Tag Archives: retirement

Winning The Loser’s Game – personal finance book, Charles Ellis

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2019-06-16 08.44.50This one sat on my shelf for a while, probably due to a concern that I might have to change my mind on something if I read it!

Well, just because something is unpleasant to consider, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Besides, I can handle bad news.

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Fortunately, there wasn’t much bad news inside this book and it was an excellent read.

Takeaways…

Nearly everyone will be working into their 70s, at least part time. This is a result of success, not failure.

  1. Success in following a healthy lifestyle and benefitting from modern medicine => much longer lifespans.
  2. Success in financial well being => implies our baseline spending at 50, 60, 70… is higher than anticipated.

A working life of 50+ years implies:

  • We will be technically out-of-date before we’re halfway done!
  • Multiple careers, unexpected transitions, continuous technical education
  • Start with something the enables you to get paid well on an hourly basis and become world-class in a niche market
  • If you spent your early career not doing a whole lot then you still have many decades left in your working life. Hit the reset button and get yourself educated without borrowing a ton of money.

Despite “retiring” 3x (!) since my 30th birthday, I’m still working part-time. I had been expecting this to end at some stage. This is not going to happen, and I shouldn’t wish for it to happen.

I should be on-the-lookout for attractive part-time employment and training myself for my next career(s).

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As you’d expect from a bestselling personal finance book in its 7th edition, there are excellent sections:

  • Six self-assessment questions (p 80-81)
  • Living under your means as a form of savings (p 161)
  • Annual personal review questions (p 197-198)
  • Contributing time, talent and money to your community (p 227)

I was also reminded of my personal weaknesses as an investor by the author’s advice to “give compounding time to work.”

Across a 50-year working life, that is a lot of time!

Setting Family Financial Priorities – College and Retirement

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wedding_day

What’s next? It’s tempting to think about my kids. College accounts are on my list but they aren’t the next priority.

Why?

Because kids that will be successful don’t need much help and the family (particularly a financially responsible child) gains by not having to pay for Mom and Dad’s Golden Years.

Education has an mixed return on investment. Here’s my article on how families blow more than $1 million per kid. It’s a rare family that looks at education in terms of return on investment.

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If you want to give your family a leg up then take care of yourself. Do this by max’ing out your retirement accounts – especially anything with an employer match.

I have a single member 401K under my consulting business. If you’re self-employed then you can find out your options by getting in touch with Vanguard.

I spent Friday afternoon shifting my retirement assets and Vanguard has an online tool that the self-employed might find useful.

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What about college?

In current dollars, my pals that have put their kids through college have spent $200,000 per kid.

That’s $600,000 for my family of three – ignoring grad school.

Considering my entire family tree, there is no way the family would earn a reasonable return on that level of investment. Of course, my mind likes to tell me that MY kids will be different!

Thinking about the opportunity cost of $600,000:

  • A lifetime annuity of ~$2,400 per month – starting now
  • We could move into one of the best public school districts in the country
  • We could buy three rental properties and teach our kids about money by having them involved in deciding to borrow against the properties (or not) to fund their educations. The kids could receive a direct financial benefit from minimizing the cost (if any) of their educations
  • We could help send a dozen kids to grad school
  • We could back a family member to buy into an established professional practice
  • We could work less (for the rest of our lives) and make the world a better place
  • We could live abroad long enough for the kids to become bilingual (or to gain residency in a country with free education, national health care and retirement support)
  • We could improve the lives of thousands of people in the developing world (schools, safe drinking water, medical care)

The ideas above ignore the cost of the misery that we give ourselves worrying about funding college!

Given that I’m unsure that the family wants to support three college educations, we are working towards funding one college education spread between three 529 accounts.

Total annual contributions to college funds can be $14,000 per kid, per parent => a potential investment of $84,000 per annum for a two-parent family with three kids.

For all but the top 2% of US earners, paying for everything will be out of reach.

Don’t beat yourself up.

The best thing I can do for my family is love them and work on continually improving myself. I’ve come to see the benefits of my constraints.