.  The people profiled all sound like hard working people who just need a little bit of help during tough times.  As you know, I’m all for a 5-year “Shock & Awe Yeah” unemployment program, which probably will never pass.

Part of me wonders what happened though?  If I was 50 years old and got laid off, I would have 28 years worth of savings and investments to hold me through for potentially the rest of my life.  In fact, I would hope that I’d be about to double dip by collecting 99 weeks of unemployment while also living off the interest and dividends from my savings and investments!

If you saved just $10,000 a year on average for 28 years, you’d surely have more than $500,000, if not millions due to compounding!  If you save just $5,000 a year for 28 years, you’ll still have over $250,000 dollars thanks to the miracle of compounding.  If you don’t save and invest, it simply means you don’t think you’ll need money in retirement or during unemployed periods, hence perhaps helping out isn’t necessary?  Or maybe life just happens.

So I got to thinking, perhaps the government should skew their unemployment benefits more towards younger unemployed workers and less towards older unemployed workers.  Each year after 15 years of work experience the benefits get reduced by several percentage until they get phased out over 40 years of experience since there is Social Security.  After all, we have massive budget deficits and can’t help everyone.  What say you?

WHY WE NEED TO HELP OUR YOUTH

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Financial Samurai Goals And Resolutions for 2011

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Dear Readers,

The list is long, and the funny thing is, I have another 5 goals to achieve which I’ve left off the official list.  There’s just so much I want to do in 2011 that it’s important to write things down so I can revisit them every month to evaluate my progress.  I’ll be bookmarking this post and checking back regularly for sure.

I’m under no illusion that I’ll be able to achieve everything on the list, but I will certainly try.  A lot of the goals and resolutions below are doable if I adjust my lifestyle accordingly.  In fact, practically everything on the list is something I really want to do, hence maybe I will be able to achieve them all!

GOALS AND RESOLUTIONS FOR 2011

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The Minimalist Lifestyle Is Not For You

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My name is Florentine and I am what the world describes as a “minimalist.”  I can pack all my belongings into two suitcases and go travel the world if I want.  I aim to make $30,000 a year from various online projects and consulting gigs, which makes me feel slightly guilty since there’s a hint of hypocrisy. 

With an efficiency studio and a bicycle, I don’t need much money to lead a happy life.  I want to tell you a secret, which is a secret that many minimalists have, but don’t want anybody to know.

Minimalist Lifestyle

The reason why I deem myself a minimalist is because I have difficulty achieving more.  For three years after college, I tried my hardest to work myself up an advertisement company.  I was passed up for promotion, and then the recession came. 

Instead of telling people I lost my job, I told people “I quit” so I could lead the life of freedom I’ve always wanted. “Screw the world and conformity!”, I told everyone. 

I was too ashamed to tell my parents and friends that after 4 years in college, all I could do was stay a gopher, photocopying papers and answering phones all day.  I didn’t even succeed at that.



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The Best Way To Lose Weight And Become Debt-Free

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Best way to lose weight and become debt free

The best way to lose weight is easier than you think. Let me explain after wearing the same size 33″ jeans since 1999.

Yesterday was one of those perfect gastronomic days. For breakfast, there was all you can eat fruit and pastries. For lunch, some deliciously “low calorie” Greek baked spaghetti with garlic bread you see to the left. To top off the evening, a bone-in filet mignon, with baked potato with the works, blue cheese wedge salad, and a couple glasses of pinot noir from Napa Valley.

All told, I probably consumed some 5,500 calories worth of food! I didn’t feel incredibly sick to my stomach (OK, maybe a little bit!) because I made sure I played an hour and a half of tennis before dinner. It was actually a wonderful experience since I normally eat half as much. When I was in the cab ride home, I had an epiphany.

Perhaps the reason why there are so many large folks in America is because people purposefully gorge themselves in order to lose weight! 

Eating great food is such a wonderful pleasure that it’s irrational not to.  It trumps any negative feels about packing on weight otherwise we wouldn’t let ourselves go. 

Furthermore, the reason why there are so many people in debt is because it’s just so rocking fun to spend money you don’t have! Finally, it feels great once you pay back that debt! Double pleasure going both ways is why there is such a correlation.

The Best Way To Lose Weight: Gain Weight

Let’s say you are mildly obese at 5 feet 11 inches and 230 lbs. You enter into a weight loss competition with your fellow 5 foot 11 inch pal who is also slightly overweight, but weighs in at 180 lbs instead.  Back in college, both of you were lean 160 pound fighting machines.

The goal is to lose 10% of your body weights in 3 months i.e. 23lbs for contestant #1 and 18lbs for contestant #2.  Going from 230lbs to 207lbs is clearly MUCH easier than going from 180lbs to 161lbs.  Yet, 10% is 10% and contestant #1 is calling contestant #2 a chicken for trying to bend the rules.

Hence, if I were a betting man, I’d bet on the contestant #1 (230 lbs) all day long!  The mildly obese person not only will have an easier time losing weight, he’ll get to brag to his opponent and all his friends that he lost a whopping 23 pounds!  He’ll gain a renewed sense of self esteem even though at 207 pounds, he’s still a little hefty.

Meanwhile, the 2nd contestant, despite getting down to the 160-170 level is a loser even though he looks fitter than contestant #1 at 200-210.  The next time there is a weight loss competition, you bet your big buns that contestant #2 is going to gain a massive amount of weight so he can win!

The Big Downer

Here’s the real kick in the nuts for the contestant #2.  Not only does he lose the weight loss challenge, he also misses out on all those years he could have gorged himself on tasty food! 

Eating is such a wonderful experience as I was kindly reminded of last week.  To be able to eat to your heart’s content is a luxury unlike no other.

Contestant #1 was able to overindulge for years after college and gain 70 pounds. He enjoyed all of his meals, never felt guilty enough to do anything, and seldom ever had to work out. 

Now, contestant #1 can also capture the glory of losing weight, because it’s so much easier to do so when you are so much heavier.

Related: The Ideal Weight Pisses Me Off

Debt Reduction Is The Same Game Plan

You may be wondering what this weight loss shenanigan has to do with personal finance and I’ll tell you.  The parallels to gaining weight to lose weight is the exact same reason why people go into debt to get out of debt! Think about it for a bit.

How awesome is it to spend all this money which isn’t yours to go on vacations, drive fancy cars, and have fine things?  You’ll spend years enjoying the good life with other people’s money until your natural instincts kick in that you perhaps need to stop.  It’s exactly why most people don’t keep gaining weight forever.

The day you decide that living the high life is over, you challenge yourself to get out of debt.  You start a journal, a blog, a budget.  Whatever it is, you start something that will get you out of debt. 

The more in debt you are, the greater the feeling once you finally do get out of debt. You are rewarded both ways for irresponsible financial habits and as a result, you may very well gain some weight and get into debt again!

Recommendation To Lose Weight And Become Debt-Free

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Planning for retirement when paying for private grade school
Link up your accounts and see whether you’re on track to retirement in great shape or in poverty

This post was originally published on October 25, 2010 and updated on July 29, 2020. I was annoyed at how difficult it was to lose weight and how some people got so much praise for losing so much weight. I’m about 168-170 lbs still, which is not bad. But I could lose about 10 lbs.

How to Become a Certified Financial PlannerTM (CFP®)

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This is a guest post by Paul Williams from Provident Planning on how to become a Certified Financial Planner. He’s a fee-only financial planner in Lancaster County, PA, and regularly writes about personal finance from a Christian perspective. If you want to become a CFP®, he’d be happy to talk with you.

I was excited when Sam invited me to write a guest post for Financial Samurai on how to become a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM (CFP®). I’ll finally finish the requirements in Novemeber 2010 and be eligible to call myself a CFP® after I fill out the last bit of paperwork.

Sam mentioned he’d like to become a CFP® after he retires from his job, so he’s curious about what he’d have to do. I’m sure some of you might also be interested in becoming a financial planner if you’ve got a strong interest in personal finance.

This post is going to be about the process of becoming a CFP® rather than deciding if you should even become a CFP®. That’s a very different question and one you should have an answer to before you start the process of becoming a CFP®. It’s certainly not a cheap certification to get (in money or time).



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