Daily Archives: February 24, 2022

This page explains how to use my personal financial independence spreadsheet.

If you havent already downloaded the spreadsheet, click here to download now!

The first tab in the spreadsheet is where you record your monthly account balances and calculate your net worth.

Luckily, this step is easy because Personal Capital* aggregates all of your accounts for you.

If you dont have a Personal Capital account, you can sign up for free here. Its the best tool Ive found for managing my portfolio so I definitely recommend it.

To fill out this page of the spreadsheet, copy the previous months column, change the column header to the current month, and then populate the fields that have a green background with the latest data from Personal Capital.

Note: You should only update the cells that have a light green background because all other fields have formulas and will update automatically.

In addition to computing your net worth, this tab also shows how much of your money is liquid (i.e. you could access immediately) vs. illiquid (i.e. harder to get at, like money in your 401(k)).

The Investments tab uses the values on the Net Worth tab to provide a picture of where your money is located and what youre invested in.

The Investments tab computes the totals of each type of investment account (e.g. taxable, tax-deferred, etc.) so you can get an idea of how your money will be taxed when you eventually withdraw it.

This sheet is where you can keep track of how much of your HSA you can withdraw early (see this post for how I use my HSA as an investment account) and how much money youve contributed to your Roth IRA (which can also be withdrawn at any time). These are the only two values that you need to update on this tab because everything else is calculated automatically from previously-entered data.

The Investments tab also automatically computes your asset allocation so you can use this sheet for portfolio rebalancing.

Finally, the Investments tab computes the total amount of money available before and after standard retirement age (remember thoughif you plan to retire early and want to access your tax-deferred money sooner, there are ways to do that).

The Averages tab is where you record your monthly spending.

This step is really important because you cant determine if youre financially independent without knowing how much you spend every year.

To make this step easier, I use Mint.com to categorize my monthly expenses.

Personal Capital can do the same thing but since I started using Mint before Personal Capital came out, Ive just continued using it for this purpose.

There are a few interesting calculations that occur on this tab that are worth explaining

The FI tab is the final tab in the spreadsheet and also the most important.

Here, your monthly expenses are annualized and your Time to FI number is calculated based on those expenses.

On this tab, you have to update the Withdrawal Rate and Growth Rate assumptions once but then youll never have to update anything again.

The FI tab is great for motivating you to lower your expenses because when you see that it will take an extra 1.2 years of work to permanently fund your expensive cable TV package, for example, youll probably be more likely to decrease that expense or eliminate it completely.

This tab also shows you how much youre spending on all the major spending categories (e.g. housing, car, etc.), which is really useful when making big lifestyle decisions.

For example, if you see that your car costs you over $500 per month but you dont use it that much, it may be worth calculating how much it would cost to take Ubers/Lyfts instead. Or, you could compare your total housing expenses to how much it could cost to travel and stay in Airbnbs full time and it may make more sense (and be more fun) to become a nomad instead.

Finally (and most importantly), this tab computes how long it will take you to reach FI!

Increase your income and/or lower your expenses to decrease your Years to FI number and walk away from your job even sooner!

For even more information about the spreadsheet, heres a short video I made about it:

I hope you get as much use out of this spreadsheet as I have.

If you run into any issues with formulas or if you dont have any software to open the .xls file, just upload the file to Google Sheets and use it there.

And if you want to easily chart out your progress to financial independence on a pretty graph, check out the FI Laboratory software I developed!

* If you sign up for a free Personal Capital account using the links provided in the post, this site may earn a commission. Thank you for your support!

More:

Financial Independence Spreadsheet - Mad Fientist

A few years ago, The Physician on FIRE and I both became financially independent (FI). We are both 46; he became FI at 39 and I became FI at 42. In some ways, our pathways have diverged since then (he left medicine in 2019 just before turning 44 while I still practice). In other ways, our paths are very similar (we both now get most of our income from what used to be a side hustle). Today, we're going to reflect back on the last 4-7 years since we became FI. Whether you are already FI, already retired, or working toward those goals, we hope you will find this helpful.

Medicine has gone from being a job to being a well-paid hobby for me. I love to go into the emergency department and see my friends and talk about their families and the last trip they went on. I enjoy going in, sitting down, talking to my patients, and trying to help them find answers to their problems. I enjoy saving an occasional life or doing a needed procedure. I like thinking of myself as a doctor; it is a significant part of my identity. It seems a real waste to me to have spent 11 years in school and training learning how to do something and four years being ordered all over the planet to pay for it just to quit doing it because I don't need the money anymore.

Do I still get annoyed fighting the EMR or when the lab takes forever to do its job? Sure. Are there still plenty of patients who aren't very fun to take care of? Absolutely. But the upsides still dramatically outweigh the downsides for me. However, I'm only going to practice on my terms at this point. When I hit FI, I was working 3/4 time. Afterward, I went to just over half-time, and now I'm at 0.4 FTE working six, eight-hour shifts a month. I work almost exclusively day shifts with an occasional evening shift. I never work after 10 pm. I still do my (now much smaller) share of weekends and holidays, but I'd buy my way out of those if I could. If something particularly onerous were to happen (group lost contract, had to change jobs, multiple lawsuits), maybe I'd just walk away completely. Heck, maybe I'd walk away just due to being annoyed by a new EMR, inadequate staffing, or having to redo a board recertification. However, I'm happy for now to continue working with my friends to help a lot of people in my community who can benefit from my knowledge and skillset.

I did notice a subtle change in my attitude toward work once I realized that the work was completely optional. The small annoyances were things I simply had to live with during the first 10 years of my career.

Nod and smile and place a duplicate order in the computer because thats what the computer wants. Return the page at 0200 to answer a question that could be better answered by a different specialty and could have waited until morning, anyway. Log in for your annual compliance training, dragging and dropping the cartoonish blood-soaked gauze to the appropriate waste container for the sixth consecutive year.

When you depend on the money the job provides, those frustrating moments are necessary evils. You dont have much of a choice in the matter. When you reach a point where your investment portfolio is likely to outearn you in any given year, you question why you continue to put up with that nonsense.

Dont get me wrong; I had many rewarding experiences as an anesthesiologist, and I worked with a lot of great people and cared for some wonderful patients. Still, I always enjoyed my days off more than my workdays and my vacation weeks more than my busy work weeks.

After a nearly two-year trial in which I worked a seven-day workweek each month to better experience life away from the hospital most of the time, I fully retired from medicine in 2019 at the age of 43.

I respect those who continue to work long after reaching financial independence, and in some ways, I envy them. I dont know if theres any type of work Id want to do full-time if I had no need or use for the income it provided. Medicine was an excellent career for me, but I cant honestly say it was a calling.

FI was a surprising revelation to me when I learned about the concept and realized that we basically had it as I was approaching my 40th birthday.

Professionally and psychologically, I wasnt remotely ready to up and leave my job and career right then and there. I was only about a year into a new job, the best job Id had in anesthesia and in a community where I was happy to live.

My wife and I talked about what our future could look like if I werent working, and we came up with a roughly five-year plan for me to potentially make that exit. Spreadsheets were created, and projections were made. I figured Id probably have 40-50 years worth of expenses saved up by the time those five years were up. Thankfully, the stock market was more than cooperative during that timeframe.

After a year of calculation and contemplation, I started a blog to help spread the message of financial independence to my professional peers. I found that I rather enjoyed using this creative side of my brain, and Ive been consistently writing and publishing articles at Physician on FIRE for the better part of six years.

You might look at the site and figure that it looks like it takes a lot of work, and you would be right. I dont call myself a retired person, although the flexibility and freedom I now enjoy in this essentially stressless job Ive given myself feels a lot like retirement, as compared to the demands of the surgical suite.

I have learned that I like being productive in some way and dont like to sit idle for long. I may not be working in medicine, but I work on all sorts of things.

That work may be planning our first big post-pandemic trip, clearing brush on our wooded property, shuttling our kids from one activity to the next, or writing out my thoughts on work for The White Coat Investor.

The most meaningful shift for me has been the ability to choose what sort of work I do and when. Its up to me, its optional, and it's allowed me time to work on things that benefit me, like the exercise routine and language learning that Ive done consecutively for hundreds of days now.

I'm working as hard as I ever did. It is not uncommon for me to put in six hours of work before I go to the hospital or after I come home. Sure, I'm doing less medicine, but an enterprise like WCI, doing work that can be done at any time from anywhere with cell phone coverage, tends to swell to fill the space available to it. In fact, it was primarily the needs of WCI that led to me cutting my shifts at the hospital. I think work is an important part of life, and meaningful work is good for me, my family, and the community around me.

However, I am trying to keep work from interfering with anything else in my life I want to do. At this point, I need good health more than I need money. So, if work were keeping me from exercising, I should drop work. I need solid family relationships more than I need money. So, if work were keeping me from being there when my wife or kids need me, I should drop work. There are a lot of trips I want to go on and activities I enjoy. If work were keeping me from going on them, I should drop work. But as long as I can do everything I want to do while still working, I figure I'll keep working. However, I'm completely unemployable. The list of demands I would have for any possible future employer (32 weeks vacation, set my own schedule, work from home, etc.) would be so ridiculous that no one would ever hire me.

Not really. It's a little easier to hit the minimum investments for private real estate investments while maintaining diversification than it used to be. But that's about it. The majority of my portfolio is still a few boring index funds/ETFs like VTI, VXUS, VBR, and VSS.

Thats a great question, and if you had asked me a few years ago, I would say that not much has changed other than the account balances being a bit larger than they used to be.

However, Ive found that my appetite for risk has actually increased. Dr. William Bernsteins oft-quoted, If youve won the game, stop playing, is one school of thought that suggests its wise to dial down the risk once youre financially independent and invest more conservatively. Now, I wouldnt subject the roughly 30x expenses necessary to maintain FI to unnecessary risk. Ive got that and then some invested in index funds, holding stocks and bonds.

With some of the overagethat is, money beyond what we need to be considered financially independentIve invested in a mix of real estate deals and startups. The largest among those is an investment in Republic.co, a platform for investing in other startups, more mature pre-IPO companies, and cryptoassets. Ive since made several investments on the platform.

Ive previously hypothesized that my life wouldnt look a whole lot different if we were to have a lot more money. If some of these alternative investments pan out, I may have the opportunity to put that theory to the test. My guess is that the hypothesis would be proven wrong, to some extent.

A decade ago, I had no use for a nose and ear hair trimmer, and now Im on my second one. So theres that. Ive also got boys that are aging out of the kids menu, making dining out a more expensive endeavor.

As far as our overall spending habits, the frugal tendencies that my wife and I have thrived on for decades are hard habits to break. And if it aint broke, why fix it?

That being said, I can also see the folly of our frugal ways in certain circumstances in which it makes good sense to pay for convenience or quality rather than save a buck. We cant take those bucks with us, so Im trying to put them to use in instances where I might have taken the cheap route in the past.

Ive toyed with some mental math to alter the psychology of spending. I figure our net worth is at least 10x what it was a decade ago. Relative to our nest egg, things now cost 90% less than they did 10 years agomaybe 85% when accounting for inflation. That makes parting with money much less painful.

Of course, if I spent 10x more than I used to, our nest egg would be depleted in well under a decade. A better approach may be to use the 4% rule of thumb to determine what we can afford.

If we have 50x to 60x as much as we spend in a typical year, I know that we could double our spending and still have a relatively safe withdrawal rate. That also makes it easier to spend money I might not have a decade ago.

For sure, we spend differently. In fact, by any reasonable standard, the average American would say that we spend with wild abandon. When you know you have already taken care of business (student loans gone, mortgage paid off, kids' college funds full, retirement paid for, home renovation complete, boat and cars paid for) but you are still generating income, you can pretty much do whatever you want with it guilt-free. We basically buy whatever we want. Our budget process has little to do with budgeting and everything to do with cash-flow planning. We only need to know what we spent last month so we can calculate how much to save or give away this month. So that's basically what the process is.

Now we haven't bought a NetJets subscription and we're not into bottle service, but when we do buy stuff, we buy nice stuff. If there is a trip we want to go on, we don't worry about how we're going to pay for it. We just pay for it. We have house cleaners now, but we are also both working and, frankly, both hate to clean. It feels like a pretty luxurious life to us, but our life is honestly pretty affordable on just about any physician's salary. Imagine what you could do with your salary if you didn't have to save for retirement or make any payments. That's what our spending life is like.

Mo' money, mo' problems here. We're religious people, and so we feel God will hold us accountable for how we manage what we possess now and will possess in the future. As Jesus Christ noted after giving the Parable of the Steward,

For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required

We have always been givers, but now we give away a multiple of what we spend every year. The recipient might be family or friends, it might be a local charity, or it might be a charity operating on the other side of the planet. We want our money to do good while we are still living and to go on doing good long after we are gone. We have used a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) to anonymize and facilitate the giving, and we are even contemplating putting a private charitable foundation in place. It'll never be the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but we want to do what we can. We also involve our children in the giving process and expect that to continue as they move into adulthood. We are also preparing them to manage inheritances properly. We're with Warren Buffett in that we want to give them enough that they can do anything they want, but not so much that they can do nothing. They will be getting a test inheritance in the form of a UTMA when they leave home (the 20s fund), and how they do with that will likely affect how and how much they inherit later.

I lived in Florida during my anesthesia residency, and more than a few hurricanes impacted the state while I was there. I remember seeing a plea from the Red Cross asking for help with disaster relief.I didnt have much time to give, and I didnt have much money, either. Still, I went to the website and donated $50, and that felt pretty good.

I would continue to give where I thought I could make a difference, and in 2013, my wife and I started our first donor-advised fund, donating a bunch of suboptimal mutual funds that were not terribly tax-efficient. Before retiring from medicine, I made it a goal to have 10% of our desired nest egg in donor-advised funds.

We continue to give to and from our DAFs with Vanguard Charitable and Fidelity Charitable. Dr. Dahle and I use the accounts differently. He uses it largely as a pass-through account, whereas I think of ours as more of an endowmenta source of funds that will allow us to give generously for decades, regardless of our future income or lack thereof.

In terms of legacy, its my expectation, or at least my hope, that our children will be financially independent on their own long before our last will and testament is read. I like Warren Buffetts plan to leave his heirs enough money to be able to do anything but not enough to do nothing. Anything more would likely be given to charity, and Id prefer to give most of that while were among the living.

Mind the gap. Any combination of earning more or spending less that grows the gap between money in and money out will allow you to reach financial independence more quickly.

Just be sure to continue to do things that make you happy throughout your FI journey. It has been estimated that about 10% of your happiness can be attributed to life circumstances. In other words, while FI is amazing and a laudable goal, dont expect to be more than about 10% happier once youve achieved it.

Last, if you love your job and, therefore, have no interest in obtaining financial freedom, you ought to reconsider. Your job wont love you back, and it will very likely look a lot different five, 10, or 20 years from now.

Even if your job remains consistent and rewarding, you will change, as will your priorities. Financial independence is the insurance plan that protects you as your relationship with your career evolves.

There is no dramatic change that occurs the instant you hit your number and become FI. All the benefits of FI come gradually as you approach your number and continue even once you have hit it. I still think FI is a worthwhile goal, but the person you become while you work toward the goal is probably more important than actually hitting it. If you find yourself working solely to get to FI, you probably just need a new job and may even want to spend some time thinking about your career. Dr. Dike Drummond advises people to draw a Venn Diagram of their current life and their ideal life and then work so those two lives overlap as much as possible. I did that a few years ago and it has made all the difference. I don't have complete overlap yet, but I'm getting pretty darn close.

What do you think? If you are FI, how would you answer these questions? If you are not FI, does any of the above surprise you? Comment below!

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Life After Financial Independence | White Coat Investor

It takes a lot to build a successful marriage. Most of us work towards harmonizing our hearts and minds. But we underestimate the role of money in marriage. Money may not be important, many of us claim. But joint finances are important, because in a marriage, both the spouses financial independence is equally important. It doesnt really matter if just one or both are earnings members.

Make sure you ascertain what his views on finances are. Find out whether he is a spender or a saver and then come to the conclusion on the way forward. You can discuss and figure out a mean, common path to managing your joint finances in future, says Preeti Zende, Founder, ApnaDhan Financial Services. You should also be transparent about any loans that you may be repaying prior to marriage and insist on your would-be husband sharing similar information with you.

Also listen: Women should take charge of personal and household money matters

Do you know where the money is?

Irrespective of whether you have an independent source of income or not, you must be clued into the financial decisions made for your household. You must be aware of various investments made and have easy access to the copies. Basically, if you are not handling joint finances, then should definitely get hold of account passwords, be aware of the (bank or mutual fund) portals and apps, demat statements and also have hard copies of such investments in place, advises financial planner Nisreen Mamaji, Founder, Moneyworks Financial Services.

You can create an excel sheet to record details of FDs, mutual fund investments, equity shares and so on. Make sure that you are the nominee for these investments, she adds.

Nominate, nominate, nominate

COVID-19 has already made many realise the importance of sharing details of their investments with their family as also keeping nominations updated. If you are newly married, do not be in a hurry to change the nomination in your husbands favour. You may be young, but it makes sense to create a Will to avoid disputes in future, says Zende.

Also read: How to write a fool-proof Will to pass on your assets smoothly

Do not club all your investments and expenses

Many a times, even financially independent women make the mistake of dividing household responsibilities in a manner that is detrimental to their interests.

For instance, the womans salary could be used for monthly expenses, while only the husbands money is invested for the couple and children. This may seem convenient in the short-term, but could lay the ground for disputes in future. It is best if both contribute to household expenses. Likewise, while you can have joint investments with your spouse, you must create wealth for yourself by investing in your own name too, says Zende.

Do not leave financial decision-making to your husband. If your investment philosophies and risk-taking appetites differ, you would need separate financial plans too. Information sharing helps financial planners devise more effective plans. Depending on the couples approach, we can draw up plans where the asset allocation is not duplicated, says Mamaji.

Have adequate life and health insurance covers in place

See the rest here:

Womens day: Manage finances jointly with your husband for a happy money life - Moneycontrol.com

A high rate of intimate partner violence and financial coercion is Australias dirty secret. Credit Union SAs CEO talks about the Zahra Foundation and Credit Unions own initiatives for women fleeing abusive relationships.

Intimate partner violence has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Australian Institute of Criminology study found that, during the first 12 months of the pandemic, one in 10 women experienced physical violence, one in 12 experienced sexual violence and one in three experienced emotionally abusive, harassing and controlling behaviours.

More than 40 per cent of these women also self-reported that the violence or behaviours increased in frequency or severity during the pandemic.

The Zahra Foundation provides financial counselling, programs and referrals to other services to help women and non-binary people experiencing intimate partner violence become financially independent and avoid a return to the relationship.

Credit Union SA CEO Todd Roberts says the companys sponsorship of the foundation strongly links to its purpose as an organisation.

To help South Australians thrive its the reason we do what we do and why we exist, Todd says.

Supporting the Zahra Foundation in their mission to help women and non-binary people towards recovery and financial independence is truly a privilege and something we are incredibly proud of.

We have been sponsoring the Zahra Foundation for five years now. In that time, weve been a major partner of their annualWomen on the Runfundraising event, provided merchandise and donated funds to their recovery programs.

The recovery programs include the nine-week Pathways to Empowerment. Zahra Foundation General Manager Kelly-Ann Tansley says restoring a sense of self and goal setting for a new future are key to recovery.

Theres a misconception in society that a woman or non-binary people are safe once they leave an abusive relationship, Kelly-Ann says.

We know that the pathway to recovery is a long journey, holistic support is needed, in terms of financial counselling, reviewing budgets and debts and opportunities to reconnect socially as often women have been isolated.

There are long-lasting health impacts from either physical assaults or emotional and psychological impacts particularly in situations when a womans been controlled or coerced, throughout the relationship, theres a loss of self-identity.

ThePathways to Empowermentprograms have been operating for more than five years. They run during school terms at locations in Adelaide, North Adelaide and south of the city. Each one is led by two trained specialist domestic abuse recovery facilitators, who provide support and guidance for women to find their voice and be empowered.

The participants are often referred to the Zahra Foundation by domestic violence support services and SA Police, while other women learn about the program and self-refer.

Some women who have used the service have unknowingly had their identity used by abusive partners on loan documents, been coerced into signing financial contracts or simply had limited or no say in the allocation of household income.

Consequently, the foundations financial counsellors also advocate on behalf of women dealing with banks, telcos, utilities, credit card companies and government departments.

Kelly-Ann says awareness of financial abuse is growing.

A lot of financial institutions and government organisations are starting to get really good at understanding what financial abuse looks like and what coercive control is, Kelly-Ann says.

This is important because with coercive control, often there isnt any physical forms of violence. But theres controlling of a woman, through many means. Financial abuse is often an indicator of other forms of harm or violence within the relationship.

Credit Union SA worked with Zahra Foundation last year to develop their domestic and family violence policy. CEO Todd Roberts says this has led to a number of other initiatives.

We are continuously improving our processes and education to ensure we can identify and respond to signs of vulnerability. This includes regular frontline staff training, considerations when designing new products and services, and constant monitoring of accounts and transactions, Todd says.

Its all about making sure we can provide immediate support to victims by protecting their accounts and helping them going forward.

We are also working with the Zahra Foundation on a new initiative thatwill enable womenand non-binary peoplewho are in domestic and family violence situations to have a secret savings account, potentially giving them a greater chance to flee.

For more information onWomen on the Runclickhere.

Read the original:

Escaping abusive relationships through financial empowerment - CityMag - InDaily

Erin Duffee| Hilliard Recreation and Parks Department

Each spring, the city of Hilliard begins the recruitment process for part-time and seasonal jobs to staff its municipal pools, ballfields, parksand facilities.

Finding great candidates for these temporary positions is a process we take seriously, because some of these employees quite literally could be responsible saving a life this summer.

This year, more employment opportunities are available locally and nationally than ever before, and the competition for great employees is expected to be tough.

Thats why the city is amping up its hiring initiatives in 2022. We are invested in finding passionate people to help us make this summer the best one yet.

Our hiring initiatives have started earlier than ever. Some of our efforts might look familiar to those residents have seen in the past, and some are brand new.

You might see signs and flags around town that include links to apply; advertisements on Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok; and information in the next edition of Your Hilliard magazine, coming to your mailboxes in March. Staff members are working with local businesses, high schools and universities to get the word out about the opportunities to serve your community while making money.

Sowhy should residents especially teenagersconsider working for the city of Hilliard this summer, especially when there are so many other options to consider?

Well, the paycheck is nice, especially for teens who are saving money for college, for gas moneyor just to start gaining some of their own financial independence.

Its fun and the working conditions are awesome. Seasonal and part-time employees get to work outdoors in our pools, parksand facilities. Many of our summer staff members return year after year to continue friendships with people they met on the job.

Unlike many jobs in retail and the service industry, working in the public sector is an opportunity to truly have an impact on the community. Our lifeguards are crucial to keeping our pools open and keeping our pools safe. Our camp counselors get to work directly with Hilliard children, which looks great on a resume, especially for those interested in careers like education. Sports fans get to work on the pitys ball fields.

Plus, it teaches valuable life skills. CPR, anyone?

A job with the Hilliard Recreation and Parks Department is rewarding, especially for those who live in this community. Many of the citys long-term, full-time employees started their careers as lifeguards or recreation aides.

Of course, our summer employees get paid to learn new, applicable skills. They gain leadership development opportunities, mentorship opportunities, certificatesand job coaching. These jobs look great on a resume.

Hilliard is hiring part-time lifeguards, camp counselors, ball field grounds crew members, park maintenance workers, recreation aidesand front desk/programming recreational aides.

More information about each available job, including applications, is available at hilliardohio.gov/hiring or by calling 614-876-5200.

Interested applicants also may stop by the Hilliard Community Center inRoger A. Reynolds Municipal Park during operating hours.

Erin Duffee is assistant director of the Hilliard Recreation and Parks Department.

Read more:

Hilliard Headlines: City officials focused on hiring the best candidates for summer positions - The Columbus Dispatch

Vivian Carter (center) and her husband, Jimmy Bracken (far right), launched Vee Jay Records in 1953. Photo by Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

In February 1963, Dick Biondi, a popular nighttime disc jockey (DJ) at WLS-AM in Chicago, dropped the needle on Please Please Me, becoming the first person to play the Beatles on American radio. Black with rainbow trim, the label on the record misspelled the bands name as the Beattles. The record companys nameVee Jay, the initials of co-founders Vivian Carter and Jimmy Bracken, a married Black couple whod set up shop on Chicagos South Side in the 1950sappeared up top.

At the time, the Beatles were enjoying a surge of popularity in Britain but remained virtually unknown in the United States. Vee Jay took a chance on the Liverpool quartet, signing them after Capitol Records, the American subsidiary of the Beatles British label, EMI Records, declined to do so. (British artists fared poorly in the U.S.or so the company believed.) Though Capitol eventually stepped forward to claim the Beatles, just asBeatlemania was poised to sweep America in late 1963, Vee Jay deserves credit for introducing the band to the U.S.

The most successful Black-run record company before Motown in Detroit, Vee Jay invited the Beatles to share an English interpretation of the rhythm-and-blues (R&B) music then popular across the Atlantic. Rock critic Dave Marsh, in his 2007 book The Beatles Second Album, notes that the independent record company made exactly the kind of American pop R&B records that the group admired, unlike Capitol, which didnt understand the bands sound. Still, a key question posed by Marsh remains: [C]ould the Beatles have been as profitable, prolific and as world-changing had they remained on Bracken and Carters mom-and-pop label?

In 1953four years before 16-year-old John Lennon and 15-year-old Paul McCartneymet at achurch garden party in LiverpoolCarter, a charismatic radio personality who hosted a popular gospel show in her hometown of Gary, Indiana, married Bracken, a budding entrepreneur whod recently helped her open Vivians Record Shop in the citys downtown. The couples ambitions were modest: start a record company to stock the store with the music radio listeners were requesting. They borrowed $500 from a pawnbroker to record the labels first artist: the Spaniels, a local doo-wop group.

[Carter] had the X factor, says Billy Shelton, a Gary native who graduated from the same high school as Carter and whose teen vocal group later morphed into the Spaniels. (Shelton left before the band found fame, unsuccessfully auditioning for Vee Jay with another group, the Three Bees, before officially joining the Spaniels in the 1980s.) She had the King Midas touch. Anything she did turned [into] gold.

Vee Jays first release, the Spaniels Baby Its You, debuted in 1953 at number ten on Billboards R&B chart. Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite, released in 1954, reached number fivemuch to Sheltons surprise. I didnt think they would make it. I didnt think their arrangements and music was all that great, he says. What I failed to take into account was Vivian Carter was behind it. And Vee Jay Records was behind it. And Ewart Abnerthen the general manager of Vee Jaywas behind it.

Carter and Bracken hired Abner, who would later serve as president of Motown, to run Vee Jay in 1954. Trained as an accountant, hed been unable to find work at any of Chicagos accounting firms due to racial discrimination. Instead, he started his career as a bookkeeper at a Chicago record-pressing plant in 1949. The plants owners recognized Abners talent and recruited him to help out with their label, Chance Records, which specialized in blues, doo-wop, jazz and gospel, and at their record distribution company. After Chance folded, Abner moved on to Vee Jay. He was later appointed president of the label.

Abner was a brilliant man. Brilliant, says Gwen McDaniels, who worked for Abner at Vee Jay in the 1960s. He was unreal. To see him in action was unbelievable. In the 1997 PBS documentary Record Row, Vee Jay artist Jerry Butler described the traits that helped Abner thrive in the business: Not only was he a genius in terms of marketing and merchandising. Ewart Abner was one of those guys who could stay up for three or four days at a time and just entertain people and hypnotize em and draw them into his spirit. The executive also studied how independent white labels like Chess and Atlantic Records found success with Black R&B acts. He had no doubt that Vee Jay could do the same.

A World War II veteran, Abner had joined other Black servicemen protesting segregation on and around the Tuskegee Air Force base. The experience forged his determination to resist the constraints of an American music industry that expected record companies to produce Black music exclusively for Black radio and Black consumers. I dont understand and I dont accept limitations, certainly not based on my color. What does that have to do with anything? Abner said in a 1995 interview for the Smithsonian Institutions Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was series. Thats somebody elses idea of restrictions and limitations, not mine.

As Abners son Tony, a record executive in Los Angeles, explains, [My father] felt that the music business allowed a Black person ... to build financial independence and a power base to reach for some of those higher goals.

At Vee Jay, Abner tapped the robust, national network of Black DJs, distributors and retailers that hed established at Chance. Crucially, he knew how to get Vee Jays records on the radio. In the labels early days, the music industry practice later known as payolapaying DJs to play your recordswas not only legal but common.

My dad was well known in the business and well liked because whenever you saw him, it was good news, says Tony. He came ready to entertain you and wine and dine you and make sure you had a memorable time while he was around. And youd walk away with some money in your pocket.

Money alone didnt win airplay. DJs had reputations to maintain, and the music they played had to be good. Carters younger brother Calvin, the fourth member of Vee Jays core team, took charge of this area, developing the labels artists and producing its records. He was good at picking out talent, says Shelton. He could hear something and say, Yeah, that will sell. Carter also innovated in the studio. I recall The Shoop Shoop Song by Betty Everett, said Butler in Record Row. People often wondered how in the world did he get that sound out of the bass drum. And it wasnt the bass drum, it was people stomping on telephone books.

Over Vee Jays 13-year run, Carter built a roster that left a lasting impact on every genre of American music. After opening its doors on Record Row, a 12-block stretch of South Michigan Avenue, the label signedamong othersblues musicians Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker; gospel group the Staple Singers; and Jerry Butler and the Impressions, who recorded what is often considered the first soul record.

As major labels like RCA Victor and Decca realizedthe universal appeal of Black music, some took the exploitative step of enlisting white artists to record copies of R&B songs. Because it was a white artist, they could get it played on white radio and thus get it exposed to the larger universe, which was the general market, Abner said in Black Radio. Sometimes, the windfall for these labels was orders of magnitude higher than what the original Black artists reaped. For example, while Butler was the first vocalist to record Moon River in 1961, it was Andy Williams version that became the standard. Everyone in my office was really upset about that, says McDaniels, describing the reaction of Vee Jays largely African American staff.

Timothy Dowd, a sociologist at Emory University who has written on the rise of R&B music in America, says that major labels adopted the cover strategy to undercut the rising success of independent labels. (These smaller companies lacked the in-house manufacturing plants, distribution networks and large promotional budgets of the multinational conglomerates but nevertheless produced songs that won favor among consumers.) It could almost be like retribution, Dowd says. Oh, youre having a hit with this? Lets put our own version out there. Still, some artistslike Ray Charles, who was represented by the independent Atlantic Recordsrendered this strategy pointless. There was no cover that could beat him, Dowd adds.

Vee Jay witnessed the turning tide firsthand. Gene Chandlers Duke of Earl, a more traditional doo-wop number, became the labels first number one record in February 1962. As Vee Jay found greater success, Abner decided to confront the major labels on their own turf. I can be general market just like they are general market, he said in 1995. Only, Ill do it differently. Instead of covering some white artists, Ill sign some white artists of my own. By November 1961, white artists comprised 30 percent of Vee Jays roster. If we want to stay in business, Abner told Ebony magazine, weve got to stop thinking of ourselves as just a Negro company.

The Four Seasons, an Italian American vocal group from New Jersey, earned Vee Jay the top slot on the Billboard chart twice in 1962. That same year, Vee Jay obtained from EMI the U.S. distribution rights for Frank Ifield, a British Australian performer whose I Remember You reached number five on the charts. Ifields success belied Capitol Records pronouncement that British acts wouldnt sell in the U.S. But Capitol continued to pass on the Beatles.

An oft-cited account of how Vee Jay obtained the Beatles distribution rights suggests the quartet was part of the Ifield dealan extra that EMI threw in. (Calvin Carter recalled it this way.) But Mark Lewisohn, an expert on the Beatles recording history, disputes this narrative. It had nothing to do with Frank Ifield, he says, adding that the January 10, 1963, contract only mentions the Beatles. Abners version of events, shared in 1995, supports Lewisohns:

I had a very astute lawyer in New York named Paul Marshall. Called me on the phone and said, Ab, this group, theyre going to be bigger than bubble gum. Says, Theyre already happening in Liverpool and in England. Capitols got a right to them because Capitol is owned by EMI. Capitol doesnt want to exercise their right. We can get em. I said, Lets get em!

Just over a page long, the contract also granted Vee Jay right of first refusal on American distribution of Beatles records for the next five years. Had things gone Vee Jays way, said Beatles historian Bruce Spizer in 2017, Sergeant Pepper would have been released [by the label].

Please Please Me made a muted American debut. Dick Biondi and WLS in Chicago played the record enough for it to rank on the stations own chart of most played songs, but it failed to break through elsewhere. Vee Jays next Beatles release, From Me to You, received airplay from Biondi, now based in Los Angeles, but the single also failed to chart.

At the time, Louise Harrison Caldwell, sister of Beatles guitarist George Harrison, lived in southern Illinois. According to her memoir, upon witnessing the Beatles poor performance with Vee Jay, she advised the bands manager, Brian Epstein, that without the financial and influential backing of one of the major companies, our little band might as well be nowhere men! (A database compiled by Dowd shows that by the end of 1963, the Four Seasons had charted ten times on Vee Jay, bringing the labels total number of Billboard hits since its inception to 56.)

Vee Jays rapid growth in the early 1960s sparked dissent among the companys leaders. Rumors circulated about Abner using Vee Jay funds to pay off gambling debts; the music executive, in the 1995 interview, maintained that the dispute hinged on how big to get [and] whether to go into debt to get any bigger. ... We disagreed, so I left the company in 1963. Abner added, I expanded beyond our ability to handle, ... built up a staff and a force, which required that we have a certain kind of product and needed capital.

Abner departed Vee Jay just as it was realizing its greatest financial success. The company issued the first Beatles album in the U.S., Introducing The Beatles, on January 10, 1964ten days before Capitol Records, which had by then filed a lawsuit asserting distribution rights for the band, released a separate album of mostly new songs titled Meet the Beatles! Both albums raced to the top of the charts, with Capitols claiming the top spot for 11 weeks, leaving Vee Jay at number two for nine weeks. Full-fledged Beatlemania had finally hit America.

Introducing... The Beatles was effectively the American release of the bands first album, Please Please Me, minus the title track and Ask Me Why, songs that had flopped as the two sides of the Beatles first U.S. single. That left the album with 12 tracks, half of which were covers of songs by Black artists. (The albums closer, Twist and Shout, had been a hit for the Isley Brothers the year before.) Vee Jay also released Twist and Shout as a single on its subsidiary label, scoring a number two hit with the song in 1964. For the B-side of the single, the label selected Theres a Place, which Lennon acknowledged in a 1980 interview was my attempt at a sort of Motown, Black thing.

In April 1963, EMI sent the master recordings for the album to Vee Jay, which had 30 days to exercise its right of first refusal.But the company didnt immediately move forward with the release, in part because the Beatles werent a priority but also because of cash flow problems. EMIs U.S. representative, Transglobal, unilaterally terminated Vee Jays licensing contract in August 1963, after plans to print 6,000 copies of Introducing The Beatles stalled and the company failed to pay royalties to either Ifield or the Beatles. In a telegram to the label, Transglobal demanded that Vee Jay immediately cease manufacture and distribution of any and all records containing performances of Frank Ifield or The Beattles [sic]. As far as EMI and Capitol were concerned, this note reverted American distribution rights to Capitol and provided the legal basis for Capitol to sue the independent label in January 1964, when Vee Jay rushed out over 80,000 copies of its album to capitalize on Beatlemania.

Vee Jay immediately countersued, arguing that its distribution agreement was still in force. But a procedural blunder by the labels lawyer led a court to temporarily ban Vee Jay from issuing Beatles records, as Spizer wrote for Goldmine magazine in 2010. Over the next several months, the Beatles historian added, the injunction would be lifted and reinstated over and over again, thus undermining the companys ability to get its Beatles records into the stores.

In April, the parties reached a court settlement that allowed Vee Jay to continue issuing records from the 16 master recordings already in its possession through October 1964; after this date, full American distribution rights reverted to Capitol.

Vee Jay realized unprecedented profits in 1964, putting out records by the most popular band in the world. Though the label didnt allow the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to audit its books during the 1960s, Spizer later obtained the sales data from Vee Jays comptroller, leading to the 2014 certification of Introducing... the Beatlesand three other Beatles singles issued in 1964 as platinum (over a million units sold).

At the peak of Vee Jays success, in August 1964, the labels new president, Randy Wood, met the Beatles backstage at the Hollywood Bowl and presented them with the companys own version of the RIAA gold records (over 500,000 units sold). Marsh writes, One wonders whether the Beatles were struck by a Black man being the president of their previous record label.

From these heights, Vee Jay made a rapid descent into ruin. In 1965, the Brackens called Abner back in a desperate bid to save the company. Vee Jay had by then moved to Los Angeles, where it watched its gains evaporate from mismanagement. But it was too late. The label filed for bankruptcy in 1966. Abner joined Motown as an advisor to founder Berry Gordy and later as the companys president. Carter returned to Gary to DJ, while her brother continued producing. Bracken launched an unsuccessful label, and he and Carter got divorced.

How big could Vee Jay have become if it had been better positioned financially to capitalize on the Beatles popularity? And how exactly did Vee Jay contribute to the Beatles success?

The popular story of how Beatlemania arose in America revolves around a white teenager in Washington, D.C.who asked local DJ Carroll James to play the bands I Want to Hold Your Hand on the radio in December 1963. He did, and listeners went wild. Vee Jays role in the Beatles ascent to superstardom is lesser known. But the fact remains that the Beatles first album in America was released by a Black-run label and consisted of six covers of songs by Black artists. Black radio and Black disc jockeys are more responsible for todays music industry than any single factor, said Abnerin 1995. Without [them], there wouldnt have been, in our view, rock and roll.

Vee Jay laid the groundwork for the Beatles, and it was Abner who literally handed Biondi the Beatles disc in February 1963. As the DJ told NPR in 2013, [Abner] came up, and he was bringing his latest releases. And he handed me one, and he said, Dick, listen to this. This is a group from England. You might like it. I listened and I played it that night, and it was on.

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The Black Record Label That Introduced the Beatles to America - Smithsonian

Prince Andrew quit royal duties in November 2019, two months before the Sussexes.

His royal patronages and titles weren't removed until January 2022.

Amanda Matta said Harry and Markle faced swift consequences as they undermined the family's image.

It took Buckingham Palace two years to oust the Duke of York the same way it did the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Royal watcher Amanda Matta who makes educational videos about the royals on TikTok and has more than 612,000 followers thinks the timing is telling.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their step back from royal duties in January 2020, citing financial independence as the reason. They stopped using their HRH titles later that year, and their royal patronages and military titles were removed in January 2021.

Prince Andrew stepped back from royal life in November 2019 after his BBC "Newsnight" interview, where the prince was questioned over his alleged involvement in Jeffrey Epstein's sex-trafficking scheme.

Prince Andrew appearing on "Newsnight" with Emily Maitlis.BBC Newsnight

Although Andrew left royal duties before the Sussexes, his royal privileges were removed one year after Harry and Markle's.

Andrew's royal patronages and military titles were removed in January after he was faced with a sexual-assault lawsuit from Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that Epstein forced her to have sex with the prince when she was 17. A royal source told Insider at the time that the prince would also no longer use his HRH title.

Andrew has long denied the allegations, having previously said he never met Giuffre.

They reached an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed sum on February 15. The amount was to be donated to Giuffre's nonprofit advocating for victims of trafficking. Andrew did not admit to any of the accusations against him.

"The royal family will only be proactive in doling out consequences for those it sees as seriously undermining their image," Matta told Insider.

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Matta said that while it took the palace more than two years to take Andrew's alleged transgressions seriously, "their retribution against a prince who married an outspoken Black American woman was swift and exhaustive."

"They didn't take the allegations about Andrew as seriously as they took Harry and Meghan's departure... until it became clear that Andrew's behavior wasn't able to be swept under the rug," Matta said.

During a charity event in January 2020, Harry said that his initial hope was to "continue serving the Queen" and his military associations, but was told this wouldn't be possible without public funding.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in March last year, the couple said that the racism Markle faced by the British tabloids played a "large part" in their decision to leave royal duties and move to the US.

The Sussexes also said they faced racism within the royal family, telling Winfrey that an unidentified member expressed concerns over how dark their son Archie's skin would be. Winfrey later said that although Harry wouldn't confirm which royal made the comments, he told her it wasn't the Queen or Prince Philip.

In a statement addressing the couple's exit in January 2020, the Queen said she recognized "the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny."

"I want to thank them for all their dedicated work across this country, the Commonwealth and beyond, and am particularly proud of how Meghan has so quickly become one of the family," the Queen said in the statement.

Royal commentator Kinsey Schofield told Insider that the nature of both Andrew's and the Sussexes' exits can be explained by individual circumstances.

"Prince Andrew is the Queen's son and has stressed to the Queen along with the rest of the family that he is not guilty of what he is being accused of which is why his exit has not been so abrupt," Schofield, founder of the royal blog To Di For Daily, told Insider.

"Harry and Meghan chose to leave, and they chose to leave when they did and how they did," Schofield added.

Buckingham Palace and representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex declined to comment when contacted by Insider.

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A royal watcher says Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were ousted before Prince Andrew because they undermined the family's image - Yahoo! Voices