Category: Uncategorized

Every year, I am a little astonished that “tax time” for most people is February, March, or April.

With an exception of a few things like IRAs… December 31st is the last day you can do things that impact taxes. Its the last day to buy things, transfer things, create entities, buy bonds, sell stocks, transfer accounts,  reappraisals, open HSAs, etc.

And for that reason, I take a couple days in December to do my taxes. Sure, I don’t have my final 1099s, 1098s, W2s, and all my other tax forms… but I have enough to have a pretty good idea how things are going to land… and because I know how they are going to land, I don’t have to be a victim when tax time comes around.

Taxes aren’t something that happens to us- they are an outcome of our choices and financial experiences throughout the year- and if you have a clear picture of what that is as you wrap up the year, you can make decisions at the end of the year to end up precisely where you want to be.

So while this is a festive time of the year where we often think about spending- its not a bad time to use one of those vacation days to take run your financials and see if there’s any great last minute moves you can make to put you in a better place in February- maybe you got a little more depreciation than you expected, some stocks could use a rebalance, or its a good time to convert some of your IRA to Roth- it may actually give you a good reason to be a little more merry during the traditional tax season!

Some people find themselves really challenged with the “Should I buy good quality stuff” or “Should I buy Cheap”, and I find many people end up in one camp or the other. However, I urge you to consider what I found to be the “magic bullet”. I go with what I call the “Harbor Freight” trick, named after everyone’s loved https://www.harborfreight.com/

The trick started for me with tools. I buy the absolute cheapest thing out there.
If I break it, I know I use it enough to buy a really good one, so my next one is top quality.

I’ve saved SOOOO much money this way, and assured when I bought the expensive thing I really bought what I needed, not just what my uneducated self thought I would need.

It doesn’t only work with tools- furniture, electronics, etc. I bought a $30 smart watch, used it to death and broke it, so I had no problem justifying a $250 smart watch. I broke my caulk gun, so I had no problem buying a great caulk gun. I broke my cheap power drill, so I justified buying a dewalt…

But on the flip side there are 10x MORE things I “Swore I’d use all the time” that I never use and so I saved a killing. Apple airpods. Bought cheap $8 version, wore ’em once and just haven’t found the use of them. Backup battery charger- bought a cheap one never used it. Certain toys, etc. Clothes, “Oh I’ll wear that kind of thing all the time” yeah right. a Tile Saw? One hit wonder.

I can justify I follow the same policy (my first house was cheap and I outgrew it, my first car was a as rough as they come and I outgrew it), but I learned in both of those examples what I wanted in a “good” one. I do think its best for people to buy a cheap first house and a cheap first car though so they know what they want when they buy a good one.

And that is the best way to balance “quality” with “price”.

Go to harbor freight and buy your tools, grab your offbrand headphones from ebay, and try out that new tech from the clearance section of walmart…. then the two items you actually use enough to break, you’ll have plenty of money to buy the best version for you!

No one is perfect. Many of us ended up with big debts, and low income after school. We don’t have the BMW and the mansion we always thought we’d have by now, and frankly some of us don’t even have a used Chevy and rent. Instead our expectations for life after college gave way to a very different life straddled with student loans we struggle to pay off.

I bought a business once that I thought was going to make me a killing. After buying it I discovered the seller was involved with fraud and the business wasn’t going to get the big bucks I expected. This was rough to accept. I was subject to extensive hard work, a big time commitment, and a big loan only to be straddled with a losing business position. I lost a ton of money, and a ton of time never to be recovered. It really sucked, and set my life back substantially.

At first I was extremely angry at the seller, angry at the bank, and angry at myself. This was not at all fair. This was not what I was promised, and not what I expected.

While those emotions are natural, when it was all said and done however, I discovered what I needed to do. I had to forgive myself. That is the most important thing I could do even though it was hard.

I have now forgiven myself. Sometimes investments are not what we expect or plan for, and we need to learn from them. The best of us take our failures and use them to improve ourselves as well as to help teach others around us so they don’t have to make the same mistakes we did.

I can be angry. I can blame others. And once I take responsibility, I can blame myself for listening to those others, and taking their bad advice and faulty direction.

I do believe students who are in a rough loan situation deserve forgiveness for the mistakes they made… It is human to make mistakes and to learn from them. The most important person they need to forgive however, is themselves.

That does not mean they are free from the obligations they owe, just as I was not free from the loan I took to purchase the business. They are not free from the fact that they made an unfortunately bad investment decision based on questionable advice from their parents, friends, and even the colleges themselves.

So graduates- Forgive yourself first, and then make sure you teach your children and your friends’ children about how to intelligently make investment decisions such as business purchases, stocks, or the other common investment for young adults- college. While there is a lot of opportunity in investments such as college, investments can be risky and often do not pan out. This is a tough lesson, but one that every young adult needs to learn sooner than later.

We all deserve forgiveness for our mistakes and transgressions, but this does not mean we should ever expect to force others to compensate us for our mistakes. We learn from them, and do our best to help others in our community learn from our mistakes. This is the definition of life.

So if you are in a rough spot from student loans- Forgive yourself first. Then help others so they don’t repeat your mistakes!

I wanted to help others, and I wrote the book “The College Dilemma” specifically for this reason. So lets all do our part to forgive ourselves, and then help others!