Millionaire Librarian

I watched a youtube video of a fiancial adviser and she was talking about why she quit the business. Many of her points resounded with why I have been hesitant to jump into it. Here is a summary of some of her points.

Advising is selling and confidence sells best. She mentioned that her knowledge of the financial markets impacted her confidence because she understood the complexity which dampened her confidence and ability to sell. In contrast, new advisors who knew little but were confident could close despite their advice and knowledge being worse.

The people who need your advice and the people who you can make money off of are not often the same people. Lower income people desperately need financial literacy. The problem with helping them is that the asset under management fee structure system makes them unprofitable to help despite being very needy. Rich people pay you well for managing their money but often you are just helping them go from rich to extremely rich. This reality can be desparing.

Other items that makes the career less appealing is that often the first couple of years your income will be very low while you “build your book” of clients.

I am semi-retired. I may have to work sometime in the future again, but not right now.

Here are some items on my mind.:

Social security. I may be able to get on social security disability to assist with early retirement. We have a doctor’s appointment scheduled for next month.

Federal retirement disability. Though this is a relatively small amount of money, we are also applying for this.

We are also looking again at retiring in Panama, specifically Volcan. It seems to have a slightly younger group of expats. Many of these expats have children. By our best approximation we could pull the trigger in about three years after Lauren has her student loans forgiven. These three years would allow our money to compound for a little longer and some unknowns like social security to become known.

I have started working on my Spanish at the local library. The group I joined is very advanced and beyond my level but it is interesting exercising that muscle again.

We are also very close to hitting a arbitrary but significant financial milestone. Though there are psychological risks to mentally “anchoring” on a number I think the process may potentially ease some anxiety if we stay above the milestone.

This post has been running through my head the last couple of months:

Like JL at the time, I have a young daughter. Also like JL, we have money to give us some breathing room.

I am leaving my job in a week. 11 years with the federal government has been bitter and sweet. Some jobs have been great; others have been draining, especially this latest one.

It is time to rest. Time to reground myself.

I was needing some motivation. The transition to this new job has been rough.

I came up with the idea of a wooden board with different flags in it. On the y axis would be a number which would represent the amount needed to retire in the corresponding country.

This exercise allowed us to select areas that we could retire in the present, in the next several years, and if we wait for a traditional retirement age. Besides looking cool I thought it was an interesting experiment to make retiring seem attainable.

Giving ourself the knowledge and power to pull the plug at any time is empowering. JL Collins writes about how having a little money in the present empowers you to stand up for yourself and it gives you more options.

The difference between FU and FI money.

I watched a great TED talk by Scott Galloway and something he said was eye opening. I am paraphrasing but he said the bailouts of the great financial crisis and during Covid was a transfer of wealth from the young to the old. His point was that only the old had assets and the stock market was being artificially propped up.

Stock prices falling, businesses going under, and recessions help pass wealth from those with assets to those willing to sweat. Young entrepreneurs cannot afford propped up prices. They need broken assets to rebuild and repair into something better.

The move and job didn’t turn out as expected. It is a shame and has been demoralizing and tragic. My mental health has suffered greatly. Its a shame being the primary bread winner, moving your family, and it not working out. However, there is a silver lining in that we have money working in the background if I do need to take some time off. My wife can also focus on her career because in Altus there wasn’t that possibility.

I find myself watching one of my favorite authors and financial thinkers, JL Collins. JL talks about several times he has had to take time away from work, but he had the freedom to do that because he lived cheaply and saved money when it was coming in.

Potentially leaving a career I have been in for nearly 11 years is scarey. Not being fully financially independent at the same time is scarey as well. I’m happy I have saved what I have. I think about the comfort of money not spent sitting in an account being much better than the comfort of spending money.

I found the above graphic in the wild and thought it was a fairly good prioritization of money priorites.

However, I would base the debt on interest rates but most people probably don’t know what their interest rates are on their debt. I really like the FOO by the Money Guys. However, they have caveats on it based on your risk tolerance, risk capacity, and how old you are. Personal finance is personal and nuanced.

There are competing priorities which can be based on a number of factors and winning with money doesn’t mean dieing with the most. I would argue at a certain point you should make less optimal money choices if it removes risk from the table. For example, if you have enough money to glide into a more than comfortable retirement then I would start paying off low interest debt like a mortgage so you never have to worry about not having a home.

I listened to a podcast with the author of “Die with Nothing.” He makes a similar argument and reminds the listener that at an earlier age than you think there will be a last time you can accomplish some tasks like skiiing, wakeboarding, flying, or traveling by living in hostels. Do those when you can so you have those memories in your old age and not regrets.

We were ready for major upheaval of our life. We were welcoming of it. However, my hiring agency has dragged their feet in providing me a firm offer. This could lead to losing our contract on our house and if this happens then we are back to the beginning. We do have an offer from the Army. There is a high probability we will be moving somewhere in the next few months.

However, the waiting game feels excruciating at times. Their lack of expendientcy makes you question your importance to their organization. WIll they treat me well when they refuse to onboard me well?

There is little sugguestion in this post but only the belief that little is guaranteed.

A few weeks ago I received a tentative offer for a VA position as a librarian. I accepted. The position is a promotion, in the heart of Appalachia, and non-supervisory. Each of those things are important but interpersonnel relations in my current organization have reached a boil and its time for me to go elsewhere. I told my Flight Chief that despite the issues I am proud I was able to keep everyone working together as long as I did. Hopefully new blood in my position will be what the organization needs.

Focusing on the future. We will be closer to home in GA. The area in WV looks gorgeous. The capital of Morgantown will be about an hour away. As Lauren mentioned we are currently not just rural but isolated and remote. The first weekend we are there we just bought tickets to a local festival and will be seeing, appropriately, Tyler Childers. I feel like I am reconnecting with the strongest modern voice representing my Appalachian ancestors.

A couple of weeks ago after viewing several poor quality houses we are under contract for a new house. As I have mentioned a few times already; we are fortunate to not have to have our purchase contingent on the current sale of our Oklahoma home.

A small town to the north, Fayette, looks like a great area to get some good food and talk to interesting people. Lewiston or something similar looks like a great resort town to the east. Our little neighborhood looks like a safe neighborhood and is conveniantly located near the VA hospital. I purchased a commuting bicycle with goals of commuting normally to work.

One area deserving attention is that Lauren does not currently have a job there. However, she has put in a dozen plus applications and has an interview with Kanawha Public Library which looks about 50 minutes away. They are flying her out which is a good sign she is near the top of their list.

Overall, we had 4 great opportunities for positions in the last few months. Aviano, Mildenhall, Fort Leonard Wood, and Beckley VA. We created a numerical assessment of each opportunity and Beckley came in first. Though exciting, the overseas positions would have been beyond stressful with the three dogs for both us and them.

Career wise since I have really increased my applications for quarterly awards almost a year ago I have won two Airmen of the Quarter Award and an Airman of the Year Award. Maj Lockett has been a huge supporter of me and I appreciate her.

However this is primarily a finance related blog but it may be more leaning towards a journal due to Tal’s recommendation. Our future finances will be tighter and the current projection is to pay off the mortgage faster due to an above 6% interest rate. 6% has historically been a high guaranteed rate of return and since debts work similar to investments then it makes sense to focus on a guaranteed high return. However houses are a leveraged asset and when paying them off you are deleveraging risk and adding principle. We could also refinance in the future. Investing in the higher paying stock market would probably have us ending in a higher net worth. Do we want to deleverage and remove risk from the equation or invest in stocks for the probably higher return? Fortunately we have a large snowball of assets rolling in the background to keep us on track for retirement and I believe in this new area we can expand out some lifestyle in more life enhancing ways.

Altus has been great for building assets for our family. The market has taken a couple of notable tumbles since 2020. Due to federal employment, I was consistently able to throw money into the market without fear of losing my position and we bought a share of these companies at discount prices . This is a true strength of federal employment. A previous coworker, Hwal Yi, was a great example of how low paying stable employment can be more important than high paying but unstable employment.