Category Archives: Financial Independence

Reality TV often features contestants demonstrating skills as they live in the woods, race through an obstacle course, or compete in challenges on an island. However, in the reality of everyday living, financial literacy skills are far more important for survival and are now required for high school graduation, says Carol Ehlers, a human sciences specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.

That is why Ehlers encourages K-12 teachers to register for the upcoming Small Change: Building Financial Security for Educators online course starting Wednesday, March 30 from 5 to 7 p.m.

The course content is embedded in the financial literacy standards of the Iowa Core 21st Century Skills and Social Studies, and connects participants with curricula, resources, and school-based programs for elementary, middle, and high school levels. Educators can earn one Iowa license renewal credit.

Financial literacy skills are important at any age, but the younger you develop the skills, the more time you have to reap the benefits. When we teach youth personal financial skills, they gain a solid foundation for a lifetime of financial independence and decision-making, said Ehlers, who specializes in family wellbeing.

The online course supports the effort to increase Iowa students financial literacy, as the state added a personal finance course as a graduation requirement beginning with the graduating class of 2021.

The educator course focuses on making more informed decisions about financial management and building greater confidence to make small changes that can make a difference. Thanks to a grant from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, Iowa teachers partner with Extension and Outreach to complete the course. Participants explore lessons that are timely and relevant to themselves personally and to their classroom.

Lesson topics include:

The course format requires participants to:

Educators explore research-based resources that look at strategies for handling and managing debt, how to use various financial services, how to create a personal insurance plan, ways to examine how choice of career and lifestyle will affect personal financial planning, and much more, Ehlers said.

The Small Change: Building Financial Security course features vetted curriculum and resources. It is offered by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach with seed funding support from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.

The course fee is $25 to ISEA members and non-members. Those who do not need license renewal credit may register and audit the course for a $10 fee.

Register online by March 25 at cvent.me/wyxGAE or search for Small Change Online at isea.org/course/. Space is limited.

For more information, visit http://www.extension.iastate.edu/humansciences/small-change.

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Iowa State University Extension and Outreach offers Teacher license renewal course 'Small Change' - The Storm Lake Times

Two common areas that cause people to procrastinate financially are knowledge and confidence. However, what comes first: knowledge or confidence? It is like a chicken-and-egg debate.

Logically, we know that financial literacy can boost our confidence to make informed money-management decisions. Yet, many people tell me that they lack the confidence to learn and absorb that financial knowledge, which holds them back.

There is no denying the financial industry can be daunting. We have to contend with an overwhelming volume of financial jargon, the many and complex approaches to money management, and the sheer scale of conflicting opinions on how money should be used, budgeted, saved and invested.

Many people talk of how they give up on their goal of financial independence as it is too scary, confusing and overwhelming to do it alone.

It can be a very lonely place to be. Money management is a subject laden with confusion, shame, judgment, expectations and stress. There simply arent many safe spaces to admit you are lost or struggling and would like help.

So what can you do? To start, remember money is a tool. And mastering it is similar to any other life skill we need to practice, make mistakes, learn from them and keep moving forward.

Money cannot control you unless you let it. It is not a reflection of your worth as a human being. It is an important tool in life that, globally, education systems fail to teach us how to master.

It is not how much one earns that dictates how good they are with money or how wealthy they are the differentiator is how they manage it. So how do you master it?

The first step is to check in with your money mindset. Think about your first memory of money. Is it a positive or negative one? How have you carried that feeling into how you manage your money as an adult? How do you feel when you spend money?

Read money mindset books and become aware of how yours is affecting your financial habits.

Review your money habits by reading credit card statements and understanding where your money is going. This will give you financial clarity. And money loves clarity.

Categorise your spending into needs, wants and financial goals, such as savings, investing and paying off debt.

Ideally, your needs would be no more than 50 per cent of your income, wants are no more than 30 per cent and at least 20 per cent of your income is allocated to your financial goals.

Money management is a subject laden with confusion, shame, judgment, expectations and stress

Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching

If you are yet to be in alignment with this split, that is OK. It is an important piece of clarity. A good financial goal would be to reduce your spending or increase your income so you can achieve 20 per cent savings.

Notice your reaction to your expenses. Which ones feel good and reasonable? Which ones bring up feelings of regret or shame?

These reactions will help you to understand your habits, such as what is important to you and what is not.

Pay attention when it is a negative reaction these are habits that you can change and replace with positive ones, such as saving or reallocating money to areas you feel good about, that are important to you.

This is the start of putting your money behind your values. It is liberating and does not require the understanding of any complex financial jargon.

If you do not have an emergency fund, it is an important financial goal to have. Save three to six months of living expenses in an easily accessible savings account. This is your short-term financial safety net.

This exercise will help you feel in control of your money. Having clarity over where your money is going helps you to learn more about your money mindset and how it affects your decisions.

It also helps you to understand your values and what is important as you move towards the financial security that an emergency fund can provide.

Remember: the difference between those who do and those who dont is the belief that they can.

Everybody is capable of effectively managing their money. While some need mindset adjustments, others need a confidence boost or a little reassurance that they are on the right track.

Simplify it, take small steps, follow the above steps and when doubt starts to creep in, remind yourself that money is only a tool and you are learning. Above all, however, follow your intuition.

Carol Glynn is the founder of Conscious Finance Coaching

Updated: March 18, 2022, 4:00 AM

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Why confidence and knowledge can lead to smart money decisions - The National

Those of us who were born in the 1980s and 1990s grew up with the idea of progress and firmly believed that if we studied and worked hard enough, we could be successful like the television characters Ally McBeal (from the show with the same name), Alicia Florrick (The Good Wife) or Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City). The narratives in early 21st-century fiction drew on a female stereotype where a womans identity and value was built around her role in the capitalist system.

So while McBeal did some serious overtime to prove that she was more than just a lawyer in a miniskirt, Bradshaw wrote her newspaper column anywhere, anytime. There were no schedules to live by. Both characters earned the kind of money that made them financially independent and allowed them to live in expensive city centers. This appealed to teenage viewers who wanted to grow up to be financially independent too. The message between the lines was that if you wanted to be financially successful and independent, you had to live for work.

When we are young we work for free because we need to prove our talent in exchange for a future job contract. When we are no longer so young we keep putting in extra hours because we dont want to be left behind if we have children. And when we are 48 and should be peacefully enjoying everything we have gained, we continue to strive for recognition because we dont want to get fired after so many years of hard work just because the company wants a fresher vision. In other words, we dont want to get kicked out of the market because were seen as too old.

The main problem with being addicted to work is that its not even considered an addiction. Most of the time, people say they are workaholics with a smile on their face, says Jara Prez, a psychologist specializing in systemic and transfeminist therapy. Whats more, in the current system, it is viewed in a positive light if, besides your paid job at a company, you have professional projects to spend your free time on. That is why addiction to work does not define itself as such. Society does not see it as a problem that we use to cover up other problems, but rather the opposite: it is linked to the idea of success.

If, to these cultural references of the past two decades, we add a job market thats been defined by precarious conditions since the financial crisis of 2008, we have all the ingredients to develop a toxic relationship with work. Fear of losing that long-term contract makes us agree to have a meeting outside working hours or take a work call on weekends. We say yes to everything because wed rather do that than live without the financial independence to make our own decisions.

We are very afraid of being economically dependent, adds Prez. When we are forced to deal with a period of financial vulnerability due to a dismissal, sick leave or a job-retention scheme, it often triggers that fear inside of us. And even though we consciously trust our partners not to use that vulnerability to exercise power over us, there is such a long history of abuse against women that we feel all that fear the moment we start feeling dependent.

In fact, we are so scared that we make ourselves believe that merit on its own will break the glass ceiling and close the gender gap. And we keep doing overtime because capitalist culture has instilled in us the idea that our identity is built on our work-related achievements.

Historically, a womans value was built on the concept of caregiving, but now, with womens liberation through the job market, work also adds value to us. But when our identity is tied to a career, whats at stake is a lot more than financial independence, and we end up becoming a brand. If our work fails, we end up with the feeling that our social capital is not valid, says Prez.

Writers like Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, say that with the advent of social media it has become increasingly hard to escape the narrative linking ones identity to work. We live in a world where we reveal our career on our Instagram profile and use a job-searching network even if we already have a job. LinkedIn not only whitewashes addiction to work, it actually encourages it, sending alerts and emails to make sure you never let your guard down, because you never know when a new offer might pop up for a better job than the one youve got now.

And just like browsing through real estate websites often leads us to imagine what our life might be like if we lived in that home we cant afford, starting a job-selection process makes us project what life would be like if we were picked for that well-paid job thats in such high demand. We figure it would mean weve finally made it after all that effort. And thats a sure sign that weve been seduced by capitalism.

But in the real world, things have a way of turning out not quite as expected. Nobody told us that all that hard work that defined a successful woman in all those TV shows probably came at a high personal cost measured in Valium pills. And since we are not Carrie Bradshaw or Ally McBeal, we will not go out for a Cosmopolitan after leaving the office at 9.30pm. More likely than not, well head straight for the convenience store to pick up a bag of salad and some ready-made hummus to have for dinner at home.

It should come as no surprise that the consumption of anxiolytics is a direct consequence of our addiction to work. Statistics show that women consume twice as much psychoactive medication as men. According to the experts, they are subjected to greater pressure and are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.

Although we were sold on the idea of earning success through sheer talent, women have to deal with structural problems in the job market: we earn less for the same work, and this means less decision-making power.

To me, self-exploitation is born out of a need to compensate with more work for the feeling of a lack of opportunities. I feel I have to work twice as hard to achieve half of what men achieve, notes Olga Iglesias, a Spanish scriptwriter who co-authored the play Cmo hemos llegado hasta aqu (or, How we got here).

Prez says that, at one point, realizing that meritocracy does not exist is just one more step in the life of an adult woman. We have to accept that this idea does not exist, she says. Trying again and again even though our expectations for success are broken is what leads to burnout.

New strategies may be required, says Prez, such as realizing that we are valuable beyond the professional sphere.

English version by S. U.

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Why being a workaholic is the only socially acceptable addiction for women - EL PAS in English

Issues about bonuses upon divorce

Issues upon divorce include whether any deferred bonuses should be deemed:

Over the past 20 years there has been considerable diversity in the family courts treatment of bonuses upon divorce.

Previous approaches to bonuses Upon Divorce

Here is a summary of some approaches to bonuses adopted by the Family Court during the past 20 years:

With so many contradictory approaches about how bonuses should be treated, the division of bonuses frequently became a contentious issue for many families. So, what has changed?

In English family law the principle for division of assets is that the paying party will pay to the weaker financial party the higher of:

a) an equal share of the marital acquest (any assets accrued during seamless cohabitation and marriage) or

b) sufficient to meet the weaker financial partys reasonable needs, factoring in the standard of living enjoyed during the marriage alongside affordability

A recent family court judgement has also determined that the clock stops for calculating the marital acquest at the date of trial, save in cases where there has been undue delay between separation and trial. This timing point should therefore be factored into any decision about determining the finances related to divorce, as for contentious matters, a trial date might not arise for over a year after the commencement of proceedings.

If sharing the marital assets equally meets both parties future financial needs, the court makes a clean break order (i.e., an order where neither party can seek any more money from the other, in life or upon death).

Family judges are encouraged to achieve a clean break to enable financial independence for couples at the earliest date possible.

There is now clear guidance that post-separation earnings (beyond the date of trial) should not be deemed assets to be shared. E v L [2021] EWFC 60

Therefore:

(The period of maintenance, including the years of bonuses to be used, will depend on when the receiving party can become financially independent).

The courts fundamental aim is to achieve a clean break for couples to achieve financial independence without undue hardship as soon as possible.

Consequently, unless the weaker financial partys future financial needs for capital and income cannot be met by sharing the marital assets upon separation, bonuses awarded post-separation (after the date of any trial) should not be shared.

However, those bonuses which were awarded during the marriage but are yet to vest (and very probably including those to the conclusion of any final financial order) will be deemed marital assets for sharing.

Another related consideration when negotiating is to be mindful of sharing the risk/liquidity associated with various assets. For example, if too much of the safer capital, like cash savings, is paid in lieu of any share of deferred bonuses, it is important to be aware that the value of deferred bonuses can fall or be lost altogether if the relevant employee leaves. Once a final financial order is made it is purposefully very difficult to revisit the orders fundamental terms. Consequently, assessing the risk structure of any draft final order as well as the overall quantum should be considered carefully.

Originally posted here:

Must I share my future bonuses with my ex-spouse? - Family Law

As you are probably aware by now, recently, the Case Western Reserve University administration announced that campus housing only has space for 83% of upperclassmen that apply for the on-campus housing lottery due to over-enrollment. They have since reversed that decision and claimed that they can now accommodate 100% of students, but only time will tell if that promise will be kept. Either way, I imagine this announcement, combined with the upcoming deadline for housing applications, has made most upperclassmen seriously weigh the option of off-campus housing.

And what an option it is. Its probably a universal experience among upperclassmen at CWRU to have gone on Zillow and been absolutely flabbergasted at the unreal housing prices near University Circle. According to Zumper, the median rent in Cleveland has now reached $1,225 per month for a one-bedroom, a 7% increase from last year. Of course, this trend is not unique to Cleveland. Housing prices, especially in cities, have been skyrocketing over the past couple of years. Unfortunately, wages have not been rising, so housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable for even the middle class, let alone college students that live on ramen if they arent on the meal plan. For those of you who have considered or are currently living off-campus, youve received your first taste of the American housing crisis.

However, before I talk about our current crisis, let me briefly go over the 2008 financial crisis; it has a few key similarities and differences that help us understand the current situation. Starting around the 1990s, the United States experienced a large shift from traditional investment to debt-based investment. One reason for this is that debt can be viewed as an investment; only instead of being paid by the profits of a business, a creditor is paid by the interest of the debt they own. As an aside, this debt shift is a large part of why massive student debt is so common. But the big sector affected by this debt shift was the housing sectorwhere financiers jumped on mortgage loans because of how safe mortgage loans are for creditors.

However, the problems started when the money tree of housing loans started giving diminishing returns. This led to financiers starting to back riskier loansmeaning the debtor is unlikely to be able to pay off the debt. However, there became a critical point where the rate of people defaulting on their loans was so high that investing in housing debt was no longer profitable. At this moment, the housing market was revealed to be what economists call a bubble. An economic bubble is a phenomenon where so much money is invested in something that its value is artificially inflated. Eventually, that thing must come back down to its real value, and everyone invested in it will lose tons of money. Thats what happened at this critical point in the housing market. The price of risky housing debt was inflated so high that eventually, the bubble popped.

Now, one key difference between 2008 and today is that the price of housing is being driven up by speculation instead of loans. Speculation, as it relates to housing, means buying a house to later sell it to someone else at a higher price because of an assumption that housing prices will continue to rise. This means that as long as housing prices keep rising, more and more houses will be vacant and owned by speculative investors instead of residents. This creates scarcity for those who want to actually live in a house, and since the demand for housing remains the same, the housing price will rise. The result is a horrifying feedback loop that rewards speculators and people who already own houses at the expense of anyone not affluent enough to buy a home.

Now, a question you may be having is, will the bubble pop? The answer is that this time, its not a bubble. This is good for speculators and anyone invested in the stock market, but its bad for anyone trying to buy or rent. The unfortunate reality is that housing prices will continue to rise. And thats not allI havent even talked about Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Essentially, a REIT is a company that buys up real estate (commercial and residential), and collects rent to give to its investors. Imagine a landlord, but instead of a person, its a company. As housing prices continue to rise, real estate will likely start to gravitate away from individual owners (even landlords) and towards REITs. So not only will you pay exorbitant rent when you graduate, you may even end up fighting a corporate bureaucracy over broken plumbing instead of just a landlord.

So, what can be done about this mess? Well, any federal action is a complete nonstarter. The gridlock in the Senate is so complete that senators cant even agree on infrastructure repair, let alone reforming the housing market at the expense of rich people. Action by executive order is also a nonstarter; by refusing to provide student debt relief by executive order, Biden has shown an unwillingness to help people with the presidential pen. Our most feasible option is local legislation.

For any of you interested in local politics, there are two main ways that this housing crisis can be alleviated at the local level. Firstly, the supply of housing must increase to meet the demand. Dense, multi-family housing must be built as quickly as possiblewhich means both changing local zoning laws that favor single-family homes and fighting NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard-ism) whenever it crops up in response to dense housing development. And secondly, the incentive structures currently in place must be changed. There are multiple complicated ways to do this, but I favor vacancy taxes. A vacancy tax is exactly what it sounds likewhen one is in place, anyone or any company who owns a property but does not reside in it or meaningfully use it has to pay (hopefully extremely high) taxes in order to keep it, or the local government will auction off the property.

And for those of you less interested in local politics, lets talk about how you, as an individual, can navigate your way through this increasingly hostile market when you graduate. As a brief aside, some critics of my argument will say that housing prices are not insane everywhere, only in dense cities. This argument doesnt have merit since the housing price in an area is directly related to the job opportunities in that area. Sure, you can rent a decaying apartment for $400 a month in a dying Appalachian coal-mining town, but good luck finding a job while youre there. However, this argument does have a grain of truth to it; given the opportunity, you should absolutely choose a cheaper place to live if possible. Lets say that you have two job offers: one in Seattle and one in Paducah, Kentucky. In that scenario, its probably worth taking the offer in Paducah, just for the lower rent prices. Also, consider roommates. You will almost definitely need a roommate or several roommates to chop up whatever rent youll pay once you make it to the real world.

Finallyand this sounds depressingbe prepared for the possibility that youll have to move back in with your parents after college. The mere thought of doing so might make you feel embarrassed, but the practice is becoming more and more common. Even before the pandemic, a Pew Research poll found that a staggering 47% of young adults (aged 18-29) in the U.S. lived with one or both parents. By July 2020, that number shot up to 52% due to people relocating because of the pandemic.

I know that for many of you, financial independence might be your American Dream, but we all have to play the hand that were dealt in this housing crisis, even if it means living with six roommates or living with your parents at age 30.

More here:

Vetter: Welcome to the national housing crisis - The Observer

I have a degree in finance, but most of what I know about money came from the internet.

I started my personal finance blog in 2011, when I knew next to nothing about money. The web was a friendly place for creators just like me, who were paying off debt and investing in the stock market.

Not only did it offer a safe place where I could learn at my own pace, it provided a community where people were open about the traditionally taboo topic of money. I was inspired enough to pursue an MBA in 2013. But when I graduated in 2015, I turned down a career in investment banking to stay online, where I knew I could do more.

The internet provides accessible, free advice on everything from budgeting to investing in the stock market. Theres no reason to make an appointment with an adviser at your bank when you can watch a three-minute YouTube video from the comfort of your couch and re-watch it as many times as you need to understand it.

Then, once you find the money topic youre most interested in, online subcommunities can transform a single financial method into a lifestyle, like living debt-free or pursuing FIRE (financial independence retire early). If youve ever felt too timid to bring up your student loans or investment portfolio with your friends and family, there are thousands of strangers on the web willing to lend an ear and their spreadsheets.

The money advice online is predominantly from young creators, because theyre the most social-media savvy. The newer the platform, the younger the personal finance celebrity offering up their wealth-hacking strategies.

GenX is still quietly churning out blog posts on dividend stocks, millennials are touting their real estate portfolios on Twitter, and GenZ is hawking crypto tokens on TikTok. Unfortunately and unbeknownst to their followers most personal finance creators lack both formal financial education and credentials. Their real skill is digital marketing, not finance.

As a result, the financial advice online runs rampant and unchecked. Even poor advice, like focusing on paying off your mortgage early instead of investing in the stock market for retirement, can go viral to convince thousands before anyone does the math.

And when someone does do the math, theres virtually nothing that can be done to reverse the misinformation. You have no hope of removing every screenshot of a deleted tweet or erasing every recording of an Instagram story. The internet is forever.

You missed out on stocks, houses and crypto. Now what?

Can financial planners adjust to parents giving kids their inheritance early to buy homes?

Where financial institutions require employees to undergo training and receive certifications before they work with clients, an online finance creator doesnt need anything more than smartphone. The employee of a bank or brokerage can face serious career and even legal repercussions for doling out bad financial advice, but a personal finance influencer or finfluencer faces no consequences. Just look at celebrity financial guru Dave Ramsey, who has convinced millions to put off investing until theyre completely debt-free advice that is neither practical nor delivers the highest return on investment.

But most financial advice online is not misleading or harmful. In fact, its good. Really good. In my experience, online personal finance advice is worlds better than any of that provided by established financial institutions.

Talented online financial creators have mastered the art of breaking down complex topics for beginners, and they deliver information without shame or intimidation. They take it a step further and build relationships with their followers, engaging with them and answering questions in a way that is infinitely more accessible than a bank adviser behind an appointment calendar.

Your favourite finfluencer is an empathetic, thoughtful friend who will tell you exactly how much interest youll save by increasing your student loan payment by $25 a month. Dont we all need more people like that in our lives?

My inbox is overflowing with e-mails and direct messages from people who felt unwelcome by financial institutions, but used my advice to pay off their debt, start a registered retirement savings plan, and negotiate a five-figure raise.

More surprising still are the messages I get from followers who work in finance, who learned something from me that they werent taught in their accounting degree or corporate finance job.

Perhaps the thing even more shocking than how good financial information is online, is how bad it is everywhere else. Why havent banks and brokerages done a better job educating not only their clients, but also their employees?

Until financial and educational institutions find a way to provide quality financial information in a way that is easy for the average person to access, understand, and implement, the finfluencers are here to stay. In the meantime, were all better off and richer because of them.

Bridget Casey, MBA (Finance), is founder of Money After Graduation, a financial eLearning company. You can follow her on Instagram & Twitter at @BridgieCasey

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Most online personal finance advice is much better than that of established financial institutions - The Globe and Mail

Cypress, Texas. 21-year-old Nicole does not have the average life of a young adult. She has heart failure caused by cardiomyopathy, which makes it harder for her heart to pump blood to the rest of her body.

Nicole recently had a defibrillator implanted in her chest to deliver an electric current directly to her heart in the event of a cardiac arrest.

The device senses heart rhythm and can shock the heart to restart it or normalize function without a shock.

Studies have shown that using a defibrillator within 3-5 minutes of cardiac arrest can give a person a 50-70% chance of survival from sudden death.

The defibrillator may keep cardiac arrest at bay for Nicole, but theres still a chance of her needing a heart transplant in the future.

Through all of the issues with her health, she is determined to maintain her financial independence and focused on providing for herself.

Not long after her implant, she returned to work her full-time job to ensure continued health insurance for a future full of major ongoing medical expenses.

Just when she thought life was returning to (her new)normal, the unthinkable happened.

At home in her front yard, she was finally ready to take some time for herself and relax. Laying in her hammock, she didnt see the man coming at her. He came out of nowhere, striking and bashing Nicole brutally from behind.

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Finally Home Recovering From Heart Surgery, This Poor Woman Was Brutally Beaten In Her Own Front Yard - Chip Chick

The invasion of Mary Odilis home by a group of armed security operatives last October has been attributed to greed and downright stupidity, a special investigator of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has said.

Mrs Odili, a Justice of the Supreme Court and wife of a former governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili, had her Abuja residence raided by a team spearheaded by Lawrence Ajodo, a fake police officer.

Amid the outrage triggered by the raid on Mrs Odilis abode in the upscale Maitama area of Abuja, the Supreme Court condemned the incident, which it said depicted a gory picture of war, appearing like a mission to kill or maim the jurist.

The NBA also condemned the raid and commissioned Monday Ubani as its special investigator to unravel the circumstances that led to the incident and which government officials had authorised it.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how the prime suspect, Mr Ajodo, claimed to have been working for an asset recovery committee of the federal ministry of justice. He claimed to have been engaged by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, who disowned him and denied knowing anything about the invasion.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Inspector-General of the Police, Usman Baba, and the State Security Service (SSS), had equally denied involvement in the raid.

NBA investigators report appears to have exonerated the government agencies and officials, particularly Mr Malmi whom the association initially alleged to have a case to answer in the wake of the incident last year.

In December 2021, the police arraigned Mr Adjodo and 14 others in connection to the invasion.

Mr Ubani, the NBA special investigator on the incident, who is a former 2nd vice president of the body of lawyers, submitted his report to the associations National Executive Council (NEC) on Thursday.

The report said the imaginary sums of money stashed away in Mr. Peter Odilis house was just a mere brainwave of a mind afflicted perhaps by high fever.

Mr Ubani, who also chairs NBAs Section on Public Interest and Development Law (NBA-SPIDEL), said he interviewed several persons, who were connected to the invasion.

Among those I interviewed in the course of the investigation were the Chief Justice of Nigeria; the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami SAN; the victim, Hon. Justice Mary Peter-Odili; the Chief Judge of High Court of FCT, and the Chief Magistrate who issued the search warrant that set the invasion in motion, His Honour Emmanuel Iyanna, the NBA investigator stated.

Mr Ubani said the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, refused to respond to his request for an interview on the matter.

He said he did not have access to Mr Ajodo and other suspects who were then in detention but got their extra-judicial statements which he reviewed and found insightful. The suspects, 15 of them, are now standing trial at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

Having reviewed all the oral and documentary evidence relating to the matter, I am of the firm view that the unwholesome invasion was driven by greed and the quest for financial gain by the ring leaders, Mr Ubani said.

What may exculpate the Chief Magistrate, His Honour Emmanuel Iyanna despite his observed negligence and manifest errors in the processes, is the fact that the Search Warrant that contained the address of No. 9 Imo Close, Maitama, Abuja was sought to be executed on No. 7 Imo River, Maitama, Abuja, the report stated.

To guard against a reoccurrence of unlawful invasion of peoples homes, the report recommended that substantive and procedural laws with elaborate processes and procedures for the issuance of search warrants, arrest warrants, detention orders, extension of detention orders among others should be enacted for the states and the federal government by the legislature.

The report further reiterated the importance of the judiciarys independence.

It is either we have independent judiciary or we choose not to have it. The advantages of an independent judiciary cannot be over-emphasised.

The report also emphasised the need to ensure strict adherence to the principle of the independence of the judiciary.

The independence of the Judiciary must be sustained through administrative, operational and financial autonomy.

The report reiterated that the judicial arm of government is such an important arm, adding that under no circumstance should the judiciary be permitted to be subjected to intimidation or harassment in the course of performing its constitutional duties.

The report added: Government agencies or security agencies that tolerate or harbour criminal gangs, touts or law-breakers in and around their offices should be made to answer to their illegal activities by being summoned by the various committees that superintend over them in the legislature.

Ensuring obedience to court orders and respect for the rule of law should remain the eternal pursuit of the NBA and other professional bodies until these become abiding principles by every government in Nigeria.

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Mary Odili's home invasion driven by greed - NBA special Investigator - Premium Times

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!

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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