Lately I’ve been studying family offices: how they’re structured, how they invest, how they support the family’s spending, how they minimize taxes, and so on. I’ve studied the endowment model and based my portfolio on it (heavy in real estate and other private assets, in addition to public equities). Now I’m looking to improve my […]
One of the confusing things around private investments — especially real estate syndicators — is advertising “Average Annual Returns” (AAR). I personally find this a bit shady because they can’t be directly compared to other returns such as the stock market, which are compound returns (specifically, using Compound Annual Growth Rate or CAGR). For example, you may see a real estate […]
I’ve been wondering why startups take a different approach for the initial grants in year 1 vs refresh grants in years 3-4+? That is, when you join you get a big grant in year 1 with no more grants for 3-4 years. But once you start getting refreshers, you often get smaller annual grants (that still vest […]
My wife has started a women-focused coaching business, particularly around helping her clients improve their writing and communications. (Get in touch if you need help!) Many of her clients are entrepreneurs and the writing is particularly marketing-oriented. This has been fascinating and awesome to watch. At the same time, she’s going through the entrepreneur journey herself, first by publishing […]
There’s a ton of interesting articles on BiggerPockets about House Hacking. But I hear people saying it doesn’t actually work, or its not worth it, or you can’t literally live for free. So here’s the real-life numbers from my very first house hack, back in 2015. Numbers at a glance: Purchase Price: We bought the property for $300k with […]
The funny thing about increasing your income in a household that’s pursuing Financial Independence is that it works so differently than other households. If you start a side hustle that earns an extra $500/month, normally you may think “I’m already hitting my savings goals, so I’m free to spend this ‘bonus’ money however I please!” However, because you’re […]
Last week I had the free Personal Capital consultation. My “advisor” had run a portfolio analysis based on my aggregated information in the PC dashboard for me and wanted to share the results. I was a bit intrigued with their so-called “Tactical Weighting” portfolio allocation approach and wanted to discuss it here today. Personal Portfolio Review To set […]
Ever wondered exactly how tax deferral saves you money? Although deferring your income is often cited as a “good thing”, the most common explanation given is a tax arbitrage between your current tax rate and a presumably lower tax rate in retirement. Many people even go so far to say that if your tax rate is the same in retirement then its […]
As my wife and I move along on our journey to Financial Independence (FI) while thinking about starting a family, we’ve been wondering about getting life insurance. It feels like one of those things we “should” do, but does it really make sense for us? Does it make sense for anyone pursuing Financial Independence? Life insurance […]
The New 2018 Tax Law and You
The internet is full of discussions about the new tax law that went into effect for 2018. In particular, people seem to really dislike the new $10,000 cap on State, Local, and Property Tax deductions. The thinking is that this amounts to “double taxation” on anything over the cap, and that’s just not right. But we should put this in context […]