#The fact that the CDS are still in stock leads me to believe there’s a lot in there which we will for sure need during week 2.

[solarwynd]

I hhate that we cant see how many CDs Jimin sold i hope Hybe didnt manipulated them like Hanteo and put that we sold less than what he really did just out of spite

NJ sold like 10K and like crazy last year only had 16K and we had like a month of pre orders so it needs to be way higher

Prediction accounts have physicals estimated at around 15k. Could change idk.

But tbh if HYBE was gonna sabotage Jimin atp, those extra covers of MUSE and the remixes would not exist. WHO woulda went out just like SGMB did with nothing. So I don’t think that’s really the case this time.

[3wisellamas]

Giant Sweet Cap’n Cakes Headcanon Masterpost!

(Fun fact, I thought most of these up while on one REALLY long hike.  ^^;  You can tell I fell for these three pretty hard.)

Music:

-I like the idea that, while the three all share a love of hip hop, glitch hop, electronic music in general, and a little lo-fi for chill times, they all have different tastes outside of those.  (Meaning if you pass them the aux cord, they WILL argue!)

-Sweet's actually the biggest audiophile of the group, with by far the most eclectic tastes; he will literally put together playlists that go from dubstep to heavy metal to classical to rap to vaporwave to even country.  The others don't really get it, but they're cool with whatever he puts on, and learn a lot of new music from him!

-He also owns an electric guitar, which he just plugs into himself to use as an amp and plays early in the morning to wake the others up if needed (he's the early riser and the other two are night owls...)

-Cap'n's definitely got a more narrow focus than the other two; he likes rap and also R&B, jazz, and even a little swing/electro swing.  He's also been caught more than once listening to cheesy romantic pop songs, claiming he's just into them for their potential madamoizel-attracting uses but really he's just a sappy romantic.

-He can also rap, very well in fact, and gets Sweet to beatbox while he freestyles. 

-Heck, he's just got a good singing voice in general, helped by having a built-in autotune, and dominates at karaoke!

-K_K also has a really broad range, but stays more towards the electronic end of the spectrum -- melodic dubstep, synthpop, disco, trance, chiptune, DnB, even occasionally puts on straight-up ambient spa music to chill out to (the only genre the other two will NOT tolerate.)

-K_K has also, in the past, set up entire mini-raves just by themselves, complete with glowsticks and everything, while Cap'n and Sweet were out doing whatever.  They were...not pleased, when they got back, mostly because they weren't invited.  All three got to have one together eventually though.  

-Physical media is king in their shop; if it's not on a CD, cassette tape, or a vinyl record (or an 8-track, though they have to dig out their old player for it), they will refuse to play it, and might even ask you to leave.  "MP3" is an extremely dirty word to them.

-(In fact, they don't get along too well with the MP3 player-headed robots elsewhere in the city.)

-They are indeed always listening to music on physical media as well -- K_K and Cap'n are their own CD players (though Cap'n's one of those models that's also got a built-in FM radio), while Sweet has a straight-up Walkman.    

-(He's also the group's cassette champion, claiming his media of choice is superior to CDs because you can record music on BOTH sides of the tape!  The other two just don't have the heart to point out that each side only holds half as much music as a CD, and you don't even have to rewind those...)

-Jury's still out on Hit Clips.  Cap'n and Sweet think they're just toys, but K_K genuinely collects and appreciates them and treats them like actual music (it helps that they are only around four seconds long!)

-Believe it or not, the headphones are only decoration, all three actually just...listen to their music entirely within their own heads, though they can also switch to playing it externally on their speakers as well.  Perks of being robots!  Though, sometimes K_K has his internal volume up too high, and misses things that other people say because of it.

-Sweet also has an input port, and connects himself to his turntable to act as the speakers!  The other two are WAY too embarrassed to ask if they can use it as well.

-Sweet can play almost any instrument you throw at him, as long as it's not a woodwind (Surprisingly, he can do brass, since those work on vibration rather than air!).  He prefers his guitar or violin when he isn't spinning records on his turntable.  Where the other two just enjoy music, he's the actual trained musician.

Voice headcanons:

-Sweet:  Kind of deep, bass-y, lots of reverb, a slight tinny audio distortion to it like a low-quality recording that becomes much more pronounced when he gets upset or starts shouting.  And since he's a speaker, you can literally feel the vibrations he makes when he's speaking!

-Cap'n:  Scout from TF2.  I am sorry, but I absolutely cannot get that out of my head for him.  XD  However, he's actually putting that voice on as an "accent" of sorts, his real voice is actually super autotune-y like K_K's, and it comes out whenever he gets flustered, his pitch only getting higher and higher as it gets worse...

-K_K:  Pure autotune, he can just do whatever the hell he wants with his voice -- pitch, tone, whatever, and while he tends to keep it a little higher he can and does change it to fit his mood!  He often has a completely different voice every day, but the others are used to it.  He also just straight-up vocalizes sound effects (like, the kind that make you go "How did you just make that sound with your mouth?!") and can mimic other people perfectly (though the slight mechanical distortion does give it away).  There are absolutely no rules when it comes to K_K's voice.

-They harmonize perfectly whenever they sing together! 

Sweet:

-I like to think Sweet's actually the brains of the group; like, not SMART, he just holds their one collective braincell most often.  He does any technical work when they're building stuff, like soldering circuits or the occasional programming, and even handles a lot of the actual business operations and pays the bills.  The other two also like to follow his lead when it comes to rebellion plans, even if he’s not the official leader.

-That said, though?  It's balanced out by him being rather hotheaded and having the shortest temper by a lot.  There are REASONS why he's not usually out selling bagels with the others -- he's unfortunately prone to some more "extreme" sales tactics, like hurling half their stock at random passersby until they finally agree to buy some.  On the plus side, he's always the first to step up to defend the gang from anything that dares to harm them, and is always on guard.

-He can also hold a heck of a grudge -- don't ever get on his bad side!  Cap'n and K_K are mostly immune to this though, if he gets upset with them he works through it by the end of the day.  It helps that they can all hug it out.

-He's a bit of a perfectionist, often working overtime to try and get everything they build exactly right.  He can get really frustrated when things don't work out the way he plans, or when he can't make sense of a problem, or when Cap'n and K_K are goofing off instead of doing their part, and needs to go blast some loud music and blow off steam.

-He does have a really tough time keeping his balance, since his head is a bit heavier than the rest of his body, but he takes tripping over his own feet constantly in stride.  The biggest problem he has is with dancing -- while he'll join in with the others on occasion, he can't match their more acrobatic moves and sticks more to actually PLAYING the music they're dancing to.

-He's also really, really unlucky, just in general.  He actually considers the other two his good luck charms, since they help him out whenever he trips or gets into a bad spot!

-He's the fashionista of the group, surprisingly.  It's difficult for him to find clothes that fit his body, so he tends to get a little creative with it and has a whole closet full of different stuff!  And since Cap'n is roughly the same size they'll occasionally swap jackets.

Cap’n:

-Cap'n actually has managed to score a handful of dates with girls in the past!  However, NONE of them went well, and only one actually made it to the second date (only to break up right in the middle of it), so he always ends up returning home heartbroken and in tears.  Sweet and K_K, by this point just ready for it whenever they hear that he's going out that night, always dry him off before he shorts himself out, take him to bed and cuddle with him (platonically, I don't see them as brothers but I also don't see them as having that conversation until Cap'n's ready, which he clearly is NOT), remind him that it doesn't hurt forever and he isn't unlovable and that he'll find someone eventually, etc.

-They have sat him down multiple times to try and gently suggest to Cap'n that he might just not be into women?  And that he’s actually turning them off by trying so hard?  To which he's always just like "No, of course not.  I'm straight.  Love the ladies.  Totally.  Oh no they didn't catch me checkin' out that one dude earlier did they?  Is that what this is about?!"

-(Basically, Cap'n is just a hopeless romantic in love with the idea of being in love, but is absolutely clueless as to how it works or what he actually wants, and his best buds are always there to catch him when he falls.  ;v; )

-The glasses are prescription -- he's SUPER nearsighted, a hardware glitch he refuses to fix.  Sometimes when he's working on something close up he'll take them off, panicking when he can't find them afterwards, only to have the others point out that they're just on his head.  He’s also got non-tinted glasses, but you will not catch him DEAD wearing those unless it’s an absolute emergency.

-This dude is SUPREMELY insecure with himself.  Like, his rather questionable fixation on romance aside, he basically runs off of others' validation, the "cool" persona he's spent much of his life building up being how he hides the fact that he isn't really sure who he is, or what he wants to do with his life, or what he's even good for -- the others have learned to check on him now and then whenever he hides away in the back of the shop, since he can slip into some pretty dark places when left alone to sulk.  It took a long time for him to open up even to them to share his feelings, and sometimes still has doubts about whether they or anyone else really care about him as more than just The Smooth One...

-He's the only one of the three to actually enjoy the occasional silence, especially when he's trying to think, or whenever he's upset.  So, his headphones also serve a dual purpose -- they're noise-cancelling!

-He's the video guy, carrying around a small camcorder and constantly trying to record the group's activities, to put together into music videos!  He also just likes to record himself doing stupid stunts for posterity, though K_K just takes these and makes (affectionate) blooper reels.

-Cap'n is not his real name, similar to K_K.  However, unlike K_K, he refuses to say what it is, just that it's embarrassing.

K_K:

-K_K has a bad habit of just completely zoning out when he gets into his music, getting completely lost in the groove and needing to be pulled back to reality.  It's not a bad thing during jam sessions, but at work, or in the middle of a battle...not so much.

-He kind of needs to have some kind of music going at all times -- silence drives him absolutely CRAZY!  Though, because he gets distracted by his own music, he then misses out on entire conversations, only tuning back in towards the end.  Sometimes the other two have to repeat or summarize what they just said for him.

-He knows sign language, and taught the others to use it.  They're able to communicate reasonably well no matter how loud their shop gets, or on days when K_K isn't able to form words properly (he's just shy, and even when he isn't he gets tongue-tied a LOT).

-He's easily the best dancer of the three, and uses his extendable body to get really creative with his moves!  He even knows a little ballroom, somehow, which he'll pull out sometimes to make the others laugh.

-(Seriously, K_K CANNOT stand to see Sweet or Cap'n not smiling.  He'll do anything to keep the group's spirits up, usually cracking jokes during a scrap project or doing little favors, and they appreciate all his efforts!)

-K_K has the WORST sleep cycle, ever.  If you let him, he will stay up all night working or partying, finally going to bed at 6AM, and will then sleep until 6PM if the others don't wake him up at some point.  If they know he was up really late they'll let him sleep in a little, but he's often pretty sleep-deprived and running solely on sugar and caffeine, which doesn't help his natural loopiness.  

-He is a VERY physical guy.  Seriously, he will just scoop up and hold Sweet or Cap'n like a cat every five minutes; at first they were just like "Oh.  Okay.  We're hugging now I guess," but after a while they got more used to it and even anticipate when K_K is going to do it.  And he also initiates tons of snuggles and gives piggyback rides whenever one of his bandmates (usually Sweet) requests.  

-K_K actually scrapbooks, collecting pictures and little mementos of places he and the others have gone and things they've done.  After the library fountain is sealed, he pulls them out to show everyone else from Cyber City and reminisce about home.

-It's very hard to make K_K angry, since he tends to stay super chill and brushes off almost everything.  But, on those very, very rare occasions when something does get under his metal outer casing, he'll go full-on silent treatment, not speaking to anyone for up to a week as he sulks and stomps around the junk shop, and even refuses to play any music!  And no amount of sweets or hugs or cheering up will bring him out of it, either; the other two have learned to just wait him out and let him have his space, letting him come to them when he's finally ready to talk about it.

Misc:

-Though all three love everything sweet, K_K's the only one who really goes overboard with it, making whole meals out of candy.  Sweet, ironically enough, actually prefers more salty/savory snacks, while the less is said about Cap'n's hot sauce addiction, the better.

-Okay, actually, I will say more about it.  Cap'n loves spicy food in general, and literally drinks tabasco sauce right from the bottle.  However, he's got a bad habit of daring himself to eat hotter and hotter stuff, ESPECIALLY if someone is watching, and can easily get in WAY over his head before begging for milk.

-They also all totally drink battery acid like Queen.

-Heck, being both Darkners and robots, they can really eat literally anything.  Normal food, milk, oil, batteries, gallons of pure sugar, toothpaste, moss, glitter (NEVER let K_K get hold of any though, he gets lost in the sauce), broken glass, etc, and of course their own deep-fried CDs.  Only thing they can't do is water, since, you know, robots.

-With a lot of the aesthetics of Cyber City being close to turn-of-the millennium and early 2000s (CDs and boomboxes, popup ads, wired mice, Queen theorized to be one of those see-through iMacs, EVERYTHING about Spamton), I like the idea that the boys DO NOT have smartphones, and if you handed them one they'd have no clue how to use it or what to do with it.  But they do have cell phones:  Sweet's got an old flip phone covered in stickers (courtesy of K_K), Cap'n splurged for one of those that slide open and with a camera (he set his background to a tiny, grainy photo of the three of them!), and K_K has one of those indestructible Nokia bricks, that Sweet got him after he kept breaking all his other ones.  They can all text, but that's about as high-tech as they get.

-Same with tablets or newer computers in general, they might share one tiny netbook at most.  Cap’n never remembers to log out of his Dark World dating profile, so the others will snoop or post embarrassing things to it.

-They're really, really durable, even without milk -- they're made of 90s plastic and electronics, so it takes a LOT to take one of them down!  Plus, they regularly repair each other back at the shop (it took a LONG time for them to gain enough trust to physically open and work on each other), so as long as at least one's left to drag the other two to safety they'll be just fine.

-However, if they get splashed with water, caught in the rain, or worse, drowned, they will short out, or shut down on the spot to prevent damage.  Once they completely dry out, though, they'll start right back up, no worse for wear.  When only one of them gets waterlogged the other two will break out the hair dryers to dry them out faster, or even pop them into the oven in a pan of rice like an iPod that got dropped in the toilet...

Finally, backstory?

-Cap'n and K_K met first -- maybe both as new recruits to another, much less savory gang of music equipment robots, and bonded as a result of being put upon by the more established members (Cap'n probably even had to defend K_K more than once when his inattentiveness got him into trouble!)  But, they both had enough one day, and decided to break off and form their own thing, making music and selling CD bagels to support themselves.

-Sweet, meanwhile, has the complete opposite background, coming from a rich and important family of musicians in Cyber City who regularly entertained Queen in her mansion (hence why he always used to get sweets from her!)  But, he was kind of the black sheep, preferring his own style of music, and decided to strike out on his own as a street musician instead.

-They met when Cap'n and K_K accidentally set up to sell bagels on Sweet's usual corner, and he battled them to reclaim his turf.  But, they were evenly-matched (even two-to-one; Sweet's definitely the strongest of the trio!), and impressed each other with both their fighting and musical skills, so Sweet decided to join their tiny group, and thus Sweet Cap'n Cakes was formed.  

-After the whole situation with Queen is resolved, SCC turns their rebellion into an anti-DRM kind of thing?  Nobody can hold back the music, man!

[doomedandstoned]

Atomic Vulture Are at Their Finest in New Spin, ‘Moving Through Silence’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

I have debates with my co hosts now and again on The Doomed & Stoned Show about the merits of instrumental metal. Some complain they just can't get into music without vocals. Perhaps this is because there is a participatory element to being able to have a track pointed in some lyrical direction and (hopefully) being able to sing along with. When it comes down to it, though, every rock and metal song starts life as an instrumental. We've done countless interviews with bands who've described exactly this as their creative process: music first, vocals later.

Here's a band that will ease you right into the instrumental stoner-doom experience. ATOMIC VULTURE is a three-man crew hailing from Brugge, Belgium, consisting of cosmonauts Pascal David (guitar), Jens Van Hollebeke (drum) and Kris Hoornaert (bass). Believe me, you’re in good hands with this stellar interstellar crew.

You’re moving through the silence of outer space. A giant shuttle brings you to your destination. Halfway there when you need to refuel. Pull up to the gas station and stock up on supplies.

The record opens with "Eclipse," which creates a convincing picture in its opening minutes of those awe-inspiring moments when the moon covers the sun and everything goes dark. It's the most surreal feeling imaginable, and some of you can still remember it from the last solar eclipse we had, when the earth was covered by its satellite's mighty shadow and time seemed to stand still as the world looked on in awe as it reckoned with this strange event. Bass, guitar, and drums sound off next, each taking turns voicing their own leads, then joining forces for a sudden conclusion.

"Mashika Deathride" is next. It chuggs and rumbles, with the guitar establishing the thematic motif about a minute-and-a-half in. Other instruments join in the revelry, with plenty of that crushing low-end that Atomic Vulture are so famous for. These are interrupted for a period of spaced out, almost meditative contemplation, out of which emerges a second theme about the four-and-a-half minute mark. Stout guitars and punchy drums riff on this and the tempo gradually increases to finish in classic form.

"Coaxium" is like a perpetual motion machine that will have you headbanging from the get-go. There is less a theme here as an idea, a short guitar hook that repeats and finds itself surrounded by various colors and hues as the piece progresses. The bass shares in the motif, as well, giving the guitar a chance to cut loose and do some singing. Two-minutes in, things slow down to a doom's pace with emphatic beats and a little call-and-response action going on between the bass-drums and guitar. As Atomic Vulture is an instrumental affair, the guitar really vocalizes in a way that makes you think someone could guest on a song like this with lyrics of their own and turn it into a Kyuss-esque stoner rock gem.

"Cosmic Dance" returns to the strangeness that opened up the album, this time with keys joining strings for a New Age feel. It's not more than a minute before the rhythm section kicks in, and we're off to explore the cosmos. Low-end jamming joins us another minute later, with a guitar theme joining the keyboard to narrate our journey into the unknown. I'm reminded of Mars Red Sky, not because they sound similar to Atomic Vulture, but traffic in similar terrain. I think the two would pair very well on your next interstellar playlist.

Yes, I know I've complained about cowbell before, and there is a touch of it to rattle us as "Intergalactic Takeoff" centers our attention on the launching pad. Thankfully, it does what it came to do and then leaves us rocking out to some crunchy riffage, which commences with a nervous heartbeat, but soon settles down into the pull of gravity as the ship blasts off through the atmosphere and into outer space.

"Spinning The Titans" begins with pronounced drum and bass play, with a kind of spinning motion implied by brief flashes of circular guitar patterns. Soon, the song relaxes into a theme with variations, with each round becoming more and more compelling as the song powers on. There's a lot going on and if you pay attention, you'll be rewarded. But you can also just sit back and let its tentacles dangle freely as it evolves and does its thing. Indeed, five minutes into the track, our mind is tripping out in its hazy, psychedelic atmosphere -- such is the range of styles and moods that we cycle through in this most unusual score.

I just watched a movie about rats last night (1984's Rats: Night of Terror -- a post-apocalyptic Italian affair), to the image of those varmints squeaking and squirming (and taking a chunk of our a few villainous faces in a small, irradiated town) is still vivid in my consciousness. Indeed, the guttural scape of the bass notes does a good job of getting us in the mood.

Rats aren't all that bad, though. In fact, Pearl Jam once said of rats, "They don't compare" -- meaning they're far better class of creature than humans, all things considered. In this song, we have a wordless interpretation of one such critter, the "Space Rat," who finds himself exploring the nether regions of the cosmos. We don't know if he's a stowaway on the ship that's just embarked upon its mission a song or so earlier. Perhaps this rat is steering the ship? You never know where evolution will take us! Wherever it is, I hope Atomic Vulture is there to give us a bitchin' soundtrack like this one.

At last we have reached the finale of Moving Through Silence: "Astral Dream." Returning to the droning atmospheric prelude that greeted us in the beginning, this time it's given a full two minutes to set our mind at ease. Then the proggy metallic theme arrives accented by gentle cymbal taps. It builds slowly, but poininantly with crisp beats articulated with rhythmic precision, buttressed by fuzzy bass licks that seem to scrape the floor, they're so downtuned. The guitar sounds especially hopeful in character as it bounces about in buoyant staccato, trading dialogue with the skins. Imagine you are floating in mid air and that this is what you're listening to, and your mind will be transported to new horizons.

Atomic Vulture's fifth studio effort Moving Through Silence drops on Friday, May 21st via POLDERRECORDS in digital, CD, and vinyl formats (pre-order here). Between now and then, Doomed & Stoned is pleased to give you a chance to soak in this eight song set. A stunner of a record if there ever was one!

Give ear...

Moving Through Silence by Atomic Vulture

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[carrietrekkie]

An unexpectedly nice evening.

Hallo again!

Now it gets a little romantic. This one belongs to my going on PikexCathrin(OC) Story.

Oh and I forgot to mention, I love when things develop slowly, so a little sorry for that.

Enjoy it!

It was peaceful onboard of Discovery. The ship had a settled day and night routine and while the first and second shifts are fully occupied you could recognized that at the third there was only a skeleton staff on duty.

I laid awake on my bed, starring at the ceiling of my quarters. I´m getting more and more sure that it was really mine. Tilly and Burnham didn´t said it but they looked concerned as both tried to serve me an explanation they were hoping for that I didn´t understood it. For their misfortune I had understood mostly of it and for the rest of the evening the mood was in the basement. We had some espressos and ice crème but that didn´t cheered us up, instead, something of that kept me awake now.

I rolled out of my bed, grabbed my jacket, some of the clothes Tilly procured me. Radiant she had shown me how she had done that. In principle, I could get any piece of clothing that I wanted, but I stocked on the Starfleet standard wardrobe. To get me something more personal would felt like giving up and I was not ready for that. Not quite yet.

I slipped in my sport shoes, left my quarters and began to roam the corridors of the ship. It still was such a strange feeling to be here. In a spaceship, with nothing but the vacuum of the universe around us. Actually this should panic me, but it didn’t. From the lecture that Spock had given me was especially memorable that a lot had to happen, that the outside came inside, unless we were attacked, but that was another story.

After a while I found myself right before the cargo bay where my car was stored. I put my hand in my pocket and my fingers hit my car key. A stupid habit but again I had the feeling I would gave up every hope to get home if I didn´t have it with me. I stepped inside and the lights started up. I looked around and noticed that no one was here.

 I pulled the key from my pocket, pressed the button and my car blinked at me. Someone must fixed the battery, couldn´t be so hard. After all, Warp was the place to go, and a 21st century battery was probably for the trainee.

Despite the wild ride that lay behind us, the car was completely undamaged; I walked around it and then opened the trunk. Most of my stuff where still in there. I went to the driver side and let me slide on the seat. I turned on the music, increased the volume a bit and closed my eyes for a moment. My fingers crossed the steering wheel than I fold down the sun visor. A picture failed out. I catch it. It showed my brother, his wife and their two children. Number three was still on its way.

I shocked my head. That phrasing wasn´t right but I couldn´t corrected myself to the right term. Before I could started ruminating about it, the passenger door clattered and suddenly Captain Pike sat next to me.

He wear some sport clothes, heavy breathing, it seemed that he comes right out of a training session. He gasped for a moment, than looked at me.

“Can´t sleep?”

I shrugged my shoulders, than turned down the music.

“I get used to the idea that this is now my home and right at the moment I find it incredibly difficult to stand that idea.”

I gave him the photo. He glanced at it, then looked back at me, but said nothing.

“My family. My brother, my sister in law and their children.” I took the photo back. “She is pregnant.“ I broke off. „Was pregnant and I just realized I never saw the baby.” I sighed. “But it doesn´t matter. It´s been dead since hundreds of years, as well as everyone I knew.”

“Cathrin, don´t do that.” He turned towards me. “That doesn´t lead you anywhere, it only pulls you into a hole you may not get out of.”

I saw him hesitated for a moment than he grabbed my hand and closed his fingers around it.

“How can I handle this?” I looked at our tangled hands and suddenly I had the feeling that if he let go of me, I would lose myself in the infinity surrounding us. “Everyone I've ever known is dead.”

“Give yourself some time to mourn, then let them go” He smiled softly. “It may sound cruel, but you can´t chance it. They lived their life, yours is still ahead of you.” I dropped my head against the seat then looked at him. “And you certainly never expected such a direction?”

“I really don´t have that.” I gazed at Chris, he too had leaned back and closed his eyes. Right in this moment he just seemed to be at peace with himself and the world, as if there weren´t this incredible problem he was beating around with and he could sit here forever and just listen to music. Chris still holds my hand, like he had never done anything else before. I turned to him, this movement caused him to look at me again.

“What keeps you awake?” I smiled at him. „And just don´t be fooled into saying that the music was too loud.”

“You don´t really want to hear that.” He closed his eyes again but now I could see, how it works in him.

“Why not?

“It is long and boring and for the most not very nice.”

“And what if I tell you that I already know a lot about you, maybe more than you suspected?”

Now he gazed right into my eyes. I could read surprise in it, but also found traces of what he had gone through. So I was even more surprised that he was the way he was.

“I knew what happened on Rigel and on Talos. I know that it still bothers you that Starfleet has not ordered back the Enterprise during the war.” A faint smile crept around his lips. I stopped, I didn´t want to penetrate too much into his privacy.

“That would be pretty much the saddest highlights. Some time ago I was almost ready to plunk down everything. I wanted to go back to earth, breed horses.” Chris sighed. “I don´t even know, just far away from all this here.”

“What has changed your mind?”

“Good question.” He looked at me. „Friends, fellowship, they oath I swore. For every bad thing that happened, there was always something good that convinced me otherwise.” He made a move that closed in the whole Discovery. “I sometimes think the command here is good for me, even if it pulls me back to the Enterprise.”

“It is said that sleep should help.”

“I heard that too.” Now he smiled again even if he couldn’t completely displaced the melancholy from the moment before. “But there are days your mind wouldn´t let rest you.”

“Oh yes! That is a feeling I know very well.” I smiled at him.

„What are you doing against it?”

“In fact, I always found it very relaxing to drive around, hang on my thoughts, listening to music. But that's bad for the environment, so I turned to running.” He laughed, than he tugged at his shirt.

“Well, there we have something in common.” He looked to the side and his eyes felt on our hands.

“Excuse me.” He loosened his grip around my hand and I had to force myself to do the same.

“For what?” I was almost amazed at my answer, but was glad that it made him laugh.

“I don´t want to be insensitive but how about something for a chance, maybe something cheerful?”

“That sounds wonderful!” I swung out of the car, on the other side he did the same, over the roof of the car we looked at each other.  “But I will not run around with you, because that would be absolutely humiliated for me.”

Again he laughed. “I can perfectly adjust to your speed.”

“Great! So we go on a walk?” I twitched my eyebrows, close the door and went to the trunk. I heard him closing the door too, than I followed me.

“Captain Pike.” I squinted at him, trying not to laugh. „Is it possible that you are just curios?”

“Don´t be upset.” He grabbed after my tablet. „But this here is like history to touch.“

I smiled at him, this I could understand. Chris squinted at me. “Would you let me drive?”

“Pardon?” I looked around. Sure, there was room, but nearly not enough to drive around. “In here?”

“At some point, let us say, when we are on earth. There are still streets.“ His eyes were still on mine and I was pretty sure, that this view could get him a lot.  

“Can it be that you are putting together a fairly romantic idea of that in your mind?”  

“Maybe.” He sat down on the frame of the trunk and I did the same. “I´m from Mojave, Arizona. A wonderful place, a piece of heaven. There is nothing that resembles the sky there on a starry night.”

 I remembered the picture hanging in his ready room. He listened shortly to the song that played. As he spoke again, something in his voice had changed. There was a certain yearning in it now. I could feel it with every word he said and caught myself imagining sitting next to him.

“The sun sets, the windows half way down and this song on the radio.”

“I somehow guessed that you like it.” I grabbed my tablet and handed it to him. “Lady Antebellum, Heart of the World.” I looked at him. „In my time you send an MP3 or borrowed a CD to get a song.”

“That changed a little, I could show you if you want.” He began to scroll through my playlist.

“Yes, sure. I can´t annoy the whole spaceship with my music, primarily because it is stone old.”

“What would you say if I told you that some people guess your time was the best in music history?” He gave me back the tablet and I stored it in my back pack.

“That I have to believe you, but couldn´t understand it.” I grimaced. “Just at the time when I came here, there were things.” I shocked my head.  “Of those I wouldn´t be sad if they had disappeared in the sinking.” I suppressed a yawn.

“You should go back to bed.” He leaned over and nudged me.

“You too.” I nudged him back. „You are the captain, if you fall asleep on the command chair that certainly does not look particularly trustworthy with the crew.”

“I think that once happened to Captain Mitchell. That still causes unsightly jokes at the academy even today.” I had to giggle at that imagination.  “This is not necessarily the legacy I want to leave behind.”

“You are kidding, right?” I got up, pulled my bag out of the trunk and was about to throw the backpack over when he took it from my hand. “Thank you.” He got up too, I closed the trunk and then the car. “You are Christopher Pike, Captain of the Enterprise and the Discovery and after all I knew, already a legend. Your legacy will be guiding all captains after you. Even a funny little anecdote couldn´t change that.”

 Oh wow, stop! That was new. Where did those pictures came from? I blinked a little as my mind tries to sort out the new memories. No good one, to be honest.

As I looked up again, he glanced at me as if he couldn´t believe what I just said. I barely couldn´t believe it myself.

He stood right in front of me, looking at me with those incredible blue eyes, giving me the feeling; I would be everything for him, what counts. The butterflies that rose in my stomach in that second’s didn´t make it easier to stand his view.

“Cathrin, what are you keeping from me?”

I closed my eyes. I knew this question had to come at some point and I had unconsciously said too much before.

“Chris don´t.” I placed my right hand on his chest. Underneath my fingers I could feel his heart beating, more violent than a few days ago on the infirmary and a part of me wished, that it was because of me and not because of the question he had just asked me.

I had no clue this time, that I actually was the reason his heart beat increased.

I could not guess that this was exactly why he was so nervous. “Please don´t ask me that.” I looked into his eyes.

“Why not?”

“What do you think, what I tell you?” I swallowed. There were two possible scenarios I had for him in mind, none of which I liked and I would not tell him that. I would not break his heart or throw him into a hole in which he was not supposed to be. I could see how he fought with himself, the curiosity against the reason and I hoped so much that he would opt for the latter but I barely knew him for guessing that.  

 “Then lie to me. “ He put his hand on mine again, I closed my eyes. “Just don´t tell me everything.” I smiled weakly. He was persistent, but that I already knew.

„At sometime in the future after being a wonderful Captain for very long time you will promoted to Admiral and if I still know, you´ll go to the academy.” I had to concentrate but I couldn´t go on. Again that happened, which I had experienced the last few days. If I tried to grab a memory that comes back to me, to get a closer look at hit, they slipped from me, disappeared and left me with a feeling like someone was blocking me. Keeping me away from it.

“No luck again?” Pike didn´t missed my confused face.

“That was already everything.” I looked at him again. „I know there is more, but I can´t remember it.” A little lie but he would get me instantly to sick bay, if he gets only the smallest suspect somethings not okay. His hand moved slowly to my wrist and I felt him searching for my pulse. I pinched my lips for a moment.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to find out if you are lying?” He raised his eyebrows.

“This is not going to work.” I sneaked my hand out of his grip, well I tried. He held me tight and that drove my heartbeat even further. He had to feel that because something changed in his eyes, than slowly, really slowly he released me, his fingertips brushed softly over my skin.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” I backed away a few millimeters. “A few confused thoughts?”  

„An unexpectedly nice evening.” His eyes stuck to mine for a few seconds longer than usual than he threw the backpack over one shoulder. “But we agreed before, that we should sleep.”

“You were curious.”

“Guilty as charged.” He smiled at me that dimpled smile I liked so much on him and as much as I hated to let this moment pass, it was almost midnight and so we left the cargo bay and hit the path to our quarters.

“You have not answered my question.”

“I have just delivered an extremely confusing answer to you.” I grinned at him.

“I don´t mean that.”

“Ohhh! You mean if I let you drive?” My grin widened. „Do you have a driver´s license?”

“Of course, I´m even allowed to fly a spaceship.” He replied the grin.

„That´s not the same.“ I shrugged with one shoulder. “I´m talking about a two hundred years old car, with gear shift. I do not know that I've ever met an American who could ride a circuit.”

“Hey.” He raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I can´t check that.” I laughed as he raised a finger and continued to talking. “But, I already drove a car.”

“And that I can´t check.” I stopped at the door to my quarters, expectantly he looked at me, like a little boy on Christmas. I squinted my eyes then sighed dramatically. “All right, if it ever takes us to Earth, I´ll let you drive.”

“Promised?” He emphasized the whole thing with a heartbreaking look.

“Promised.” I rolled my eyes but couldn´t help smiling. “Did you learn that on Starfleet Academy?”

“From a hard to see through First Officer.”

“Ahh.” I opened the door and he handed me the backpack. “Thank you.” Our hands touched each other fleetingly. “No, thank you.” He smiled at me. „Sleep well.“

„I´ll try my best.“ I waved to him. “You too.”

“Let´s talk about it tomorrow. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Then he turned and walked a few doors further.  I looked after him for a few seconds, then closed the door and had to gather for a moment so that I didn´t run after him.

What had just happened?

At some point I had caught myself flirting with him and if I remembered correctly, he also with me.

Wearily I slipped into the bedroom, leaving me as I was falling on my bed, took of my shoes and cuddled me in my pillow. Actually, I just wanted to sleep, but as soon as I closed my eyes, I saw Chris again in front of me. His smile, his eyes, his voice. I breathed in deeply.

“Oh damn.”

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling again. I found him attractive, I even found him damn attractive. And I liked him, I liked him from the first second on and with every second we just spend together I liked him even more. The imagination how he would behave when he was behind the wheel makes me smile but I would have to wait a while for it.

For now, I enjoyed the warm feeling that was just spreading in me, a feeling I hadn´t for a long time, maybe I felt nothing like this before and since days, that was the first time, there was something like hope inside of me. Even though it was now more hope for the future.

Maybe I could let it go easier than I thought.

[astainedteamug]

Getting Rid of that Holiday Stress Ahead of Time

If you are finding yourself worried about the holidays, then you and I are in the same boat. And so is everybody else. Legitimately, everybody. Even the lady at work who always has a perfect party and she never has a hair out of place, she’s worried if her quiche will burn or if she will have enough decorations. Everybody has some kind of stress going on right now.

Some people are triple checking their travel plans to make sure everybody has a ticket and if they have a big enough budget. Some people are checking their list of people to give a gift to and realizing that they STILL don’t know what to get their mom for Christmas.

But whatever it is you are going through right now, you should take a minute off of your feet to read through this and see if one of these could help you.

1. The Clutter

It is amazingly easy to hold on to things in the modern world. And you don’t even know why. Especially after Halloween, there are candy wrappers, fairy wings, tiny toys, and just all around mess. The birthdays of the year have left you with gifts that you never wanted and you couldn’t return, so they wound up shoved in a corner to never be used or seen again.

But for some reason, you find yourself stressed out about it. That thing Jim gave you at your office party that was so ugly you didn’t even want it in your car. It’s bothering you that it’s still here, yet it has to take the back burner. And pretty soon, you start to feel like your house looks something like this:

Yeah, I know!

But between work and school and getting everything ready, you just don’t feel like you have the time to go through all of it.

Behold, my friends, the beauty of November. This is a beautiful grace period that most people will skip over to start putting up decorations for Christmas, thinking it will help them not be stressed about the decorations. But they are wasting perfectly good cleaning time. It’s time for a detox, and your house is begging you to do it, just this once.

Now wait just a minute, this isn’t an excuse to throw out your wife’s figurines that you hate but she loves, in fact I don’t recommend throwing much away at all. Go through your things first and donate what you can.

Old clothing, shoes, toys, books, purses or bags, and even movies. This is a great time of year to donate those things and let somebody else enjoy them. Old dishes can be sold or donated, dog and cat toys can get washed and de-stinkified. Candles that have been sitting around for years can get burned and help get any unpleasant smells out of your house while freeing up cabinet space for candles to come. Old mail and documents can get shredded and recycled, or even stocked up as fire starters for your fireplace. And those decorations that “complete the room” can be stowed away until they are needed again. Don’t let them jumble you up and stand in the way.

And this is an excellent way to see what you need around the house. Maybe you didn’t know the drill was broken, but now you know what to get your husband for Christmas. Or maybe the kids need new pjs. And that new coat would look great in place of your old one.

And once you’re done with the clutter aspect of all of this, then it’s time to move into phase two.

2. The Mess

It is entirely possible that the corner of your living room behind your television hasn’t been dusted in months, correct? It’s an easy thing to forget. It’s an easy thing to push aside, or to say to yourself “would anybody really notice?” Aunt Barbara might when she visits on thanksgiving with her specialty cranberry stuffing. And you would never hear the end of it. Okay, now punch your anxiety in the face and pick up a duster.

It really isn’t that big of a deal which corner is dusted and which one isn’t, but November is a wonderful time of peace before the holiday guests arrive, so why not make sure the house is nice so you aren’t worried about it. They’ll make a mess when they get there anyways, you may as well conquer what you can now. Get those expired bath products and cleaning concoctions out of your house before area 51 gets involved. Soap is NOT good forever!

Move around your furniture to sweep under it, dig out all of those coins and wrappers in the couch, dust off your movie and CD collection so you can pick out the holiday films for when everyone is over. You may as well put one on while you vacuum your floors, those corners and your ceiling fans and vents. Heck, you can even wash your carpets if your feeling REALLY festive!

There really isn’t any point to making the holidays harder on yourself than they already can be, so why not get a head start on all of that mess and just get rid of it? It can be a good excuse to have your kids wash the windows or clean their bathrooms, or even go through their clothes and toys and put everything they don’t use into one bag to donate. And with your mess all taken care of, you can take a breath and relax before you begin part three of this holiday mission.

3. The Food

This is the biggest time of year for food sales for home baking. Which also means the fire department is busy too. Please be careful whenever you are in the kitchen with loved ones and keep the heat down, your sockets dust free, and make sure all handles are out of reach of little ones. And remember, a falling knife has no handle.

All of those vegetables that are going into your casseroles and soups, or getting turned into a side, you know you can use your freezer, right? Chopping them up now and freezing them in the measurements that you need is an excellent time and mess saver for your holiday baking. Those fruits that you bought too early, go ahead and chop those up too and freeze them until the day you need them for your pies and fruit salads. And honestly, why did you buy SO MANY cranberries? Nobody eats them! Stop doing this to your wallet and to yourself.

Over spending on food and wasting it is another stupidly easy thing to do. Half of it rots away before it even sees the cutting board. You can stop yourself from doing this with a few easy tools, like shopping lists, dates, and coordination with the other cooks in your family.

Everybody should bring a dish to thanksgiving. Whether it’s a pie, some creamed corn, or even something to drink. You won’t be the only cook during the week leading up to thanksgiving. So coordinating with your relatives about who is bringing what will save everybody from making the same thing and will make sure nobody is confused about what they’re doing and keeps you from making too much of one thing if not everybody is able to come. Especially if Kenny is the only person who is vegan and gluten intolerant, then his special dish doesn’t need to be fussed over this year. And everyone can bring something, even if uncle Dave just brings the disposable cups so grandma doesn’t have to do a million dishes with the grandkids later. And yes, everybody needs to do their share of work after dinner. A good rule of thumb is to clean up dishes before dessert.

But before the baking even begins, you need to figure out what ingredients you will need to buy to make that food. And some ingredients can be nearly impossible to get your hands on. You would not believe how difficult it was for me to find rhubarb for my pie this year. I had to google where I could get it, and it took me a few hours to get ahold of it. So making that shopping list can save you lots of time and hassle when it gets down to the wire. And having the dates of parties and holidays next to you makes it easy to know when you’ll need to shop for that food and save space in your fridge.

Ah yes, the fridge. Your old pal, full of old take out containers, a few odds and ends when it comes to ingredients, expired dairy products, and an endless assortment of condiments. Why do we do this? The fridge looks full, yet there’s nothing to eat.

Clean it! That smell can be taken care of with a box of baking soda. Just leave it open in he back corner and it will absorb it for you. Take your trash can and have it ready for the avalanche of forgotten meals it will need to hold. The old products and empty cartons need to get thrown out now so you can have space for leftovers during the holidays, but you’re much less likely to forget about those. Once you’ve emptied out all of the rotten veggies and old yogurts, now is the time to wash the shelves and clean it up in there to get a head start on the dishes.

Bravo. You have earned another break. But you are so far from being done.

4. The Yard

This is an ongoing task, and I’m afraid not much can be done that will stay done. Especially if you live somewhere the leaves turn red and then fall every time the wind blows. Honestly, it can’t really all be done at once. But after it snows, it has to stay there. That stick could trip you if your boot snags it and you forgot it was there. Those leaves will kill your lawn if they stand as a frozen barrier between the grass and the snow. And the weeds will only populate while they can.

Head to a hardware store and grab some tools if you need them. And get some gloves too, those thorns can be vicious. Taking care of lawn maintenance before you decorate should be high on your list of to-do’s, yet many people skip it all together. Clean out your gutters and send your hubby on the roof with a broom before you send him up with lights and a fake santa. It’s safer and it can actually save your roof from too much damage all at once.

Mow the grass while you can, trim your bushes before they get lined with lights, and rake those leaves up before they have to stay put for the next four months.

And if you have a dog, this is your last chance to double check nothing was left behind when your kids last took them outside.

5. The Car

If you’re traveling with your family, you have to clean out your car now! The tissues, old receipts that need to be organized, wrappers, straws, socks, and crumbs all need to go.

Suitcases and crock pots will soon take their place as well as bored kiddos and grumpy adults just trying to drive through the traffic. Pack those CDs into the car, download some podcasts, or get some audio books to help pass the time. But make sure the smell is gone too. Get a new air freshener and some febreeze. It’s amazing how much smell can come from one toddlers sock.

6. Finances and Documents

That giant pile of papers in your room, on your desk, or in your coffee table? Yeah, it won’t take care of itself. And during the holidays. The last thing you want to worry about is knocking it over so it isn’t 'organized’ anymore. Go through it now.

This will give you the chance to get your finances in order before you spend three hundred dollars on lights for the tree when really you can only spend thirty. I found a paper I wrote in fifth grade the other day, and tossed it right out. Honestly, why do we cling to these things? It has been in my life for ten years, and it has served its purpose. Now it’s time to go. This frees up space not only in your desk, but in your mind as well. It was one of those little things that you had been worried about for far too long. And now it’s finally gone.

7. The Decorations

Now is the time, folks, to get your final affairs in order. We are now approaching the holidays so please prepare for landing.

Decorations are the easiest thing in the world to freak out over when you get down to the wire. You count the lights, you measure for garland, you buy the plates and the napkins and even special straws that are made of paper. Candy canes are beautiful on a tree, but the tree isn’t up yet. Not to worry though. Your shopping list is that much smaller because you already took care of it.

Buying what you can ahead of time is something I’ve been doing since April. Buying candles, drinks, and even some gifts before they’re at their holiday prices is something I do to avoid the crowds and the chaos. Yes, I’m on a budget and I know how to work the system to my favor. Buying discount wrapping paper and tinsel the year before is nothing to hide, and props to you if you make your own decorations.

That’s what I did. Wreaths can be up to $70 when they come pre decorated. I bought one for ten and put my own decorations and lights on it for less than forty dollars. And I’ll use it over and over again. Making decorations can also help tame that beast inside of you that is screaming at you to put up the lights now! It’s not even thanksgiving, calm down you little elf.

Once you’ve ticked all of these things off of your list, you’ll find it much easier to breathe while you wrap gifts or wade through the sea of people at the mall. Having your lists organized, your budget in mind, and the peace of mind that your house is organized and ready, you’ll be unstoppable this holiday season!

Happy holidays everybody!

[samuelfields]

Financial Samurai 2017 Year In Review: The Most Difficult Best Year Ever

Happy 2018 Everyone!

Since the year doesn’t really start until the second week of January, I’ve decided to spend more time reflecting. Hopefully you will too on a tropical island somewhere.

Before 2017, the best year of my life was when I got married on a cozy beach in Oahu. It was a simple wedding with only 16 family members in attendance. There was a gentle breeze that rustled the palm leaves while a ukulele player played Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The ceremony was simple, yet so beautiful.

No moment ever topped that day until our son was born last Spring. The birth went smoothly and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief both mama and baby were safe and healthy. We feel so blessed to have him in our lives.

Despite all my preparation, I still underestimated how difficult it would be to work 15 hours every day for months on end. I worked in banking where 15 hour days were the norm. But even in banking, we got at least one day off a week. Further, nobody works every single minute they’re at work. With parenthood, one look away could spell disaster.

Constant sleep deprivation killed my mood. No longer did I have the desire or creativity to spend several hours writing a post. No longer did I have the patience to deal with annoying people. Yet we had to forge on like all newborn parents do to make sure our baby was properly cared for.

If it wasn’t for my wife, we wouldn’t have a precious son. And if it wasn’t for my wife, there would be no Financial Samurai because she started taking over the entire night after he was three months old. Therefore, I thank my wife for everything she has done and apologize for all the times I was unpleasant. She is the sweetest, loveliest, kindest person I know who deserves a partner who always treats her well. I will do better. I promise!

Financial Samurai 2017 Year In Review

When I re-read my goals for 2017 post with the theme, “Always Be Grinding,” I was surprised to read how enthusiastic I was, yet I didn’t take any outsized investment risk. In fact, I took risk exposure down by 17.5% after selling a rental house. It was the classic believing in one thing, but taking no corresponding action.

Here’s what I wrote in the beginning of 2017:

“I haven’t been this excited since I first got a job out of college when the sky was the limit. For the past 10 years or so, I’ve been questioning what’s the point of working so hard if the government is just going to take more from us than what we’re able to keep. To finally get some potential tax relief is thrilling!”

Despite my excitement, I didn’t pile into stocks because I’m always skeptical of what politicians can accomplish. Instead, I invested $250,000 in a real estate crowdsourcing because I believed the Red States would benefit from a Trump presidency and invested just $41,000 in stocks for 1Q2017 out of $611,000 total.

But what I did do right was focus on my largest asset, which is now my online business. I upped production in the first quarter and saw a 48% rise in revenue and an even larger increase in operating profits due to the beauty of fixed costs. Operational leverage truly is one of the best reasons for running an online business.

Despite only seeing a 15.87% return on my public investments for 2017, my online business more than made up for the slack. If you can consistently grow your most valuable asset at a faster pace than every other asset class over the long term, I dare say you will one day do your family proud.

Here’s a review of the specific goals I made in 2017.

Business Goals

1) Focus on growth by broadening the audience. I’ve received plenty of feedback that I need to write more for the mass market. Even though my advice holds true whether you have $1,000,000 to invest or $10,000 to invest, readers have told me they can’t get their heads around larger numbers.

Failed. I tried my best to write more about budgeting and savings, but I only ended up writing five new posts on this topic out of 175. Two of the posts probably don’t even count: Stop Frugality From Leading To Lifestyle Deflation and Millennial Avocado Toast Analysis. The only post I feel can help the mass market is: Housing Expense Guideline For Financial Independence. I doubt my audience broadened very much, but at least traffic grew by 20%.

2) Publish a new ebook by July 18, 2017. Despite the rise in interest rates, it still takes a gargantuan amount of money to generate $1,000 a month in passive income – we’re talking $300,000 in capital at a 4% gross yield.

Failed. I worked with several folks to put together a Financial Samurai real estate book in the first half of the year, but lost steam once my baby was born. It’s still a no-brainer to produce online products once you’ve developed a brand and a following, but time is at a premium. 

Related: Ranking The Best Passive Income Investments

3) Focus on three business partnerships. I’ve got about 10 business partnerships with Financial Samurai right now. As the main writer and business development guy, it’s very easy to get spread too thin. So I need to focus.

Failed. I worked on developing a better relationship with two business partners, but not three. I’m not sure what the right business partnership is for my new category: family finances. If there are any business out there who want to make me a pitch, I’m all ears. My goal is for each product to provide maximum value at minimal to no cost, just like this site. 

4) Send two to four e-mails a month. I’ve been paying $150 a month to send out only one newsletter a month for the past couple of years. What an underutilization of resources. I plan to write shorter, punchier e-mails to connect with all my newsletter subscribers.

Passed. I averaged sending 2.5 newsletters a month for the year. I’ve done a poor job growing my e-mail subscriber list compared to the amount of traffic I get for this site. It’s probably because I just don’t care for selling anything to anybody.

Personal Financial Goals

5) Create a million bucks of wealth. My goal in 2016 was to grow my net worth by $500,000 because I had a neutral outlook. Given I’m now bullish on my business, it’s only logical to shoot higher.

Passed. With the way most asset classes have performed this year, it wasn’t hard to generate a lot of wealth, especially if you’ve spent 20 years accumulating a financial nut large enough to retire on back in 2012. I received some interesting offers for this site for multiple millions of dollar, but I turned them all down. You should only buy, never sell a high margin, cash flow positive business that can be done anywhere in the world with minimal maintenance. 

Related: The First Million Might Be The Easiest

6) Invest at least $20,000 a month without fail. The $20,000 a month doesn’t have to be in the stock market. It can be in bonds, real estate crowdsourcing, private equity, private debt, or paying down a mortgage.

Passed. I ended up investing $39,609 of new money on average a month for a total of $475,319. At the same time, I was able to strengthen my balance sheet by adding around $450,000 in cash and paying off $916,000 in mortgage debt due to the sale of my rental home. 

Related: Investment Lessons From A Surreal 2017

7) Start earning $20,000 a month in passive/semi-passive income by year end. My passive income is currently averaging about $17,600 a month over the past six months. To increase my passive income by $2,400 a month, I’ve got to publish my real estate book by year end, market it well and update my severance negotiation book for 2017.

Failed. Since I didn’t publish a new book, I didn’t receive new passive income. In fact, my passive income dropped because I sold my rental home that was generating over $60,000 a year net (rental property #3) and one of my CDs came due. With $800,000 invested in equity real estate crowdfunded projects, there is the potential to earn a 8% – 15% IRR in 4-5 years. With $600,000 invested in municipal bonds, I should earn $15,000 – $20,000 in after tax income a year. I’ll be updating my passive income numbers for 2018.

8) Spend like I’ll be dead within 10 years. I’ve been frugal my whole life. It’s one of the main reasons why I was able to hit the eject button at 34. But, I’ll be 40 in 2017 so it’s time to live it up for the second half of my life. You don’t have to be as stealth in middle age because people are more accepting of those who’ve spent 20+ years working.

Pass. I bought two big ticket items in 2017: 1) a $16,000 hot tub, and 2) a $58,000 vehicle in cash to keep the family safe with zero regrets. I don’t miss my Honda Fit, especially since it began having starter problems towards the end. Further, there is no way I would feel safe driving Baby Samurai in a hatchback. The hot tub is the best lifestyle investment ever. I average five hours a week soaking after tennis and softball. I can’t wait for the entire family to have fun talking story in the hot tub one day. 

Related: When Is It OK To Forsake Stealth Wealth And Spend Up?

9) Don’t chase the stock market. Although I’m bullish on my business, I’m lukewarm on the stock market and the economy due to valuations, political uncertainty, and the prospect of higher interest rates squeezing consumption.

Failed. I chased the stock market because I didn’t invest enough during the first half of the year. This was the first time in history the S&P 500 didn’t have a down month. At the end of the day, my public investments returned 15.78%, so the chasing wasn’t that bad. If I didn’t have a huge influx of cash during the summer after the home sale, my investments would look more balanced. 

Related: The Proper Asset Allocation Of Stocks And Bonds By Age

Personal Goals

10) Scare myself out of my comfort zone. I haven’t been personally challenged in a long time. With a portfolio of over 1,300 posts on Financial Samurai, I know with decent confidence that if I write 152 new posts a year, I should be able to grow traffic and revenue by ~10% a year if I do nothing else. But writing 2-4X a week is an easy goal to achieve.

Passed. I finally started the Financial Samurai iTunes channel, whoo hoo! Too bad it only works on mobile and tablets, and not on the desk top for some reason. In the future, I hope to have my wife join me on the podcast and interview other people as well. It’s hard for me to speak eloquently, but I know after one year of practice I will get better. 

11) Really make a difference in 12 people’s lives. At the end of the day, the best feeling in the world is when a reader sends a private e-mail or writes a comment that says how much a particular article or the site in general has helped them achieve their dreams.

Pass. I’ve received over 70 e-mails and comments from readers this year who said something nice about how a particular FS article helped them get their finances in order or improve their lives for the better. These are truly the most gratifying and motivating reasons why I continue to write so much. 

I also spent three months coaching high school kids tennis, which was awesome. We got to the district finals and achieved the best record in the school’s long history! The best moment was when a senior, who had never won a big match before, won a huge rubber match in front of his mom and he ran to give me a hug afterward. 

Finally, I finally became a foster kid mentor. It took about eight hours of training and testing, which is probably one of the reasons why more people don’t do it. But the training is important given how precarious and important the situation is to take care of innocent kids who find themselves in a suboptimal situation. I’ve seen my foster kid five times now, and taught him how to ride his bike with no hands. So priceless! I can’t share details, but he’s a wonderful boy who wants to be a YouTube Gamer. It’s awesome that he already knows that creating content is much better than consuming content! 

Giving shakas after learning how to ride a bike with no hands – December 28, 2017 at 12:35pm

12) Start a family. My wife and I feel we’ve done everything we’ve wanted to do as adults. We’ve both engineered our layoffs. We don’t have the itch to travel much anymore. We have no desire to climb anybody else’s corporate ladder. After two years, our house is finally remodeled to the way we want. We have a digital business that allows us to be present for our child. Finally, we’ve developed a steady stream of passive income that should support a family of up to four.

Passed. I already knew my wife was pregnant when I wrote my 2017 goals, but you just never know until the baby is delivered. Based on research, speaking to hundreds of other couples, and personal experience, there are often complications that occur during pregnancy. If you’ve decided you want to start a family and have your finances in order, do not wait another day. 

Related: What’s The Best Age To Have A Baby? A Biological And Economical Analysis

Thanks Again For A Great 2017!

Despite all the craziness that went on in 2017, the one thing I will always clearly remember is the birth of our son just like how all I remember during the financial crisis was our quaint wedding.

It was hard to not only keep up the posting frequency on Financial Samurai, but to actually double production in order to buy more time in the future. This is where I really messed up because I didn’t maximize the purpose of our lifestyle business: to provide for a better life.

Instead of being so focused about protecting my family’s future by working so much, I should have spent more time enjoying the present. Life speed accelerates. Some changes will be made! Stay tuned for my 2018 goals and outlook post.

Readers, how was your 2017? What were your hits and misses?

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The post Financial Samurai 2017 Year In Review: The Most Difficult Best Year Ever appeared first on Financial Samurai.

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Lessons Growing Up In a Multi-Generation FIRE Family

[Happy Friday!! Got a special guest to the site today, Bob Lai from Tawcan.com, who talks about what it’s like growing up in a family with FIRE in their veins. You can’t always help who your family is or how they manage their money, of course, but when you find someone rockin’ it (family, friend, colleague) be sure to latch on and learn from them! It’s all about who you surround yourself with!]

********

At FinCon17, I was invited to a FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) beer tasting party by Carl from 1500days. At one point of the night, and many beers in, I joined Carl and a few bloggers on discussing what his life has been like since retiring from his job…

“FIRE is not a foreign concept for me at all, it runs in my family!” I blurted out at some point in the conversation. J. Money later heard of this, and asked if I’d share how impactful this has been, both in my life and my personal finances.

Below is a little about each of these family members of mine, followed by the lessons learned growing up around them. I hope you find it useful.

Cousin #1: We Work Because We Love To

One of my cousins, let’s call her Cousin #1, and her husband met at medical school and opened a medical clinic together in Taiwan after residency. Although they make good income, they are also careful with their expenses and investments.

Cousin #1 and her husband invested in the stock market, but the key to their financial success really came from purchasing several apartment buildings in nearby universities. Because university students always need a place to stay, these apartment buildings are constantly in high demand.

Based on their rental property investments alone, I had a suspicion that they were financially independent. This was later confirmed when we talked about their rental income.  Cousin #1 and her husband have been financially independent since the late 2000’s when they were in their mid-40’s.

Despite being financially independent, they both continued to work at their clinic because they enjoyed what they did and got their schedules down to only 3 times a week. They also employed people at the clinics and felt responsible for their employees.

Since reaching FI, they have been reinvesting their passive income to purchase even more rental properties and stocks. Their passive income has not surprisingly increased over the years. They have also been able to give back to the community using their passive income.

They are enjoying FI life while still working because they love what they do.

Cousin #2: Life Planning vs “Retiring Early”

When I talked to Cousin #2 about his early retirement, he emphasized that he does not see it as “retiring early” but rather life planning.

While studying Management Information Systems at college, he realized that if he was still sitting in front of a computer coding programs when he turned 50, life would be extremely boring. Therefore, during the 3rd year of university, he started learning about finance and economics. He spent time learning how to read company’s financial statements, the different financial indicators, and how to evaluate the price model of bond and financial derivatives. Once he was familiar with these topics, he started investing in the stock market.

Cousin #2 also pointed out that high income does not automatically lead to financial independence or early retirement. He stated that to achieve where he is today, he had a secret weapon – cash flow.

While he was single and later once married, he and his wife were spending less than 50% of their take home income for over 15 years. Because he had a plan and his wife was supportive of the idea, saving over 50% income was not difficult at all for them. Rather, it felt like a seamless process.

My cousin called it quits when he was 42 years old. He went from working over 12 hours each day at a Taiwanese high tech company to becoming a stay-at-home-dad.

Roughly 80% of their passive income is generated through their stock portfolio and 20% comes from real estate. His wife still works today. But just like Cousin #1 and her husband, Cousin #2’s wife works because she enjoys what she does.

Since retiring, Cousin #2 has also been able to focus more on exercising. On weekdays, he would take his kids to school in the morning, then head out biking for around 40 km (25 miles) or play badminton before picking them back up again. On weekends, the family would often go on trips or go out camping.  He has been able to enjoy his life more and pursue his interests. Early retirement life is good.

When I met up with him in Taiwan in October, he told me that he has been reading my blog. He was intrigued about my FIRE plan, and over dinner we chatted about FIRE, investing, and life. It was great that we could openly discuss such financial related topics!

My Father: Forced FIRE

I still remember the day my dad told my mom and my younger brother that he had handed in his resignation letter. We were all in the hospital after my mother had just completed a minor surgery, and from what I could recall there was a lot of tension between him and the president & CEO of the company. My dad hadn’t been enjoying his job for years, and as someone who worked directly below the president & CEO, he had to make a lot of tough decisions against his will

My dad’s resignation roughly coincided with our immigration to Canada.  He resigned about a month before we all left Taiwan to start a new life.

When we immigrated to Canada, my dad tried to look for a job but there was nothing related to his field of work. After evaluating our household finances, my dad decided to just stop working.

He was 43.

Although my dad stopped working, his life was still quite busy. My dad, alongside with my mom, became the biggest supporters for me and my brother. Without their support and help, I wouldn’t have been able to learn English and get out of my ESL classes in under a year.

Growing up, my dad would drop off my brother and I at school every morning, then pick us up afterwards. He attended all of our extra-curricular activities, ranging from basketball games, volleyball games, field trips, band concerts, etc.

When my brother and I needed help, he was always there.

FIRE was not prominent back in the late 90’s and the 2000’s. In fact, we didn’t even know the terms “early retirement” or “financial independence.” We simply viewed that my dad was forced to stop working, and my parents had to figure out how to support our family financially in other ways.

My parents started looking into passive income streams, and eventually found success in three key areas: stocks, GIC’s (The Canadian equivalent of CDs (Certificates of Deposit)), and rental property.

It also helped that frugality and stealth wealth were engraved in my family’s DNA. Growing up, we didn’t have any fancy toys or fancy clothes. We were thrifty and mostly wore second hand clothes.  We focused on simplicity, value, quality, and experience. There was no need to show off by driving fancy cars, wearing expensive designer clothes, or having the latest and greatest electronic gadgets. Our family only ever had one car, which my parents would drive for 7 years+ before exchanging it in for a newer one.

Thanks to my parents, both my brother and I were immersed in the family financial decisions. We learned about saving money and the different types of investments.

Another benefit of non-working parents? We went on extended road trips all the time!

When I was in high school, every summer we would go on road trips that usually lasted over a month. One year, we flew to Toronto and drove around Eastern Canada and Eastern United States. Another year we drove from Vancouver to Alaska and back. Another time we drove from Vancouver to New Orleans and back. Then once to Prince Edward Island to drive around the Maritimes and Maine. Later would drive to Banff and Alberta multiple times.

Throughout these road trips I obtained immeasurable knowledge and experiences that classes or books would never give me.

5 Lessons Learned Growing Up In a Multi-Generation FIRE Family

Growing up in a multi-generation FIRE family has greatly influenced the way I see financial independence and early retirement. I have been fortunate to learn many things through my two cousins and my dad. Here are some of the main ones.

#1. FIRE has many different looks

FIRE does not have to look a certain way. Cousin #1 reached FI but continued working, Cousin #2 retired early but his wife still works, and then we have my dad who was forced into early retirement. There is no common trend in all 3 cases. If you believe FIRE must look a certain way, then you don’t know the true concept of FIRE.

Financial Independence Retire Early simply means creating freedom and flexibility in your life. It means you can make your own choices on how to spend your money and time.

FIRE gives you more power to take charge of your life, and what you do with it is entirely up to you. You are not living off an approved checklist – you are the one who creates the list! Better yet, you can decide to not create any list at all.

FIRE also gives an entire different perspective when it comes to work. When you are financially independent, you are no longer working for that paycheck every 2 weeks simply because you need the money. You are working because you enjoy what you do, not because you have to. This shift in mentality is extremely powerful.

#2. It’s important to openly discuss finances

Rather than treating money as a taboo subject, discussing money topics openly is vitally important in my multi-generation FIRE family. My parents and my brother and I talk about our salaries, stock investments, and real estate investment opportunities regularly. My parents involved my brother and I in household financial decisions since we were young. Similarly, I can talk to my two cousins about money and other financial topics anytime I want and continue learning valuable lessons from them.

The more openly we discuss money, the more we can learn from each other. Money is simply a tool in life. It is not a dirty word. Having open discussions helps to decrease possible tensions and arguments you may have with family members.

#3. Know what you want in life!

The biggest lesson I have learned from my cousins and my dad is to think about what I truly want in the future. What is keeping me motivated on reaching my dreams? What tools are available to me to reach my goals? And most importantly, do I have any backup plans in case my first plan doesn’t work out?

So what do I personally want when it comes to FIRE?

My wife and I’s goal is to have enough passive income to exceed our annual expenses. Most of our passive income streams come in the form of dividend income. This year, we are on track to receive close to $15,000 in dividend income for doing absolutely nothing while our money works hard for us.

We plan on relying on dividend income rather than the 4% safe withdrawal rule to achieve FIRE, simply because we want to pass on our dividend portfolio to our kids in the future. However, this doesn’t mean we wouldn’t sell any stocks.

Because my wife is from Denmark and I am from Taiwan and we live in Vancouver Canada, we plan to move to Denmark and Taiwan sometime in the future. We plan to live in each country for 2 years minimum to allow our kids to learn about the two different cultures and languages. We plan to explore the nearby countries while living “abroad”.

We also have a dream of traveling the world for a year with our kids. My wife and I believe this is a great way for all of us to learn and gain valuable knowledge.

Beyond that, we don’t have concrete plans. We want our FIRE plans to be flexible so we can alter our plans when necessary. This is why we aren’t perfectly set in our passive income plans and don’t even have a specific FIRE date for that matter. Whether we decide to continue working once we are financially independent is entirely undecided at this point.

#4. FIRE builds stronger relationships

Looking back, I feel very fortunate that my dad could attend all my school events. This is something both of my cousins have been able to do with their kids as well.

Being present at your kids’ school events and other important life events are extremely important. It is a great way to build stronger parent-child relationships. FIRE means having more time on your hands so you can spend more time with your kids, your partner, and other important people in your life.

My oldest kid is in pre-kindergarten this year, but due to work I have not been able to attend all of his field trips. My daughter is less than 2 and she loves to play with me. I try to spend as much quality time with both of my kids as possible when I am at home, and I try to do more every day, but other times I fail. Being FIRE’d will allow me to become even more involved with my kids for years to come.

(Editor’s note: This is exactly why I want to become a stay-at-home-daddy who blogs on the side vs a full-time blogger who dads on the side! Your kids are everything!!)

#5. It’s all about Stealth Wealth

When I examine all 3 of my family members who are FIRE’d, stealth wealth is the only common thing between them. Stealth wealth means not having the needs to show off your wealth. It means driving the same car for many years, buying good quality items that would last a long time, buying second hand products when it makes sense, simplifying your life so you don’t own random crap, and not buying things for the sake of buying them. When one gets the idea of stealth wealth and truly master it, FIRE is something that will be within a close reach.

In Summary…

I have been fortunate to see firsthand how several family members have become financially independent and/or retired early over the years. Life is full of possibilities and choices. FIRE is simply one great option that can bring in more choices for you and your family.

What you do with your FIRE life is entirely up to you. Be as creative as you can!

****** Bob Lai (aka Tawcan) is a Vancouver Canada based blogger. A millennial, frugalist, investor, photographer, cookbook author, and outdoor enthusiast, he started his financial independence journey in 2011 after a financial epiphany. Since then he has amassed a dividend portfolio paying over $1,300 per month. He created his blog Tawcan.com chronicle his quest for joyful life and financial independence.

PS: “Tawcan” is a combination of “Taiwan” and “Canada” that Bob made up if you were wondering ;)

Lessons Growing Up In a Multi-Generation FIRE Family published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

[fesahaawit]

Lessons Growing Up In a Multi-Generation FIRE Family

[Happy Friday!! Got a special guest to the site today, Bob Lai from Tawcan.com, who talks about what it’s like growing up in a family with FIRE in their veins. You can’t always help who your family is or how they manage their money, of course, but when you find someone rockin’ it (family, friend, colleague) be sure to latch on and learn from them! It’s all about who you surround yourself with!]

********

At FinCon17, I was invited to a FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) beer tasting party by Carl from 1500days. At one point of the night, and many beers in, I joined Carl and a few bloggers on discussing what his life has been like since retiring from his job…

“FIRE is not a foreign concept for me at all, it runs in my family!” I blurted out at some point in the conversation. J. Money later heard of this, and asked if I’d share how impactful this has been, both in my life and my personal finances.

Below is a little about each of these family members of mine, followed by the lessons learned growing up around them. I hope you find it useful.

Cousin #1: We Work Because We Love To

One of my cousins, let’s call her Cousin #1, and her husband met at medical school and opened a medical clinic together in Taiwan after residency. Although they make good income, they are also careful with their expenses and investments.

Cousin #1 and her husband invested in the stock market, but the key to their financial success really came from purchasing several apartment buildings in nearby universities. Because university students always need a place to stay, these apartment buildings are constantly in high demand.

Based on their rental property investments alone, I had a suspicion that they were financially independent. This was later confirmed when we talked about their rental income.  Cousin #1 and her husband have been financially independent since the late 2000’s when they were in their mid-40’s.

Despite being financially independent, they both continued to work at their clinic because they enjoyed what they did and got their schedules down to only 3 times a week. They also employed people at the clinics and felt responsible for their employees.

Since reaching FI, they have been reinvesting their passive income to purchase even more rental properties and stocks. Their passive income has not surprisingly increased over the years. They have also been able to give back to the community using their passive income.

They are enjoying FI life while still working because they love what they do.

Cousin #2: Life Planning vs “Retiring Early”

When I talked to Cousin #2 about his early retirement, he emphasized that he does not see it as “retiring early” but rather life planning.

While studying Management Information Systems at college, he realized that if he was still sitting in front of a computer coding programs when he turned 50, life would be extremely boring. Therefore, during the 3rd year of university, he started learning about finance and economics. He spent time learning how to read company’s financial statements, the different financial indicators, and how to evaluate the price model of bond and financial derivatives. Once he was familiar with these topics, he started investing in the stock market.

Cousin #2 also pointed out that high income does not automatically lead to financial independence or early retirement. He stated that to achieve where he is today, he had a secret weapon – cash flow.

While he was single and later once married, he and his wife were spending less than 50% of their take home income for over 15 years. Because he had a plan and his wife was supportive of the idea, saving over 50% income was not difficult at all for them. Rather, it felt like a seamless process.

My cousin called it quits when he was 42 years old. He went from working over 12 hours each day at a Taiwanese high tech company to becoming a stay-at-home-dad.

Roughly 80% of their passive income is generated through their stock portfolio and 20% comes from real estate. His wife still works today. But just like Cousin #1 and her husband, Cousin #2’s wife works because she enjoys what she does.

Since retiring, Cousin #2 has also been able to focus more on exercising. On weekdays, he would take his kids to school in the morning, then head out biking for around 40 km (25 miles) or play badminton before picking them back up again. On weekends, the family would often go on trips or go out camping.  He has been able to enjoy his life more and pursue his interests. Early retirement life is good.

When I met up with him in Taiwan in October, he told me that he has been reading my blog. He was intrigued about my FIRE plan, and over dinner we chatted about FIRE, investing, and life. It was great that we could openly discuss such financial related topics!

My Father: Forced FIRE

I still remember the day my dad told my mom and my younger brother that he had handed in his resignation letter. We were all in the hospital after my mother had just completed a minor surgery, and from what I could recall there was a lot of tension between him and the president & CEO of the company. My dad hadn’t been enjoying his job for years, and as someone who worked directly below the president & CEO, he had to make a lot of tough decisions against his will

My dad’s resignation roughly coincided with our immigration to Canada.  He resigned about a month before we all left Taiwan to start a new life.

When we immigrated to Canada, my dad tried to look for a job but there was nothing related to his field of work. After evaluating our household finances, my dad decided to just stop working.

He was 43.

Although my dad stopped working, his life was still quite busy. My dad, alongside with my mom, became the biggest supporters for me and my brother. Without their support and help, I wouldn’t have been able to learn English and get out of my ESL classes in under a year.

Growing up, my dad would drop off my brother and I at school every morning, then pick us up afterwards. He attended all of our extra-curricular activities, ranging from basketball games, volleyball games, field trips, band concerts, etc.

When my brother and I needed help, he was always there.

FIRE was not prominent back in the late 90’s and the 2000’s. In fact, we didn’t even know the terms “early retirement” or “financial independence.” We simply viewed that my dad was forced to stop working, and my parents had to figure out how to support our family financially in other ways.

My parents started looking into passive income streams, and eventually found success in three key areas: stocks, GIC’s (The Canadian equivalent of CDs (Certificates of Deposit)), and rental property.

It also helped that frugality and stealth wealth were engraved in my family’s DNA. Growing up, we didn’t have any fancy toys or fancy clothes. We were thrifty and mostly wore second hand clothes.  We focused on simplicity, value, quality, and experience. There was no need to show off by driving fancy cars, wearing expensive designer clothes, or having the latest and greatest electronic gadgets. Our family only ever had one car, which my parents would drive for 7 years+ before exchanging it in for a newer one.

Thanks to my parents, both my brother and I were immersed in the family financial decisions. We learned about saving money and the different types of investments.

Another benefit of non-working parents? We went on extended road trips all the time!

When I was in high school, every summer we would go on road trips that usually lasted over a month. One year, we flew to Toronto and drove around Eastern Canada and Eastern United States. Another year we drove from Vancouver to Alaska and back. Another time we drove from Vancouver to New Orleans and back. Then once to Prince Edward Island to drive around the Maritimes and Maine. Later would drive to Banff and Alberta multiple times.

Throughout these road trips I obtained immeasurable knowledge and experiences that classes or books would never give me.

5 Lessons Learned Growing Up In a Multi-Generation FIRE Family

Growing up in a multi-generation FIRE family has greatly influenced the way I see financial independence and early retirement. I have been fortunate to learn many things through my two cousins and my dad. Here are some of the main ones.

#1. FIRE has many different looks

FIRE does not have to look a certain way. Cousin #1 reached FI but continued working, Cousin #2 retired early but his wife still works, and then we have my dad who was forced into early retirement. There is no common trend in all 3 cases. If you believe FIRE must look a certain way, then you don’t know the true concept of FIRE.

Financial Independence Retire Early simply means creating freedom and flexibility in your life. It means you can make your own choices on how to spend your money and time.

FIRE gives you more power to take charge of your life, and what you do with it is entirely up to you. You are not living off an approved checklist – you are the one who creates the list! Better yet, you can decide to not create any list at all.

FIRE also gives an entire different perspective when it comes to work. When you are financially independent, you are no longer working for that paycheck every 2 weeks simply because you need the money. You are working because you enjoy what you do, not because you have to. This shift in mentality is extremely powerful.

#2. It’s important to openly discuss finances

Rather than treating money as a taboo subject, discussing money topics openly is vitally important in my multi-generation FIRE family. My parents and my brother and I talk about our salaries, stock investments, and real estate investment opportunities regularly. My parents involved my brother and I in household financial decisions since we were young. Similarly, I can talk to my two cousins about money and other financial topics anytime I want and continue learning valuable lessons from them.

The more openly we discuss money, the more we can learn from each other. Money is simply a tool in life. It is not a dirty word. Having open discussions helps to decrease possible tensions and arguments you may have with family members.

#3. Know what you want in life!

The biggest lesson I have learned from my cousins and my dad is to think about what I truly want in the future. What is keeping me motivated on reaching my dreams? What tools are available to me to reach my goals? And most importantly, do I have any backup plans in case my first plan doesn’t work out?

So what do I personally want when it comes to FIRE?

My wife and I’s goal is to have enough passive income to exceed our annual expenses. Most of our passive income streams come in the form of dividend income. This year, we are on track to receive close to $15,000 in dividend income for doing absolutely nothing while our money works hard for us.

We plan on relying on dividend income rather than the 4% safe withdrawal rule to achieve FIRE, simply because we want to pass on our dividend portfolio to our kids in the future. However, this doesn’t mean we wouldn’t sell any stocks.

Because my wife is from Denmark and I am from Taiwan and we live in Vancouver Canada, we plan to move to Denmark and Taiwan sometime in the future. We plan to live in each country for 2 years minimum to allow our kids to learn about the two different cultures and languages. We plan to explore the nearby countries while living “abroad”.

We also have a dream of traveling the world for a year with our kids. My wife and I believe this is a great way for all of us to learn and gain valuable knowledge.

Beyond that, we don’t have concrete plans. We want our FIRE plans to be flexible so we can alter our plans when necessary. This is why we aren’t perfectly set in our passive income plans and don’t even have a specific FIRE date for that matter. Whether we decide to continue working once we are financially independent is entirely undecided at this point.

#4. FIRE builds stronger relationships

Looking back, I feel very fortunate that my dad could attend all my school events. This is something both of my cousins have been able to do with their kids as well.

Being present at your kids’ school events and other important life events are extremely important. It is a great way to build stronger parent-child relationships. FIRE means having more time on your hands so you can spend more time with your kids, your partner, and other important people in your life.

My oldest kid is in pre-kindergarten this year, but due to work I have not been able to attend all of his field trips. My daughter is less than 2 and she loves to play with me. I try to spend as much quality time with both of my kids as possible when I am at home, and I try to do more every day, but other times I fail. Being FIRE’d will allow me to become even more involved with my kids for years to come.

(Editor’s note: This is exactly why I want to become a stay-at-home-daddy who blogs on the side vs a full-time blogger who dads on the side! Your kids are everything!!)

#5. It’s all about Stealth Wealth

When I examine all 3 of my family members who are FIRE’d, stealth wealth is the only common thing between them. Stealth wealth means not having the needs to show off your wealth. It means driving the same car for many years, buying good quality items that would last a long time, buying second hand products when it makes sense, simplifying your life so you don’t own random crap, and not buying things for the sake of buying them. When one gets the idea of stealth wealth and truly master it, FIRE is something that will be within a close reach.

In Summary…

I have been fortunate to see firsthand how several family members have become financially independent and/or retired early over the years. Life is full of possibilities and choices. FIRE is simply one great option that can bring in more choices for you and your family.

What you do with your FIRE life is entirely up to you. Be as creative as you can!

****** Bob Lai (aka Tawcan) is a Vancouver Canada based blogger. A millennial, frugalist, investor, photographer, cookbook author, and outdoor enthusiast, he started his financial independence journey in 2011 after a financial epiphany. Since then he has amassed a dividend portfolio paying over $1,300 per month. He created his blog Tawcan.com chronicle his quest for joyful life and financial independence.

PS: “Tawcan” is a combination of “Taiwan” and “Canada” that Bob made up if you were wondering ;)

Lessons Growing Up In a Multi-Generation FIRE Family posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[ronaldmrashid]

The Main Types Of Risk Exposure To Be Aware Of When Investing

I’m not sure if homebuyers truly realize how much concentrated risk they are taking when they buy property. I’m particularly concerned about first time buyers putting less than 20% down because they can’t afford a larger downpayment. Given they can’t put at least 20% down, it’s likely they also don’t have any meaningful investments in stocks, bonds, or private ventures. In other words, they are all-in and then some with real estate.

Just in case it’s not obvious, mortgage debt is also considered investment risk exposure. You’re basically leveraging up to make a concentrated bet on a single asset that hopefully goes up. If it goes down and you need to sell, you’re screwed. During the last downturn in 2008-2009, the average American’s net worth got destroyed because over 80% of the average American’s net worth was in real estate.

Some people have asked me why I’m not in a bigger rush to reinvest 100% of my house sale proceeds (~$1.8M) in this bull market. If I did, I’d still have $815,000 less in risk exposure because I paid off the mortgage.

The first reason why I’m not in a rush to reinvest the proceeds is because it’s a lot of money and I don’t want to lose it. I’ve redeployed about 60% and am slowly re-investing the balance each month. The other reason I’m in no rush is because I still have roughly $1,000,000 in mortgage debt, meaning that with a current cash balance of ~$900,000, I’ve got maximum exposure + $100,000 in leverage to risk assets.

The Definition Of Maximum Exposure

Maximum Exposure is not just investing everything you have in risk assets like stocks and real estate. Having Maximum Exposure is investing everything you have in risk assets AND borrowing as much as possible to also invest in risk assets.

With real estate, banks will generally lend your household up to 5X your annual household gross income. With stocks, brokerage accounts may let you borrow up to 50% the value of your stock holdings in the form of margin. For the record, I’m not a fan of going on margin buying stocks or taking a HELOC out to buy risk assets.

The time to have Maximum Exposure to risk assets is when there is blood in the streets. That time period was most recently between 2009 – 2010. The problem is that nobody can properly time their Maximum Exposure to perfection. It can only be done in hindsight.

Given perfect timing is impossible, one must raise and lower their exposure during a cycle. The long term trend is luckily up and to the right. But the desire or ability to work is finite, and so is life itself. There’s no point dying with boatloads of money, especially if it’s going to be taxed at 40%.

I did a reasonably good job getting Maximum Exposure from 2003 – 2007 with investments in stocks and two San Francisco properties and one Lake Tahoe property. Total mortgage indebtedness was roughly $2,200,000 as a 27 – 30 year old. Then I went backwards for several years until the market started stabilizing in 2010, and ultimately recovering.

I wanted to de-risk by $1.1M in 2012 because I had just left my job, but nobody wanted to buy my property at the asking price. By the time 2014 rolled around, a 4.1% CD came due and I had the fire power to buy another property to gain Maximum Exposure again.

It’s strange how quickly my mindset changed from de-risking to increasing risk in two years, but I decided to take on $1,000,000 more in debt to buy a fixer in Golden Gate Heights because my online revenue was growing, my net worth had rebounded, and I strongly believed buying a panoramic ocean view home on both levels for $720/sqft was a no brainer.

The Definition Of Full Exposure

After selling my rental house this summer, I’ve now only got Full Exposure. This is exactly what I want after a ~60% rise in San Francisco property prices since 2012, an ~82% rise in the S&P 500 since 2012, and a ~130% rise in the NASDAQ during the same time period. Further, given my site’s size and the fact that I’m still a one man band who now has fatherly responsibilities, I’m expecting online revenue growth to slow.

Full Exposure is defined as investing all your cash flow and having all your assets tied up in risk assets plus a comfortable buffer. The comfortable buffer is up to each individual. For me, I like to have at least $100,000 in cash for emergencies or investment opportunities.

Full exposure also requires one not be leveraged to a risk asset, or have cash equal to the amount of mortgage or margin exposure. Given I have about the same amount of mortgage debt and cash, I’ll further refine my definition and describe my exposure as Synthetic Full Exposure.

Because I’m not sure how long the bull market will last, I’m concurrently paying down mortgage debt and investing in stocks, bonds, and cheaper real estate investments around the country each month. The goal is that by the time a bear market arrives, I’ll have less debt, additional gains in risk assets to buffer for a downturn, and plenty of cash to take advantage if things get really ugly.

The Definition Of Reduced Exposure

I define Reduced Exposure as investing less than 70% of your regular after tax, after all expenses income and having more than 30% of your net worth in risk-free assets like cash, CDs, treasuries, and municipal bonds. Reduced Exposure is great leading up to a bear market and for at least the first year of a bear market. Eventually, you’ll want to switch from reduced exposure to Full Exposure once there are indications that the bear market has bottomed.

Again, it’s impossible to perfectly time the market. Therefore, it’s important to do your best to manage your risk exposure at various points of the cycle. It’s not bad to sell a little too soon or buy a little too early. You don’t want to be selling when everyone is selling, nor do you want to buy when everyone is buying. The herd mentality destroys pricing rationality.

I’m not in Reduced Exposure mode yet because corporate earnings are still very strong, interest rates remain low, and the government is trying to be accommodative to businesses with tax reform. Although it feels like 2007 again, it also feels like the party could continue for a couple more years.

Little-To-No Exposure = Misery

You can have little-to-no exposure to risk assets, but that type of exposure will likely leave you bitter at life because you’ll have to work forever or experience endless envy towards those who bought a home. Read any real estate section in any major city newspaper and you’ll feel the angst of the writer talking about how unaffordable prices are. The same goes for the stock market section where journalists regularly make fun of the meteoric rise in certain stocks and cryptocurrencies. You can bet your bottom dollar all the authors have been left behind.

Don’t get left behind.

In 20-40 years, your children will ask you why you didn’t take advantage of today’s low prices. We all wish our parent’s bought as much ocean front property and unhealthy McDonald’s stock when they were young. My grandfather could have bought beach front land in Waikiki during the 40s for nothing, but he didn’t want to be next to a butcher. Darn it.

One thing I will note is that after you achieve your stretch net worth goal, you can’t help but want to run up the score even more in a bull market. One reason why is because you know the bad times will eventually come again and you want as big of a buffer as possible. Another reason is simply because you can afford to take risk with money you didn’t think you’d ever obtain.

To achieve financial freedom, more than half the battle is to simply have enough risk exposure for as long as possible. The exact type of exposure you have is secondary. You can read endless articles and books about why such and such an asset allocation is best.

Here’s my take on the proper asset allocation of stocks and bonds by age and my recommended net worth allocation by age and work experience.

My hope is that everyone who reaches their stretch net worth goal uses the money to buy themselves time. Time is always running out, which is why I encourage everyone to retire by a certain age and not a certain financial figure.

Readers, what type of risk exposure do you currently have? How do you plan to adjust your exposure in the coming years? 

The post The Main Types Of Risk Exposure To Be Aware Of When Investing appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from https://www.financialsamurai.com/main-types-risk-exposure-investing-hard-earned-money/

[spookybooscarystorytime]

313 West Main Street | A Creepypasta

New Post has been published on http://www.scarystorytime.com/creepypasta/313-west-main-street.html

313 West Main Street | A Creepypasta

My first recollection of things being amiss was within the first week of our relocation to the house, in late March to early April 2001. My parents had left for the store to purchase cleaning products (the house was disgusting when we moved in) and I decided to stay behind and explore my new home. It was the largest house I had ever lived in at that point, and the only house I’ve ever lived in to feature a full attic and basement.

Being a meek 12 year old girl, I couldn’t reach the pull cord for the attic, so I turned my explorations to the basement. The finished portion of the basement was musty, if unremarkable. Behind a clear shower curtain lay the unfinished portion. Chiefly, it was a boiler room. However, on the eastern wall, there was a small area boarded up with plywood. I wrapped upon the wood and found that it was hollow behind it.

I didn’t know when to expect my parents home, and I figured that I’d need time and preparation to explore the area behind the wood. When I made my way back up the stairs to the door connecting my bedroom to the basement, I found that the door had been locked from the outside. Do note, the locks on the door were comprised of two deadbolts and one latch. After fidgeting with the door for a few moments, I resolved to simply exit through the basement door leading outside and wait for my parents to return home. I believed, at the time, that they had locked me in the basement as a practical joke. As time wore on, I wasn’t so sure.

The following weekend, I decided to wake up long before anyone else—at roughly 5:00 a. m. to explore the basement. I dressed in thick, warm clothing, boots, a hat, and a pair of heavy duty masonry gloves. The plywood was in an advanced state of dry rot, so I was able to pull it free of its moorings with relative ease. I carefully sat it aside, as to make as little noise as possible, and took out my headlamp.

Looking into the void, I saw that the “tunnel” extended quite a ways—in fact, it extended beyond the point of the house itself. I tied a handkerchief around my nose and mouth to prevent breathing as much dust as possible and began my journey. Most of the crawl was uneventful, and, as such, I returned to the start of the “tunnel” after a few hours. The tunnel was much longer than I had anticipated and I would need a lot more time to traverse it fully. As I had neglected to bring a time-piece of any kind, I had no indication of how much time had passed.

When summer break began, I conducted daily sojourns into the dreaded “Dirty Part”, as I had dubbed it. Over time, I found various things buried under the dirt. They would vary from clothing to children’s toys. I thought little of it—the house was old and had had many inhabitants prior to us—I figured that perhaps a previous tenet had stored boxes in there, the boxes had disintegrated, and the clothing and toys had simply become buried.

However, the more things I found, the more frequent there would be “happenings”. At first, they were minor things: my stereo turning itself off and on, my VCR recording random things while I slept, alarms going off, etc. I attributed this to interference from the nearby police-call station and left it at that. My father would soon join me in my explorations of the new house—but his attention was drawn to the attic.

In the living room, directly under the attic, there was a curious stain in the shape of a human pelvis and legs. The odd shape intrigued us both greatly, so we decided that the two of us would explore the attic in hopes of finding its source.

No sooner had we entered the attic, the kitchen stove’s timer “went off”, and the two of us gave up on our adventure in the attic. Worth noting is that the stove’s timer did not work and did not go off again. After that, my father decided that he would not be joining in any further explorations of our domicile.

When I returned to school, I was in seventh grade—a “Middle Schooler” at that point, and became more interested in hanging out with my friends instead of exploring a musty basement (though the basement—the finished potion, at least, had become the “hang out” of my friends and I–primarily because there was a refrigerator and half-bathroom down there, as well as a cable connection). Things were quiet for a time, and I thought no more of the previous goings-on.

It was not until I was 14 that I began to notice a sudden increase in odd things. My father and I started seeing small animals; solid black and the size and shape of guinea pigs, wander the hallway. Every day, at roughly the same time, my parents’ bedroom door would slowly open, then, just as slowly, close; the door knob turning each time. This piqued my interest, and I decided to resume my explorations.

Now, two years older, I once again braved the tunnel. I wore old clothing, a surgical mask, thick gloves, and a headlamp and braved the long dark. I crawled for what felt like miles on my hands and knees until I caught a strange shimmer in the dark. Curious, I made my way towards it. When I reached the object of my determination, I found that it was a bleach-white human skull. With a little digging, I was able to pull it from the dirt that surrounded it.

Examining it, I found that the mandible was missing, and most of the maxilla had been broken. The remaining teeth were clean—free of cavities, that is, and lacked the smoothness that the teeth of an older person might have. I figured that the skull belonged to someone who was rather young. Turning the skull over in my hands, I found a one-inch diameter hole in the right occiput, near to the right temporal. In my fear, I dropped the skull and fled as quickly as I could—back to the safety and light of my house proper. I never spoke a word to my parents of my macabre discovery.

Shortly after this discovery, I started noticing more bestial entities—primarily a solid black dog, roughly the size of a Doberman Pincher. At first, it was only out of the corner of my eye. When I would turn to look, it would vanish. I tried to ignore it, but eventually, it became so brazen as to stand plain before me, staring. When I would approach it, it would flee and vanish if I gave chase.

My new canine friend wasn’t the only disturbance, once again, my stereo would turn itself on and off, switch randomly between radio stations, and play random tracks from random loaded CDs (it was a 3-disk changer). My VCR would, again, record various things—some of them completely unidentifiable, and would fail to record what I had programmed it to record (much to my dismay). I stopped using my stereo, and began using my “jam box”—a small CD player, tape deck, and radio combination. All was well with it, and my VCR seemed to “calm down”, that is, until the night that I dubbed “The Night that All Hell Broke Loose”.

I had finished listening to a Dave Matthew’s Band album, and was going off to sleep, when I noticed that the “jam box” wouldn’t turn off. I thought that perhaps it was just a malfunction, and went to unplug it. Still, music played. I opened the back to check if there were batteries and found the battery compartment bereft of batteries.

Thoroughly rattled, I opened the basement door and threw the “jam box” down the stairs into the darkness, then quickly slammed the door shut, fastened all locks, and jammed a chair under the door handle. At that point, I refused to even go into the basement—even for a moment. I mistakenly believed that if I ignored the happenings and “steered clear” of the basement, that things would “quiet down”. However, I was sorely mistaken.

Summer break was drawing a close, and for the new school year, I wanted to “go back in style” so my mother bought me new clothes, took me to the salon to get my hair done, and bought me a watch I had been wanting. I was rather proud of my new watch—square face, black leather band with silver studs and a silver buckle. I rarely took it off.

One evening, as I lay on my bed, I glanced at my prize and found that the watch was running backwards. Horrified, I tore the timepiece from my wrist and threw, it too, into the accursed basement. I had had just about enough of these events. I decided that I was going to ignore it—pretend like it wasn’t there—completely fail to acknowledge its existence.

As one could imagine, this plan did not work. I started noticing that, at exactly three a.m., there would come heavy, plodding stomps up the basement stairs that would always stop just short of the adjoining door. Still, I decided to continue my campaign. Evidently, this only served to frustrate the entity.

It would continue like this for many more months: 3 o’clock a.m–STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, then silence. Since it was still summer break, my mother promised me that if I were to clean my room, then my best friend could stay the night. Excited, I complied and stayed up far past my “bed time” cleaning.

So engrossed in my endeavor was I, that I hadn’t noticed the time. As I was cleaning the “Vanity” (which was connected to the adjoining door), the stomps started. I sat, stock still, my back braced against the door. The room fell silent, then, just as I was beginning to feel safe, there came a hard bashing against the door—hard enough to break one of the two dead-bolts, one hinge, and the latch.

It would continue on like that for the months until the disturbances reached their zenith. As I lay one night, staring at the ceiling, I noticed a strange pressure on my bed. I figured that perhaps a cat had found its way into my room, and shrugged it off. Then, before I could react, I was restrained. My entire body was paralyzed, I could not see, hear, speak, or breathe. Panic took over me, and, with no small effort on my part, I managed to gurgle out: “Jesus, please help me…” and the darkness released me. Fortunately, we moved shortly after that.

 Original Story

Music on podcast by Myuu

[heliosfinance]

Lessons Growing Up In a Multi-Generation FIRE Family

[Happy Friday!! Got a special guest to the site today, Bob Lai from Tawcan.com, who talks about what it’s like growing up in a family with FIRE in their veins. You can’t always help who your family is or how they manage their money, of course, but when you find someone rockin’ it (family, friend, colleague) be sure to latch on and learn from them! It’s all about who you surround yourself with!]

********

At FinCon17, I was invited to a FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) beer tasting party by Carl from 1500days. At one point of the night, and many beers in, I joined Carl and a few bloggers on discussing what his life has been like since retiring from his job…

“FIRE is not a foreign concept for me at all, it runs in my family!” I blurted out at some point in the conversation. J. Money later heard of this, and asked if I’d share how impactful this has been, both in my life and my personal finances.

Below is a little about each of these family members of mine, followed by the lessons learned growing up around them. I hope you find it useful.

Cousin #1: We Work Because We Love To

One of my cousins, let’s call her Cousin #1, and her husband met at medical school and opened a medical clinic together in Taiwan after residency. Although they make good income, they are also careful with their expenses and investments.

Cousin #1 and her husband invested in the stock market, but the key to their financial success really came from purchasing several apartment buildings in nearby universities. Because university students always need a place to stay, these apartment buildings are constantly in high demand.

Based on their rental property investments alone, I had a suspicion that they were financially independent. This was later confirmed when we talked about their rental income.  Cousin #1 and her husband have been financially independent since the late 2000’s when they were in their mid-40’s.

Despite being financially independent, they both continued to work at their clinic because they enjoyed what they did and got their schedules down to only 3 times a week. They also employed people at the clinics and felt responsible for their employees.

Since reaching FI, they have been reinvesting their passive income to purchase even more rental properties and stocks. Their passive income has not surprisingly increased over the years. They have also been able to give back to the community using their passive income.

They are enjoying FI life while still working because they love what they do.

Cousin #2: Life Planning vs “Retiring Early”

When I talked to Cousin #2 about his early retirement, he emphasized that he does not see it as “retiring early” but rather life planning.

While studying Management Information Systems at college, he realized that if he was still sitting in front of a computer coding programs when he turned 50, life would be extremely boring. Therefore, during the 3rd year of university, he started learning about finance and economics. He spent time learning how to read company’s financial statements, the different financial indicators, and how to evaluate the price model of bond and financial derivatives. Once he was familiar with these topics, he started investing in the stock market.

Cousin #2 also pointed out that high income does not automatically lead to financial independence or early retirement. He stated that to achieve where he is today, he had a secret weapon – cash flow.

While he was single and later once married, he and his wife were spending less than 50% of their take home income for over 15 years. Because he had a plan and his wife was supportive of the idea, saving over 50% income was not difficult at all for them. Rather, it felt like a seamless process.

My cousin called it quits when he was 42 years old. He went from working over 12 hours each day at a Taiwanese high tech company to becoming a stay-at-home-dad.

Roughly 80% of their passive income is generated through their stock portfolio and 20% comes from real estate. His wife still works today. But just like Cousin #1 and her husband, Cousin #2’s wife works because she enjoys what she does.

Since retiring, Cousin #2 has also been able to focus more on exercising. On weekdays, he would take his kids to school in the morning, then head out biking for around 40 km (25 miles) or play badminton before picking them back up again. On weekends, the family would often go on trips or go out camping.  He has been able to enjoy his life more and pursue his interests. Early retirement life is good.

When I met up with him in Taiwan in October, he told me that he has been reading my blog. He was intrigued about my FIRE plan, and over dinner we chatted about FIRE, investing, and life. It was great that we could openly discuss such financial related topics!

My Father: Forced FIRE

I still remember the day my dad told my mom and my younger brother that he had handed in his resignation letter. We were all in the hospital after my mother had just completed a minor surgery, and from what I could recall there was a lot of tension between him and the president & CEO of the company. My dad hadn’t been enjoying his job for years, and as someone who worked directly below the president & CEO, he had to make a lot of tough decisions against his will

My dad’s resignation roughly coincided with our immigration to Canada.  He resigned about a month before we all left Taiwan to start a new life.

When we immigrated to Canada, my dad tried to look for a job but there was nothing related to his field of work. After evaluating our household finances, my dad decided to just stop working.

He was 43.

Although my dad stopped working, his life was still quite busy. My dad, alongside with my mom, became the biggest supporters for me and my brother. Without their support and help, I wouldn’t have been able to learn English and get out of my ESL classes in under a year.

Growing up, my dad would drop off my brother and I at school every morning, then pick us up afterwards. He attended all of our extra-curricular activities, ranging from basketball games, volleyball games, field trips, band concerts, etc.

When my brother and I needed help, he was always there.

FIRE was not prominent back in the late 90’s and the 2000’s. In fact, we didn’t even know the terms “early retirement” or “financial independence.” We simply viewed that my dad was forced to stop working, and my parents had to figure out how to support our family financially in other ways.

My parents started looking into passive income streams, and eventually found success in three key areas: stocks, GIC’s (The Canadian equivalent of CDs (Certificates of Deposit)), and rental property.

It also helped that frugality and stealth wealth were engraved in my family’s DNA. Growing up, we didn’t have any fancy toys or fancy clothes. We were thrifty and mostly wore second hand clothes.  We focused on simplicity, value, quality, and experience. There was no need to show off by driving fancy cars, wearing expensive designer clothes, or having the latest and greatest electronic gadgets. Our family only ever had one car, which my parents would drive for 7 years+ before exchanging it in for a newer one.

Thanks to my parents, both my brother and I were immersed in the family financial decisions. We learned about saving money and the different types of investments.

Another benefit of non-working parents? We went on extended road trips all the time!

When I was in high school, every summer we would go on road trips that usually lasted over a month. One year, we flew to Toronto and drove around Eastern Canada and Eastern United States. Another year we drove from Vancouver to Alaska and back. Another time we drove from Vancouver to New Orleans and back. Then once to Prince Edward Island to drive around the Maritimes and Maine. Later would drive to Banff and Alberta multiple times.

Throughout these road trips I obtained immeasurable knowledge and experiences that classes or books would never give me.

5 Lessons Learned Growing Up In a Multi-Generation FIRE Family

Growing up in a multi-generation FIRE family has greatly influenced the way I see financial independence and early retirement. I have been fortunate to learn many things through my two cousins and my dad. Here are some of the main ones.

#1. FIRE has many different looks

FIRE does not have to look a certain way. Cousin #1 reached FI but continued working, Cousin #2 retired early but his wife still works, and then we have my dad who was forced into early retirement. There is no common trend in all 3 cases. If you believe FIRE must look a certain way, then you don’t know the true concept of FIRE.

Financial Independence Retire Early simply means creating freedom and flexibility in your life. It means you can make your own choices on how to spend your money and time.

FIRE gives you more power to take charge of your life, and what you do with it is entirely up to you. You are not living off an approved checklist – you are the one who creates the list! Better yet, you can decide to not create any list at all.

FIRE also gives an entire different perspective when it comes to work. When you are financially independent, you are no longer working for that paycheck every 2 weeks simply because you need the money. You are working because you enjoy what you do, not because you have to. This shift in mentality is extremely powerful.

#2. It’s important to openly discuss finances

Rather than treating money as a taboo subject, discussing money topics openly is vitally important in my multi-generation FIRE family. My parents and my brother and I talk about our salaries, stock investments, and real estate investment opportunities regularly. My parents involved my brother and I in household financial decisions since we were young. Similarly, I can talk to my two cousins about money and other financial topics anytime I want and continue learning valuable lessons from them.

The more openly we discuss money, the more we can learn from each other. Money is simply a tool in life. It is not a dirty word. Having open discussions helps to decrease possible tensions and arguments you may have with family members.

#3. Know what you want in life!

The biggest lesson I have learned from my cousins and my dad is to think about what I truly want in the future. What is keeping me motivated on reaching my dreams? What tools are available to me to reach my goals? And most importantly, do I have any backup plans in case my first plan doesn’t work out?

So what do I personally want when it comes to FIRE?

My wife and I’s goal is to have enough passive income to exceed our annual expenses. Most of our passive income streams come in the form of dividend income. This year, we are on track to receive close to $15,000 in dividend income for doing absolutely nothing while our money works hard for us.

We plan on relying on dividend income rather than the 4% safe withdrawal rule to achieve FIRE, simply because we want to pass on our dividend portfolio to our kids in the future. However, this doesn’t mean we wouldn’t sell any stocks.

Because my wife is from Denmark and I am from Taiwan and we live in Vancouver Canada, we plan to move to Denmark and Taiwan sometime in the future. We plan to live in each country for 2 years minimum to allow our kids to learn about the two different cultures and languages. We plan to explore the nearby countries while living “abroad”.

We also have a dream of traveling the world for a year with our kids. My wife and I believe this is a great way for all of us to learn and gain valuable knowledge.

Beyond that, we don’t have concrete plans. We want our FIRE plans to be flexible so we can alter our plans when necessary. This is why we aren’t perfectly set in our passive income plans and don’t even have a specific FIRE date for that matter. Whether we decide to continue working once we are financially independent is entirely undecided at this point.

#4. FIRE builds stronger relationships

Looking back, I feel very fortunate that my dad could attend all my school events. This is something both of my cousins have been able to do with their kids as well.

Being present at your kids’ school events and other important life events are extremely important. It is a great way to build stronger parent-child relationships. FIRE means having more time on your hands so you can spend more time with your kids, your partner, and other important people in your life.

My oldest kid is in pre-kindergarten this year, but due to work I have not been able to attend all of his field trips. My daughter is less than 2 and she loves to play with me. I try to spend as much quality time with both of my kids as possible when I am at home, and I try to do more every day, but other times I fail. Being FIRE’d will allow me to become even more involved with my kids for years to come.

(Editor’s note: This is exactly why I want to become a stay-at-home-daddy who blogs on the side vs a full-time blogger who dads on the side! Your kids are everything!!)

#5. It’s all about Stealth Wealth

When I examine all 3 of my family members who are FIRE’d, stealth wealth is the only common thing between them. Stealth wealth means not having the needs to show off your wealth. It means driving the same car for many years, buying good quality items that would last a long time, buying second hand products when it makes sense, simplifying your life so you don’t own random crap, and not buying things for the sake of buying them. When one gets the idea of stealth wealth and truly master it, FIRE is something that will be within a close reach.

In Summary…

I have been fortunate to see firsthand how several family members have become financially independent and/or retired early over the years. Life is full of possibilities and choices. FIRE is simply one great option that can bring in more choices for you and your family.

What you do with your FIRE life is entirely up to you. Be as creative as you can!

****** Bob Lai (aka Tawcan) is a Vancouver Canada based blogger. A millennial, frugalist, investor, photographer, cookbook author, and outdoor enthusiast, he started his financial independence journey in 2011 after a financial epiphany. Since then he has amassed a dividend portfolio paying over $1,300 per month. He created his blog Tawcan.com chronicle his quest for joyful life and financial independence.

PS: “Tawcan” is a combination of “Taiwan” and “Canada” that Bob made up if you were wondering ;)

Lessons Growing Up In a Multi-Generation FIRE Family published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B