My Self Enforced Gag Order

Streaky, non-existent and absent. These are just a few of the words that can be used to describe this blog over the last few years. And now I am finally ready (and not under a watchful eye) to pick this little blog back up with regular postings.

But what happened?

This piece of the story goes back a few years and needs some background. I work in finance, specifically in operations for large, and when I say large I really mean behemoth, global financial institutions. After several years of service at a US based firm, I left for a certain Swiss one that may or may not have three keys ;) Now based on the type of work that I do and certain industry intel that I am privy too, it is perfectly understandable that in this line of work certain restrictions and monitoring of employees needs to be in effect to prevent insider trading. To be in line with regulations and internal standards, my then new employer required me to report any non-retirement investment accounts to their firm, allow them access to monitor my account for activity and sign off on quarterly affirmations that state I was not engaging in insider trading.

But with so employees across the US, let alone the world, my employer at my time of hire, required me to also move my non-retirement investment account to one of a select list of approved firms. Thankfully my account in question was already at a firm on their approved list, so when the job offer came through I happily signed away.

Fast forward a year into my employment and the rules changed. Now I was required to report all investment accounts within my household, including those of my wife, to my employer and transition these accounts to a single approved firm: theirs.

Surely, I thought, there would be a discount offered to employees. There was no discount. The decree would mean that I would move our brokerage account, my traditional IRA (rollover of 401k from previous employer), my ROTH IRA, my wife’s ROTH IRA, my son’s ESA and a few ESAs that we have setup for nephews and nieces, from a provider that charged 0 fees to one that would begin charging monthly fees for the pleasure of doing forced business with them.

Needless to say I was not happy about the situation. I appealed to HR stating my investment portfolio consisted of open-ended mutual funds, I do not own and have never owned single stocks, and I have only bought, never sold any funds. Surely they would grant me an exception based on my plain Jane investments. They did not, and between you and I, they could not have cared any less about my personal scenario.

So I began interviewing at other firms and quickly learned that this policy my employer implemented, of forcing employees to (financially) buy from the company store was not the norm. I received several offers from other potential employers, along with sign off from their compliance departments, that I could work for their firms without needing to consolidate my portfolio (based solely on my holdings and transaction activity) to their firm.

I was ready to jump ship at the drop of a hat but my wife really helped me see the light. At that time we were trying for what would become our first born. And my better half reminded me that, depending on the timeline, if I left, even to a large company that was legally obligated to provide FMLA, there was a chance that my tenure would not qualify me for taking leave.

So I was faced with a question: what’s more important, spending time with my baby or paying fees on my investment accounts? Needless to say I sought out the third alternative because I absolutely hate the thought of paying unnecessary fees, especially on my investments. In the end of this delightful dilemma I did not move any accounts to my employer and my wife and I (may or may not have done some account title) maneuvering (while not incurring any tax implications or penalties) and stayed in compliance with their revised policy. But I had one loose end, this blog.

What if my employer came across this blog while I was employed for them and read about investment accounts that I may or may not have trading authority/access to, that are not on file and held at their firm? So instead of rocking the boat I stopped complaining about the policy change to my managers and HR, I may have or may not have changed some wording on our account titles, I stopped writing new entries on this blog, I kept my head down and I shut up.

But thankfully this has only been for a short period of time as now I can bring my head back up and continue my musings on this blog, oh, and maybe or maybe not rename some account titles :)

My Epic New Chapter

After what has felt like an eternity I feel like I can finally breathe! And believe me I mean that in every sense of the word. My son is six months old, my wife’s maternity leave has came and went and my leave offered through my employer (16 unpaid weeks) has now expired. And after pouring through the details, crunching the numbers, praying, having discussions and envisioning scenarios, we have decided that I will leave the work force to stay at home with our baby.

This was a decision that I certainly did not even remotely consider when we were in the labor and delivery room the night he was born nor when my paternity leave started. I thought the little guy would wear me out, break me down and have me looking forward to the day I could leave him with a nanny or drop him off at day care and retire back to my cubicle of solitude for some peace and quiet. But a funny thing happened. The feelings of despair that I expected to hit during the marathon that is taking care of a baby, the feelings of when can I get back to my work life, the feelings of when can we get back to the automated savings machine that was our double income household, NEVER…ONCE…HIT….ME

I absolutely love taking care of my son 24 hours a day. This is the kind of work day that I am glad doesn’t end. Yes it’s tiring, yes my back hurts a lot more than even when I used to get to the gym four days a week, yes I take naps with him because I can get just as tired as a six month old, but I love it and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything in the world. And that includes getting back to the five day 50+ hour a week work week and double income household.

Getting here was not easy though and it took a ton of blood, sweat, tears, overtime and side jobs to get to this point for both myself and my wife several years ago. Together we had paid off $80,000 in student loans, have our emergency fund intact and saved and built a portfolio of nearly half a million dollars as we are sitting in our (very) early 30’s. So the question we ultimately came back to after our son was born was why? Why did we go through all of that sacrifice, follow Dave Ramsey’s advice to a perfect T and live and save like no one else? Did we do it to enjoy an early retirement well before we’re eligible for social (in)security? Did we do it to pass on a legacy of debt free living to our children and our children’s children? Is it too soon to be reaping what we’ve sowed? Is this the right time to take our foot off the gas pedal or are we doing long term harm to our financial well being by going to a single income even for a short period of time?

For a lot of these questions, truthfully we don’t have the perfect answers yet. But what we do know is that we love having our son home and one of us here with him, and after expenses (plus a fancy new tax bracket and withholding changes), on a single income, we would still have some disposable income left over! Sure, it’s not the multi-thousand that we used to have, but it would work. It would work in that we could meet our financial obligations, my wife would still max out her 401k for the match, give our tithe, max out savings for our little one’s ESA and still have disposable income left over to give, save and spend.

I think for me, the clincher was thinking about myself at 80, and looking back on this new chapter of my life called parenthood, and wondering what that 80 year old me would have looked back on and thought. Would that old guy have wanted a few more years in his early 30’s to accumulate wealth or time with his newborn son? And when I put it into that context, after looking at the hard numbers of whether we could make the new numbers work on our monthly budget, the choice was pretty easy, of course I want to stay home with my son.

Though cliché, I think the advice that I heard time and time again while my wife was pregnant rings true, that having a baby changes everything. At this point in my life wealth accumulation has taken a back seat for time. It’s a trade off that three months ago I did not think I would make until I was at least 60 years old. And yes I’m happy to have the freedom to continue writing this blog and sharing my experiences, and I will certainly get into more detail on that statement very soon!

My Book Review: "Manhood" by Terry Crews

Funny, poignant, heartfelt and touching. These are not the adjectives I expected to walk away with before I began reading Terry Crews’ “Manhood.” Seemingly on a whim my wife picked up this book for me about a month or so ago and I let it sit on the shelf for some time. I knew of Terry Crews as an actor and beyond that not much else. Crews’ book is an amazing read and admittedly once I started I couldn’t put it down.

Crews walks us through his life, from being born in Flint, Michigan, to growing up with an alcoholic and abusive father, to his path walking on at a college football program to being a journeyman in the NFL, to his humble beginnings in Hollywood and beyond. Crews walks the reader through all of the ups and downs of his life and he had me engaged and wanting to read more and more with each page.

I especially wish a book like this had been written (and that I would have had the foresight to read) when I was a teenager. This is because Crews goes beyond making this book an informative biography. He gives an in depth and poignant looks at some of the most incredible issues that plague so many of our lives. From cyclical generational abuse to the pains, struggles and complications of addiction, Terry Crews was unbelievably profound and as I said before, I could not put this book down.

I’ll come back to my point in the last paragraph that I wish I had read a book like this when I was a teenager. This is because Crews is, on the surface, what most men point to as an alpha male. From his physicality to his presence walking into a room, through every step of his life it seemed as if determination and gusto carried him to success. And beneath it all addiction was the slowly boiling pot of water that nearly destroyed his life every step of the way.

Previous versions of myself would hang onto the fact that I wish I had read something like this earlier in life, so that I could see a voice, an advocate, a symbol, of someone in Crews’ position standing up to challenge the cultural expectations of masculinity, and that I wish I had a role model like that when I was growing up. But at this stage in my life I am grateful that his voice talking about these issues exists at all. Mainly because it goes beyond an alpha male standing up saying “I have feelings too.” This book was about a man of God admitting that successful paths in life are not even close to being well manicured and carved trails. Crews explored on a personal level the devastating impacts that generational abuse can capture and destroy the lives they are apart of, but that they don’t have to continue on to the next generation, and that abuse can stop and end with the person in the mirror.

He talks about forgiveness, faith, love, pain and everything in between. Words written in this raving review pale in comparison to the messages Terry Crews explored and provided insight into for, “Manhood.” And I for one, believe that every male that can, should read this book for the awesome perspective Crews gives about what it means to be a male in our society. I for one am thankful that Crews wrote this book and I hope he has many more planned in the pipeline.

My Quarter End: Q1 2015

Now this feels pretty good, being back in the groove and writing about another thrilling quarter end. So let’s go through a few of the technical numbers and then dive into the details. As of March 31st, 2015 my household net worth stands at $441,437.20 and my mutual funds have been earning an average annualized return of 17%.

Having not reported my net worth since the end of 2013, and to see the first quarter of 2015 start off with an increase of almost one hundred and ten thousand dollars absolutely humbles me and collectively blows my mind. You see, since finding out we were pregnant last fall we re-prioritized a lot of our financial goals and tactics. The biggest of which was increasing our cash positions through our emergency fund and creating a baby account.

Our baby account was made to provide a little cushion for our upcoming bundle of joy. We wanted to be able to make any baby related purchases such as clothes, bedding, cloth diaper service and allthingsyouapparentlyneedforababythatihadnoclueievenneeded without skipping a beat. Thankfully our years of living on a budget and working together through our finances prepped us to seamlessly put a target number on our goal, squeeze a few current month budgets by coming under in categories like groceries and entertainment, and before we knew it our baby account was fully funded.

So we've spent the better part of this current year funneling our disposable income into our taxable brokerage account. All the while we have continued to max out our employers’ matches through our 401ks. To me all of this, especially since 2013, has been slow and steady and to be perfectly honest since I had gone on an extended hiatus from writing this blog, I didn't really compare or even look at the quarterly numbers during 2014.

So I’m left wondering what made us leap over $100k in just a handful of quarters? In truth, half came from an increased of appraised value from the piece of real estate I own in name in California, and the other half from increased contributions and growth from our mutual fund investments.

To me the last year was pretty much clockwork. We continued to live debt free, regularly invested in our assortment of mutual funds, beefed up our cash savings accounts and watched every dollar through our monthly budgets so that not even a penny would slip by us.

I actually feel kind of crazy writing this. There were no magic tricks, no salary increases that bumped us a tax bracket, no wild and crazy bonuses and no secrets of investing that only a financial analyst has top secret access to. We've simply been slow and steady telling each and every penny where to go each and every paycheck….THAT’S…..IT!!

For this quarterly review I will hold off on making any market predictions or a financial summary of the state of the US. Primarily because I want to have time to gather up some awesome Yellen jokes, but mainly because, and I know this may be sacrilegious for a finance blogger to write, but simply put, I just haven’t been paying attention.

I know, I know, how can a guy who works in finance, and who (is getting back into) writing a personal financial blog not pay attention to the overall health of the global economy and the US market? To be frank, I just haven’t. Day and in day out I do my very best at work, and lately, especially over the last few months, I have been living, breathing and LOVING the idea of becoming a dad. My wife and I have completed a month of birthing classes and are ramping up our home exercises in preparation for the due date. Everything, financially speaking, is on cruise control. We have our monthly budgets for the rest of 2015 filled out, and while we expect variables to hit us and our best laid plans to always be fluid given the volatility of having a new family member (and that I will take 4 months of unpaid leave from work, more on that later), I feel like we have our financial ducks in a row and can concentrate fully and solely on this new chapter called parenthood that our lives will be turning to in just a few months. So it’s great to be back writing and I can’t wait to share more as 2015 unfolds.  

My Return

461 days….

That’s how long it has taken me to realize how much of an asshole I have been for not continuing to write in this blog. It’s definitely not been for lack of thoughts or a shortage of topics. The truth is I let a few miniscule circumstances and technicalities open the door for my laziness to step up to the forefront and take over the joy I received day in and day out from this blog.

Well that is no more…

It blows my mind that it has been almost a year and a half since my last entry. So much life has happened, there have been so many changes and yet so much remains the same. I am still working in the financial industry and loving Chicago. My wife and I are still living the debt free life as we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary late last month. And our mutual fund investments are continuing to outpace my expectations.

As for the changes, well, there’s been quite a few after nearly a year and a half, but there really is only one change that takes the cake and stands out above all the rest. In less than two months, I will become more than just a (sporadic) blogger and (self proclaimed) personal financial wizard. (Hopefully) By the end of May, I will become a father as my wife and I will welcome our first baby to our little family. Here’s a picture of our little one that will hopefully make you go AWWWWW!

Now we are holding back the gender of our baby from family and friends. Clothing wise we want tons of vibrant and bright colors that are gender neutral from our loved ones, so that if baby number two ends up being a different gender, then the hand me downs would be just fine to pass from one child to the next. (You see me working there?!)

Needless to say I am excited and unbelievably stoked for this next phase of life. I’ll dive more into this and many other topics in later posts, but for now I wanted to share that I missed you all, I’m sorry for being an asshole, and I hope you still find the musings of this semi-astute North Sider, at the very least interesting. Oh, and to a very awesome reader of my peculiar musings out in Charlotte, thank you for giving me just what I needed at just the right time :)

My Quarter End: Q4 2013

What an absolutely incredible and breathtaking year. Sitting here writing at the end of 2013 my household net worth stands at $331,838.63 And a milestone has been surpassed during this past quarter. For this first time since I began recording my financial statistics, our cash and investments have now exceeded my partial piece of California real estate in value. This past quarter alone on my balance sheet really tells the tale of how the market has behaved over the last 5 years. During the last three months my partial piece of real estate declined by roughly $10,000, while our mutual funds sky rocketed by a little more than that same amount, accounting for the increase in our overall net worth from the 3^rd quarter of 2013.

What is most impressive to me in the equities market is that there was an abundance of negative news that hit the news headlines over the last few months. Bernanke and the Fed set the tapering wheels in motion, the launch of Obamacare has been botched and left an even greater level of uncertainty in the health care industry than ever before and the budget deal that the Congress and Senate are ramming down our throats behind closed doors is an absolute abomination. And in the face of all this, the market has continued to rise like a magnificent sunrise over Lake Michigan.

I do not believe that we will see a freefall crash in 2014. In fact if we look historically in years past there has been a significant jump in equities between Q4 and Q1 and I don’t see a reason why Q1 company reporting in 2014 will be anything less than neutral. I do forecast though that Q2 and Q3 in 2014 will be more in line, possibly even negative, to balance out the last five years of this market surge to reflect more historical market averages.

Make no mistake about it, since the freefall in 2008 the overall stock market has been on a powerful surge that we have not seen since the tech boom that was the 1990s. I also am finding that it was no coincidence that roughly five years ago to this date I first picked up Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover,” and started my journey to becoming debt free and steadily investing with confidence and a game plan. I had absolutely no idea five years ago that getting on a budget and living on less than I make, becoming debt free and regularly investing for retirement and through a taxable brokerage account, that I would be sitting here today with the types of numbers that our balance sheet is reflecting. I mean our average annualized return percentage across our investments are in the 20s, our investments (yes excluding cash, art and jewelry!) are worth more than the piece of California real estate owned and we are essentially on cruise control as we move toward the pinnacle point.

But I’m finding my peace and happiness in more than just numbers and percentage returns. I am also grateful to have had the opportunity over this last calendar year to give more than I ever have before in my life. We’ve tithed our *net income across sponsoring 3 children overseas and giving to our church. Plus we have provided offerings above and beyond our tithe to help contribute to various causes that God has presented before us during the course of this past year.

*Note: we tithe our net income because I feel that it takes the hand of God through a miracle to lower our t axes, so the way I see it is if God wants more, He knows exactly what to do!    

While I know the direction we are heading with our household finances, it’s our consistent and prioritized giving that I think is laying the foundation for my contentment and happiness currently in life. In Dave Ramsey’s class Financial Peace University, he talked about the paradox that as you give more that you will have more. When I first heard and reflected on that message I understood and expected that as we gave more that we would receive from God the love and fulfillment from helping grow His kingdom here on Earth and that would be the extent of it. Today I’m of the belief that while this previous statement is true there is another piece that I crucially missed. And that piece is this: At the start of my financial journey God entrusted me with a little and through following His word on how to handle His resources that reach my bank accounts, He has only provided more and more for me to handle. I honestly can’t seem to out give God. Since becoming debt free we sought out and found a church and programs that we send our tithe to, and during THESE last 5 years when the news headlines scream about a disparity between the rich and the poor, He has provided my wife and myself with pay increases, bonus after bonus, company matches and mutual funds with returns that have beat my expectations.

So needless to say I am very much looking forward to 2014. As the market continues to rise and as it comes back to more normalized historical patterns we will continue to invest steadily and readily into our small army of mutual funds. We will also push forward on doing a little more spending, a little more giving and of course a little more investing ! So from my family to yours I genuinely wish you a Happy New Year and all of the best for 2014. 

My Book Review: "The Blessed Life" by Robert Morris

“The Blessed Life” by Robert Morris is quite a gem of a book and I would highly recommend this fine piece of reading to anyone within earshot. Aside from the central message of the book, which speaks about following good stewardship with our dollars and cents, I felt Morris did an excellent job with the flow of the book. The first part of the book eloquently conveys the biblical principle and importance of first fruits giving, and then transitions smoothly into what that example looks like for a modern day household, and finishes with what a lifetime of biblically based financial stewardship looks like over the long term.

I especially liked Morris’ message that highlighted and gave an overview with bullet points about those with the gift of giving. He goes into why accumulators of wealth that prioritize giving do a complete evaluation and thorough inspection of the projects and missions that they give to. Morris also addressed and challenged the viewpoint of seeing wealth as evil, and challenges the reader to see wealth instead as a tool that can be used to further the kingdom of God on Earth.

On a personal level I have been debt free for 5 years and within the last year have just begun to spread my wings financially speaking by doing a little more investing, spending and giving than in years past. And though I take a rough and tumble type of attitude when it comes to Christians/the secular world that calls for poverty and views wealth as evil, I found Morris’ book to be an unbelievable breath of fresh air. In my point of view, “The Blessed Life,” is a great foundation and the type of book that I am going to seek out to read more and more in 2014 and beyond. I really feel that it provides the spiritual guidance and angel in the ear type of advice that I need reinforced as my wife and I help build God’s resources during our time on this Earth.

His countless stories in the book about being in tune to where God wants to direct His resources were remarkable to me and have given me confidence to continue on in our financial journey. In all honesty, at least in concept, the early stages of Dave Ramsey’s baby steps were easy. At least for me they were simple: Buckle down, live on less than you make, work like a madman, budget, trim the financial fat and get the hell out of debt. On the other side of that though is where I’ve found myself at and snowballing into more and more year after year. And that’s the steady investing, increased lifestyle and increase in prioritized and spontaneous giving. It’s in these latter places where I have felt a bit insecure. How much is enough? How nice is too nice? Am I really capable of being the good steward that God needs when we have several million dollars in our accounts decades down the line?

It’s definitely going to take a ton of prayer, working together with my better half to be in tune with where God wants His resources to go, but books like this are definitely a great starting ground as my wife and I move towards baby step 7, building wealth and giving a bunch of it away.