enfier
4y ago Financial Independence
I'm not 100% understanding the formatting here, but do you need a mod for this place? I mod a similar reddit.
4y ago Financial Independence
@Makingausernamehard The tax advantages of 401ks and IRAs are too good to ignore. The money isn't as walled off as it seems, you can use a Roth IRA ladder or the 72t rule to access it before old age.
Unless you've got a specific, better than 10% return project in the near future, get the guaranteed return of cutting your tax bill today.
4y ago Financial Independence
@Legends_of_Men You might try the freemium model.. You provide a valuable resource for free and then you use that community to advertise a product that makes money like a book or course or 1 on 1 sessions. If you pay wall your blog, how will you attract new visitors?
4y ago Financial Independence
@destraht That's just nonsense though. What really happens is that you save up a sum of money, quit your job and end up paying nothing in taxes and getting free health care since the system considers you poor.
It's the ultimate opting out of the economic system. You aren't tied to a location, you don't have to report to a job or answer to a boss, you don't have to pay for others. Hell, you can even actually protect your assets via prenup and are next to immune from child support and alimony since you don't make jack.
You can still work on productive projects that you value and if you happen to make money it's unlikely to leave you worse off even if you loose some benefits.
4y ago Financial Independence
@Legends_of_Men in my opinion the first focus is creating traffic then you can monetize it. If you have a million readers it won't really matter what the conversion rate is, if you have 100 same deal. You can buy advice on monetizing a big reader base, you can't buy quality content.
Have you been through the $100 Startup yet? Weeks of planning isn't worth a single day of actually testing your idea.
4y ago Financial Independence
@destraht I'm not talking about living on the dole, that's financial dependence on the government. Financial independence as a concept has been around for a while and I don't think it's worthwhile trying to redefine it here. The definition of financial independence is the ability to reliably support your lifestyle via investment income that's mostly passive. Surely there are other worthwhile financial goals, let's just call them something else like self-employment, running your own business or entrepenuership. Now I don't to get caught up on the details, I'll just say that a blog that requires 40 hours of work a week that pays your bills doesn't qualify as financial independence, since you are still working for money. That's better than working for a boss, but it's not passive income.
I'll start with, I'm all about the power of opting out. Let's say you don't like the way marriage works or what the government spends money on or the expectations of you in a relationship. You can argue about it until you are blue in the face or join some political movement, but it's mostly likely to be a waste of your time and energy that changes nothing. Opting out is an action you can take as an individual and it's actually quite effective at driving change. Right now a noticeable number of men are opting out of marriage and you can actually see the social effects. If you are willing to opt out of a relationship, then your problems with it are likely to be adressed.
I used to think you couldn't opt out of a law like the ACA. It's a massive transfer of wealth from men to women and from the working and healthy to the sick and nonworking, while some connected person manages to take a cut in one way or another. Now of course you can decline to sign up for a plan, but they'll still take the money out of your check via taxes anyways. You can move to another country I suppose, but it's not really worth the hassle. As I read "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" I realized that I could indeed opt out of the ACA. Since I'm going to be financially independent soon, my tax rate is actually going to be 0%. I can maintain compliance with the law by signing up for either Medicaid or some 100% subsidized ACA plan. The government isn't going to force me to actually use their medical program and since I'm not paying into the system either, I've effectivly opted out. I can go to a doctor, pay cash for my needs and not be required to pay for everyone else. I could even barter IT services if I want or get my care in another country.
Now I do realize that to some, this seems like the definition of poverty, but once you understand the tax code well you realize that you can have $1MM or more in assets, take out a middle class income and end up paying nothing in taxes. Our government mostly taxes income, if you can control your income on paper then you can avoid it entirely. You'll still get hit somewhat by property taxes and sales tax, but if you've quit being a consumer to instead be a producer then you'll find your reliance on the things the government taxes are significantly reduced. Most people's budgets are so inflated by waste, debt repayment and innefficient spending that you can quite easily live the same lifestyle for half of what it costs the average person. Doubly so when your time and location is freed up by not having a job.
In investing, there are very few ways to improve your return without taking on additional risk. As an investment philosophy, the most actionable things you can do to improve your return is cutting out the people with hands in your pockets - avoiding investment fees and taxes. If you can take money from a year where you are getting taxed at 25% and move it to a year where you are getting taxed at 0%, that's a huge, guaranteed return.
There's a common perception that you can't access funds in your 401k or IRA before 65, but like most things in life, it doesn't withstand scrutiny. You absolutely can get your hands on that money without paying any penalty - www.madfientist.com/how-to-access-retirement-funds-early/
Those investment accounts aren't a scam, they are a loophole a mile wide in the tax code put there by people that had money to hide from taxes. They work just as well if you don't make a lot, in fact they work better because you can hide a higher percentage of your income. There's no consipiracy to take your money from you, it's just a complex system that you don't understand yet. It's actually pretty easy to learn about it (read a Boglehead's book) but you aren't going to be able to post realistic critiques of those investment accounts until you have a base understanding of the status quo and the reasons why those accounts are recommended.
Read More4y ago Financial Independence
I updated the text to be more about not having to work for money and made the Entrepreneur tribe for anyone trying to run a blog or not have a boss in that way. The two concepts are closely related, but financial independence as a concept is gaining traction and it's going to turn into a mess if people keep landing here expecting talk about 401ks and stocks and bonds while the other half is trying to pull in cash for a blog on Patreon.
4y ago Financial Independence
@destraht A stock represents an ownership stake in a company, such as Coca-Cola or Apple. Your income comes from their profits. An index fund lets you buy very small slices of a whole bunch of stocks so that one company going tits up doesn't mean you can't eat tomorrow. On average, most years, those companies make a profit and as a general trend those profits grow over time beyond the rate of inflation.
There's nothing "rent-seeking" about it. There are a few companies that do engage in some rent seeking behavior, but the vast majority are providing products or services of value to people that willingly give them cash in exchange. Unless you are on some Marxist bullshit, owning companies that sell things isn't screwing anyone over.
Capitalism is like the game Monopoly, the winning strategy is written in giant letters on the front of the box. If you aren't building capital in a capitalist economy, well don't complain about your results.
Read More4y ago Financial Independence
www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/
![](https://www.trp.red/ogcache.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mrmoneymustache.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F01%2Fmustachian-bird.jpg)
4y ago Entrepreneur
tim.blog/2012/05/24/six-figure-businesses-built-for-less-than-100-17-lessons-learned/
![](https://www.trp.red/ogcache.php?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffhww.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F05%2F7254069138_74d851f022.jpg)