As the email commentator wrote me, “Just buy the God Damn Ford SuperDuty truck if that’s what you really want. You got the money. You’ll like the big truck.” Alas, so it will be but I have nine or ten more weeks to fully play this through in my mind, as I study the ins and outs of dealerships, the various models and the pros and cons of everything in life.
There is just so many things to think about, 🐐 as my colleagues from High School and Boy Scouts post pictures of their mountain homesteads, probably living and surviving on so much less then I do. I’ve done a deep dive into many different sources of information on personal finance, trying to figure out what the next steps are both in building my next rig but also setting the path towards retirement and off-grid cabin and homestead. 🏡 I want to do it right without paying advisors or the tax man a ton of money. It’s not like it’s rocket science, but there is a lot I don’t understand fully yet about personal finance despite my years of studying, and I want to be smart. People say I’m blowing a lot of money getting a SuperDuty truck that will burn a lot of gas and soon enough be just more garbage to get rid of so this is still gives me a pause. 🛻 But they’re right too, that in ten weeks from now if that’s what I want and I’ll get 10 or 15-years of solid enjoyment out of it and then potentially use it on the homestead, then it’s worth it.
I’ve grown increasingly obsessed with Roth accounts for retirement, 💵 even though I’ve been saving in my Roth IRA since my 20s, I want to get more money in Roth accounts as they are so much better then IRAs. While with Secure Choice 2.0 I won’t get hit with a Required Minimum Distribution until Age 75 if I’m even alive at that point, IRAs still suck as you pay full income tax on both your principal and all capital gains when you take money out of them. Roth IRAs you pay with after tax dollars, and then you are done on taxes – no taxes on capital gains or withdrawals ever again beyond age 59 1/2. I’ve been maxing out my Roth IRA since my twenties, and I was looking if I get 10% average returns between now and my 60th birthday, I will have well over a million dollars even if I never invested again. And that ignores other investments, my state pension and the taxable IRAs I have and want to convert to Roth when the markets are down. I plan to stay the course on retirement, and actually I plan to start adding more money each year to the Roth both by a conversion of old IRAs and by doing some of my deferred comp as Roth. I’d rather pay more taxes now, and know I have tax free growth for the next two decades plus, rather then worry about taxes later. 🚜 I worry about “uneven” expense years in later years for the off-grid homestead – years where I have to buy a farm tractor or manure spreader, hay bailer, cattle trailer, ATV, new pickup truck, or make major upgrades to the off-grid cabin. 💩 Hate to pay a shit ton of taxes just to get a shit spreader for cows some day I’ll have. Even if my life is pretty frugal and minimal in retirement, without many utility bills being off-grid and growing and raising my own food 🥩🧅🍎 there are always capital expenses especially when you homestead. 🗡️ I guess that’s true for all homeowners, but it seems like homesteading makes it even worse. 🧑🏻🌾🦙
So yeah, it’s been all about car buying, personal finance, and the next steps in my road map 🗺️ that have dominated my mind, and now my ad feeds which are full of scammy “Active ETFs” I would never buy and dubious financial planning services, which either put you into high-price scammy products 💵 or other things for the “wealthy” or what at least uneducated people think wealthy people live like based on the TV. 📺 When people want to make you think it’s overly complicated, then it’s certainly a scam. I guess my head is full of big thoughts and dreams and planning, something I’ve not been doing since 2024 when I seriously was looking at homesteads with the new landlord taking over my building and I besides the $100 a month rent increase, was fearful he was going to evict me and turn my place into luxury housing. Didn’t happen that way, and it’s always a risk, but I did learn a lot reading 📖 about buying land, building cabins and buying homesteads. Of course, building my new rig is probably a much shorter-term goal then building a homestead, and much more flexible, as you can drive a truck to wherever, unlike a homestead that exists on a particular piece of land. I could be living out in country right now if I wanted, have that ATV and even a burn barrel, even if I’d have to be careful what I put in said illegal trash fire less a neighbor’s nose smell it. 🔥
I got to shower and ride my mountain bike into work today. 🚲 I still think there is too much ice on the Rail Trail to ride, so it will be Corning’s Hill today. It’s fine, beats busing it, 🚌 because it’s State of the State Address day at the Capitol which I am sure is pure insanity. 🤪 Tomorrow I’ll be busing it again with the rain expected by afternoon, plus probably another Save the Pine Bush hearing to attend.