Halloween Rant

A quick Halloween rant.

Several years ago my wife and I set out with our 3 daughters to go trick or treating in our old town. Like we always do we would get our neighbors house first then head across the street to these duplexes. Typically we followed the unwritten rules. Looked for Halloween signs, porch light on before knocking for candy. This one experience sticks to me this very day as an annoyance how some can take advantage of holloween while others pay for the holiday.

If you didn't know candy, the stuff you ask for on Halloween, cost money. I'm sorry it's not free and the reason you get it for free is because some someone else paid for it. Chocolates especially are known to a bit more pricy.

So we start walking and my kids start knocking on doors. Our first 2 we're no answers. When we got to the third door on an older lady answered and she told us that she did not celebrate Halloween. I don't know why but this rubbed me the wrong way. I kept thinking she was in her late 60s early 70s and not once in those many years has she or her offspring celebrated Holloween? Obviously that was a lie. I don't think she ment to lie I think she probably wasn't feeling well or just didn't want to be bothered and that was the quickest way she could remove someone from her doorstep.

Later on that night I had to know if she was telling the truth. I looked over at her house when we are close to being done and saw two adults and at least two children running into the duplex in full costume. From what I gather they we're her relatives living with her and taking advantage of a totally free system. The house did in fact celebrate Holloween, from my calculations 4 out of 5 people did making it 80%. This was not the only house we went to and did similar things. At one house we saw every year a boy would ride off on his bike alone and not once did they answer the door.

Here's my tiff. If your not celebrating holloween that's fine. Turn off your lights save your money and don't carve a pumpkin. But if you have family living with you that do, BUY SOME FREEKIN CANDY!

Again with everything I do admit there may be circumstances that prevent someone from being home and if you simply want to go trick or treating with your kids, this is not directed to you.

One last thing. If you didn't know there is an age where you should stop trick or treating. It's around 12. Just saying.

Official Tithing rules (for myself)

Official Tithing rules for me and my family.

For me to reflect change or read to remind myself where I stand on as far as I am concerned and understand the concept of tithing.

Tithing:

Pay 10% of your total interest earned.

Or pay 1/10th of your income

Income definition:

money received, especially on a regular basis, for work or through investments.
"he has a nice home and an adequate income"
synonyms:    earnings, salary, pay, remuneration, wages, stipend; More

For those who don't know for years I was taught to pay tithing on my gross pay. My dad would say that social security and taxes were our responsibility. They were in fact a bill from your total income and since they were part of your total income the gross is where you pay your tithing. To which I reply, Dad you paid all these years on your gross pay. Are you paying on your social security checks your receiving? My dad has been paying social security for 45 years. If my dad paid tithing on all of his paychecks he has already paid tithing on 'x’ amount of dollars he put into social security, right? So if he were to pay tithing on his social security checks he would be paying double tithing. So to be fully tithed is not as it seems.

When I thought about it more deeply I came up with another question. Say a self employed painter and a company employed factory worker drive to work 30 miles away. The painter gets paid 200 dollars for the job. That's his gross pay. Does he pay on that 200 dollars? No. He has expenses that he should not include as income. Paint brushes, Paint, paint supplies, car payment, insurance, and gas are all expenses he deducts before finding his taxable or regular income. That thought brought up a question. Do regular company employed individuals have what I call tithing exempt expenses related to work that are part of working?. A painters fuel company vehicle and insurance are all tithing exempt. If the company employed person needs a vehicle to get to his job why wouldn't some of his expenses he needs be tithing exempt such as fuel or part of his insurance or car payment? If he drives his car 80% to work would he deduct 80% of his driving expenses including 80%of his payment or 80%of his insurance or car payment? If you somewhat agree with my logic, then what if he drives an expensive sports car?

For me I at the time felt that fuel that was used to get work and back home in my paid off 500 dollar car should be tithing exempt. Like a self employed painter I did have expenses related to work. My gas money was not going to my family, or personal recreation, it was going to my work. Also note at the time I did not tithing exempt any of my insurance.

The next and final thing i am going to write about  before I write my rules is a mortgage. Should it be tithing exempt? Obviously it is a personal purchase so the short answer is no. But then again are you not losing income on that personal investment?

If a person buys a investment property and rents it out he collects his rent minuses his expenses which includes the mortgage payment then pays his tithing off his net right? If his rent is 1200, he had no repairs, and his mortgage including insurance and taxes is 800 he would net 400. So does he pay 120 on the 1200 or 40 on his net? If your argument is a homeowners mortgage is not tithing exempt then what about a landlord? is his second “personal” purchase and investment home mortgage tithing exempt? Most lds real estate investors would argue yes they are not included as INCOME until he sells the property. Then why doesn't the same rule apply to your personal residence and mortgage. Essentially isn't your house an investment too?

In my opinion the problem with a house you live in and pay mortgage is that as long as you live in it you actually are losing income. Income you invest but don't see a return until you sell that property. Similar to a landlord except a landlord makes a profit until he sells, yet he doesn't see a profit on the mortgage payment until he sells. You don't know how much you actually earn until you sell your house. In fact you may lose all the earned income on that property through a down market and a job loss such as the previous owners of my first house. To further illistrate my argument and reasoning I have put together Excel sheets showing what happens when a homeowner pays tithing before paying his mortgage and then. Sell it 5 years later at a 30% increase

So for this example I'm using an interest and principal only Loan. Keep in mind most mortgages will have a escrow account that is for paying your house insurance and taxes. Comparing apples to apples do landlords consider those expenses tithing exempt or do they pay tithing on the escrow? Again after you sell your house you have to ask the question how much did I invest in this house verses how much did I make and again what was my actual interest earned or earned income that I need to pay tithing on.

Going back to the example.

Line 2 we have the original purchase and loan amount at an interest rate of 4.5% (line 3).

Our total amount we pay for princable and interest line 4. 45,601.80 line 5 is the total you would need to make if you chosed to pay tithing before paying your mortgage. For example. If I make 1000 dollars I would pay 100 dollars towards tithing and have 900 left over.The 900 dollars is a then called a tithed amount. If you were to pay a tithed amount toward your mortgage you would have to make a larger amount to pay tithing on. To figure out that number you would divide the tithed amount by 9 and then multiply it by 10 thus is how I came up with line 5, 50,668.66  if you were a pay tithing before mortgage person in 5 years you would pay 5066.87 (line 6)

Now if the house sells at a 30% profit after 5 years

(180,000, line 7) the payoff amount would be 136736.88 (line 8) after your expenses for selling the house (line 10-11) your total profit for your house would be 31763 (line 12) so after 5 years your total income earned off this house is line 12. Almost 19000 less than what you have paid tithing on all of these years. Now there are some who still knowingly pay tithing on that amount thinking that too is profit (line 13) in doing so they would pay 8243, when I argue they only earned line 12 meaning if you are a gross payer of tithing you overpaid 5067 (line 15) if your mortgage payment is tithed and you count line 12 also as income. If you figured line 12 not as income you overpayed 1890.55 (line 16)

This is why I argue that because you do not know how much you will profit when and if you sell your house the mortgage interest and princable should wait to be tithed until after you sell or fully pay off your house. If you pay off your house you should be tithed on the original purchase price of the house. For example my original purchase price for my current house is 280k. If that 280k would be tithed I would owe 28000. Right? WRONG!  252000 is tithed if you pay 28000. To be tithed on 280k you again divide by 9. 31,111.11. So pre-tithed would earn 311,111.11. if you were to later sell the house you would then deduct the profit from the original purchase price and other expenses and that entire number would be considered income.

Here is another Excel example of that.

This is NOT doctrine, just my opinions.

Last question is what about your escrow account? Do you pay tithing before or after your escrow account? I've made my case on principal andi nterest but what about taxes and insurance? Well for this question I ask it 2 ways. If you own a second property and are renting it do you count the taxes and insurance as income or not. If you don't then why shouldn't a homeowner living in his residence pay that. In the end your total price you put into the home does include property taxes insurance and even upgrades so again I will argue that there are actually 3 ways to be tithed on a home purchase.

#1 pay a full tithe on your income before your house payment. When you sell find out how much money you paid tithing on and how much you made off the house and account for overpayment for future income.

#2 Pay a full tithe on principal and interest only then after selling house account for actual profit and pay or adjust on future income for overpayment.

#3 The option I am going to use. Pay a full tithe after you pay your mortgage then after selling the house or paying it off account for how much tithing you owe after expenses.

Final reason and judgment for that argument a house like an investment house is an investment that does not produce income until after the investment is completely paid off or sold.

Now that I am done with my explanation of real estate and tithing here are my other rules.

The Durango and the Van payment will be 50% tithing exempt due to buisness use. If sold vehicle loss from original purchase price will calculated

The Cruze will be 100% Tithing exempt due to it being a buisness purchase for the time being.

All house upgrades needed again will be 100% tithing exempt. Tithing will be paid after the house is sold.

Lawncare and all other household expenses will be the percentage of square footage from the home office of the whole house currently around 12%.

All fuel at this time will be a flat 50% due to work related trips.

Question for the future. Because i have a home office do I add an additional 12 % because of th square footage percentage the office has.

And that's all I can think about. I will adjust and correct the rules over time as i pray and life changes.

Start thinking about Christmas

Let's go back to Christmas 2012 shall we. If I were to pick a Christmas that was the worst one of my life that would be it. First at all I'm not a great shopper. Especially when it comes to woman's apparel. Christmas shopping for me used to be ask my wife to make a list, set a budget ( back then it was around 100 dollars per person) she would then guide me where exactly that item on the list was in store then I would buy it. Funny how just the other day we were talking about past memories. I remember buying her a hair straightener for like 10 bucks because it was the only one in my budget. It probably only lasted 6 months but at the time it was the only thing we could afford.

On Christmas Eve 2012 my company decided instead of letting us have it off they would have meetings half the day then feed us lunch. I was a procrastinator as far as finishing my wife's Christmas gifts so I was planning on going to good ol Walmart and try to come up with a few last minute ideas for her. When we were finished snow had covered the ground in 4 inches of powder. Not only did I have to go to the store I had to drive 30 miles home in snowy conditions. When I got to the packed Walmart the only thing I could come up with was a cutting mat for her sewing activities and a gift card. When I was almost home my stomach started churning and I progressed slowly during the rest of of the night feeling worst till I felt I couldn't stay up any longer. I let my wife know how I was feeling and went to bed leaving her to finish wrapping and setting up Christmas for our 3 young girls.

I was only in bed for 5 minutes when my wife told me that sometimes I have to be a parent and push through. I don't feel she knew how sick I was. I hadn't thrown up yet and I had a headache where my pain was centered around my right Temple. I pushed through and soon after we were done my symptoms showed up and I was puking and feverish all night. The next morning my wife showed more sympathy with my situation. And we tried to make Christmas as good as we could. My wife got 5 gifts from me 4 of which she knew beforehand. I stayed in bed most of the day, we did no traveling, basically it sucked.

I had a conversation with my wife later on that year about that experience. What she told me made me reflect on my personal progress as a good husband. I realized I needed a lot of work. She let me know that she hasn't had a good Christmas for a while. Every Christmas was the same. She basically shopped for everyone including herself. Christmas had lost it's magic.

You know that Christmas song “Where are you Christmas” for a while I felt a personal connection to the words of that song. I too for quite a while felt Christmas was not the same. I even questioned if we could just skip Christmas gifts for ourselves so we could catch up on our finances. I dreaded having to shop. Every dollar I spent I worked hard for and it was painful to try to be a provider while providing very little, then to try to scrape up any leftover funds or credit we had to provide a reasonable Christmas.

Anyway, I think I'm moving off my main point so let me try to steer my writing towards my.

So Christmas 2013 was my favorite Christmas along with 2017. Christmas 2016 was the most expensive with the most toys and gifts. Yet it wasn't mine or my wife's favorite. I finally found through trial and error how to have a good Christmas.

First. I learned to think about Christmas early. I know we haven't finished halloween yet but as of today there are 10 Fridays till Christmas. When we are in the Christmas season you have less than 4 weeks when the turkey goes cold. I'm not saying put up your tree but at least start thinking and planning now. You may not have enough money or lack of items you feel you need. Planning now reduces stress and for me leaves room to feel and enjoy the Christmas season when it finally comes.

Second. Look for free items that can be given as gifts. Harbor freight tools is a great way to get free stuff with a purchase. If I was a 12 year old boy with an interest in tools, a voltmeter, multipurpose screwdriver, a set of screwdrivers, a flashlight, and a grabber would have been exciting to receive all that. All of which is free with a purchase

3rd. Set your expectations early. For us my wife and I sat down with our family and asked everyone what was their favorite Christmas, we realized gifts were not the main reason for a great Christmas experience. Last year we wanted a more simpler less expensive more meaningful Christmas, as a family we set our expectations and goals. We wanted more activities such as visiting Temple square or going to local events and we actually decided we wanted LESS PRESENTS. Not including St Nicks presents, All of us get 4 gifts. Something you WEAR, something to READ, something you WANT, and something you NEED.

now as far as me and my wife would obviously give each other a few more gifts if we find something we know we want to give but my girls don't expect the world and we noticed their gratitude and Christmas spirit has grown.

4th here's a husband to wife gift secret. Find the local pop up boutiques and find something unique. It's a girls territory but what I have found they are more than willing to help. Get pictures of your wife's shoes jewelry and her clothes and let them help you find something. My wife was excited when I gave her homemade soap and a necklace from a boutique. It helps them and you also get a great deal.

5th write a list. Stop guessing what the other spouse wants. With our 4-5 gift limit, our family takes.their time on what the need and want. Last year I had very little I needed it wanted maybe that's why it was so great.

6th. Declutter, sell, give. Decluttering makes room for your new gifts plus you breath easier when you have less. Selling old items you don't use helps with the decluttering and increased your budget for Christmas. Give to those in need. Again I always caution to do your research before giving. There are a lot of crappy non profits out there where people make a decent living off of your generosity. I personally look for a more personal approach. Now we have Facebook groups that do all the work non profits do for free.

7th. Watch the minimalist documentary for perspective. Stuff doesn't bring you happiness.

I think i'll end there. Again keep it simple, start now, have fun and research your options.

Preparing for the next stock market crash #1

So, the market has just recently showed some weaknesses, which again has happened over and over again. Life is that way. We have our ups and our downs. What matters most is what we learn from our down times. Do we make the exact same mistakes we did last time we were at our highest and the market or job loss related to the market made us realize some big and regretful decisions.

I have learned alot from the last market crash. First of all I have learned to ask for help. Like I have written in the past, one thing that I learned through my research it doesn't matter what life you had before the crash, all and I mean ALL income levels have asked for help. Now I do wish my church would teach more financial instructions to those members who are asking for a mortgage payment for a more than 300k house here in Utah, or members who don't realize that 500 dollar car payment could of went to food they got at the bishops storehouse. My argument at one time was I didn't buy a 2000 dollar car so I could support you with fast offering payments while you drive your 30k car. 28k would buy ALOT of food.

Second, I learned to protect my cars. I have never been at risk of being repoed but I have seen my fair share of repos. You do a search on Facebook, somebody somewhere either just got their car repoed or witnessed someone's car being repoed. When the market is down, repos are on the rise in all income levels as well. Which is crazy to me! Why are the wealthy not paying off their cars?? I'll let you know. They are actually not wealthy! They have become artificially wealthy through loans and a balooned stock market.

This YouTube is a great example of that.

https://youtu.be/aZaApVuvUMw

When it crashes they crash too. To protect your cars either A have it paid off. B. Have a manageable loan at around 5k or c. When you feel the market is tanking or your soon to lose your job, put your car loan on a credit card. Can't repo a car on a credit card.

3rd I learned I need to chose a side. Do I chose to hand out or to receive the handout. Am I on the wealthy side or the poor side. Last time I thought I was alright. I donated to food banks/charities all the while I struggled with rent medical bills food. I even donated plasma to cover formula. There were people in million dollar homes getting food and mortgage help while I was struggling. I was obviously in need but didn't get it because of my pride. This time I'm choosing a side! Here is a quick questionair on what side you should be on in case you are confused like I was.

Do you own your house meaning no mortgage payment?

Do you have things in value over an average years salary including bank accounts cash real estate?

Are you struggling to make your mortgage payment?

Is your mortgage more than 300k?

Are you married WITHOUT children?

If you answered no to all four. You might be poor

Chose help to help your independence. Stop donating to people who don't need help instead they need a lifestyle change.

Number 4. Not to beat a dead horse but be careful if you choose to help those in need. Again ALL income levels ask for help when the market crashes. How would you feel if you donated food to the food bank? Good right? Well that food you donated just went to a family who within the last year went to the lake 4 times with their boat, had two nice vacations one to Hawaii one on a cruise at a total value of 15000 dollars, for the last 3 years have had car boat and truck payments totaling 1250(1500 if you include insurance, all 3 are about to be repoed), and to top it all off, they have lived in a house worth 3TIMES your house. Do you still feel good? This absolutely does happen.
I wrote about one experience here.
http://viscarjones.blogspot.com/2015/01/sometimes-it-falls-right-into-your-lap.html?m=1
And a follow up here
http://viscarjones.blogspot.com/2015/07/some-times-it-falls-into-your-lap-part2.html?m=1
At the time I wrote that my house was worth about 130k. So at 450k they had more than 3 times my house. They had plans to sell and move to a trailer park until something happened? Due to the bishop comments on the second post I assume they got help with their mortgage? Again and again I here "bishops are to help sustain life not lifestyle" I call b.s. here. If their house was saved, their lifestyle was saved.
And I'm done. More to come on surviving the next crash. It will come. Will you be ready?