This is why I used a flat fee seller's broker when I sold my house in the US. It was $500 instead of $5K for the same amount of service. "In some parts of the world, total commissions for each sale are significantly lower – around 2% in countries like Australia and the UK." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-16/us-realtors-lucrative-fee-system-faces-mounting-antitrust-risk?cmpid=BBD101623_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=231016&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-16/us-realtors-lucrative-fee-system-faces-mounting-antitrust-risk?cmpid=BBD101623_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=231016&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily)

“Only when the tide goes out do you see who was swimming naked.” -Warren Buffet TerraUSD Stablecoin Plunges as Crypto Market Awaits Rescue https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-11/terrausd-stablecoin-plunges-as-crypto-market-awaits-rescue

One of my favorite fables of investing: The Tortoise and the Hare. This was Warren Buffet's wager that simple, low-cost index funds will outperform expensive, risky hedge funds over 10 years. This wager is proof that hedge fund investors, with all their wealthy elitism, do not triumph over financial literacy which is accessible to all, thanks to index fund pioneers like Jack Bogle. The funniest part of the story (which isn't detailed here) is that Buffet initially could not find any hedge fund manager willing to take his wager. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030916/buffetts-bet-hedge-funds-year-eight-brka-brkb.asp

If you could take a job making twice your income, would you do it? Turns out it's double the hours. Still want the job?

Earning Assets create value over time. Stocks are Earning Assets, as they are valued based on earnings. Earnings are the sum of cash flows and accruals. Earnings are retained and reinvested by companies and compounds results to create value over time. When you invest (take ownership) in the equity of a company, you own a piece of value creation from cash flow. Do your investments create earnings from cash flows? Are they Earning Assets?

Fractional Shares are a new investment option recently popularized by apps such as Robinhood, which made this market because no-fee trades make trading Fractional Shares economical. For those who want to buy into stocks such as Amazon (AMZN), currently trading at over $3K per share, this can seem like a godsend for those who are feeling left out from huge runups in some of these tech giants. But, is that a good idea? Does it break the Golden Goose Guide #1 rule of ownership? As you know, I recommend holding low-cost index mutual funds, not ETFs, because ETFs track the index instead of owning it. ETFs break the ownership rule. However, Fractional Shares are not a synthetic instrument that tracks the index, they are just being divided up in your broker's accounting system. Therefore, your broker is holding real assets and this does not break the ownership rule. That doesn't mean that Fractional Shares aren't entirely risk-free (nothing is). While whole shares are held in your name as the full owner, Fractional Shares are held in a pool of client assets at your broker. That sounds very much like Mutual Funds (which I do recommend), but while Mutual Funds are highly regulated to protect investors, your broker has to carry additional accounting and execution risk for Fractional Shares, so picking a proven broker is even more crucial. Some downsides to Fractional Shares are that they are non-transferable to another broker, you don't get a vote as a shareholder (i.e., no ticket to Buffet's convention), and it encourages day trading in risky stocks instead of long-term investments in value-creating companies, which is the goal of Financial Freedom by Building Ownership (the Golden Goose Guide motto). Also, trading individual stocks carries extra risk and tax complications that index investing does not. The bottom line? Invest if you want a way to get started on building ownership, but remember the goal!

What's the most conservative play? There is only one guaranteed, long-term return, and that's for government bonds from a country that has never defaulted on its debt, like the US 30-Year Treasury Bond (or the UK's gilt counterpart). That means if you have $40K in expenses per year, and the 30-year yield is 1.28% as of April 30th, 2020, you'll need to save 40000/0.0128 = $3,125,000, over three times as much as for high dividend stocks! While the yield is rock-solid on these bonds, this 1.28% rate is lower than last year's inflation rate of 2.28%, so you're falling behind cost of living adjustments compared to the dividend stocks, which pay the bills and outpace inflation. Since government rates have been so low, you're much better off investing in an asset class that offers a return on investment, plus inflation and interest rate protection - another reason why equities have outperformed other asset classes in the last decade.

Why has FIRE turned into padding your own "retirement" with blog income while marketing an insecure early retirement to others? Continuing to blog to earn income isn't really retirement and no major FIRE blogger claiming to "retire early" hasn't earned an affiliate income. Any thoughts?

I’ve made some optimizations to the site and the home page alone is running 37% faster, with no ads, pop-ups, banners, social feeds, or other annoying clutter. It’s pure content with quick, intuitive navigation. For anyone who owns their own website, I recommend Google’s mobile speed test: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/testmysite/

After following a few investing groups to get an understanding of how the general population trades, I've noticed the following pecularities: 1. Some people ask for stock tips as though a random commenter will have the next big thing. Do they think anyone throwing out tips on a Facebook Group for specific stocks is thoughtfully considering the financials and a 10-year business plan before committing? 2. There's a recent scandal involving Luckin Coffee (previously touted the "Starbucks" of China) after an accounting scandal. Rather than avoid the stock, many people want to buy in at a discount. Why throw good money after a scandal-ridden company? Remember Enron? 3. People are using highly leveraged ETFs - a lot. Those should only be used if you're a highly-capitalized, short-term investor. The price decay (contango) and high fees required to pay the derivative contracts make these a poor long-term investment. 4. People are buying into to energy stocks already, trying to call the bottom. The problem here is that these companies require oil to be sustained above a certain level for them to succeed. Even if you call the bottom in oil, if it bounces along the bottom for a year, your companies are going to go bankrupt. Simpler is better. Get ownership at the lowest cost in an index fund. Avoid sectors highly exposed to one area of the economy (like energy) because they depend on commodity prices. I prefer technology going forward because by definition, it encompasses multiple sectors, is scalable, is moving to the cloud where services require a subscription, and because I understand it the most.

Unless you’ve hedged in advance of the drop, your options are: 1. Hedge late 2. Liquidate 3. Ride it out #1 and #2 are busted by V-shaped recoveries, which no one can predict in this scenario. So that leaves #3 as the best choice for most people (i.e., you're not a professional investor trading VIX options, etc.). Rolling the dice for #1 or #2 aren't advisable because pandemics like Coronavirus can happen in waves. Given that, our chances of getting the market timing correct are about as likely to be right as anyone who tried to guess the impact of Spanish flu nearly 100 years ago. If you're an everyday investor, be like Warren Buffett and think 10 years ahead. By that time, Coronavirus will be long gone.

Has anyone used online credit card repayment calculators to see what the results are? I feel like the “minimum payment” is misleading to a lot of people, in that you’re staying afloat. However, you’re actually falling into a debt hole while making these payments, because they are usually only 1-3% of the balance (which keeps growing if you’re using the card). My next article will go into this in more depth. The best online credit card repayment tool I’ve found is the one from Barclays: https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal/customer/repayment-calculator

1. Some languages are a ticket to a better life (visa and job requirement). 2. Programming languages offer new economy jobs. 3. Programming languages die, while language does not.

I took finance's toughest exam (CFA Level 1 of 3) this past weekend in London's ExCel Centre, along with 5,800 others. It featured a Doomsday Clock projected on the wall with your minutes remaining for each 3-hour session (6 total). It's far more quantitative than any pilot exam! While I felt comfortable taking the exam, which is usually a good sign, they use an endless combination of tricks and deceit to make you pick the wrong answer, so we'll see. The CFA is a great return on investment. It focuses primarily on the knowledge needed for Investment Management. For less than $5000, you can take all three levels of the exam, while a master's degree can be 5-10 times as much. Both are highly regarded for career development, but I feel like my master's degree only went as far as Level 1 of the exam, so the CFA seems more in-depth. In the finance world, we also have CPAs, FRMs, CFPs, attorneys (JDs), Series licenses, and actuary designations. All prove that you have specialized knowledge related to your subject area of expertise. Are there any other designations others are interesting in knowing more about?

We've been using house sitting as a way to expand our travel experiences without crushing our budget. Interestingly, it comes down to two categories: Paid house sitting negotiated privately, or unpaid house sitting via an app. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

The Buffet Indicator (aka Market Cap/GDP) fits fairly in line with his thoughts on equities lately - overpriced! https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=lGSD

Notice any different about the Golden Goose Guide homepage today? One of the interesting aspects of doing everything yourself is designing a logo. Do you let someone else do it, or try it yourself? The Golden Goose Guide logo was my own design using free resources, but it took more than a few drafts to get it right. Finally, I had a logo that I thought was perfect, so I added it everywhere on the website - on the header logo, the home page, the favicon (seen on the browser tab), and on my profile (seen when writing forum posts like this). Something about the logo was just not right, but I couldn't place it. Finally, I realized what it was. The goose was facing left. This didn't really make a difference, but was more noticeable when shown next to text, which is always to the right. I did some research on the subject, and found that nearly all logos face right. Just imagine if the Nike logo swooshed left! In fact, out of all of the teams in the NFL, only one team logo faces left (the Eagles, in case you wanted to know). When we migrated the site from Wordpress to Wix, I recently realized that we had used my original templates for the logos in the re-design. Now I've flipped everything back, so our Golden Goose is now facing right. Did anybody notice, or did we get away with it?

You may have seen my recent post on International Money Transfers, which were our biggest troublemaker as a USA/UK couple: The Shocking Hidden Fees for International Money Transfers - Top 8 Sites Compared including Bitcoin I'm interested to know if there are any international credit cards that you've found to be the best deal? Like the other article, I'd like to see the one that puts the most money in our pockets, which is in the spirit of the Golden Goose Guide.

Does anyone use or recommend any service in particular (PayPal, Western Union, etc.)?