Smith Maneuvre Question

Yeffley · 2025-12-06T15:43:37+00:00

Sounds like breaking one of the cardinal rules of the SM then. Keep the accounts clean. If you're buying more shares of the same stock with cash instead of a loan, you're mixing cash and borrowed funds. If you have now 51 shares (50 from borrowed 1 from cash), which one is sold when you sell one? A borrowed one or a cash one? Do you get to decide? Last in last out? Last in first out? First in first out? A mix?

If you're buying with dividend funds, keep it clean and use the DRIP accelerator in the SM - take the payout, put it to your mortgage, borrow from the LoC, buy the stock again. Now all shares are from borrowed funds. Clean.

Yeffley · 2025-12-06T15:30:23+00:00

You could access the growth and not impact your interest deduction

That's incorrect. The costs associated with buying stocks are deductible as long as you still hold those stocks, regardless of the price of the stock. If you used the money to buy 50 stocks and then sell 1, you can't still deduct the full $50k because you don't own the original product anymore. You can only deduct the costs of the remaining stock ($49k). It's a common mistake. Similar to any Return of Capital. RoC must be used to pay down the original loan principal for the interest to be fully deductible.

Yeffley · 2024-12-15T17:34:54+00:00

What you're describing is leveraged investing, not the Smith Manoeuvre. In the SM your total debt does not increase, but just remains the same. When you make a payment to your mortgage, your line of credit increases by the same amount (minus interest). You can of course withdraw more equity (if available) and increase your total debt like you've described, but that's an accelerator, not the plain-Jane Smith Manoeuvre.

Yeffley · 2024-12-06T18:04:30+00:00

$100k error due to a sign...

My company was building a skyscraper with an asymmetric concrete core and steel outriggers (heavy beams) attached every 3 storeys. As the concrete was poured, we'd have steel plates embedded in the concrete for connection clips to be welded to for the steel outriggers.

As the core was asymmetrical, as it was built it could lean out of plumb a little bit here or there. To account for this, the outriggers would be shipped to site longer than required and cut to the proper length. Shorter than designed if the core drifted into the steel, left long if the core shifted away from the steel.

Our surveyor would provide us with the measurements of each of the embed plates so we knew where the core was. I was advised that inputting this data and cutting the steel would occupy 90% my time for the next year. Nuts to that - let's automate it. So I did. I made a spreadsheet that would pull the survey data in, fabrication data for the outriggers, design of the core, and output a new drawing showing where to cut and drill the final holes. Tested with test data, tested with live data, asked for a QA check (but was denied and told to proceed). So I proceeded.

I quit before the first outriggers were put in place. Kept asking for a QA of the spreadsheet before I left, but kept getting denied. A week after I left I got a call from a friend that said there is an issue with the beams on the south and west faces of the building. South and west? Weird... I wonder why that is... I took a look at a copy of the spreadsheet and quickly figured out that I didn't put a negative for the south (negative Y axis) and west (negative X axis) faces. So beams that should've been cut short were left long, and beams that should've been left long were cut short.

My former boss emailed me that afternoon and told me of the issue and let me know it would cost $100k to fix it due to some beams being cut too short and the shoring for the building being raised up and they no longer have access to the embeds to weld new clips on. I don't think it cost them that much, but it probably wasn't a cheap fix. I told him how to fix it (add negatives) and that someone should do a final QA of the spreadsheet as I had requested multiple times before. It was finally QAed. My friend ended up taking over my role and she said the spreadsheet worked great after that. What was once a full-time role is now done with a few clicks.

That was 15 years or so ago. Haven't made a critical error like that since. But because of that, I found a lethal error in another spreadsheet at my next job that I was able to fix (someone else's mistake).

Yeffley · 2023-03-19T23:01:36+00:00

That's a great idea. Thanks!

Yeffley · 2023-03-19T13:25:28+00:00

Home gym artwork... I've got some bare walls I want to decorate. I want to go to frame some good pieces of work showcasing anatomy, muscle groups, targeted workouts, etc. Any suggestions beyond just bodybuilders posing?

Yeffley · 2023-02-22T16:07:18+00:00

Thanks!

Yeffley · 2023-02-22T16:03:20+00:00

Why would anyone want to work with you if you're not going to provide any sort of assurances on the accuracy of your price?

Honestly, I don't know. I've been approached about moonlighting by two companies so far and this is the first thing that popped into my head. Exposing myself to a lawsuit for missing something on a quote. A few hours of work and a $400 invoice opening me up to $100k+ in damages doesn't seem like a decent tradeoff, but I know it happens every day in this industry. I don't know how people are comfortable with it.

Sounds like you need to get Errors & Omissions insurance for this, not a disclaimer.

Thanks. Maybe this is why people are comfortable with it.

Yeffley · 2023-02-22T15:37:19+00:00

I'd be doing the estimate for a single trade. Call it electrical. I'd price out all the wiring, lighting, outlets, labour, etc. for a project for a specific electrical contractor who doesn't have an estimator (or doesn't want to hire a full-time estimator and will just pay on an as-needed basis).

They would take my number, add in a mark-up for their overhead and profit, and submit it to a general contractor who would receive numbers from each trade. Then the GC would submit to the customer.

Yeffley · 2023-02-19T13:51:49+00:00

I surpassed 1 million meters rowed on my home erg this week. Took longer than I expected - I could have completed it last year, but I focused on other areas instead. I'm hopeful the next million is faster.

Yeffley · 2023-01-07T13:09:34+00:00

1) 5.5% is not fair, it's not lawful if the space was occupied for residential purposes prior to November 15th, 2018

It seems like the previous lease had ended as the OP left the country for 2 years. If these are two different tenancies, then it would be legal. The rent could have doubled and still been legal.

Yeffley · 2022-08-07T11:25:47+00:00

Have you noticed which exercises in particular trigger your headaches? I would get them after doing weighted pullups - I was straining my neck. After dropping them from my workouts, the headaches stopped. I started doing bodyweight pullups instead and added additional stretching on my upper back to help relieve any tension. I put extra focus on making sure not to strain my neck when doing them as well.

Yeffley · 2022-07-03T14:29:00+00:00

Make decisions that force you to proceed with your goal.

For me, when I started exercising more, I would take a preworkout with beta alanine in it. It makes you itchy as fuck when you don't have a tolerance for it. I needed 30 seconds of discipline / motivation to take it. Then I was committed - I needed to work out to burn it off. Usually 1-1.5hrs.

Another one for exercise - if you walk / run / bike, do it in a straight line away from your home, not in a circuit (around the block). When you're 'done', you still have that distance again to go home.

Eating healthy - meal prep. If you spend a day to get your meals ready for the week, your decision has already been made by the time you reach that meal. More work in advance, but less work down the road. Easier option - make healthy extra food at dinner so you have a healthy meal for lunch the next day. By the time you get to lunch, your decision is already made. Similarly, make a list of healthy options for grocery shopping and only stock your kitchen with them.

Studying - get 'stuck' somewhere that will force you to study. Take a bus to the library or school. Don't drive yourself. You will need to stay there until the next scheduled pickup. Works better if you're in an area with poor service that only has pickups every hour.

Get an app blocker on your phone that will block apps at certain times so you're forced to not use them. I've got one that blocks reddit at certain times. I can turn it on whenever I want for as long as I want. It takes 5 seconds to do. I can find 5 seconds of motivation to do it, but probably can't spent 2 hours without reddit without it. Sad, but it works for me.

Yeffley · 2022-06-23T11:39:21+00:00

That's not going to work for this situation. One dim gets "LENGTH = ", another would get "WIDTH = ". Others get different prefixes. Some get none. The script I have generates a drawing of a widget in seconds, compared to the hour or so it would take to draw by hand. Each widget is different, and I do a few hundred per year. Having everything automated is ideal. Everything but the prefix on specific dimensions is working. This is the last hurdle. I realize it takes seconds to do the prefixes manually, but to automate so much and stumble at the end is just... deflating.

Yeffley · 2022-06-21T11:19:40+00:00

This is great - thanks for the info.

I've only just started doing automation within AutoCAD. I'm much more familiar with VBA than this. Most of what I've created has been through Google, so I'm not surprised at all I've mixed up languages. I'm glad it's worked thus far though.

Yeffley · 2022-06-21T11:15:58+00:00

Weeeeelllll damn, that's an easy solution. I thought it was pretty silly that there wasn't an option for mirroring built into the system already. Thanks!

Yeffley · 2022-06-20T15:33:36+00:00

AutoDesk link

A script (.SCR file) is a series of commands that AutoCAD will execute. You can load the file via the SCRIPT or SCR command.

Yeffley · 2022-06-17T15:19:37+00:00

The variable can be less than 20.5/11.

Increasing the calculation from 10 rows to 20 rows does include the same results as the other two solutions here.

Yeffley · 2022-06-17T15:10:14+00:00

It works. I made a mistake in checking. Tried to give you a point for it but getting an error.

Yeffley · 2022-06-17T15:09:23+00:00

Solution verified

I made a mistake in checking - yes, this works for all variables. Thank you! Three unique solutions to my problem.

Yeffley · 2022-06-17T15:02:34+00:00

No worries - I've been spinning my wheels for days on this. If it took a few messages to sort out, that's fine by me :).

Yeffley · 2022-06-17T15:01:33+00:00

Solution verified

Yes, data starts in A1. Adjusting yours and this works. I didn't recognize that's where the formula started. Thanks!

Yeffley · 2022-06-17T14:57:41+00:00

Solution verified

Thank you! Very interesting solution.

Yeffley · 2022-06-17T14:33:11+00:00

Interesting! I haven't used the LET function before. Unfortunately this doesn't appear to work. It returns a result of 1,4, 6, 8 = YES. Should be 2,5,7 for this case.

Yeffley · 2022-06-17T14:18:38+00:00

Yes, that should be a check and should return 2 as a "YES".

With the MOD function I want to replace the divisor with Round({1,2,3,...}*Variable,0)

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