Financial Update – Apr 2025

Another month, another update. A few random comments.

Good Reads/Listens/Watches

• NYT Podcast on how the much anticipated reduction in real estate agent fees has yet to materialize (link).
• Older Bogleheads on advice they’d give their 45-year old selves (link).
• WSJ on how to easily delete personal info (address, phone number, etc) from internet (wsj article).
  • Google’s free tool is here. You put your info in, then it searches for you on a variety of sites. If you wish to remove yourself from a site, it takes a single click on the Google site and Google handles the information removal request. It couldn’t be easier.
• A few more WSJ videos on Costco (Video 1,  Video 2).
  • Costco Founder Jim Sinegal, who famously told his successor “If you raise the [price of the] effing hot dog, I will kill you,” is my hero.

 

Life

• I’ve long aspired to have a minimalist wallet. About a year ago, I made the decision to ditch my physical Costco Citi card (which I previously used solely for entry and checkout) and simply use the Costco app instead. However, the app is somewhat clunky. This month, I learned on Reddit that I could load my Costco membership to my Google Wallet, which is much better. To do so: “+ Add to Wallet” => “Loyalty Card” => “Costco Wholesale” => Scan membership barcode from existing card. It has worked flawlessly for me so far (although I still have the app as a backup).
  • Relatedly, the only physical credit card I carry is the 4% US Bank card these days. I love the simplicity of the setup. Too bad my state does not yet offer a digital driver’s license.
• In a deviation from my legendary cheapness, I spent $185 on professional coaching this month. First, we hired a private basketball coach (former D1 player & Italian pro) for FC3. I learned more about proper shooting technique by eavesdropping on that one hour session than I had in a lifetime of playing basketball. Second, I paid a personal trainer (who happens to be a climbing phenom) to get me and FC3 into shape. He schooled us on diet, stretching, and lifting technique. It was inspiring and was arguably some of the best money I’ve spent in a long time. I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner. I’m now lifting 3x/week and doubling my protein intake, which was insufficient given my active lifestyle. Functional health and fitness are something we all seem to neglect because “we’re too busy” or “it’s too expensive” or “it’s too hard”, but at the end of the day our health is one of the few things that really matter.
• I learned about this $8/mo (tax inclusive) “Light” plan from US Mobile from my frugal brother. Unlimited calls/texts + 2gb of data. Seems pretty hard to beat unless you go really cheap with a minimal use Redpocket plan for $2.50/mo. If our family were smaller, I’d jump ship from our $20/mo Xfinity Mobile family plan.

 

At 14, FC3 is now taller than me. I am devastated.

 

FC3 dunked a men’s basketball for the first time this month. I did not dunk a basketball until later in life. I’ve been practicing with him quite often. I can still show him who’s boss, but surely not for long.

 

Shopping cart after meeting with trainer. I have no idea why I’m supposed to be eating hemp hearts, but I’m shoving them down my gullet nonetheless.

 

I cooked quinoa for the first time in a long time.

 

 

 

This Month’s Finances

I don’t know what to make of the markets/government/world, so I’m putting my head in the sand and staying the course. That strategy seems to have worked out reasonably well for me so far in life, and I’m hoping it will continue to do so going forward.

• The good:
  • Still employed.
  • With the exception of my 401a (which is funded every paycheck), all tax-advantaged accounts are fully funded (403b, 457b, backdoor Roths, HSA, and 529 up to state deduction limit. Liquidating $24k of brokerage assets on Jan 1 helped expedite that process. On to brokerage for the next 8 months…
  • The 2 x $2.5k of (taxable) Wells Fargo bonuses finally hit. We’ve moved onto the 2 x $1k of Merrill Edge bonuses (and to renew our platinum honors status for the year).
  • I received news that some of our Vanguard funds at work will be lowering their expense ratios, saving me $80 per year in fees.
• The bad/abnormal:
  • $4,100 property tax payment.
  • $950 for 4 x Pixel 9a phones for the family, with the younger kids inheriting the still-functional older devices. We hopped on a Visible Wireless deal, with the caveat that they’ll be locked for two months.
  • $950 for a 15″ MacBook Air for FC1.
  • $630 for show choir summer camp.
  • $346 in contact lenses from Portugal for one of the kids.

 

 

Footnotes:

1. Fidelity unambiguously has the best HSA on the market. $0 admin fees + cheap investment options (e.g. FZROX, FZILX, FSKAX, etc).
2. I lazily approximate home value as my historical purchase price.
3. I have a 15Y mortgage which results in much larger principal payments than a 30Y mortgage. Since principal payments are simply transfers from one pocket (assets) to another (debt reduction), I treat such cash flows as savings.
4. ~$0 cell phones described here.
5. All expenditures at Costco & Walmart are classified as “Food at home” for simplicity (even if it’s laundry detergent, clothing, medicine, toys, etc).
6. Nobody knows the perfect asset allocation. Just pick one and run with it. Use a target date retirement fund as a benchmark if you want some guidance (link). If you prefer to DIY (as I do), then a three-fund portfolio is great (link).
7. My low portfolio expense ratio is the primary reason why I don’t hold target-date funds, which have expense ratios anywhere from 0.16% to 1%. I can achieve a much lower expense ratio on my own, and it’s trivially easy to manage. Further, a DIY portfolio allows one to tax-loss-harvest more easily. Lastly, a DIY portfolio can help avoid the dreaded cap gains distributions caused by a fund-of-funds (e.g. Vanguard Target funds in Dec 2021).
8. ETFs are slightly more inconvenient to hold relative to index funds. With ETFs, you must deal with bid-ask spreads as well as the inability to buy partial shares (Fidelity now offers fractional shares). With a simple index fund, you don’t have to deal with either of these issues. Bogleheads discussion here (link).
9. I hold VTSAX in my taxable brokerage account because its tax efficiency (no cap gains distributions thanks to its patented technique).
10. CA’s 529 plan has the lowest expense ratio US equity index fund (link). I’d have 100% of our 529 money there if not for the state tax deduction we receive in our own state.
11. My Collective Investment Trust (CIT) version of Vanguard’s Total Int’l Stock Index has a 0.059% expense ratio, yet produces ~0.11% of “tax alpha” due to reduced foreign tax withholdings. Vanguard implemented this change around 2019. Therefore, I report the effective expense ratio of negative 0.053% for this holding (=0.059%-0.11%). The “tax alpha” shows up in the performance differential in the fact sheets here (CIT vs MF) and is more thoroughly explained here. Unfortunately, this ~0.11% of “tax alpha” is not available in the mutual fund version.

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