Tag: Investing

The i401K: Your Best Friend as An Independent Contractor

The i401k (also known as the Individual 401K, one participant 401k, or Solo 401K) is the 401K plan for Independent Contractors or sole proprietors. Just as a traditional 401K offers myriad benefits for employees like tax deferred retirement savings and the benefit of lowering your tax bill, the i401K plan was set up to offer the same benefits for independent contractors and individual business owners. The IRS defines it here. 

Tax Savings for Independent Contractors

Since I’ve worked as an independent contractor for several years, the i401K allows me to contribute in two ways:

  • as an employee, making salary-deferred contributions of up to $19,000 in 2019
  • as an employer (because I own a sole proprietorship), making profit-sharing contributions of up to $56,000 (including the $19,000 salary deferral) a year, tax free, for retirement. There are a couple of caveats to this, so read on for more details! Continue reading “The i401K: Your Best Friend as An Independent Contractor”

How to Help Your Economy

Over the last several years, household debt across the world has been slowly increasing. That debt includes mortgages, car loans, and credit card debt. China’s household debt now stands at 49.1% of GDP, relatively low compared to many developed nations, but worrisome because of its 30 percentage point increase in the last decade. Shockingly, Switzerland leads the world with household debt at 127.5% of Gross Domestic Product. That means, for every $100,000 of GDP a household produces, they hold $127,500 in debt!

The average citizen in Switzerland, which has traditionally been an extremely wealthy country, has substantial assets (net worth) underpinning this debt, or at least four times more assets than the average American.

Even so, Switzerland, as well as nine other economies including Canada, Finland, and Australia, have debt levels that are high and rising quickly, at a pace that mirrors that of the US right before the housing bubble. 

Continue reading “How to Help Your Economy”

5 Money Moves We’re Making Before the End of the Year

It’s still hard to believe that almost another entire year has passed. As I was looking through my posts, I saw one I’d written last year about this time, and I thought it would be great to share again. 

Our family's money moves to close out this year and get ready for next! @lauriethreeyear #personalfinance #familymoney #cfomom

The funny thing is, our money moves this year are almost exactly the same as last year’s. We’re creatures of habit, for sure! 

The biggest difference between this year’s end-of-the-year money moves and last year’s is that last December, we paid off all non-mortgage debt so this year, we have nothing to pay off. It feels amazing, and has felt amazing since we did it last December. We feel so much more in control of our finances this year, in large part because we keep more of our money and are able to save and invest more. 

I’d love to hear your end-of-the-year money moves! Let me know in the comments!

While we’re still over a month-and-a-half from the end of the year, we know that soon, December 31st will be upon us, so the ThreeYears are currently working on end-of-the-year money moves to make sure our finances are in good shape.

Here’s what we’re doing to close this year out:

1. Contribute as much as possible to my i401k

Since I’m self-employed, I have an i401k (if you’re interested in the particulars of opening one, read this post). I am playing catch-up with my contributions since we had so many cash goals that we funded with my income this year. So, in the final quarter of the year, and in the first quarter of next year (or at least until we file our taxes), I’ll be contributing a lot to my 401K. Even though the market is high now, I don’t want to miss the tax contributions of these contributions. I estimate we’ll save several thousand dollars on our taxes if I reach my contribution goal for the year.

2. Fulfill our outstanding financial obligations

We’ve got a few outstanding financial obligations, including completing our yearly pledge with our church. We usually wait and pay the majority of our pledge in the fourth quarter of the year, when our cash flow’s better (as a teacher, I don’t get paid in the summer and it takes a month or so after school starts to begin getting paid, so our income rises in October, November, and December).

I also have to pay my fourth quarter taxes for income earned from September through December. I have until January 16th, 2018, to file the taxes, but I’ll probably go ahead and pay what I estimate I’ll owe before the end of the year. I set aside 20% of my income as it comes in, in my business account, so that money is ready to send in anytime I decide to pay the bill. Continue reading “5 Money Moves We’re Making Before the End of the Year”

November Net Worth Update

Wow! It’s almost December, which means we’ve got just one month left of this year. This year has definitely been an eventful one for our family.

November Net Worth Update www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

This month has been a good one. We’ve been surprised by how cold it’s gotten in Charlotte during the fall (it’s been in the 20s this week in the mornings, but it does warm up to the mid 50s or 60s during the day). The boys both seem to have gotten into a groove at school, I’m running now with a running group, and Mr. ThreeYear has been regularly playing tennis.

Last night, we went to our town’s downtown Christmas celebration via trolley! We parked in a parking lot at the edge of our neighborhood and the cutest little trolley picked us up. The boys actually got to ride standing up in the back of the trolley as we cruised the four miles downtown.

Once we got downtown, there were carriage rides, vendors, a Christmas tree display, bands playing, and Santa Claus. The boys and my niece, who was with us, had a blast. It made me so glad we decided to move to this town, because it’s ridiculous how festive and involved our town is. We are freakin’ Mayberry over here. I absolutely love it.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Since we’ve achieved the latter goal, we’ll be primarily focused on the former in each of these reports going forward. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending. Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before. This year, we tried to increase it by more than 65% from where we started in December 2016. Even though it looks like we’ll miss our target by a wide margin, we’re keeping our goal in place to see how close we can get in 2019.  Continue reading “November Net Worth Update”

Investing through the Next Decade

This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure for more information. Thanks for supporting the blog! 

Vanguard recently published a forecast with projections for returns for domestic and international stocks and bonds over the next decade.

“The chances of a recession by the end of 2020 are mounting. And the prospects for the American stock market in the next decade have worsened appreciably,” writes Jeff Sommer in the New York Times. That’s a fun paragraph to read.

Vanguard would never make predictions about actual returns, but suggests it’s highly likely the US will have a recession by the end of the decade.

More interestingly, in my opinion, are the projections for securities.

Vanguard projects that US (domestic) stocks will return 3.9 percent annualized over the next ten years.  Continue reading “Investing through the Next Decade”

Can Optimism and Hope Increase Your Wealth?

This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure for more information. Thanks for supporting the blog! 

Is it possible to increase your net worth through optimism and hope? Last week, I was listening to this episode of the Australian All in the Mind podcast featuring American positive psychologist Martin Seligman, speaking on the power of positive psychology and optimism in changing our outcomes.

One of the reasons I was drawn to this podcast was because Seligman is an academician. He’s interested in quantifiable research in neuroscience that psychologists can use to improve people’s outcomes, that is, their happiness levels. Seligman is the Director of the Penn Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania and is widely known as the founder of positive psychology (here’s a TED talk he did from 2004).

In the podcast, Seligman shares how early on in his career, he realized that his colleagues were focused on the alleviation of misery and suffering, but he was interested in how to increase happiness: “I said, look, when you lie in bed at night you are generally not thinking about how to go from -8 to -5, you’re thinking about how to go from +3 to +6 in life. Psychologists have never worked on this, we’ve never worked on happiness, well-being, the stuff that is above zero.”

It became his mission to figure out how to teach optimism. Continue reading “Can Optimism and Hope Increase Your Wealth?”

June Net Worth Update

Hi! I missed you last week. First, we had a joint work conference for Mr. ThreeYear, then we spent one day loading the moving truck, then one day cleaning the house, two days traveling from New Hampshire to North Carolina, and one day prepping for our close. By the time you’re reading this, we’ll be homeowners once again, this time in North Carolina.

I wanted to blog so much but it wasn’t happening.

I’ve never been so tired. Maybe after having the kids. Definitely after having the kids. But man, this is a close second. Moving is hard. Of course, we know it will be amazing once we get moved in and settled down, but for now, not knowing where my pjs are, or Mr. ThreeYear’s iPad, or pretty much anything, is disconcerting. Throw a mandatory joint work conference, an 8-year-old birthday party, and a graduate class with tons of work into the mix, and I was fried.

Also, yesterday, my sister thought she’d speed up my transition into North Carolina living, by taking me to a yoga class on someone’s back porch in 88 degree weather. Ten minutes into class, there was a puddle of sweat on my mat. And I think (ok, I know!) I belong in the beginner yoga class. These ladies were popping up into headstands on a dime. It’s a really good thing there’s no picture of that.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Since we’ve achieved the latter goal, we’ll be primarily focused on the former in each of these reports going forward. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending. Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before. This year, we’re trying to increase it by more than 65% from where we started in December 2016. Given the wild ride the market’s likely to take us on this year, I’m not sure it’s doable. But we’re going to try.

This month’s net worth report will be a little strange. It will take into account the (massive) loss of equity in our net worth from the move. We paid for realtors’ fees, closing costs, repairs, the move itself, attorneys’ fees, hotel stays, eating out, and the other myriad costs to move. Was it worth it? 100%! We’re living our dream of location independence (very firmly in one location, but hey, that’s what we want). It is a little hard to write down in black and white, though. Continue reading “June Net Worth Update”

May Net Worth Update

We’re well into June now, and the end of school is almost here. Our school year ends Wednesday, and then we’ll be spending entire days packing and getting ready for our big move to North Carolina. The weather in New Hampshire has been beautiful–cool mornings and warm days, with lots of sunshine. This time of year always has the power to hypnotize you with its beauty and leave you wondering why you were ever complaining about the weather.

May Net Worth Update www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

On the home front, I’ve been finishing school work, packing, and doing graduate work (I have three courses more in my master’s program and I’m taking one in June and July). I’m so frayed that I’ve let all the non-important stuff go (you know, like dishes and laundry). Our house looks like we hosted a college frat party, minus all the empty bottles. We have all these random items in our corner, waiting for a yard sale, and there’s a dresser standing on its head in our entry, waiting for its Facebook buyer to come pick it up.

Mountain of moving boxes May Net Worth Update www.thethreeyearexperiment.com
The mountain of boxes in our basement.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending. Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before. This year, we’re trying to increase it by more than 65% from where we started in December 2016. Given the wild ride the market’s likely to take us on this year, I’m not sure it’s doable. But we’re going to try.

May showed us more steady growth. Much of our financial progress was on autopilot last month, as we found a buyer for our house and looked for places to live in our new town. We know that our net worth will take a big dip when we sell the house, so I’m enjoying these numbers while we can.

Continue reading “May Net Worth Update”

Will This Plan Give You More Money in Retirement?

I recently ran across a USA Today article called “How Not to Run Out of Money in Retirement.” In it, the author shares the details of a new retirement plan, the brainchild of an actuary who’s been studying retirement for three decades.

It’s called the “Spend Safely in Retirement” plan, and the premise is simply that you wait until age 70 to claim Social Security and use the IRS’s required minimum distribution table to determine how much to take from savings each year. The Stanford Center on Longevity, working with the Society of Actuaries, published a study of hundreds of ways to create income in retirement, and this plan, one of the simplest, ended up being the most sound (surprise, simple things work well. Who knew?). Continue reading “Will This Plan Give You More Money in Retirement?”

The Boon of Investing Early

Mr. ThreeYear and I have made plenty of mistakes during our financial journey, but one thing we did right was to start investing early. That boon of investing money early has given us a much higher net worth than we would have otherwise had.

The Early Years

I began to learn about investing in college. Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet learned about IRAs and didn’t save any of my job earnings. But, I did begin to learn about investing in individual stocks. This was around the time that Scottrade was founded, and my dad began to make individual stock investments. I did a very small amount of research and began to invest some of the money I had in individual stocks, which were mainly blue chips, or well-established companies that paid a higher dividend each year, like Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and energy companies. I began my portfolio with about $4000 and slowly added to it during college. I did minimal trading and practiced the buy and hold strategy.  Continue reading “The Boon of Investing Early”