The 80/20 Rule in Personal Finance

[MediumTex]

We do have these monitors in virtually every room of our homes that influence us in profound ways.

I'm reminded of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 every time I see TVs in public, pedestrians staring at smartphones, and DVD players in SUVs.  A lot of people seem to be looking at an LCD, delivering preprogrammed media, every waking moment of their life.

The movie They Live is an outstanding addition to this library.

[moda0306]

They Live...

That wouldn't be the movie with the seemingly half-hour fist-fight over putting on a pair of sunglasses between Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David, now would it?

I'm probably embarassing myself, but there's an episode of South Park wher Timmy and Jimmy (wheelchair-bound and crutch-bound, respectively) recreate that entire scene.

It was almost as jawdropping as the original.

[MediumTex]

They Live...

That wouldn't be the movie with the seemingly half-hour fist-fight over putting on a pair of sunglasses between Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David, now would it?

I'm probably embarassing myself, but there's an episode of South Park wher Timmy and Jimmy (wheelchair-bound and crutch-bound, respectively) recreate that entire scene.

It was almost as jawdropping as the original.

Such a classic.

[Pres]

I absolutely love that movie.

[LifestyleFreedom]

Have you been able to save enough money to use investment income to cover your living expenses? 

Do you bother with a Roth IRA or a 401K?

I sock away as much money as possible into tax-advantaged accounts on grounds that while I can't predict what taxes will be like in the future, I believe they will be much higher than they are today.  I would rather have an after-tax acorn grow into a tax-free oak tree rather than a pre-tax acorn grow into a taxable oak tree.  If the United States replaces the income tax with a consumption-based value-added tax (as Europe has), then I will look like an idiot.  But I can't predict the future, so I pick a course of action that seems reasonable at the moment and take my chances with fate.

I have been able to save enough money to allow my investment income to cover my living expenses.  It just takes discipline and enough time.  Back in the early 1990s, my financial adviser recommended that I put as much money as possible into tax-advantaged accounts and invest an additional 10% of my gross income in taxable accounts (which is otherwise known as "paying yourself first").  The dot-com bubble helped on the upside, and the dot-com crash hurt on the downside.  I have also been motivated by the Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom (by Dr. Tharp) and the Work Less, Live More (http://workless-livemore.com/) books.  The Retire Early Home Page (http://retireearlyhomepage.com/) was useful back in the 1990s before the financial-freedom idea started taking on a greater prominence in the financial press in the decade of the 2000s.

Then the financial crisis hit (which I see as a tail risk or black swan risk).  Now I've decided to cover myself with multiple margins of safety:  4% SWR from index investing, 3% dividend yield from a dividend growth portfolio, and active income from lifestyle businesses and profitable hobbies.  I'm also building bigger cash reserves to handle sudden financial shocks because I don't want to have to be forced into selling assets to raise cash when the market is way down.  For me, the Permanent Portfolio fits between the short-term cash and longer-term equities portfolios because its long-term CAGR is in the 7-10% range (which is higher than what cash returns), while its volatility is half that of equities.

[Tortoise]

The movie They Live is an outstanding addition to this library.

That movie has one of my all-time favorite action one-liners: "I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubble gum."

[Jan Van]

The resource is the book Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob Lund Fisker (the related blog and forums are at http://earlyretirementextreme.com/).

Thanks for mentioning this book, LifestyleFreedom! I'm now reading it, on my Kindle I must admit, and it's quite an interesting read. Though I must say it feels like a stream of consciousness type book. It keeps going on and on. Maybe that's the way the Kindle version is structured?

Reading the ERE blog pointed me to another interesting blog about the same: Mr. Money Mustache http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/category ... g-started/. Also interesting, and I like the writing style a bit better.

Too bad I'm already too old for "Early Retirement Extreme" 

[AdamA]

Thanks for mentioning this book, LifestyleFreedom! I'm now reading it, on my Kindle I must admit, and it's quite an interesting read.

I really liked the book too.  The fact that something so simple struck me as so profound is probably a bit of testament as to how ingrained the "consumer mentality" has become in a lot of us. 

The simple message is that you can have a very happy life without iphones, plasma screen tvs and 4 bedroom houses.  And you don't have to save a million dollars before you can do it, nor do you have to move to the country and start your own farm. 

I also like that he encourages people to produce rather to consume.