Year-End Tax Planning

It’s hard to believe how quickly 2021 is coming to a close – December 31st will be here before you know it and that means it’s a good time to make sure all your year-end tax items are in order. 

Our good friend Sean Mullaney, the FI Tax Guy, put out an updated ‘2021 Year-End Tax Planning’ article with all the deadlines and considerations you need to be aware of for both 12/31 and future deadlines for tax year 2021.

Everything in the article won’t be applicable to you, but I got great value out of scanning the article to make sure I had everything covered ahead of time.

My suggestion is that your 5 minutes of FI action this week should be to click on Sean's article now while you still have time to make changes and plan ahead.  This could potentially save you thousands!

Mental Models: Cost -Benefit Analysis

Our ChooseFI website team continues to put out high-quality content that not only highlights the fundamentals of Financial Independence, but dives into the mental models you need to succeed at life.

Ray wrote a masterful article on "Cost-Benefit Analysis and Financial Independence" that we published yesterday.  As a former poker player, he also included a section on Expected Value (EV) which is something I’ve mentioned in a prior FI Weekly as an essential mental model in its own right.

Find the article on Cost-Benefit analysis (plus a video from me with some extra flavor) here.

Optimize Your Life...For Free

Our ChooseFI website team continues to put out high-quality content that no

James wrote in with some great info:

"Coach Chad Carson (guest on ChooseFI episodes 16 and 203) just dropped a bomb in my inbox.

The website https://www.optimize.me is now completely free.

As Coach Carson explains it, it's a collection of book summaries and short, 60-minute classes that help you optimize your life in a variety of topics.

I checked it out today for the first time and it is something I think the ChooseFI community will eat up. The course on sleep is incredible."

ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week

• Rudolf said, "Feels like more than 1%, but for the sake of the exercise let's say that my life got 1% better because yesterday I started my FI journey signing up for ChooseFI’s Pathfinder and joining the Salesforce Challenge. Today I completed Day 2 of the challenge and got my first badge (Hiker). Also managed to transfer debt with interest to a card with no transfer fee and no interest for 12 months with a plan to pay it off by 11 months. The peace of mind that comes when no interest is being added to your debt is priceless. Looking forward to when all of it is paid, making me be debt free. Thanks for all the advice and for doing what you and Jonathan do."

• Joey said, "I decided at the beginning of this year that I had a problem with money and decided to start taking action so my wife and I could have a better future. My personal credit card debt had reached a peak of $41,000 last July after getting out of the military and buying a home back where I grew up. In August after listening to a few books about finance I did some Googling and found ChooseFI and have listened to ~75 episodes so far and love hearing all the ways to help improve my financial future and now in the last week I finally sent the last payment in to pay off my credit cards. Next is to help my wife pay hers off which we are on track to do by the end of January 2022. I am really excited for what the future holds and how retirement doesn't seem so much of an end-of-life scam anymore."

• Kristin said, "We started the year saving nothing in our 401(k). Thanks to your inspiration I went back to my old job under awesome terms and between both of our accounts we have saved over $35,000 in our 401(k)s with another $10,000 to go at least this year! I literally may not have taken my job back without the nerve to ask for what I wanted based on reading your blog. And you also reminded me the importance of getting money into those accounts. I can't thank you enough!"

• Sheila said, "My 1% better is taking off 3 weeks in between starting a new job. I spent a week visiting my family and the rest just relaxing. I made the promise to myself and then made good on it by planning and saving up for the past few months."

• Ben said, "My 1% better will be getting back in the habit of meal planning and doing my grocery shopping online so I stick to budget and not have to calculate the prices in store."

• Marcie said, "I wanted to share a major win today! When I started my job a little over three years ago, I started off answering the phones and scheduling appointments. I gradually took on more and more responsibilities over the years, with some pay increases; however, my responsibilities evolved to the point that I was covering what essentially are separate departments. After listening to the podcast, I decided to think outside the box a little bit. The managing partner had mentioned that he really appreciated everything I had been handling and knew it was time for a pay increase, and was going to crunch some numbers. I took that opportunity to say "while I would always appreciate more money, what I would REALLY appreciate is a title that accurately conveyed my role and responsibilities within the company, as well as defining where I landed on the organization chart." So, we had a few discussions and developed an official organization chart. In that process I negotiated for the title of 'Administrative Director' and consequently wound up with a 27% salary increase! As I've heard y'all say many times already, it just takes thinking about things a little bit differently."

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