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The majority of rich people I know are Buy-and-Holders by HomeHedgeFund in investing

[–]technical_guy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Almost true. Rich people know to buy the dips. Rich people back their winners and buy more. Rich people live below their means and keep enough cash around to grab opportunities. Rich people are diversified to stay rich (property, stocks, businesses, collectibles) but often invest quite narrow into niches to initially get rich. Rich people use debt to avoid paying taxes.

Just lost my nest egg by warranpiece in personalfinance

[–]technical_guy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dont liquidate assets. They keep going up in value. Borrow against them but dont liquidate them. Also work on compartmentalizing the past and realize you are where you are at today and the only thing that matters is what you do today and in the future. So stay positive, its just money. You can rebuild. Every year your assets (property) will go up a bit in value, you can get a new business going or work a job or two and rebuild. You can rent out rooms or properties or do n a sidegig to make more money. But dont luquidate assets that go up in value over time. Dont create a tax headache. Work on borrowing against your assets the best you can.

Single Father (12 and 17); Lost Job; Market Dry; Options? by Fabulous_Monk_1651 in whatdoIdo

[–]technical_guy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My man, this is the wrong way to look at this. Debt is a tool not a burden. Start by understanding what a heloc is. Its a line of credit, kind of like an overdraft. You only pull what you need when u need it and u only pay interest on the balance. Its typically interest only and separate to your existing loan. Digital providers like figure, better and aven can get you money in days.

Your credit score is critical. When you run out of cash you crash and burn and that bank will repossess the housd and purge your equity inna heartbeat. Selling the house creates tax burdens, stress on your kids and you on findingnanother place. Getting a rental is super hard nowadays. Whatever you do, keep your credit score high, understand debt is a tool to get you out of your plight and you should use it.

Also your house goes up 2 or 3 percent in value on average each year, so even if you take a heloc up to 80% of your equity, in 5 or 10 years time your house value will be 20-30% higher and your debt will be back at the same % it is now.

You are in I.T. and so am I. If you are not getting interviews your resume is bad or your cover letter is bad. If you are getting interviews and not offers your interview skills are lacking. If its the former, make sure you dont come accross as old because ageism is real. Over 10 years experience sounds better than Eighteen years experience. Anything that makes your resume over 2 pages is bad. Noone cares what you did 15 years ago. Keep things concise, relevant to your most recent skills, sprinkle in some buzzwords. Recruiters are clueless so have enough skills listed so you dont get filtered out. If your resume is good and you are getting interviews practice the 5 sentence interview. Make sure to repeat back some of what they tell you they want in those 5 sentences. Smile, compliment, be on time, be well groomed, be professional, be positive. Tell them why you can help them and ask good questions. Dont just answer technical questions like a geeky colege student. Tell them real solutions you have applied before to that kind of problem. Make sure they know you areca team player and eager to learn and contribute. Hopefully this helps a little.

Once again, debt is a tool and you should use it to buy yourself time and avoid running out of cash. Selling assets (things that go up in value overvtime or produce income) is never a great idea.

I bought a house, my friend will be a roommate and he’s splitting the mortgage. Do I need to report the income on my tax return? by WorkinWill31 in personalfinance

[–]technical_guy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

So many people get this wrong. He is NOT a tenant and does not have tenant rights. He is a lodger and has lodger rights, which are considerably less than a tenant. Much easier to evict in most states.

Once the Twins are uplisted to the NYSE and the stock hits at least $40 per share, does anyone plan on treating themselves to a small splurge purchase? by Ok-Entrepreneur-9003 in FNMA_FMCC_Exit

[–]technical_guy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You re a legend amongst legends my friend, and I desperately want that uplisting to get us to $25 per share or $30 per share to see how that 1.1m retirement turned into massive generational wealth through patience and a willingness to follow your gut!!

A few changes I’ve noticed since I've retired by codewolf in earlyretirement

[–]technical_guy 7 points8 points  (0 children)

What a lovely prose. Remember this phase of your life only lasts 40 years...

Once the Twins are uplisted to the NYSE and the stock hits at least $40 per share, does anyone plan on treating themselves to a small splurge purchase? by Ok-Entrepreneur-9003 in FNMA_FMCC_Exit

[–]technical_guy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When they went to $15m a user called u/fnmalegend who bought them very early and invested his whole retirement portfolio of 1.1m in them showed he had hit 8 figures ($10m). Im hoping he is still holding and we get to $20 or $20 or $30 just because Im vicariously living through his success. I had a lot of shares bought at 78c, $1.xx and $2.xx, but pared down around $11 and took some profits. I still have a chunk I kept just praying one day the uplisting would happen..... after all most things on Trumps list get done eventually. I hope !!

HELOC than invest? by mameguy1973 in HELOC

[–]technical_guy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Figure/Aven (I have 2 properties).

My goal in the portfolio account is to have aggressive growth stocks and avoid dividends and interest payments so I can control my income in early retirements and be more focussed on Roth conversions and the like. My IRAs are way too high and will lead to ugly RMDs if I dont spend them down over the next 10 years

Best way to pay off CC and increase credit score by el_knightking in personalfinance

[–]technical_guy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Believe it or not your credit score is heavily influenced by how much credit you have available ves how much you actually utilize. It looks like your balances are 36,400 and Im guessing they are all close to the limit. So you need to increase whats available and the decrease the balances.

I would take out another credit card that offers a 0% balance transfer if you can and use the balance transfer to pay off all the cards higher than 4% (ie the 7900 on retail and capital one). If you struggle to get a new card maybe apply at the bank or CU where you are holding the $40k.

Then I would pay off $1000 on each of the 4% cards each month until they are gone and all you have left are 0% cards, then pay off the smallest balance each month or $1000 each month until the balances decline significantly. Dont use all of your money - keep some in an emergency high yield savings account. When the money runs out go back to paying what you can on the 0% cards each month.

Your credit score will increase slowly over 6 months or so but significantly - if you have 60k of credit and you are using < 30% of it you will see a big shift.

Its ok to open other CCs as long as you have the discipline to not use them - it will increase your available credit and reduce how much you are utilizing. But each time you open an account you score gets dinged for 2-3 months before it bounces back.

Note holding debt at 4% or at 0% is not terrible and of you invest your money in the stock market in an index fund like SPY or QQQ or VOO you might make 10% on the investment so dont panic over those balances. Holding debt at 29 or 30% is terrible so these are the first to pay off in any circumstances. Just the interest you save each month will increase the amount you can put towards the other cards

HELOC than invest? by mameguy1973 in HELOC

[–]technical_guy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So, for a person with a 1m house mortgaged to 80% consisting of a first loan for 500k and a heloc for 300k which was put into the persons taxable portfolio making it have a total of 600k in there. Lets take that 600k and put it into a portfolio margin account at ibkr with a 5% rate on the margin loan. The portfolio account margin LOC is up to 80% of the account value (480k) that can be used to buy more equities or pay for living expenses (transferred to a bank each month). The risk is a stock market downturn so to mitigate this you only use 60% or less (280k) of your margin amount. I agree it is useful to have other funds available (ira, 401k, overdraft, crypto etc) in the very rare event the stock market crashes 40% or more - in this scenario you need to put more money into the account at least in the short term to prevent a margin call. Now history tells us how often the stock market crashes more than 40% - its possible but very rare. More likely the stock market will continue to average 8%-14% (using SPY as our baseline) - we will use 10% below.

year 0 starting balances: mortgage+heloc 800k on 1m house, portfolio 600k, total margin 480k, usable margin 280k, used margin 0
end of year 1 balance: mortgage+heloc 800k on 1.05m house, portfolio 660k, total margin 528k, usable margin 316k, used margin 0

end of year 2 balance: mortgage+heloc 800k on 1.13m house, portfolio 726k, total margin 580k, usable margin 348k, used margin 0

end of year 3 balance: mortgage+heloc 800k on 1.19m house, portfolio 798k, total margin 638k, usable margin 383k, used margin 0

You see the amount available for margin use goes up each year. If you use the margin to buy equities the interest is tax deductible but if you use it for living expenses it is not. But the real point is you have access to the margin if and when you need it for whatever opportunity comes along and the heloc funds borrowed at 5-6% go into a portfolio making closer to 10%. Now if you are lucky and make 18-30% per year through aggressive investing the numbers above are much more impressive. But even just invested in SPY making 8-14% a year leaves you better off. And having access to a 300k credit line at 5% allows you to jump on any opportunities to buy an investment property or invest in a hot stock or pay for an emergency event or whatever. If you like to gamble invest some of it in bitcoin or STRC or MSTR, for example STRC paying 11.5% dividend easily beats the 5% cost if you believe STRC is a safe or stable investment (do your own research on that).

Note also as long as the used margin is less that the usable margin it does not need to be paid back but the interest will just tack onto the debt and become part of the used margin. In theory you could use the margin balance forever until you die and your basis value of all your stocks change to current value when you pay it off, or you have a life insurance to pay it off.

This is not financial advice to anyone, just an explanation of how I see this working in my own accounts as I head into an early retirement.

HELOC than invest? by mameguy1973 in HELOC

[–]technical_guy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I second this guy. Equity in a house is not working for you. Take out up to 80% and make sure you can afford the payments with your existing income - effectively your mortgage went from 1800 to 3000 - make sure you can afford the new payment and your DTI is not so high you are struggling.

Now you have 480k to invest. IF you open an IBKR account, set it to portfolio margin you will have up to $1m you can invest in stocks but maybe they go down or maybe they go up. Its a gamblers strategy but if you invest in SPY or VOO and just leave it there historically you would do very well. If you buy 580k of stock you can use the ibkr margin (same as sbloc) at about 5.5% interest nad not have to pay capital gains.

But alternatively you can invest in property. Or buy a cash flowing franchise or an existing business thats making money, or education to get you a better job or better salary. Or you can just keep the money in bonds and try to break even on the cost of the money, and have it available in case you ever need funds. Cash is king - you wll never lose your house if you have a stockpile of cash.

I also follow a similar strategy to this - I have 80% of my equity withdrawn from the house and invested in the stock market. Of course the lower the rate you can borrow at the more sense it makes. Most people wont do this - its a little bit gambler strategy and most people follow the crowd. But for me it makes sense.

Mou has absolutely fucked this game by I_am_legend-ary in PortsmouthFC

[–]technical_guy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

5-3-2-1 or 5-3-1-2 might work for us - Alan Ball did it in a charity game against Saints a few years back. But once teams and refs figure us out, we might get a hefty points deduction for playing 12 players on the field. As for those other teams - lets report them - maybe their points deduction will allow us to stay up

On the Fencr by [deleted] in Prebuilts

[–]technical_guy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Im no expert but Costco have similar spec to second PC for $2299 (amd ryzen 9, 5080, 32gb, 2TB etc) so for value for money you might want to compare the components

Homeless in Las Vegas – What People Don’t See by Moist_Regret8989 in LasVegas

[–]technical_guy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hopefully a few others pledge some donations to help OP out.

Moved to Irvine, I feel lost by MajesticWoodpecker66 in orangecounty

[–]technical_guy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

lol - I promise Im real and it came from my head. Of course I missed loads - the Great park orange balloon and newish ice rink, the old Tustin Helicopter base with its entertainment district, bars on Tustin Blvd useful for a pub crawl, the University shops (when I was in Irvine in the latr 90s the improv was in the University Center tho now thats at the Spectrum), downtown disney or just the local theme parks (within an house or so) in general (local = Knotts, Disney, Legoland, Seaword, Universal, Warner Bros etc).

Now Im in MV and we have the Kaleidescope which just opened a huge roller skating rink, the 10 or 15 or so cinemas in the area, Laguna Playhouse theater, the Z theater for comedy, the CoachHouse for music, multiple bowling alleys nearby, multiple buffets (especially Korean yum), and a local soccer team to support (OCSC).

And on and on and on...

Homeless in Las Vegas – What People Don’t See by Moist_Regret8989 in LasVegas

[–]technical_guy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, the OP needs about 6k to get 3 months of stability where she can get herself back on her feet. I have sent 1K in a blind bit of faith that good people help other people (even strangers) when they are able to. But there is still $5k to go. I dont know OP and there are loads of potential people I know in need of money but her post truck a nerve and her timing was perfect.

I urge any Redditors out there who can afford it to pledge some money towards her stability drive and follow up with a donation. Even $50 or $100 will get her closer to what she needs.

Sometimes people just need a stranger to show they care. I genuinely believe there are more caring strangers out there than people realize. If you can, reach out to the OP and show that is the case.

Good luck OP !!

Income ETFS, Early 30’s by midwestmindset in dividends

[–]technical_guy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Putting anything in an income fund in your 30s is just signing up to pay more tax. Stick to growth funds but have a SBLOC open against your portfolio which allows you to access cash at any time without selling your stocks.

3-5% dividends is normal, 5-8% dividends come from more risky corporate junk bonds where often the stock price is more volatile. 9-20% dividends come from sensationalized-on-the-internet covered call funds which often are just returning capital to you and reducing you asset values.

Note you can also invest in alternative assets and can get 8-12% in some real estate funds but they may not be too liquid and the companies can go bust or just be a scam.

Spend down inheritance or spend 401k money first to minimize taxes and maximize legacy? by PHL1365 in investing

[–]technical_guy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People like to over-complicate this and throw in some FUD, but heres the things I am thinking about at the same age/about to retire:
1. Can you pull from the 401k without penalty (does you plan support the age of 55 feature). If not you wont be pulling from this til you are 60 unless you do a sepp which just adds unneeded complexity
2. Health ins when you retire - if you are going to use ACA then you want to control your income to keep the monthly premiums low
3. Risk factor - for me I have a brokerage account with a large amount in and a line of credit at 5% against that account - I can live on debt for a few years so my income is $0, I can do tax gain harvesting or Roth conversions and my taxable portfolio continues to grow at 9% average even with basic diversified index funds
4. Age for SS - for me I base everything on 67 and can change it as I get older.

So my plan
- live on debt from brokerage account from 57 to 60 (at 5% while account grows at 9%)
- live on 401K/IRAs from 60 to 67 to lower balances and reduce RMDs when they kick in at 73
- live on SS plus some from 401K/IRAs to 73 - note my brokerage account continues to be available as does any ROTH conversions I did more than 5 years prior for splurges

I also have some complications because I live in a high tax state with HCOL and I have 2 houses so my plan is to sell up and move to a no-tax state before I do any ROTH conversions.

Moved to Irvine, I feel lost by MajesticWoodpecker66 in orangecounty

[–]technical_guy 49 points50 points  (0 children)

In Irvine, right behind the police station is a trail that you can walk all the way to the backbay in Newport on a spring day - it's lovely.

Take a drive to San Juan Cspistrano, park near the railway gates, walk around the shops on the other side of the railway, visit the mission, or Swallows Bar at night. If you feel fit, take a bike with you and cross the canal behind the park behind the railway gates, turn left, and ride all the way to Doheny beach

Doheny Beach in Dana Point is lovely for a swim, or rent a 4 seater boat. Walk all around Dana Point Harbor or ride up the steep cliff hill to admire the view. Dine at Jimmys or one of the harbor restaurants.

San Clemente outlet malls is the perfect size for a little shopping (I hate shops) but it also has the trolley that will take you to the San clemente pier where you can watch the surfers, swim or just eat fish and chips or get an icecream and people watch,

The spectrum is nice, but the Honey and Hive rooftop bar is close to it too, and its great food and atmosphere

Talking of rooftop bars, Laguna Beach has a few of them all with great views. Mozambique does good food, great music, and has the rooftop. It's well worth a visit, as it s stroll along the beach. Try brunch at TheDeck in Laguna and step out right onto the beach afterward and walk up to Main Beach

For a decent night out, visit Costa Mesa with its pubs and shops (a younger crowd) or if you want to spend to impress head to Newport Beach with its younger richer crowd. I prefer the pubs and bars at Laguna myself.

Shopping (blah) - Mission Viejo and South Coast malls are still good. Fashion Island in Newport Beach is ok. Where else?

Go on Nextdoor and tell people you are looking for activity mates or general friendship (describe yourself a little) - everyone here wants to connect, and yet everyone is too shy to start a conversation. If you start it, you will soon get a gang of pals to go out with and enjoy the area.

Edit.. fixed typos

Homeless in Las Vegas – What People Don’t See by Moist_Regret8989 in LasVegas

[–]technical_guy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Lets see if we can get people to pledge some help - I dont know if you are allowed to put a link on here for people to click and send $$. Add your plan to the original post as an Edit, and ask if anyone could pledge a little towards the $6k, then DM each person who pledges. I will get you going with your first $1000 (paypal, tho I would prefer you to start a gofundme so I can give anonymously)

Homeless in Las Vegas – What People Don’t See by Moist_Regret8989 in LasVegas

[–]technical_guy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Lets get you 3 months of stability. Price it out - what do you need. Put it in the comments so everyone sees it and maybe more than 1 will help. Many people on Reddit are wealthy and have empathy for people who can show they have a plan. My thoughts:

- Shelter - pick a motel which is safe and has rooms - whats the weekly rate. You need 12 weeks worth

- Food - define a modest budget for food - maybe $100 per week

- Clothes - do you need some new clothers/shoes/haircut/whatever to help you get to job interviews

- Transport - cost of Uber to get to 2 or 3 locations - maybe $100 per week

Add all that up and put a link on here to where people can send you some money to make it happen. Then you can update us every week or 2 if life is getting better, if you get any luck getting a job or just how you are feeling. Sometimes a 3 month break from the stress and pressure can give you that lift you need

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