Break the 401K Piggy?

I checked out "More Wealth Without Risk", a 90s book on saving and investing by Charles Givens. It is in the same vein as 40 hour work week but dated. The pages are yellowed. His Money Movement Strategy says to move into stocks whenever the prime rate is less than 9%. The prime has been under 9% since January 2001.

However, looking at his section on insurance, it was about as good as you can do in 80 pages as part of a larger book. OK, maybe this guy does know something. His big thing is taxes, but tax laws change and likely the book is worthless in the details. So, I have been surfing this getting ideas.

Yeah, I will get to the point eventually.

In the past month there have been a couple of MSN.com articles on Tax strategies to use your 401K to fund your startup. I am sure Suze Orman would have something to say about this. It is dangerously risky, but if you are willing to bet the farm, it looks something like this:

1) Set up your company.
2) Form a company 401K plan.
3) Establish retirement plan rules that allow you to buy stock in the new company
4) Roll over your legacy 401(k) into the startup 401K plan.
5) Use your 401K funds to buy stock in your company
Presto: Tax-free working capital

The articles below explain the process and the potentially farm sized pitfalls. Read them while the links still work.

I have an ex-coworker who already plans to use his 401K money for his startup and this will save him $$$.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/TaxShelters/use-your-401k-to-start-a-business.aspx?page=all

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/fund-your-business-with-your-401k.aspx

Inbox Zero

I have been looking to be more efficient at work. One thing that got to me was the time I spent on email. I looked at it closely and made some changes.

Stop sending so many emails.
I looked at my incoming email 2500 in three months and my out going email 800 in three months. I realized that I was part of the problem. I replied to everything directed to me even if it was just 'Thanks'. I emailed notes to someone else who was in the same meeting also not paying attention to the speaker. I also noticed that I take longer to type up a message than it would take to call them. Now if I have a quick question for one person, I just call. Shocking. If I have the answer, but it was directed to someone else, I let them reply.

Stop sorting emails.
This has been huge. Probably half the emails I get are what is called reference. I don't need to do anything with them, but it might be important to know later. Previously, I would decide which of 27 folders to stick the email in. When I needed to find it I would go to that folder and look for it often resorting to searching for some topic in the email. When the email was not there, I looked in the next most likely folder. Now, I have one folder which is read mail for the current 3 month period. Anything, reference is filed there quickly with CTRL, Shift, V. I don't spend any time thinking where to put it. Since everything goes in the same bucket, I can highlight 10 read mails and move them at once. Yes, when I go to find something, I have to sort through 100s of emails instead of dozens, but knowing who sent it and when lets me find it quickly. If not, the computer can search on a topic fairly quickly.

Looking at it now, I see this is a known efficiency tactic. If you notice, Gmail embraces this.

Insurance

This is probably the best post I will put up. Unfortunately, I could not put up a file. So, if you want the spreadsheet, I will need to email it to you. Email me or leave a comment.

In 2008 I finally decided to review my insurance. I suspected I could save money.

My reference was the book Insurance for Dummies. I recommend it even though he pushes a lot of insurance. I also referred to several websites such as the Texas state insurance site, moneycentral.com, bankrate.com etc.

There are two reasons to do an exhaustive review of insurance
1) To save money. I was not disappointed. I am saving $1500/year for about my admittedly time consuming effort of maybe 40 hours?
2) To plug your holes. I was shocked at what insurance does not cover.
You really need to read for yourself, but here are a couple of eyeopeners.
a) Business and personal are totally separate. If you have a home business you are not covered by homeowners. Don't let your customer slip and fall!
b) Your personal insurance probably covers a rental car, unless you dropped collison and comprehensive on your insured car.

Highlights:
1) I upped my liability from dangerous to OK. $300,000 liability is a lower limit
2) I raised my deductibles for significant cost savings. You don't want to report small claims anyway.
3) The variation between companies for same coverage is large. Shop around.
4) I went with with Amica for both Home and Auto saving $1500 a year over previous State Farm coverage. Notes: You have to pay new Homeowners insurance before getting money back from old and, with escrow, your mortgage payment does not reset until next year.

My dad wants to do this, so I tidied up the spreadsheet for him and he gets the book. Get with me if you want the spreadsheet.

The 4-Hour Workweek

I have been focusing on how to be more effective. I had read Getting Things Done by David Allen and thought it was a good book. GTD is quite the phenomenon. Listening to a GTD related podcast I came across a comparison to The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.

The 4-Hour Workweek could not be more different. GTD is corporate and helps you become more efficient at what you do. 4-Hour Workweek is radically out of the box, question everything you have been told stuff. Basically, your parents will get GTD and 4-Hour Workweek will “make their head explode” if you try to explain it.

First, The 4-Hour Workweek is not about organization per se. It is about getting rich quick so that you can follow your dreams and travel the world. He is pretty obnoxious with all that stuff. If I had not been looking for the effectiveness stuff I might not have even read the whole book.

The key contrast and necessary effectiveness tool that is different than GTD is the 80/20 rule. He makes this a core. The 20% of work that gets you the 80% of results should be all you ever do. Everything else should be eliminated, delegated or automated. This is an “Ah-hah” for me. My problem with GTD is the “capture everything and prioritize” mantra. Trouble is after a few months I have a 100 actions which were added and immediately descended in priority to pretty much zero. Now, remember that each of these 100 actions were deemed important and, in David Allen’s words, could “blow up” at any time. It is pretty depressing to look at that list and realize all the things that could go wrong because you are not working 24/7 to nip them all in the bud.

Here are my takeaways from the book.
1) The 80/20 rule has caused me to look at the fires I get sucked into at work and look for ways to eliminate or delegate. After a week, I was spending twice as much time on my priorities that my boss is going to judge me on.
2) I plan to give actions an expiration date. If they don’t get worked in maybe 2 months, they are deleted. It may look like a mission critical task, but if in 2 months it has not bubbled up to the top then it is deleted along with the insignificant

My Free High Definition TV 2009

Original Post 3/28/2009

I have more gorgeous high definition TV than I can handle and it is all FREE!

I joined the digital TV revolution a couple years ago. I have an antenna in the attic to get broadcast HDTV. I connected a laptop with dedicated graphics to my HDTV and use Vista as a TIVO. I have a second PC on a "G" network.

It all works better than you would think from reading on the internet. Why? Everything I have is under powered compared to conventional wisdom

• Wireless G? Video transfer should be over hard wire or at least "N"
• 1.6 GHz Core Duo Laptop? I see new Quad Cores listed at "great for media center" Recording HDTV hardly touches the CPU. Playback is a minor load as long as you have dedicated video.
• Second PC has 2 year old integrated graphics.
• My primary storage is USB2.0 Hard Drive not 1394 or eSata.

What can I do with this setup?

1. I can record two broadcast shows at once while watching a third.
   
2. I select shows TIVO-like with the Vista Home Premium Media Center guide.
   
3. I can rent online movies from anyone. iTunes, Amazon etc.
4. I can watch a lot of cable TV on demand from Hulu.com
   
5. Roughly half of digital TV is SD for standard definition. I can watch this on the second PC with lame graphics and "G" network.

Since I am so underpowered, here are the limitations.

1. On my TV, when skip around in a HD video it can take a few seconds to catch up with full synced video and sound.
2. On my second PC AND over the "G" network. Recorded HD content is unusable. SD content works pretty good unless there is interference such as the microwave.
3. On my TV, over the "G" network. Hulu will half to re-fill buffer maybe every 30 minutes or so. Hulu HD content runs out and has to re-fill buffer maybe every 10 minutes. Too often! None if this is an issue on the lower powered but hardwired PC.

All in all, it has been a pleasant suprise. The limitations would be maddening to enthusiasts, but are not a big deal for me. I could have spent twice as much and not see a significant difference. Free online TV rocks if you do not have pay TV.

This post is sort of a rock. If anyone comments with questions I will expand this with Hardware details, setup frustrations and future plans. I just want to make sure someone is interested before I spend more time on it.

A Prisoner's Dilemma

Confession. I love business news. When I had cable, I watched a lot of CNBC. I would also watch CNBC when I am at the gym on a treadmill. I would sometimes work until 6:30PM so that I could listen to NPR's MarketPlace on the drive home. My iPod is about half filled with financial podcasts that I listen to as I commute. So, I like business news. However, I am reaching saturation. Since I have fewer coworkers I often find myself eating my lunch by myself in the cafeteria watching CNN. Well, the Financial Crisis has totally replaced the war in Iraq as the thing to talk about. Often my lunch is 100% business news. Please, make it stop.

When the topic comes to personal finance a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma pops up. If you recall this from game theory... Two prisoners are faced with a dilemma. If neither talks, they both get off easy. If one rats out the other the 'rat' goes free but the other guy goes to jail for a long time. For your average criminal they can't rat on their 'friend' fast enough.

The version being circulated by the financial media is:
The economy would do fine if everyone stayed the course and went out to eat, bought cars and generally kept up their standard of living. However on a personal level I keep hearing advice to 'act as if you were laid off now' and cut the cable service or sell the car now, others say that since the market has dropped you must increase your savings from 10% to 20% of income.

I gaurantee if everyone decided to suddenly cut expenses to the bone and save 20% of income that the recession would become much worse. That is if everyone perfectly executed the plan that is best for them, we would all sink together rather quickly. Fortunately, in this dilemma we can count on the general laziness of the public to NOT cut expenses to the bone so this worst case scenario will probably not happen.

The concept

The idea is an engineer's musings on the world. Gadgets, The economy, Saving Money, Saving Energy Etc.

Probably a lot of stuff on gadgets like. Did you know that if you have an ATT cell phone that you can go buy an ATT GoPhone for really cheap and by switching out the SIM card have a new phone? Pretty cool if your phone just fell in the toilet.

Probably a lot of stuff on the economy. Such as my solution for the Housing Crisis. For, folks with underwater loans the Government forces the following:

The lender gives the homeowner a new loan for 80% of the current value of the house at the going rate say 5%.

The government gives the bank a check for the difference between the old large loan and the new smaller loan. The amount the loan is underwater.

The government then puts a lean on the house of that value (a 0% loan). The lean is paid back with a Federal Property Tax of 2% of appraised value annually. The money goes to pay off the lean.

If the homeowner sells, the government gets any amount more than 80% to pay down the lean. Whatever is left on the lean is transferred to the new owner who continues to pay 2% annually until the Federal Lean is paid off.

Jim Cramer has a similar idea, but government and bank are reversed.