Category: how to

“Dreams aren’t expensive, they’re priceless”

Last year, I had an incredible opportunity to going sailing through the Panama Canal and up the Pacific coast of Central America with family friends Jim and Laura.  I chronicled it in several posts on this blog.

It was an amazing opportunity on so many levels.  Who doesn’t love the chance to be on the ocean, see Mother Nature at her purest and most beautiful, stop in hidden paradises, and on and on?

On the trip I got the chance to learn the Jim-and-Laura story.  It’s quite amazing (but maybe not—you’ll see what I mean at the end of this post).  When they retired, they sold their condo and pretty much all their worldly possessions, bought a boat, and adopted the sailing lifestyle.  They’ve been doing that for the past 10 years, and have never looked back.  They are such an inspirational couple.

Whenever I share this story, or how the idea of sailing around the Caribbean or the world is really appealing to me, one question, sooner or later, always comes up: How could a normal person afford that?

Before you read on, ask yourself these two questions:

1. How much does it cost to live on a yacht in the Caribbean, going from beautiful beach to beautiful beach, totally living the dream?
2. Could I afford it?

Think of your answer and then read on to see if you’re right.  Hint, I bet you are way high on #1 and I bet #2 is actually “yes”.

My time with Jim and Laura, as well as following a number of sailing blogs has taught me that living your sailing retirement dream really isn’t all that expensive.  Sure, it’s easy to bring to mind an image of the mega-rich on their mega-yachts, and instantly dismiss the idea as out of reach.

Yet, I think this really illustrates how attainable this AND MOST RETIREMENT DREAMS ARE.

The cost of Jim and Laura’s sailing dream

Jim and Laura (“J&L” from now on) were very open regarding their expenses, which I really appreciated because it gave me some real insights into this.  They were even more open to allow me to post this on my blog—so Thank you Jim and Laura.

The first thing you need is a boat.  J&L got a used 36-foot yacht for about $90,000 then they put about $2,000 in to it for upgrades and repairs.  It has a kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms.  When it was all said and done, they spent $92,000 on their boat.  That’s really the only major purchase you need to make.  Everything else is just living expenses.

Living the boating lifestyle is amazingly affordable.  About half the time they “park” their boat at an anchorage (literally, drop their anchor near a beach and just hang out there).  These are usually free.  Other times, they dock in a marina.  Marinas cost money and can vary widely based on the amenities they offer, but J&L said that $500 per month was a good baseline.

Maybe think of that as their housing expenses—a $92,000 down payment and then a $500 mortgage.  For that they have the best backyard in the world (the ocean and beaches).  Depending on your tastes, maybe it’s a bit small, but more on this in a second.  All in all, that seems like a screaming deal.

A sailor doesn’t survive on shelter alone.  There’s that other expense called . . . food.  J&L’s experience is that groceries tend to cost fairly similar amounts in the US and the places in the Caribbean they visited (about 10 or so countries, so they did get a fairly diverse perspective).  Let’s call that a wash to slightly favorable for J&L.

The other component of food—dining out—tends to be a fairly important component in retirement.  Data shows that people go out to eat a lot in their 50s and 60s and 70s.  This is one of the places where the sailing lifestyle really pays off.  Nearly all the places where people would anchor or dock have restaurants on the beach that appeal to the tourist set.  These places tend to be inexpensive compared to US standards.  When I was sailing and we went out to dinner, I consistently got really good meals (mostly seafood, but not always) that in the US would cost $30-40 and they would cost about $10-15.  J&L said that was fairly common.

Healthcare is another big expense that we all think about, especially in our later years.  A huge benefit about living in those Caribbean countries is that healthcare is very affordable.  Standard check-ups and prescriptions cost pennies on the dollar compared to US prices.  More complex procedures (Laura had a small surgical procedure), almost all dental work, and stuff like laser eye surgery are similarly cheap.  Fortunately, J&L didn’t have personal experience with more complex and uber-expensive stuff (cancer diagnosis, pacemaker, artificial joint, etc.), so it’s hard to say on those.  But the majority of healthcare expenses that we’re most likely to have are much, much less expensive that would be in the US.

Many common expenses like clothes and entertainment are a lot less.  With clothes, the wardrobe for a sailor is much simpler (bathing suits, shorts, and t-shirts plus a Hawaiian shirt for special occasions).  For entertainment, they still go to movies, see the sights like amusement parks and zoos, and things like that, but they are much less in the Caribbean.

Other common expenses are eliminated like car payments and other car expenses, cable (they just stream stuff on the internet and have Netflix), and property taxes.

Certainly there are expenses that they have which land-lovers don’t.  Since they don’t have a car if they want to go somewhere that usually requires a taxi, but those tend to be cheap (it cost me $100 to take a taxi completely across the entire country of Panama).  Also, there is boat maintenance.  The salt water is incredibly corrosive so that causes a lot of damage.  In Jim’s words “there is always something that needs to be fixed.”  This can be the $50 variety or the $500 variety and on up.  Probably once a year they take the boat completely out of the water and check everything out.  All said, Jim estimates they spend about $2,500 per year on boat repairs.

Plus, there are boat-specific expenses like boat insurance and weather reports.  They also take trips back home to see family, and other stuff like that.  But those don’t tend to be big line items.

As expensive as you want to be

Most people are surprised when I share these stories about sailing.  The image tends to be scenes from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous showing mega-yachts with people with large sunglasses and white leisure suits sipping on champagne poured by servants.

Certainly that’s there.  In a marina we were at in Panama, 98% of the boats were like J&L’s.  But the boat that got the most attention was a 75-foot catamaran.  At dinner with the other sailors we would speculate that it probably cost $5-7 million.  Maybe they were drinking champagne (I never got close enough to be able to tell), but we were drinking local beers that cost $5 for a bucket of six.

You could apply this concept to everything.  If you wanted to go to super nice restaurants every day you could and it would cost more.  But J&L and the vast majority of people doing what they were doing would go to a nice restaurant every once in a while, but most of the time went to nice but affordable places.

For J&L, they probably wish their boat was a bit bigger.  At 36-feet, it’s a bit cramped.  When I visited, there was certainly room for all of us, but it was cozy.  They could get a 40- or 45-foot boat and maybe even go with a catamaran.  That would give them more room, but of course those things cost more.

It seems true with boats as with most luxury things (ski condos, Manhattan apartments, beach houses), that the nicer, bigger, more complex you get, costs go up in a hurry.  For J&L, they could still probably go a little nicer/bigger and stay at a reasonable costs, but looking at that 75-foot catamaran as an example, it’s easy to let costs explode.

The reason I think this is so important is because for so many people retirement expenses loom like some kind of enormous monster.  Sure, they’re there, but probably not as bad as you think.  Certainly, you have a lot of control over how mean and big and scary that “retirement expense monster” is going to be.

This seems particularly true with an example of retiring and sailing around the Caribbean.  Just at first glance it sounds prohibitively expensive.  I wonder how many people give up that race before they even try.

Sailing is the example I used because I am most familiar with it, and it’s nearest to my heart, but I think you could tell a similar story with a beach retirement or skiing, or traveling.  All those can be super expensive if you throw caution to the wind and spend, spend, spend.  However, if you take a more moderate approach I think you’ll be amazed at what you can afford and how achievable your dream retirement can be.

As you might expect, I was very curious about all this and spent a lot of time talking to Jim about this.  At the end of the day, Jim threw out a number saying, “All in, you could live like a king on $3,000 a month.”  Yowza.  I hope that makes you sleep better dreaming about living on a beach.

Now that we’re at the end of this post, what were your answers to those two questions when you first started reading?

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This one’s a biggie.  Actually I was going to do a post entitled “How much do I need to retire?”  However, in order to answer that huge question you need to answer three sub-questions:

1. How much will I spend in retirement?
2. How much will I save during my working years?
3. When will I retire?

Once you answer those three questions, I think you can have a pretty good idea of what your number needs to be and ultimately when you can pull the ripcord on retiring.  So with that said, I guess I’m kicking off a three-part series.

Determining the amount you will spend in retirement is a really hard thing to do.  That’s not really comforting given that your monthly spending has a huge impact, as you would expect, on the amount you need to retire with.  So for example, if you plan on spending $5000 per month in retirement (all numbers are going to be in today’s dollars unless otherwise noted), you would need about $1.3 million when you retire*.  However, if you increased that monthly spending to $6000 then your nestegg would need to be $1.5 million.  Push the monthly number up to $10,000 and your nestegg needs to be $2.5 million.  Obviously, that monthly number is incredibly important in your planning.  So clearly when you start figuring out your financial plan, you need to have a decent idea of what you’re going to spend in retirement.

Unfortunately, this is no easy task.  There are a couple approaches you can take, all of which leave something to be desired.

1. Percentage of income: The most common approach you hear is to take your current income, take a percentage of it (often people suggest 80%) and plan on spending that in retirement.  I DESPISE this approach for a few reasons.  Take two identical couples, the Foxes and the Grizzlys, both of whom make the same amount of money, let’s say $150,000.  According to that formula we should take $150,000 and multiply it by 80% to get $120,000, and that’s what we should plan on spending in retirement.  That means both families need a nestegg of about $2.5 million

First, I think when you use this approach, you get a number that is way too high.  Very few families are spending 80% of their salary.  Taxes are probably 20-30%; savings in 401k’s and other accounts are a significant chunk; spending on the kids is 10-20%; a mortgage is probably your biggest expense.  All that should go away in retirement.  I bet the average $150,000-income family is spending much, MUCH less than $120,000 right now, and it seems that should go down in retirement, not up.  Am I right?

Second, it assumes all families are the same.  Let’s say that Fox family is pretty thrifty while the Grizzly family is pretty extravagant.  We’re both making $150,000 but the Grizzleys are going to need a much larger nestegg than the Foxes.  Clearly this approach sucks.

2. What are you spending now: With another approach, you could take what you’re spending right now as a baseline for what you’ll spend in retirement.  The positive of this is that it takes your personality into account—if you’re an extravagant person now, it seems likely you’ll be extravagant in retirement; conversely if you’re thrifty now you would think that would translate during retirement.

Of course, the huge miss is that your spending changes in pretty major ways at different stages of your life.  The Fox family has expenses of about $8500 per month right now, but that includes a mortgage ($2200), preschool for the cubs ($700), saving for Lil’ and Mini Foxes’ college educations ($1000).  All those will go away in our retirement, so that off the top brings down our expenses to $4600.  And that doesn’t take into account how our expenses will change for the less expensive (down-sizing our house, not driving to work every day, etc.) and for the more expensive (more vacations, more leisure activities, etc.).  Wonderful, our expenses could range from $3000 to $8000.  That means our nest egg needs to be anywhere between $800,000 and $2,000,000.  That’s not a lot of help.

3. Bottom’s up: You could build on approach #2 and look at your current expenditures, and then try to project what future ones will be.  Right now the Foxes spend about $1,000 on groceries and $200 at restaurants per month.  In retirement we’ll only have two mouths to feed instead of four, but we’ll probably enjoy eating out more: maybe we assume groceries go to $600 and restaurants go to $300.  Maybe we’re right, maybe we’re wrong, but at least we’re trying to get a more accurate number.

The problem with this comes in for expenses you have no idea about.  Are we going to be bitten by the travel bug?  Will that cost $400 per month or $1000 per month?  Tough to say.  Also, you have some real unknowns like what will happen with health insurance, or will Social Security be there for us?  Of all the approaches, I think this one gets you the closest and takes into account your individual tastes, but it is also the hardest to do because you’re trying to predict both what you’re tastes will be many years from now and how much that will cost.

4. Look at the data: The last approach you can take is to look at the data.  This, combined with #3 is my preferred approach.  In the US we’re fortunate that the Bureau of Labor and Statistics publishes a huge report that looks at individuals expenditures.  This is a treasure trove for trying to figure out what is “average” and then using #3 to determine if you should be above or below average.  It slices spending along almost any dimension you want—age, gender, race, age, geography, number of family members, education, etc.—and then it breaks down the spending into categories like housing, food, apparel, leisure, healthcare, entertainment, etc.  Of course, these are broad averages and your individual circumstances will vary, but it does provide tremendous insight.

So for example, the average family spends $51,422 per year, and if you look at that by income (I know, that’s approach #1, and I don’t necessarily like doing this), you get the following table:

A couple interesting things jump out here.  First, as your income goes up, your expenditures also go up but not at the same rate (you go from spending 80% of your income to 68% of your income), so this means approach #1 doesn’t work.  Second, spending $10,000 per month is a lot.  Only the very wealthiest Americans spend that much money, and keep in mind those are people making $150,000 per year or $150 million per year.  More on this in a minute.

Another really interesting table is when you look at expenses by age, especially in our golden years:

Our spending peaks in the 45-54 age range.  That makes sense—kids are teenagers which is when they’re most expensive and we’re making more money so we want to start enjoying the finer things in life.  But after that spending starts to fall precipitously.  The kids leave the house, maybe we downsize the house, we don’t commute to work and don’t need work clothes, etc.  By the time we’re in our mid-70s we’re spending half as much as we were in our late 40s/early 50s.  Incidentally, it’s probably in our late 40s/early 50s that we’re starting to budget seriously for retirement, so we’re working off an inflated expense mindset.

You never want to use anecdotes, but all these numbers seem about right.  My grandparents are in their 80s and they hardly spend any money.  They have the means (he gets a military pension) so it’s not like they’re impoverished, but they are just at an age where they take it easy.  They don’t travel, they own a car but drive very little so it’ll last forever, and they don’t eat too much.

Add it all up

I think the winning combination is using #4 as a foundation and then adjusting it with the particular things you know about yourself from #2 and #3.  A super-posh lifestyle would be spending $129,211 per year.  Lady Fox and I aren’t super posh—let’s say we’re moderately posh so we’re more in the $77,507 per year category despite the fact that our current income is much higher (see, it shows that income and spending aren’t inextricably linked).  $78k per year is about $6,500 per month.  If you take our expenses now ($8,500 per month) and strip out the ones we know go away when we retire we’re down to $4,600.  Assuming we spend $6,500 per month implies we greatly increase expenses like leisure, vacation, etc.; also, we’re planning on increased healthcare expenses.  That seems reasonable, maybe even a little too high.  But let’s go with it.  If we assume spending $6,500 per month every month during a 30-year retirement, we’d need a $1.6 million nestegg.

But then remember that as we get older our expenses will go down.  They’ll peak at $6500 per month, but when we hit 55-64 they’ll go down about 10% ($5900), when we hit 65-74 they’ll go down about 26% ($4800), and after 75 they’ll go down about 46% ($3500).  If you take that into account instead of $1.6 million for a nestegg, we’ll only need $1.1 million.  That’s a pretty huge difference just for taking into account the “natural” curbing of spending that happens when we age.

So there you go, the Fox family will probably be spending in the $6500 per month range and that will slowly fall to $3500 per month when our tails are fully gray.  As I said at the beginning of this post, when trying to answer the larger question—How much do I need to retire?—this is just the first step.  Make sure you check back Thursday for my post on how to estimate the other two pieces for your retirement picture—how much you’re saving while working and when you’ll need to retire.

*All calculations unless otherwise noted assume: 30 year retirement, 3% inflation, 6% investment return.

“Las Vegas wasn’t built on winners”

In a lot of ways investing in the stock market is like gambling in Las Vegas: the whole premise is based on uncertainty, you can win a lot or lose a lot, it can be really exciting, and there are suckers bets that are tempting but should definitely be avoided.

And then there is one huge difference: the “house advantage” works against you when you gamble in Las Vegas, but works to your huge advantage as an investor.  In Las Vegas, the odds are decidedly in the house’s favor.  Over the long run, it is a mathematical certainty that the house will win and you will lose.  After a single hand or roll of the dice, you might be up, maybe even up big.  But if you play long enough the house’s advantage will dominate and the casino will take your money.

However, as an investor, you are the “house”.   In investing there will be ups and downs, but over the long term the investor always comes out ahead.  Since 1929 there has never been a 30-year period where stocks ended lower than when they started.  Go ahead and read that sentence again.  If you invest, properly diversify, and stay steady with your convictions that you will come out ahead, you will make money in the stock market.  Since 1929 there have been some brutal times, some lasting 10 or even 20 years (stocks were 3% lower in April 1949 than they were in April 1929; stocks were 2% lower in November 1978 than they were in November 1968).  Yet in each of those examples and every other, if you hold out long enough, you’ll make money.  Basically, you are the house in the game of investing.

Since we know you’re the house, what are the lessons we can learn from the casinos in Las Vegas that have allowed them to make so much money?  First, offer free drinks and $5 prime rib dinners to your house guests.  Just kidding.

Stay in it for the long haul

There will be some days or weeks or maybe even months where a casino loses money.  When that happens and the pit boss says, “Wow, we’re down $200,000 on the craps tables this week,” casinos don’t shut down the craps tables.  They certainly don’t say “hey, we tried having craps tables, but it didn’t work so let’s stop having craps in our casino.”  On the contrary, they keep them open knowing that the more people play craps (or any other casino game), over the long run the casinos will make money.  Sometimes the long run will be a day but sometimes it will be much longer.

In stock investing, as we mentioned above, the long run could be years or even decades, but if you keep your crap tables open, if you keep investing in the stock market over a long investing career, you will make money.

Smaller bets are better

While they don’t say it, casinos want smaller more frequent bets.  Imagine two gamblers playing roulette: Mr One Bet and Mr Many Bets.  Both are going to gamble $100, but Mr One Bet is going to put all $100 on black for a single spin, while Mr Many Bets is going to put $10 on black for the next 10 spins.

With Mr One Bet, given the house advantage in roulette, there is a 53% that the casino wins the $100 bet.  However, with Mr Many Bets there is a 57% chance that the casino comes out ahead, because here the gambler is giving the casino 10 chances to let the house advantage work for it.  With Mr. Super Many Bets (bet $1 on each of the next 100 spins) there is a 72% chance that the casino will come out ahead.

You can apply that to investing, using your house advantage, with dollar cost averaging.  By investing over time, sometimes you’ll buy after a market run up when stock prices are relatively expensive, but sometimes you’ll buy after a market downturn when stock prices are relatively cheap.  Knowing you have the house advantage on your side, you’ll win this game more often than you lose.

Play the games that you know you can win

You’ll notice that Las Vegas has craps tables, blackjack tables, slot machines, but they don’t have games like trivial pursuit or chess or pop-a-shot.  The reason?  Casinos know, calculated with incredible precision, what the odds are of them winning.  They only pick games which give them a house advantage where over time they are guaranteed to win.

They don’t have a casino game called, “try your luck against our grandmaster in chess.”  Why?  What would stop Gary Kasparov or Magnus Carlsen from coming in, placing some major bets, moping the floor with the casino’s “club pro” and walking away with the casino’s money?  Nothing, other than the fact that the casino don’t to play games where they don’t have a house advantage that guarantees that they win over time.

How does this apply to you as an investor?  You should only being investing in stocks and mutual funds that you are confident will allow you to win over time.  The US stock market has over a century of history that shows that over time you’ll always come out a winner.  You can’t really say the same thing about the Argentina stock market.  Stocks and mutual funds as an investment class have a similarly long history, but Bitcoins don’t so you may want to stay away.  Treasury bills have been around for a really long time and are pretty well understood, while peer-to-peer lending is a newer innovation that might work or might crash and burn.  The moral of the story is when you’re investing your nest-egg, make sure you put your money in the investments that you know will give you that long-term house advantage.

Offer something for everyone

While the casinos only offer games that they know they can win, they do offer a tremendous variety of games that appeal to everyone.  There are slot machines that appeal to one type, table games like craps and roulette that appeal to another, sports betting for others.  There is something for everyone, and why is that?  The casinos don’t want to put all their eggs in one basket and just appeal to one type of gambler.

Also, they don’t know what types of gamblers are going to come in.  On Super Bowl Sunday or during the NCAA basketball tournament the sports books do a lot more business.  On a tired Tuesday in July it’s the slot machines that are carrying more of the weight.  By having different games to appeal to different types of gamblers, they can maximize their business no matter the time of year or how the gambling tastes of their guests change.

For investors this is analogous to diversification.  There are a ton of investments out there—stock, bonds, commodities, real estate.  And even within those there are subdivisions; stocks can be domestic or international, emerging markets, sector-specific.  The more you diversify, the more likely you’ll be to participate in the overall growth of the world economy.  Certainly some areas will do better than others, but proper diversification allows you to lower your risk while maintaining your higher returns.

The casino industry is one of the most profitable in the world because they have the house advantage and swing it like a 2×4.  Fortunately, the investment gods blessed ordinary people like us with that same house advantage when investing.  So long as we follow some of the lessons of our casino friends, there’s no reason we can’t rake in the investment profits like they rake in the gambling profits.

The Fox family made an exciting purchase/investment (Foxy Lady calls it a “purchase” and Stocky calls it an “investment”, with the distinction leading to extensive debate) this week—solar panels.  I guess you can take the fox out of California, but you can’t take California out of the fox.

For those of you who like to bottom-line it, our solar panels are going to give us an 9% investment return, all the while reducing our carbon footprint by about 9 tons of CO₂ annually.

Back in California, solar panels were really taking off.  On our street alone we probably had four or five neighbors who put solar panels on their roof.  Since we have moved to North Carolina, literally I have yet to see a house with solar panels.  Back in California, Foxy Lady and I had agreed that we would take the plunge and get solar panels, but we were waiting for the falling prices to stabilize.  Once we figured that we were going to move, we put those plans on hold until we settled in our new home.

So we moved to North Carolina and started seriously looking into the idea of putting solar panels on our roof.  Here’s our story:

How much does it cost?

We bought a 20-panel set-up, with each panel being a 265 watt array (they are about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide).  The all-in cost was $18,900, and that included everything from the panels to installation to all the permitting with the state and energy company.

When all the dust settles, I won’t end up paying $18,900 but quite a bit less.  First, there are massive tax incentives when you install solar panels.  The federal government gives you a 30% tax credit on your purchase.  The state of North Carolina also had a big tax break but they discontinued it at the end of 2015, so I missed out on that which was a bummer.

There is financing available, but since I was paying up-front, I got a 6% discount.  Plus, I was able to pay with a credit card, and since it was such a large purchase I played credit card roulette and saved another $1300.  When you add all that up, our net price was $11,000.

How does it work with your electric bill?

The solar panels are installed on our roof, and when the sun shines on them they product electricity—that’s the whole point.  Then there’s this thing called “net metering”.  Basically that means that during the day, when the sun is shining on our panels, we’re producing more electricity than our house is using.  That excess electricity goes into the power grid, and our meter actually goes backwards.

Then at night, when the sun isn’t shining, we’re using power from the grid and our meter goes up, as normal.  So the “net metering” is when you take all the power we used and subtract the power our solar panels generated.

That’s a pretty sweet deal for us because we get the use and reliability of the power grid, but only pay for a fraction of it.  As you can imagine, the power companies are trying to move away from this system to something where you buy electricity at retail and then any excess power you put back into the grid you sell at wholesale.  Politically it’s a hot potato as states want to encourage solar panels and other renewable energy, so they’re keeping net-metering, at least for now.  For us, since we got in with net-metering we’ll be grandfathered in if the law changes, but that’s a big factor in all this.

How did you figure out the financial return?

As you would expect, I ran the numbers a thousand different ways to understand what type of return I would get for this investment.

First, you have to estimate how much electricity your panels will produce.  As I said, we got 20 panels each with a 265 watt capability.  That comes to 5300 watts, but that would be in 100% perfect conditions.  When you factor things like the angle of our roof, and more importantly the direction of our roof, you end up reducing that by 22%.  Just in case you’re curious, south facing roofs are the best and for those you would reduce by 15%.  Our roof facing almost due west, with a slight southern slant.

Then you have to estimate the number of sunlight hours per day.  The government has rated all the municipalities for this calculation, and western North Carolina comes in at about 6 hours per day.  Of course, that factors in clear days during the summer when you’ll get 14 hours of sunlight, cloudy and rainy days, and winter days.  Put that all in and it’s supposed to average 6 hours per day.

You can do all the math and you get about 25 kilowatt-hours per day or about 750 kWh per month.  Our current electric rate is about 10¢ per kWh, so we expect this investment to generate about $75 in savings per month.  A $75 monthly return on a $11,000 investment comes to about 7% return.  If you factor in that electricity rates will probably rise about 2% per year, the return goes to 9%.  9%!!!!!

Remember that in the stock market returns average about 6-8%, but there are major ups and downs, like what we went through last year.  This is 9% pretty much guaranteed.  The closest thing you could compare it to is a 30-year US bond, and right now those are returning about 4%, so this is over double that, and we all know how important an extra 1% return is.  Yowza!!!

Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.  Over the next bit, I’ll find out how many kilowatt-hours our solar panels actually generate, and I’ll find out if electric rates go up that fast or not.  Those will obviously impact our return, possibly dramatically.  I did a quick sensitivity analysis that shows worst-case the return is 4% and best case it’s 10%.  Obviously that’s a big range which would drastically impact if this is a good investment or not, so stay tuned and I’ll provide more detailed updates on this as I see how we’re tracking.

How did you figure out the environmental return?

The other major benefit, and some would say the more important benefit, of solar panels is the environment.  We are generating pollution-free energy to power our house.  There’s no coal or natural gas or oil that is being burned to generate those 750 kilowatt-hours which means there are no carbon emissions.  I know some people question the role of carbon dioxide on global temperatures, but I definitely think that it has a negative impact, and I want to do what I can to help.  If in doing so I get a really good financial return, all the better.

Those 8,390 kWh per year, if generated at a coal power plant, which is where our normal power comes from, would be over 9 tons of CO₂ each year.  That certainly seems like a lot.  Just to put it in perspective, Foxy Lady drives a Honda Fit and I drive a Toyota 4-runner, and together those generate about 6 tons of CO₂ per year.  Basically our solar panels will eliminate the carbon footprint of our cars, and have some carbon offset left over for one more car.  To me, that’s a pretty big deal to me.

What are the risks?

There are three major risks that I see.  First, we need to see what type of power the panels actually generate.  The math says it should be about 9000 kWh per year, but we’ll see.  As we said above, that number can have a huge impact on the type of return we get.

Second, this is a long-term investment.  The payoff for the panels is about 11 years.  That’s a long time and a lot of stuff can happen.  The warranty on the panels is 25 years, so we should be okay there.  But what if we move?  Will the new buyers pay extra for the panels?  Who knows.

Third, and this is the biggie, is the chance that Duke Energy changes their rules.  We mentioned that net metering is a huge advantage to all of this, and we’re supposed to be grandfathered with that.  But laws can change and sometimes people get screwed.  If we got taken off net metering to a less advantageous system, this investment would take a real nosedive.

There you have it, the first chapter in our story on solar panels.  There’s a lot that we need to see play out, so I’ll keep you updated.  But going in to this, I think it’s an amazing opportunity to do something great for the environment (taking 3 cars off the road), as well as an awesome investment return (9%+).

As you know Foxy Lady and I recently bought a house, which means we recently got a new mortgage.  If you’re anything like us, your mailbox get bombarded with offers to sell you mortgage insurance.  On the surface it seems like a good idea: if you passed away then your mortgage would be paid off.  Who would argue with that?  Well, that’s where Stocky will, as a public service, show you how these are terrible uses of your money.

Deceptive marketing

First, I want to point out that the fine people at Symmetry Financial Group are guilty, in my humble opinion, of some pretty shady marketing practices.  They make this form look like it’s some type of registration with local government or something.  Even at the top they put “second notice”, seeming to say “hey buddy, you ignored filling this out the first time and it’s really important that you do it.”

If you’ve had a mortgage before, you know there’s a ton of paperwork, much of it you don’t read and don’t really understand.  Also, there’s a ton of stuff that needs to be registered with the state, city, county, etc.  They folks are preying on those fears that you think this is something you need to do; need as in required by law or you’ll get fined or something like that.

Anyway, whatever.  I’ll get off my soap box.  I know people are doing their best to sell stuff, but the way they present this seems shady to me.

How it works

There is no way I would ever buy mortgage insurance, but for the purposes of this blog, I called them up to learn more.  I was able to speak to Audrey, a very nice lady by the way.

We had (notice the tense of that verb, it will become very important in a little bit) a mortgage where we owed $417,000.  This mortgage insurance will completely pay off our mortgage if either Foxy Lady or I pass away.  Of course nothing is free in this world, so we are offered that peace of mind for the low, low price of $106 per month.

That’s the basics, but there are a couple wrinkles.  We could get the coverage just for Foxy Lady (since she’s the rodent-winner) or just for me (since I’m the cubs’ primary care giver).  That monthly price goes down if you just want to cover one home owner instead of both.

Why it’s not worth it

We’ve talked about life insurance before, and this is really just another type of it.  But when you start to look under the hood of this type, you see that it’s a really, REALLY bad deal.  Listed in order of badness, here are the reasons I think mortgage insurance is a sucker’s investment:

1. It’s really expensive—Foxy Lady and I each have insurance policies that cost us about $50 per month and would pay out $1.5 million if either one of us died. This policy costs $106 per month and would pay out a maximum of $417,000 if either one of us died.
2. Double dipping—At our ages, the most likely cause of death for Foxy Lady or me is an accident. Given that, there’s a fairly good chance that both of us would perish in the same accident—we drive together a lot, vacation together, sleep in the same bed, etc.  If we both died our life insurance would pay both our policies, but with mortgage insurance if both of us die, they only pay the mortgage, not twice the mortgage.
3. Dissolving payout—The policy is meant to pay off your mortgage. When we first got our mortgage it was $417,000.  Today it is $412,900.  A year from now it will be $403,700, and ten years from now it will be $290,500.  So this policy is set up to pay you less with each month that passes.  Maybe today you look at it and say, maybe $106 a month is worth a $417,000 life insurance policy.  But every month that payout gets less and less.
4. Perverse incentives—Somewhat related to #3, if you are so disposed to want to pay off your mortgage faster (this is something I don’t recommend, but there’s some deep water here which can be the topic of a whole other post), you’re actively diminishing the value of the mortgage insurance. Sure, the fine people at Symmetry Financial Group love this because if you do pass away the amount they give your loved ones is less.

So there you have it.  Whenever I get these in the mail I instantly round-file them (unless I need to take a picture for a column).  I just think they’ll a really bad deal.  If you are concerned about what would happen to your loved ones in the event you die, which can be very valid, get normal life insurance.  You’ll get much more bang for your buck.

Pensions are one of those romantic notions from a bygone era, like doctor’s house calls or ice cream parlors.  Many from the older generation earned a pension with their job and receive a monthly payment that will last as long as they do.  Fewer from the younger generation have pensions, although a few still do, but that job benefit is disappearing as quickly as your local Barnes and Nobel store.

As pensions quickly disappear, being replaced by things like 401k and 403b accounts, many people in society wax nostalgic.  “Pensions are the really good benefit; that’s the one you want.”  But pensions haven’t gone extinct.  There is a thriving, enormous industry where you can buy a pension for yourself—ANNUITIES.

You can go to Met Life or Fidelity or one of a thousand other places and buy an annuity.  Basically, you give them a lump sum of cash and they give you a monthly check for the rest of your life.  So that $3000 per month pension that you wished your company gave you, you can buy that for about $540,000.

Are annuities a good deal?

So we know that we can buy an annuity which is basically like getting yourself a pension.  Now the question is—should you buy an annuity?  Are they a good deal?

This became somewhat relevant for the Fox family a few months ago when I left Medtronic.  As I mentioned there, I had to choose between getting a lump sum of cash or a pension.  I went through the calculus and determined that financially, given my age and other assets, that the lump sum probably would have been better, yet I went with the pension.  This was a bit of a head-versus-heart decision, and I went with my heart.

So how about you?  If you have a pile of cash that you’re planning to use for retirement, should you use that to buy a pension?  Let’s look at the numbers.  Luckily, in this day and age, you can find pretty much anything on the internet.  Annuity prices are no different.  I go to Fidelity’s website for this info, but you could just as easily go to a hundred other websites.

Today, I could take $100,000 of savings and buy an annuity that would pay me $386 per month, each month until I die.  Is that a good deal?  Probably not.

Think of it this way: I could take that $100,000 and invest it in the stock market, which I estimate returns 6% per year.  Then each month, I could withdraw $386 from the account.  After 52 years (when I turn 90 and pass away surfing a massive swell off the coast of Portugal) any guesses how much that account would have left in it?  Remember, after I die the annuity would be worth nothing.  But my account would be worth . . . $500,000.

What?  Wait!  How is that possible?  I could go into the math, but the short answer is that with that annuity, Fidelity is “paying” me about a 4.2% return on that $100,000 I gave them.  If I can get 6% by investing it in the stock market, knowing it has its ups and downs but on average comes in at 6%, then I will come out well ahead.  Conversely, if I got less than 4% by investing in the stock market, I would come out behind.

So the question you need to ask yourself is what kind of return you think you can reasonably get from the stock market over your entire lifetime.  Fortunately for you, we have looked at historic returns and you can get a sense of the likelihood of being able to beat that 4% bogey.  At least based on historic returns, this is a no-brainer.  The likelihood is very high that you’re better of investing your money in the stock market and foregoing an annuity.

But . . .

What would make annuities a good deal?

. . . the annuity industry is huge and a ton of people buy them.  Is it all a rip-off?  Are they all stupid?

When I first started writing this column I was prepared to say “yes” to those questions.  But I have given it more thought and I’m prepared to offer a solid “maybe”.  As with all investments, it depends on your situation.  For annuities, it mostly depends on your age.

As a 38-year-old Stocky, I think they’re a terrible choice.  I am SUPER-confident that I can do better than 4.2%.  Also there are a lot of unknowns out there with regard to inflation, life, my financial situation, my personal health, etc., that make me really reluctant to lock up my money in an annuity.  Even as a 50 or 60-year-old fox I’d probably pass.

But as my tail turns from red to gray, I think pensions start to make a lot more sense.  Remember, as a 38-year-old, my $100,000 would be worth a $386 monthly pension.  As a 70-year-old, my $100,000 would be worth a $646 monthly pension.  If I think I’ll live to 90 and then die in my surfing accident, that implies a 6% return, quite a bit better than the 4.2% when I was 38 years old.

Also, a lot of those unknowns that kept me from wanting to buy an annuity when I was 38 are a lot less important when I’m 70.  I’ll have a pretty good idea of the state of my health (the worse your health, the worse an annuity is as an investment).  I’ll have a time horizon of closer to 10 or 20 years which definitely means that I should be pulling back the investment risk I want to take.  I’ll have a sense of the direction inflation is going.

For all these reasons, I can imagine when I am a geriatric fox that buying an annuity would be a good choice.  As a 38-year-old, it’s a terrible choice.

So that’s all well and good when you’re a septuagenarian, but what about when you’re younger.  After all, Stocky, you did opt for a pension when you left Medtronic.  That’s a good point and if you’re young I think the way you need to look at pensions as a bit of a bond, with an expected return in the 4% range.  We all know from asset allocation that you should have a mix of stocks and bonds, more heavily weighted to stocks when you’re younger and then slowly moving to bonds as you age.

For me and the decision on the Medtronic pension, this was the reason.  The Fox family’s portfolio is very heavily weighted to stocks, and at our age that seems appropriate.  But the pension was a way to get a little bit of a “bond” in there, so that’s what we did.  So there you go, if you’re younger really the only reason that buying an annuity would make sense is if you wanted to tone down the risk from stocks.