Well, the title isn’t exciting, is it? An exciting title would have been “Get Rich Quick” but I am here to show you that “Get Wealthy Slowly” is a more exciting proposition. I will give some reasons as to why it’s exciting, even though it sounds boring.

We will get into the why before the how.

First question: What is the difference between rich and wealthy?

Most people don’t realize but these are two very different things. Being rich means having good material things in life; like a nice house, great cars and a membership at the country club. One can be rich without being wealthy. A wealthy person, on the other hand, has plenty of assets. She may drive a Honda Civic but she might have a couple of million dollars in assets to her name (it’s not necessary that she drives a Honda Civic but the example was chosen to make the point). Wealth comes from accumulating assets, notwithstanding your income. Feeling rich comes from spending, it doesn’t matter whether you have borrowed that money or are living paycheck to paycheck despite a very high income.

The First Why? Why do we want to be wealthy?

There are some good reasons for the desire to be wealthy and there are some poor reasons for the same. There are lots of myths about wealth which we can bust along the way.

1. Good Reasons
   1. You want financial security for yourself and your family.
   2. You enjoy fine things in life in moderation.
   3. You want to leave a meaningful positive impact in the world. This one is tricky because a lot of work we do leaves a negative impact in the world, even though we are working towards a good cause. An example would be to send tons of wheat and rice to Africa in an effort to eliminate hunger while destroying the self-sufficiency of the farmers by depressing the selling price of their crops and driving them out of the market. The positive impact, in this case, could be achieved differently by helping the farmers become more efficient instead and also helping improve the distribution channel. So, you have to think deeply about how you can use your wealth to positively impact the world.
2. Bad Reasons
   1. You are enamored by the “rich” lifestyle and that’s your prime motivation.
   2. You have a strong sense of FOMO and that drives you to become wealthy. BTW, if baby boomers are reading this, FOMO stands for “Fear Of Missing Out”.
   3. You think that endless material consumption will keep you satisfied or in other words you want to enjoy the fine things in life ALL the time.
   4. You want to mask your other insecurities with wealth.
   5. You are doing it chiefly for social validation or because of envy.

Myth Buster #1: Having a lot of wealth will make you incredibly happy

There is absolutely no doubt about it that wealth can solve a lot of problems. If you don’t have to worry about money for your children’s education and your family’s retirement, your stress level absolutely goes down. But, it has been biologically as well as psychologically proven that we humans adapt hedonically very quickly. This means two things. First, we get used to the good things in life and they do not increase our average happiness beyond a certain point. Second, any additional wealth beyond a certain point does not bring any additional happiness. Our happiness levels actually stay pretty stable for the most part of our lives. This means that acquiring your first million dollars might increase your happiness to a certain level since you are out of major worry zones but going from ten to eleven million in wealth doesn’t do much for us.

Myth Buster#2: Wealthy people are geniuses or really bad people

While it is true that some wealthy people are geniuses (read my article on geniuses here: Are you a genius? ) and some are rotten apples, while some others are both; these myths are not necessarily true. Yes, you have Bill Gates and Martin Shkreli on two ends of the spectrum while Jeff Epstein straddles both the boundaries; but most wealthy people are of average or above average intelligence and average moral character. The demonization of wealthy is as wrong as the worshipping of them. Just because someone is wealthy doesn’t mean that they have good advice to offer or we should look up to them. Neither should we look down upon them for their wealth. 

The Second Why? Why “Get Wealthy Slowly” and not “Get Rich Quick”

The biggest reason is the scientific research done in this arena tells us that it is more satisfying for ourselves and less detrimental to society and the environment as well. People who consume resources slowly and mindfully tend to enjoy those resources more and have a more satisfying relationship with wealth. Hence, people who invest in assets while consuming a smaller portion of their income, tend to have a more satisfying material experience. And these are the people who are building wealth slowly. On the other hand, in the get rich quick scheme, success is harder but once you succeed in getting rich quick by scoring a windfall or a high-income gig early on and don’t rein in your consumption, you will be trapped on the hedonic treadmill and you might be adversely impacting the environment at a faster pace (Please don’t forget that it’s not ONLY global warming but the overall impact of the human economic activity on ecology has been terrible. Of course, we can never avoid the ecological impact but can keep it in check with better technologies, controlled population, and mindful consumption ). You might also be jeopardizing your health along the way. Keeping these things in mind, I recommend “Get Wealthy Slowly”.

But how?

If you have read Warren Buffet’s biography, you have heard the term “The Snowball Effect”. If you notice the Table 1 above, you might see that with the progress in age, the wealth of the top 1% grows more than linearly. This is the compounding effect as used in the term Snowball. Wealth invested in an asset which grows at 10% in the first year, increases by 11% on the original base in the second year and 12.1% in the third. As a rule of thumb (following the rule of 72), a 10% growth rate doubles the asset’s value in (72/10)~7 years. Hence, a person who is investing $30,000 per year in assets (which is growing at say 12%), starting at age 22 and increasing his investment by 10% each year, would have a net worth of $3.2m by the age 40. Look at the table above, this person is top 1% in America (This person is also at the $1.35m level at age 35). With engineers making 6 figures as starting salaries at age 22, this is very doable. You don’t have to strike it big in a startup or win a lottery to achieve this feat. This is slow and sweet and relatively mindful to the planet. If you are saving $30,000 in the first year of your career, you are certainly not a consumption-driven person.

I hope you enjoyed the post. Let me know if you would like to learn more about the math behind all this magic.

The US tax code gives a massive advantage to one group of people: long-term investors. This is how people like Warren Buffet keep their taxes low. I am here to tell you that you can take advantage of that as well.

You would be surprised to know that if your AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) is less than $77,200 and if you are married and filing taxes jointly, you don’t pay any federal taxes on your long-term capital gains. Surprising, isn’t it?

And let’s say your AGI is $600,000 and let’s say all of that income is from long-term capital gains, then you pay only $84,470 in federal taxes. To simplify, I have ignored standard/itemized deductions.

However, if $600,000 of AGI came from a W2 job, can you guess what your federal tax bill will be? It will be a whopping ($1905+$7002 + $19,272 + $36,000 + $29,350 + $70,000) = $163,529, yes roughly $80,000 more. You need to also remember that to make AGI of $600,000 via your job, your real gross income has to be probably closer to $700,000, to fund social security, Medicare and Disability Insurance.

If we were to compare the overall tax rate with the $600,000 example above, the investor pays 14% while the wage earner pays 27.25% (roughly double tax rate). And that’s how Buffet’s secretary pays a higher tax rate than Buffet himself.

You can devise your life around long-term capital gains. Invest as much as you can in long-term investments. Then reap the rewards later by dropping off the job bandwagon early and live off your investments, paying very little taxes on your way.

If you find saving taxes like this morally discomforting, then ask your lawmakers to change the tax code. Well, most of them won’t listen to you but you can try nonetheless!

2018 is here and people are excited about their families, careers and education. The underlying foundation of all these pillars is their personal finance. For most Americans, the foundation of personal finance is the stock market.

We have been talking lately about the asset bubble formation and the bloated P/E ratios. (For introductory readers, P/E stands for Price to Earnings ratio and is one of the many indicators of the value of a stock). To understand where we stand, I attended Vanguard’s Financial Outlook Seminar with the new CEO Tim Buckley, Chief Investment Officer Gregory Davis and Head of Corporate Marketing and Communications, Rebecca Katz.

Let’s look at various areas of the market as was discussed at the meeting.

P/E Ratios

While the panel members agreed that the cyclical P/E ratios are high at around 31, they also mentioned that under the light of low interest rates and low inflation, this is not over the top. (People are willing to pay more price for future earnings since the Future Value of Money is good in a low interest, low inflation environment)

Equity Outlook

The panelists suggested that they are looking at around 4.5%-6.5% for annualized return over the next 10 years. For 2018 specifically, the probability of recession stands at mere 5%, a mild recession at 10% and a slowdown at 15%. On the other hand, odds for the Trend to continue lie at about ~20% and the odds of growth lie at about ~50%.

Fixed Income Outlook (Bonds etc.)

The panelists pinned the 10-year annualized outlook for bonds at 2%-3%, mostly for high quality Corporate and Government bonds. Since the current interest rates are low, long term investors are encouraged to invest in short/intermediate term bonds since when the coupons mature, they can be reinvested in the higher yield bonds.

Diversification

Unsurprisingly, the panelists suggested that you should have a good mix of equities and fixed income vehicles so that if and when the market dips, you could trade your bonds with new equities. We will cover international market later in this article.

Inflation

An uptick in inflation is expected. However, it will depend on whether new money goes towards hiring more people (inflation increases) or incurring capital expenditure or financial engineering. Inflation is in check, thanks to some extent to technology because with technology, you can get more with less.

Interest Rates

The FED has indicated that it will increase interest rates in the next two years. Somewhere between 40 to 80 basis points in increase is expected.

GDP Growth

Again, unsurprisingly, the panelists mentioned that a GDP growth of ~2% in the US is expected.

Unemployment

They asked to watch this closely since unemployment is at a multiple decade low. This could lead to increase in wage pressures or using of more technology to replace humans (more capital expenditure).

Tax Cut/Bill for corporations

Begets the same question. Will the additional money  be used towards Financial Engineering (buyback stocks, a sugar rush of not much use) or expanding businesses and hiring, to increase the income potential of the corporations. However, the deficit generated is of concern because it reduces US’s credit rating, by increasing US’s debt/GDP ratio. This would mean that US will have to pay a higher interest on its new debts. Hopefully, the country does not get caught in a vicious debt cycle where a higher interest debt is serviced by another high interest debt.

Bitcoin/Crypto-currency

Vanguard will not offer anything with Bitcoins/Crypto-currency since it is a speculative thing like Gold. There is no underlying income stream/potential. However, the underlying “Blockchain” technology is being closely watched.

International Market

• Europe
  • Affected positively by Global Economy.
  • Less political uncertainties now, leading to better valuation.
  • ~2% GDP growth expected.
• China
  • A cooling off expected.
  • China is moving from capital intensive economy to consumer society. Capital intensive economy leads to better GDP growth, hence a fall in GDP growth to a level around 6%-6.5% is expected.

I hope I was able to convey the 2018 outlook in layman terms. Please let me know if you need further clarifications.

Happy investing!

I am writing this specifically for Jonathan and Brad. This was one of the finest finds for me in the personal finance space and I want the community to take advantage of it ASAP. In my other posts Simplifying saving for college and How to get your money into Roth IRA even when IRS prohibits it? , I talk a lot about how to get more money into Roth IRA. This is especially very important for the people who have already maxed out all pretax contribution opportunities like pretax 401K, HSA etc. This is the last post in the series.

(BTW, if you want to understand the basics of personal investing, I advise you to read this book: Simple Path To Wealth.)

Who should do it?

Let’s say you have reasonable high income and you already do the following:

• $18,000 in pretax 401K.
• $5500 in Traditional IRA or Roth IRA or Backdoor Roth (see How to get your money into Roth IRA even when IRS prohibits it?)
• $3400 in HSA ($6750 for married filing jointly).
• Also maximize other pretax vehicles if at your disposal.

After doing all the above things, if you still have money leftover to invest, please don’t invest it in a taxable account. Instead, invest it in Roth IRA via the Mega Roth because Roth IRA has some major advantages. (see Simplifying saving for college).

How does it work?

A Traditional 401K has a contribution limit of $54,000 (first surprise! most people think it is $18,000). Here are the usual ways money goes into your 401K.

• Your pretax contribution- $18000 limit in 2017.
• Your employer’s matching- different companies have different rules.
• Your after-tax contribution (let’s call it ATC).

ATC is where the magic happens. In a hypothetical example for Mr. Kirti, here is the breakup.

• Mr. Kirti contributes $18,000 of his pretax income to 401K.
• His employer matches $9000. (again, goes into account as magic pretax money)
• Mr. Kirti makes another $27,000 ($54,000- $18,000- $9,000) of ATC.

What happens to the 27K worth of ATC?

• It can be left there till retirement. Not very advantageous because money does not grow tax-free (unlike Roth IRA).
• Can we rolled over into Roth IRA called the Mega Backdoor into Roth.

Can I do this as well just like Mr. Kirti?

• Not everyone’s employer’s 401K allows this. Your plan needs to allow something called In-Service distribution since you are still working at the company.

How often can I do this?

• Mr. Kirti’s 401K administrator allows him to take one In-service distribution every 12 months. But your plan might have different rules.

How should I go about doing this?

• Call your 401K provider and ask them about In-service distribution. If they allow it, go to the next step.
• Ask them the number of such distributions allowed and any costs associated with it. If any number of such distributions are allowed without any costs, take these distributions after every paycheck. You will most likely get a check for “<company which holds your Roth IRA>  for the benefit of <your name>”.
• If they allow only one such distribution every 12 months, then try to make your after-tax contributions into the 401K in a shorter interval of time. Eg. make ATCs around bonus time or make the maximum allowed (% of your paycheck) ATC for some consecutive number of paychecks till you reach the max cap. The reason it is important to cluster it in such a way is because your contributions might grow if left in the 401K account for long and you have to understand what happens to the growth.

So, what happens to the growth?

• First, you decide if you want to have growth or not while your money is sitting in 401K, waiting to be rolled over to Roth IRA. You need to decide because the growth can lead to a taxable event (it matters when you are trying to keep your Modified Adjusted Gross Income-MAGI within a certain level).  Mr. Kirti likes to let it grow since in his case, “growth minus taxes” is still superior than “no growth and no taxes” because he cannot possibly benefit very much by keeping his MAGI low by relinquishing real growth since he won’t be eligible for any benefits anytime soon.
• If you don’t want it to grow, just put it in a Settlement account (usually money market) in the 401K and when the roll over into Roth happens, there is no taxable event.
• If you invested it in the stock market, it might have grown. Now you decide how you want to handle the growth.
  • Take it to Roth IRA: Taxable event- you pay the taxes on the growth portion that year.
  • Move the growth/earnings portion into Traditional IRA:  this makes sense for people who never intend to do the regular Backdoor Roth because if and when they do the regular Backdoor Roth, they will have a big taxable event. If you intend to separate out the In-service distribution between contributions and growth, make sure you know the respective amounts (your 401K provider tracks the cost basis of the ATCs).

That’s it. If you have any more questions, ping me via the blog or pester Brad and Jonathan. Let me know how it goes for you and feel free to provide constructive feedback.  Happy investing!

 

 

 

 

In my previous article on Simplifying saving for college, I talked about getting your money into Roth IRA since its one of the most flexible tax advantaged retirement vehicles. However, IRS has an income limit restriction. They will not let you contribute if your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI), married filing jointly, is greater than $196,000 (2017 number).

Then, how do we do it? We take advantage of a tax loophole where conversions from other Retirement accounts to Roth IRA is possible.

Let me tell you step-by-step as to how I do it. I use Vanguard heavily since the cost structure of Vanguard is pretty solid and they have extremely low expense ratio for most of their funds (I can get into more details of Vanguard in a different post). The trick is that I don’t have a Traditional IRA with loads of money in it. This is the bedrock of conversion methodology. This is because when you convert from one Retirement Account to another one like Roth IRA, it leads to a taxable event. If you have plenty of pretax money lying around in a Traditional IRA and if you convert it to Roth, it will lead to a big tax bill that year (Even if you contributed to Traditional IRA with post tax dollars, the growth/earnings portion will trigger a tax bill). Below are the right steps to achieve the most optimal results if you don’t have money lying around in an existing Traditional IRA.

• Open a Traditional IRA with Vanguard if you don’t have one.
• Contribute $5500 (the contribution limit in 2017). Buy whatever fund you desire.
• Open a Roth IRA with Vanguard if you don’t have one yet.
• Once the funds have settled into the Traditional IRA (takes a couple of days or so), ask Vanguard to convert the funds to Roth.
• The important point is to do it ASAP after the funds are available to be converted because you don’t want the money to grow before it reaches Roth; otherwise you will have to pay taxes on the growth.

This technique is called “The Backdoor Roth”. I don’t know how long this loophole will last, hence make hay while the sun shines.

Of course, the best advice here is for people whose MAGI (married filing jointly) <$196,000, please open a Roth IRA right away and start contributing directly to Roth instead of using the Backdoor hack. IRS starts phasing out the benefits beyond the MAGI (married filing jointly) of $186000; hence you won’t get to contribute the full $5500 between $186,000 and $196,000. If your MAGI (married filing jointly) lands below $186,000, you get the full $5500 to contribute.

Eventually, I will write another post where I will tell you another trick about contributing to Roth. Meanwhile, keep reading and start saving!

 

 

 

College is expensive in United States and parents need to be planned so that they are not surprised with the bill when its time to ship the kids to college. They might be thinking good riddance after dropping them off at the campus but not so much when the hefty sometimes even $50,000/year bill arrives in their mail. Scholarship is hard to get if the parents have high income, even if the student is meritorious, at Tier 1 institutions. Here are my tips for my US parents:

• Avoid big student loans if possible. They will hunt you till your grave if you don’t pay them back. It is highly irresponsible to not pay back your loans in the first place but unlike other loans which go away if you file for bankruptcy, student loans don’t.
• Roth IRA : Roth IRA is the best investment vehicle ever. Here are the things you need to remember about withdrawing from Roth IRA. My advise is to only use the contributions (not the growth/earnings) for funding college and I advise to use this as your primary college fund:
  • You can withdraw the principal (your after-tax contribution) anytime without any restrictions.
  • You can withdraw the growth, tax and penalty free if you meet the following conditions:
    • Roth IRA account has been open for more than 5 years. AND
    • It is a qualified distribution which means:
      • You are over 59 1/2 OR
      • Death or Disability strikes OR
      • First time home buy (a lifetime limit of $10,000) for the account holder, account holder’s children and grand children.
  • You can withdraw the growth, penalty free (but not tax free unless you are older than 59 1/2) if it is for college. You will pay ordinary income taxes on the amount of growth you withdraw for college. I do NOT advise touching the growth for college though unless absolutely necessary. This exception withdrawal does not have to wait for the 5 year period as discussed in the previous bullet. The college fee and tuition can be paid for the account holder, account holder’s spouse, children, grand children, great grand children etc.
  • Advantages of using Roth IRA
    • The contributions are flexibly available and if you don’t touch the earnings, they grow tax free.
    • Assets in Roth IRA are not used in calculating the Expected Family Contribution on the FAFSA (Financial Aid Form).
  • Disadvantages of Roth IRA
    • If your income is low and you could potentially qualify for Financial Aid/Scholarships, the amount of contributions which you withdraw, even though it won’t be taxed again, is still considered untaxed income on FAFSA (Financial Aid Form) and reduces eligibility for next year’s financial aid. The strategy will be to withdraw the amount a couple of years ahead of time called Prior Prior Year- PPY (losing the opportunity of growth for two years in hopes to qualify for financial aid/scholarships).
    •  There are usually income limits for Roth IRA contributions. People like me in the high tech industry don’t qualify to contribute. However, there are some loopholes which you can use. I will not list them here. If you are interested, you can either ping me for a friendly chat or read up online.
• 529 Plans
  • Use it as the secondary college fund.
  • After tax money goes into the fund and grows tax free.
  • Disadvantages
    • Can only be used towards post-secondary education at the universities/colleges approved in your plan. If not used for post-secondary education, you have three options:
      • Change beneficiary to somebody else in the family.  Qualified beneficiaries are:
        • The designated beneficiary’s spouse
        • The designated beneficiary’s son or daughter or descendant of the beneficiary’s son or daughter
        • The designated beneficiary’s stepson or stepdaughter
        • The designated beneficiary’s brother, sister, stepbrother or stepsister
        • The designated beneficiary’s father or mother, or ancestor of either parent
        • The designated beneficiary’s stepfather or stepmother
        • The designated beneficiary’s niece or nephew
        • The designated beneficiary’s aunt or uncle
        • The spouse of any individual listed above, including the beneficiary’s son-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law or sister-in-law
          Any individual for whom the home of the designated beneficiary is his or her primary home for the entire tax year
        • The designated beneficiary’s first cousin
      • Leave it intact for your child’s graduate school or college later or your own education at some point in time if you are thinking of going back to college.
      • Withdraw the leftovers. You will pay ordinary income taxes on the earnings and will also pay 10% federal penalty tax on the earnings portion (a state penalty might also apply).
    • Assets in 529 are used to determine EFC (Expected Family Contribution) on FAFSA and reduce Financial Aid Eligibility.
  • Advantages
    • Both contributions and earnings are available to pay for college without taxes or penalty.
    • The withdrawal from 529 does not show up as income in that year for FAFSA purposes since the EFC has already taken care of including these assets in its determination, so no double counting.

I know all of this can be a bit too much but I have excluded many unnecessary things which confuse the parents. I don’t hold myself to any liability claims for this advice. Please talk to your financial advisor before making any contributions/investments. This is just a friendly advice and not a certified financial advisor’s advice.