July 2021 – Budget review for an upper middle class Amercan family.  

Income.

My job usually processes raises the second week of July each year.  This is the fifth year in a row that my pay has remained stagnant (last raise in 2016).  While it’s dissapointing, I probably cannot complain too much about my base compensation as it is good money and includes all health insurance premiums for my family.  Further, I’m at the point in my career that growth will come primarily (only) from my own rainmaking, which has been illusive.  

Although I did not get a raise at my day job, I started a new side job that actually includes a nice supplementary salary.    I did not take this side job for the money but the money is a nice bonus as the position will require some time and mental capacity.  This opportunity should help me build relationships and grow my book of business at my day job. 

My spouse continued to recieve her monthly part time salary.  For some reason  no federal taxes are withheld from her paycheck.  This works out, however, as I withhold the maximum from my paycheck.  She also pays almost 10% of her pay to a retirement program while her employer pays over 15%.  So, over 25% of her compensation is forcefully directed to the employer’s retirement program.  I’m in the camp that would love to self-direct this amount to a 401k or roth program in lieu of the state’s underfunded defined benefit plan. 

Expenses.

This month, we had the joy of taking the entire family to our child’s sports tournament.  While the team struggled, it was a good time for the families involved.   Unfortunately, the trip was simply expensive.  The tournament was located in a major tourist area and hotel rooms were minimum $300-400/night.    The trip cost us at least $1200 between the $700 for a small hotel room at a basic hotel for only 2 nights and various food and gas purchases.  Further, the trip has solidified our intent to purchase a minivan soon, which is necessary but probably not something we’d feel pressure about absent this trip. 

Immediately following this trip was another stop at a conference related to my new part time job.  Some of these expenses were paid, but we spent additional money on food that we probably would not have done.  Not complaining but rationalizing our high expenses.  

Restaurants and Groceries. 

We spent $1720 on groceries/houshold and $600 on restuarants.  Wow!  This is probably a record or close to it.  The grocieries/household spending includes two orders at HelloFresh, which cost $136.56 for 4 meals (for 4 servings).  We recently started using HelloFresh, and I believe it saves money by reducing grocery spending overall.  However, this may not be true, as we clearly continued our normal grocery spending.  Some of the Grocery spending was also our attempt to get some healthier food during our long trip.  We stopped at a walmart hoping to grab a rotisserie chicken and a few small sides.  Well, I ran in and left my family in the car and was in such a hurry (I fear my spouse) that I ended up spending almost $50 for a few salads, sides, fruit, and chicken tenders.  They were out of rotisserie chicken, of course. 

Similarly, spending over $600 on restuarants is very odd.  We usually budget about $300-$350 and sometimes we get up to $450 if we have a nice dinner out for a special occasion.  There was a night out here but it was only $70.  Turns out that we have 25 different charges for restauarants.  This is absolutely due to our long trip, but still a bit of a shocker.  Any way, I hopeful that our high spending this month was an anomally.  So far, August spending has been much more normal.  

Other Spending. 

• Clothes.  We spent almost $400 on clothes in July.  Some of which is necessary for school and others are simply wants.  Specificallly, we spent $100 on t-shirts to celebrate a major accomplishment for our favorite sports team. 
• Miscellaneous.  Miscellaneous is basically the same as “stuff I forgot to budget for” and cost us $565 in July.   However, several of these costs were simply necessary, including a new tailgating tent for $85 (I hate the hot Sun), renewed Amazon Prime subscription at $125 (I’ve tried to cancel but my spouse thinks it’s worth it), more sports memorabilia purchases for $90 (Hailstate), new flags for the front of our house ($120), and a football related equipment purchase (the things we do for our kids).   
• Entertainment. We spent $647 on entertainment, which is almost entirely a recategorization of the $700 in cash I withdrew intending to buy a rowing machine.  I used about $140 of this cash to pay for a oil change and related service work to our care while on our trip.  Turns out, it’s really helpful to have lots of cash on trips but it’s very hard to keep up with how it leaves your pocket.  
• Medical.  Only spent $229 on medical in July, thankfully.  However, $150 of this is on a small bottle of ear drops.  This might be the most expensive liquid on the face of the Earth – a small 100-200 ml bottle costs $150.  
• Kids Activities spending was way up at $267.  $155 of this was simply to pay football and the rest is for baseball hitting lessons and a monthly membership to the baseball hitting facility.  It’s a lot of fun and probably worth it, but I hope this kid knows how good he’s got it. 
• Yard maintanence. We spent $90 on pinestraw for the flower beds on the front of our house.  We also paid a neighbor friend to mow the grass a few times but this money likely came out of my spouses Venmo, which is off our YNAB budget.  

Monthly Standard Expenses. 

• Mortgage. $2000 for our mortgage, which I see is going to increase to $2070 in September due to higher taxes and insurance (thanks Biden…joking). 

• Private School. Every year we debate our choice to send our kids to a local private school , and every year we decide to stick it out another year.  In the grand scheme of private schools, we have a pretty good deal – our school is not that expensive at about ($5k-$7.5k).  However, it’s super expensive compared to our successful public schools (that cost nothing).  This month we had the joy of adding another child to our monthly private school tuition payment of approximately $1700.  Luckily, this additional expense is more of a shuffiling since it generaly offsets the childcare payments we would be paying otherwise.

• We spent $120 on two months of cell phone service.  We transferred from Visible, a prepaid plan that runs only $25/line for unlimited to US Mobile, which costs $30/line.  So far, US Mobile has provided better service.  This should be lower in August since we paid for both July and August – in July.  Unless we switch carriers, then it we will pay for most of September in August.

• We spent $180 on car insurance (I love insurance and get the highest limits possible). 
• We also paid $126 for our first monthly dues and a few charges for food at a local country club pool membership. This is honestly reasonable for the nice pool, and I am happy to provide my spouse a kids a pool option during the long, hot summer. 
• We spent $691 in our “vacation” category, which is exclusively our charges for two nights at a Courtyard type hotel.  

Rental House. 

Our rental house continues to chug along.  Our tenants pay as agreed and keep the house up fairly well.  We renewed our insurance and flood insurance for approximately $1700 in July – leaving $2740 in our rental account retained earnings. 

We actually renewed our tenants for two years at the same rate.  We’re probably leaving some rent on the table, but I value high quality tenants over a few extra rent dollars.  We also considered moving the property to an LLC, but I’m not sure it’s worth the extra hassel and, so far, it’s been difficult to find a property insurance policy for an LLC owned property with a premium comparable to our existing policy.  My strategy has been to simply insure the additional risk of holding the properyt in my personal name with umbrella coverage.  

Giving.

We gave $1209 to various charities and our church in July 2021.  We have bugeted another $1000, but frankly cash was fairly tight toward the end of the month and nothing seemed to really pull at us.  We’ll leave the money budgeted for now and see what happens.  

Goals.  

I’d love to save a substantial amount monthly such that I can retire around age 50. I don’t mean lay around and eat all day, but I want to avoid the requirement of an 8-5 job. I want the freedom to work on various projects that may/may not pay off and the freedom to travel/work from anywhere. In short, this is not a true retirement but more of a “work my way”. I could possibly quit my current job but it would be very tight. Clearly, our standard of living has increased over the last several years (kids are fund but expensive).

Yet, as noted above, we need to acquire a larger family vehicle. We have our eyes on the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna. I think we like the Odyssey a bit more and have started a “car replacement” savings fund. I budgeted my entire side income take-home pay of approximately $1400 to this category and will continue to do so. New Odyssey Elites (top-of-the-line model) have an MSRP of about $48k but could be bought for about $43k. I’m hoping to save about $25k and trade in our current vehicle for $18k. We can come up with another few thousand, if necessary. Ideally, we’d save about $2500/month and be ready to pull the trigger in about 10 months.

In short, there is always something that requires priority over simply saving for early retirement. Nonetheless, we are very blessed and look forward to continuing the current trends while analyzing spending and growing income.

April was a defining month for our budget. We made some key decisions and tightened up where and when we needed – yet were able to make some memories and accomplish a few must haves.

Tax Refund/Roth Contribution

We received a substantial tax refund and contributed the max to our 2020 Roth IRA. This was a difficult decision for me as I’m really interested in funding my startup.

Food Expenses Packaged Up

We minimized food and grocery expenses but also spent considerably on optional home furnishings and a family trip. We only spent $1060 on groceries/household and $270 on restaurants. Unfortunately, May is off to a terrible start in the restaurant category. We only spent $140 on clothes. Early in the month, we were low on cash because we maxed our Roth IRA (backdoor style) with $12,000 cash. It’s amazing how well our income can cover overspending, which becomes fairly evident when we buckle down. We’re absolutely blessed.

Adulting

We spent about $930 on new tires for the family car. We’ll probably have to spend a similar amount for tire on my truck, soon.

Cell Phone Service Savings – May Not be Worth It.

We spent only $50 on monthly cell service in April via Visibile. Visible service is fine at times and also really terrible. The service is so bad at times, that we’ll probably move to another provider soon. Moving to a post-paid plan will likely run us about $120+ for two lines with unlimited data. I favor prepaid plans because you avoid certain taxes and it’s a better value, in my opinion. The carriers claim that their prepaid plan’s data is secondary to their post-paid plans, but I did not notice any issue when we were with Verizon prepaid. We can move to Verizon prepaid for about $100/month for 15GB of data, which should be sufficient.

Entertainment and Family Memories

Our entertainment spending was very high at $904. This was due to spending $320 on two nights in a hotel and about $287 on tickets to a baseball game. We enjoyed ourselves and made memories for life. Well worth it. Miscellaneous spending was also high at $600. Nothing really to show for it either since it includes $330 for TurboTax and another $60 for a dumb crypto tax prep service. Spending $60 on a tax prep service annoyed me, so I sold all my crypto in April. My small play investment provided a nice return that I’ll write about soon. My wife also spent $325 on a new rug. Not what I’d consider fun, but she is generally pretty frugal – so I’ll allow it (ha)!

Giving Continues to Bless

We also continued our increased giving in the month of April. It’s truly been eye-opening how the increased giving has not hurt our bottom line. Perhaps, there is some practical truth to proverbs 11:24, which says “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want.” However, I think giving changes your attitude about money and life, which is true riches despite your net worth. I hope to continue our obedience to call to give, but I’ve still got a ways to go and no longer have any expected windfalls to make it work.

 

Every year since 2009, I’ve contributed to my and my wife’s Roth IRA. In fact, I’ve maxed our contributions out every year since 2010, which the exception of 2014. The tax-free growth of a Roth IRA provides significant value.

However, the streak may end this year. I’ve got an idea for a startup that I’ve been dreaming about for several months (if not years). In 2020, I formed a corporation and engaged a developer to determine costs for the potential venture. What I intended to be able to do for about $20k will likely require about $50-$80k, and that’s only for a prototype or initial build. The startup design will likely require significant capital investment.

I would love to partner with the right person on this project but that door has not opened so far. I could borrow money to fund the project, but, at this point, I’m not too keen on leveraging my house or borrowing against my paid-for rental property to fund a startup. So the only other options are to fund the startup with cash on hand, build it myself, or simplify the project dramatically. These are all good goals and part of the value in rejecting debt and limiting yourself – it forces you to adapt. Nonetheless, some cash is going to be necessary and the $12k that I’d use to contribute to our Roth IRA’s would be a nice boost for the project. Further, I keep coming back to the fact that a contribution to my Roth IRA will grow tax-free forever.

When working through a tough decision, I like to list the pros/cons to each path forward.

Factors favoring not contributing to Roth IRA

• I maxed out my 2020 401k ($19,500) contribution.
• My spouse earned another year toward our state’s defined benefit retirement plan vesting requirement.
• I need cash for the startup
  • Cash on hand makes me more decisive; Funding the startup is going to take more time without using this available cash. Practically, the startup probably does not get very far in the short term without cash to pay third parties.
• .We make too much money to directly max out our Roth IRA contributions
  • We could contribute a partial amount and back door the rest, but I assume a better approach is to back door the entire contribution per person.
  • The back door Roth process adds complexity.
    • Perhaps this ineligibility is a sign not to do it or not to max it out?
• Most of my existing Roth accounts are uninvested and held in cash pending a market pullback (obviously a huge mistake).
  • I don’t know if or how I would immediately invest the contribution given the market’s recent run-up.
• Would love the potential career shift offered by the startup

Factors favoring contributing to Roth IRA

• Contributing continues long streak of Roth retirement savings;
• Saving for retirement is the foundation of future stability and retirement savings
  • Its save to assume money spent on the startup will be lost since most startups fail
• 401k contribution alone does not meet the general goal of saving 15% for retirement
• Contribution cash is available (but tight); Can save and contribute to startup later this year
• Contributing my available cash forces adaptation for startup and potentially minimizes the risk of investment
• The Roth IRA contribution window expires; there is no deadline on funding the startup
  • In other words, I can fund the Roth and move on to the startup after the Roth
• We spend thousands on private school and other “wants”, which I would generally prioritize after saving for retirement. By not contributing, my priorities are not in line.
• I need to get back into the market and contributing will force me to evaluate investment options and actually invest.

Career considerations?

While I’ve been blessed with a decade-long career, perhaps I’ve hit a plateau. I dream of founding and running a successful startup – where I get to hire people like myself.

So, perhaps this is my time to take a risk?

March 2021 – 31 Full Days of Spending.

A 31 day month makes for budget busters. March 2021, was particularly painful in a few categories. We spent $796 spent on eating out – Yowsers! Lots of this spending involves lunches with several new colleagues. We also celebrated a birthday with steak and drinks! Fortunately, we came in slightly below our budgeted amount of $1200 for groceries/household. Clothing came in at $446, and I have no idea where this money went. I’m going to say my wife bought some clothes for my girls, which seems to be a recurring event. Gas was up but that’s not a big deal as prices are higher and we traveled a bit.

We also spent $717 on “miscellaneous” and $736 on “entertainment”. Many Target purchased at categorized as miscellaneous but could certainly be groceries/household or even clothing. I spent almost $80 trying to buy a $27 extension cord that was a “good” deal. I bought it twice hoping to cancel the first order so that I could substitute the filler item. Unfortunately, both orders shipped. The entertainment budget is a bit more understandable. We spent $196 on 4 tickets to an upcoming concert along with about $200 on various baseball event tickets. We spent $120 on various items while visiting a family member’s house. Another $100 for drinks and appetizers at a nearby resort.

To Cut Costs or Earn More?

Some positives from March: We switched cellphone providers to Visible, a prepaid carrier on the Verizon network. This switch will reduce our monthly cell phone cost by about $30. The service appears worth the cost savings, so far.

We will save about $360 if we keep the phone plan for a year. Yet, there is a point at which it’s a much better strategy lucrative to earn more than to save more. The time spent researching and executing the switch might have been better spent developing business at my day job.

Giving Update.

In late January, I mailed a $1,000 donation to a local charity that does great work for the homeless. Giving is not easy for me, so this remains a big deal. The charity never received the check, unfortunately. To make good on my verbal commitment, I also made the donation electronically in March (the original check remains outstanding). If the check is eventually received, I hope to bless the tremendous organization with the extra gift.

Stimulus Inflation Coming?

We make too much money to qualify for the third stimulus payment. A slightly expected financial windfall never materialized. Of course, we don’t need to receive $7000 ($1400 for each of the 5 people in our home). It’s great for people that need it but it also represents a dangerous precedent. We should not look to Washington and politicians as the source of financial security/blessings/hope.

Who knows if inflation will pick up but the total money supply has grown substantially over the last year. See Fed’s chart here. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/graph-landing.php?g=Ckxu&width=670&height=475

Huge deflationary pressure around March of 2020. The growth of the money supply makes it hard to believe there will not be at least some inflation.

Mark Goldwein wrote an interesting proposal in thehill.com to reduce payroll taxes paid by employees while raising revenue to address social security shortfalls.  

For context, Mark writes:

“…. Currently, the federal government taxes 12.4 percent of wages to cover the cost of Social Security benefits. This payroll tax is divided evenly between a worker and her employer so that each pays 6.2 percent. It applies only to cash wages and only up to a maximum of about $133,000 of earnings per year, otherwise known as the taxable maximum.”

As noted above, the payroll tax only applies to cash compensation below a specified amount. According to Mark, about 15% of cash compensation is paid to those individuals earning more than the taxable maximum and about 20% of total compensation is paid to employees as non-cash compensation, neither of which is subject to the tax.

Mark argues that requiring all non-cash compensation to be subject to the tax (at a  rate of 5.2%) raises additional revenue sufficient to reduce the payroll tax to the employer and employee from 6.2% to 5.2%.

Without discussing the merits of the proposal, the fact that the current payroll tax of 12.4% is insufficient to pay for current benefits is absolutely astounding and probably something that most voters simply do not understand or appreciate. This is not sustainable and kudos to Mark for proposing a thoughtful solution. Yet, again it seems crazy that a 12.4% payroll tax on approximately two-thirds of all compensation is insufficient. Why and how did this happen?

I favor 15-year amortization over 30-year amortization schedules.

I recently paid the 48th payment on my 180 payment mortgage. In other words, I’m 4 years into a 15-year mortgage. I paid a total of $26,685.87 in interest over the last 4 years and paid $55,039.17 of principle (from $231,600 to $176,560.83). Although I paid a small amount of approximately $75.00 extra each month, I think this shows the great benefit of a 15-year mortgage.

If I had a 30-year mortgage, the required monthly payment would have been lower, but I would only have paid $21,919.29 of principle (from $231,600 to $209,680.71) and $33,175.35 would have gone to interest. This assumes the 30-year mortgage would have a 0.5% higher interest rate, which is fairly typical.

Some might argue that had I taken the lower payment (i.e 30 Year) and invested the difference, I would have a greater net gain than the 15 year. This might be true since the market has done fairly well between August 2015, and August 2019. Assuming the difference in payment of $554.80 over 48 payments, that immediately nets $26,630.40.  Further, that money was invested systematically in the market and the S&P has gone from approximately 2000 to 2900 or a 45% total gain. I presume that a more exacting calculation could be performed but the gain on your monthly investments would be much smaller since you only started with $554.80. Ultimately, this ignores the reality that most people simply lack the disciple to do such investing.

The first few years in a 30-year mortgage are painful since most of your payment will go to interest. The first payment in a 15-year mortgage amortization schedule is much more favorable. There are several google sheets amortization schedules that you can manipulate to figure out what works best for you.

Running provides a very inexpensive way to burn calories and exercise. Personally, running reduces stress and clears my mind. So, although running may not offer a direct financial benefit running can help you stay in shape and provides psychological benefits.

1. Conquer the First Step

On a cold dark morning, the first step out of the door (or maybe bed) is the hardest. More times than not, simply walking out the door for a run is 75% of the battle. If you can get up and out, you are likely going to get your run in. So, when you’re not feeling it – simply just go for a walk. After about half a mile, your blood will be pumping and you’ll probably want to run. Imagine that.

2. Start Slow

If you are a beginning runner, set a very basic goal. Do not set a goal to run a 6 minute mile average in a 5k. No, your goal should be to enjoy getting out and relaxing on a short and easy run/walk. You can push yourself later.

Read — “Born to Run” by Chris McDougal. Although the book starts a little slow, you will put the book down and strap on your running shoes.

There is not much else more satisfying than knowing that you’ve got your run in for the day.

American’s tax advantaged retirement accounts (i.e. the 401k and IRA) are unnecessarily complicated and unfair. As Washington debates tax reform, here is one potential method to simplify retirement savings accounts.

Generally, there are two primary retirement savings accounts, the IRA (for Individual Retirement Account) and the 401k (and its variations like 457/403b). As of 2017, an IRA has a $5,500 contribution limit and 401k’s have an $18,000 contribution limit.

All Americans (with earned income) can establish an Individual Retirement Account or “IRA”. However, not all Americans have access to a 401k because, among other reasons, they can be expensive for employers to establish and administer. A 401k can only be established by your employer and only about half of all employees have access to a 401k plan. This results in an unfair and inequitable system. Employees with access to a 401k are permitted to save $18,000 per year annually in a tax advantaged manner in addition to the $5,500 IRA contribution. An employee without access to a 401k may only contribute $5,500 to an IRA. In sum, an individual with access to a 401k can utilize tax advantage retirement accounts on up to $23,500 of income per year but an individual without access to a 401k can only defer taxes on $5,500 of income. This is not good policy and should be fixed.

Costs Matter.

Not only is availability of the 401k unfair, most 401k plans offer lousy investment options at considerable higher costs than what is available on the market in an IRA. Generally, an IRA allows for the purchase of any publicly traded stock, mutual fund, ETF, or index fund. However, a 401k will only allow investment in those mutual funds and index funds selected by your employer, likely as suggested by the 401k plan vendor. However, the cost of most actual 401k investments greatly exceeds a similar investment option available on the market particularly for small businesses. A simple S&P 500 passive index fund in a 401k likely costs 1.0% or more annually. This means that more than 1% of the entire amount invested is siphoned off by the administrator (not your employer) to manage the account. However, a similar S&P 500 index fund with an 0.05% annual expense ratio is available on the market and could be purchased in a Super IRA. Such fund has 1/20th of the cost of the same investment available in most 401k plans. The 401k’s restricted and expensive investment options are a primary factor in most personal finance professionals suggestion that an employee roll their 401k into an IRA upon leaving employment.

A Better Way.

It does not have to be this way. Why not let current employees effectively roll over their current 401k to an IRA? This would allow those that like their 401k plan to keep their 401k plan and others to simply roll their 401k funds to an IRA each year. Better yet, why not remove this burden from the employer entirely and allow employees to establish a Super IRA with a combined contribution limit of $23,500. This ends the current unfair contribution limits and allows all employees regardless of employer to contribute the same amount to a tax advantaged retirement account. A single retirement account with the same contributions limits and rule promotes efficiency, simplicity, and fairness – which ultimately encourages adoption and retirement savings.

Of course there are some potential issue that will require resolution, like employer contributions subject to vesting and allowing payroll deductions. However, employers’ accounts could simply be segregated subject to the employer’s applicable vesting schedule and many employers already transmit employee’s 401k contributions electronically. The employee could simply submit a form to the employer along with his/her W-4 that directs the 401k withholding amount to the employee’s broker of choice (with ACH routing instructions, etc.). The funds could then be held in a money market account in name of employee subject to employee’s selection of specific investments through broker. The Super IRA could allow a portion of contributions to be ROTH contributions, which seems to be of some interest in Congress to provide short term revenue. (Roth IRA/401k contributions are made after taxes in the current year but grow on a tax free basis. This produces tax revenue in the short term as compared to a traditional IRA or 401k. Contributions to a traditional IRA or 401k are made prior to taxes but are taxed as income upon withdrawal.)

Undoubtedly, there may be other potential issues here, but we can do better than the current system. Although other issues may be more pressing, we should not continue the current unfair system where an employee with a 401k retirement plan can contribute about three time more to tax advantaged retirement accounts than an employee without a 401k.

Let’s revitalize retirement savings.

 

Cash Flow and Balance Sheet

Cash flow and the balance sheet are the ultimate yin and yang in the personal finance world.  Positive cash flow (e.g. spending less than you make) leads to building a better balance sheet, which consequently leads to more free cash flow.

For example, if have a $10,000 monthly employment income and $8000 in monthly expenses, the $2000 of positive cash flow will increase your asset base over time.  Eventually, this cash can be used to pay off debt (eliminating a monthly payment) or acquire an asset that produces income.  This further increases cash flow, which further builds capital assets, which further increase cash flow.

Negative cash flow reduces your asset base and increases debt, which further constrains your cash flow.  You can increase cash flow or the gap between income and expenses by either growing your income or cutting expenses.  Paying off debt or acquiring an income producing asset, each evidenced by an increase in net worth or equity on your balance sheet, will increase cash flow.  Most broke people do not understand this and the majority of people that actually understand this do not have the willpower to act on it.

Our system rewards capital.  Since we know that cash flow leads to assets, which leads to greater cash flow.   Our goal is to discuss ways to boostrap our balance sheet asset base and create positive cash flow and rinse/repeat.

We want to encourage and motivate you to achieve extreme positive cash flow and to build a better balance sheet.

Welcome to dollarpolicy.com

We want to help you develop and implement your own dollarpolicy to grow your income, give generously, spend wisely, and ultimately build wealth.  Although the focus is personal finance, Dollarpolicy.com is not just another personal finance website.  We want to help you become better informed and knowledgeable about governmental policies, especially those policies that affect your dollars.

Many people never intentionally develop or implement a dollarpolicy or a personal finance strategy.  These people wander through life living paycheck to paycheck, wondering where their money went and looking to the government for assistance or believing that winning the lottery is the only way to become wealthy.  There is nothing inherently wrong with playing the lottery for entertainment or the government providing a backstop for those nearing poverty.  This reliance on government is unfortunate because the lottery is certainly not the best path to prosperity and many governmental assistance programs are unsustainably funded and breed dependency.  Nonetheless, there are many things that these people get right in life – like understanding the value of hard work.  However, not having a policy is, in fact, a policy. And an intentional course of action to spend less and save more, key themes of Dollarpolicy.com, could help these people escape this vicious cycle and build wealth on a much sustainable and widespread rate.

Similarly, many people do not think critically about governmental policy or they passively support their favorite party’s candidate without really considering the effect of such candidate’s (and parties’) policy positions.  It seems that a large faction simply votes for the candidate that “looks good” or who would be more fun to drink a beer with.  Many people cannot describe the difference between federal, state, and local government…much less Medicare and Medicaid.  Ultimately, a basic understanding of governmental policies is critically important for the sustainability and growth of our country.  We need more reasoned policy discourse among voters.

In addition to helping people escape debt and build wealth, Dollarpolicy.com will provide a balanced, reasonable, moderate, and fair analysis and commentary of government policies related to personal finance and beyond.  We hope to facilitate open discussion about dollarpolicies without the toxic environment of the political world.

Think about it…our government has many dollarpolicies throughout the tax code and beyond.  For example, the government enacts policies intended to promote affordable housing, college education, healthcare, and retirement savings.  Many governmental policies are intended for good but are unsustainable, executed poorly, disincentive personal responsibility and work, and result in unintended consequences.

Ultimately, the goal of Dollarpolicy.com is to help individuals build wealth and become more informed voters.  Whether you are just starting out or whether you have a healthy income and/or a high net worth and no matter your prior understanding of governmental tax policy, for example,  you will find valuable information and motivation here to reach the next step in your journey to build wealth and become a better, more informed voter.