Since school has become overly focused on 'teaching for the standardized tests' that impact funding, things like finance have given way to more theoretical subjects.
At its core, we believe high school should be 'how to be a functional adult in society'. If you want to be an academic or go to a more advanced technical career, then college should handle it. Make us rulers of education for the day and we would:
1) Drop all gen-eds in college and have them be focused solely on the major
2) Drop the more theoretical courses as required in HS
3) Bring in life skills to HS - home ec, lots of finance, auto mechanics, etc
It is much more important for the average person to understand how to make a budget, bills, accounts, investing, etc than to read a bunch of literature and learn trigonometry.
(that said, the way gov't funding works, the actual advice would likely be subpar)
The other way is by parents learning more about personal finance and including their children in the conversation and discussion. Many cultures frown on talking about money, and it shows.
A great example would be around going to college. How many parents say nonsense like "go to your dream school" "take out loans" "go find yourself" "have fun" etc. Then kids graduate with 6 figures of debt and a useless degree. When you start that far in a hole, you either jump in and learn finance yourself OR many people get discouraged and avoid it completely.
Whatever the path, being 30 and finding out about personal finance because you stumbled on some twitter posts is definitely not the correct path
Thank you for setting this up, ser. Deeply appreciate it and I hope to see this be a monthly occurrence if it makes sense for you.
Question: Do 401Ks make sense if you're a smart young person and high income? Details below:
I was hoping to have a sanity check by you on this. I estimate that if I maxed out my Employer's 401K with the match, I would contribute $19.5K and save about $6000 a year in taxes. The match is OK at 50% but it only gives about an extra $600 in total. Almost everyone says "401Ks are great and you need to have one otherwise NGMI in retirement". But what is the opportunity cost of contributing to a 401K?
I am not sure if that is really worth the opportunity cost of having less dollars today, especially when we may get the opportunity to buy cheap assets in RE/ Crypto for the next 6-18 months. If Bitcoin goes to 100K / coin in 5 years, it is obvious that the 19.5K/year would have been much better served simply DCA into Bitcoin. Even just DCA into stable dividend stocks seems to be better. So, I am skeptical that 401Ks are really worth it for a smart and ambitious young person for these reasons, but also because:
1) I don't want to wait 40 years to withdraw the contributions penalty free when It is likely I will be financially independent in just 6 years, and I should be "rich" in 16 years. therefore I will not "need" my 401K fund.
2) I don't know how 401Ks will change in the future, and what the tax rates will be (likely higher it seems)
3) I don't trust other people to manage my money, especially when there's a stunning lack of transparency with how your 401K money is used. Combined with a tremendous incentive for companies to essentially gamble with their customer's 401K money, it seems like a large risk
4) I don't want to introduce an extra administrative burden. Even just spending 5 minutes a month on your 401K costs you an hour in lost productivity in a year.
5) Lack of control over your own funds.
6) There seems to be almost unanimous agreement from "normal people" that a 401K is "great". That makes me suspicious that it's not as great as it seems.
However, I do have a ROTH IRA, but that's different. Maybe I could rollover my 401K into some of my ROTH after paying a conversion fee.
I can certainly see how having a 401K is better than nothing if you're the typical American. Because they're not investing in anything regardless. If they didn't have a 401K, that money would be spent on BS like new TV, Xbox, unnecessary cars, etc. But we're not normal. We're financially responsible. And unless I am missing something, that contribution money could be used for much better opportunities.
Please let me know what you think and if i'm missing something. Thanks again
401ks work for the average person as it removes a lot of the bad decision making, automates investing, and limits access.
You nailed a lot of the downsides to a 401k.
Good thing about personal finance, is it is personal. If you are young, make a ton, are saving a massive amount, and are able to get super wealthy while still young, they make less sense.
If you have opportunity to grow and scale a business, having that money today is worth more than the small tax savings (especially since most business/RE give you the ability to save taxes through expenses any way).
I'll hit a few warnings just in case:
1) We max out our 401ks & our IRAs every year. The way we think about it is similar to how we think of our WL insurance. yes it likely isn't the maximum ROI. But we consider that a 'in case your stupid' tax - There is always a non-zero chance your business/RE/crypto/stock picks blow up to 0. Having a 401k and WL is some money we don't have as much discretion over which adds a layer of diversification vs the other investments that we manage.
If your 401k in market ETFs goes to 0, it means the whole economy probably tanked and you have bigger issues.
Dutifully putting money in a 401k (or WL) should build up some amount of wealth that still puts us in the top few % of retirees even if every other investment we have blows up.
2) If you like Roths due to being able to take out contributions/locking in your today tax rate/ etc, see if your 401k has a Roth or after-tax option. You can always contribute to your Roth 401k and roll it into your Roth IRA. Also that allows you to contribute more than regular after-tax limits
3) Also, there is a huge difference from company to company 401ks. Some companies have very high fees and poor investment options in the 401k. If you have a super low fee 401k and good match and good funds, there can be some value to use it.
So we think you are asking the right questions. And lots of very successful entrepreneurs have avoided 401ks to instead build and bet on themselves.
We like the concept of 'invert' - so try to answer the question "if you are going to be rich anyway, what is the downside of putting $ into a 401k for some (questionable?) tax benefits and diversifying sources?" It does seem like you have thought about it based on bringing up some common reasons for a 401k. But ask 'why not'.
TBH end of the day if you have that high of income and savings rate like you do, you'll most likely be fine and the decision to use a 401k is only marginally beneficial/detrimental.
I'm going to screenshot this advice so i'll have it on hand if I need to refer to it again. It's great and was exactly what I needed. I hope it's helpful to other people who are reading as well.
Your "invert" concept worked really well and made it obvious that not contributing is the right decision for my situation. I will consider self inflicting a " in case I mess up tax" once i've taken care of some higher priority items. You've given me a good framework for me to know when it's right to set this up.
What is one thing we can do/modify to improve financial education in the United States?
Great Question -
For one, we can teach it.
Since school has become overly focused on 'teaching for the standardized tests' that impact funding, things like finance have given way to more theoretical subjects.
At its core, we believe high school should be 'how to be a functional adult in society'. If you want to be an academic or go to a more advanced technical career, then college should handle it. Make us rulers of education for the day and we would:
1) Drop all gen-eds in college and have them be focused solely on the major
2) Drop the more theoretical courses as required in HS
3) Bring in life skills to HS - home ec, lots of finance, auto mechanics, etc
It is much more important for the average person to understand how to make a budget, bills, accounts, investing, etc than to read a bunch of literature and learn trigonometry.
(that said, the way gov't funding works, the actual advice would likely be subpar)
The other way is by parents learning more about personal finance and including their children in the conversation and discussion. Many cultures frown on talking about money, and it shows.
A great example would be around going to college. How many parents say nonsense like "go to your dream school" "take out loans" "go find yourself" "have fun" etc. Then kids graduate with 6 figures of debt and a useless degree. When you start that far in a hole, you either jump in and learn finance yourself OR many people get discouraged and avoid it completely.
Whatever the path, being 30 and finding out about personal finance because you stumbled on some twitter posts is definitely not the correct path
Thank you for setting this up, ser. Deeply appreciate it and I hope to see this be a monthly occurrence if it makes sense for you.
Question: Do 401Ks make sense if you're a smart young person and high income? Details below:
I was hoping to have a sanity check by you on this. I estimate that if I maxed out my Employer's 401K with the match, I would contribute $19.5K and save about $6000 a year in taxes. The match is OK at 50% but it only gives about an extra $600 in total. Almost everyone says "401Ks are great and you need to have one otherwise NGMI in retirement". But what is the opportunity cost of contributing to a 401K?
I am not sure if that is really worth the opportunity cost of having less dollars today, especially when we may get the opportunity to buy cheap assets in RE/ Crypto for the next 6-18 months. If Bitcoin goes to 100K / coin in 5 years, it is obvious that the 19.5K/year would have been much better served simply DCA into Bitcoin. Even just DCA into stable dividend stocks seems to be better. So, I am skeptical that 401Ks are really worth it for a smart and ambitious young person for these reasons, but also because:
1) I don't want to wait 40 years to withdraw the contributions penalty free when It is likely I will be financially independent in just 6 years, and I should be "rich" in 16 years. therefore I will not "need" my 401K fund.
2) I don't know how 401Ks will change in the future, and what the tax rates will be (likely higher it seems)
3) I don't trust other people to manage my money, especially when there's a stunning lack of transparency with how your 401K money is used. Combined with a tremendous incentive for companies to essentially gamble with their customer's 401K money, it seems like a large risk
4) I don't want to introduce an extra administrative burden. Even just spending 5 minutes a month on your 401K costs you an hour in lost productivity in a year.
5) Lack of control over your own funds.
6) There seems to be almost unanimous agreement from "normal people" that a 401K is "great". That makes me suspicious that it's not as great as it seems.
However, I do have a ROTH IRA, but that's different. Maybe I could rollover my 401K into some of my ROTH after paying a conversion fee.
I can certainly see how having a 401K is better than nothing if you're the typical American. Because they're not investing in anything regardless. If they didn't have a 401K, that money would be spent on BS like new TV, Xbox, unnecessary cars, etc. But we're not normal. We're financially responsible. And unless I am missing something, that contribution money could be used for much better opportunities.
Please let me know what you think and if i'm missing something. Thanks again
Yes to all that.
401ks work for the average person as it removes a lot of the bad decision making, automates investing, and limits access.
You nailed a lot of the downsides to a 401k.
Good thing about personal finance, is it is personal. If you are young, make a ton, are saving a massive amount, and are able to get super wealthy while still young, they make less sense.
If you have opportunity to grow and scale a business, having that money today is worth more than the small tax savings (especially since most business/RE give you the ability to save taxes through expenses any way).
I'll hit a few warnings just in case:
1) We max out our 401ks & our IRAs every year. The way we think about it is similar to how we think of our WL insurance. yes it likely isn't the maximum ROI. But we consider that a 'in case your stupid' tax - There is always a non-zero chance your business/RE/crypto/stock picks blow up to 0. Having a 401k and WL is some money we don't have as much discretion over which adds a layer of diversification vs the other investments that we manage.
If your 401k in market ETFs goes to 0, it means the whole economy probably tanked and you have bigger issues.
Dutifully putting money in a 401k (or WL) should build up some amount of wealth that still puts us in the top few % of retirees even if every other investment we have blows up.
2) If you like Roths due to being able to take out contributions/locking in your today tax rate/ etc, see if your 401k has a Roth or after-tax option. You can always contribute to your Roth 401k and roll it into your Roth IRA. Also that allows you to contribute more than regular after-tax limits
3) Also, there is a huge difference from company to company 401ks. Some companies have very high fees and poor investment options in the 401k. If you have a super low fee 401k and good match and good funds, there can be some value to use it.
So we think you are asking the right questions. And lots of very successful entrepreneurs have avoided 401ks to instead build and bet on themselves.
We like the concept of 'invert' - so try to answer the question "if you are going to be rich anyway, what is the downside of putting $ into a 401k for some (questionable?) tax benefits and diversifying sources?" It does seem like you have thought about it based on bringing up some common reasons for a 401k. But ask 'why not'.
TBH end of the day if you have that high of income and savings rate like you do, you'll most likely be fine and the decision to use a 401k is only marginally beneficial/detrimental.
I'm going to screenshot this advice so i'll have it on hand if I need to refer to it again. It's great and was exactly what I needed. I hope it's helpful to other people who are reading as well.
Your "invert" concept worked really well and made it obvious that not contributing is the right decision for my situation. I will consider self inflicting a " in case I mess up tax" once i've taken care of some higher priority items. You've given me a good framework for me to know when it's right to set this up.
Thanks again!