Seppia's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
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Seppia
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by Seppia »

Dividends are taxed 26% regardless of income.
One of the 1737737373728292938 injustices of the worst tax system I've ever known (another great one: ETF sales don't generate plus and minuses that can be compensated with plus and minuses from stocks).

henrik
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by henrik »

Is your tax situation going to improve by moving to wherever it's going to be in Asia?

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Seppia
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by Seppia »

:P It definitely should

take2
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by take2 »

Seppia wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:04 am
Dividends are taxed 26% regardless of income.
One of the 1737737373728292938 injustices of the worst tax system I've ever known (another great one: ETF sales don't generate plus and minuses that can be compensated with plus and minuses from stocks).

Ouch, that sucks. I thought the US was bad by not letting you combine “passive” gains/losses (from rental income) with “investment” gains/losses (from stocks, ETFs, etc). Word choice always irked me because the revenue stream I derive from my “passive” rental was a hell of a lot more active then the “investment” income from dividends. One was a few hours of research on the internet in my pajamas whilst the other was 4 months of project managing the renovation of a house.

I also hate the US citizen tax on worldwide income which falls under the category of “we do it because we can” and ex-pats don’t get any sympathy from anyone. The worst however is that your non-US citizen spouse (or green card holder, or even visa holder) is subject to US tax if you declare “married filing jointly”. Granted it doesn’t apply if you don’t but still - getting taxed from a foreign government without having any say or benefit from said government is beyond crazy to me.

Asia should be much better for you. Effective tax rates in both Singapore and HK are less than 15%.

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Seppia
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by Seppia »

anesde wrote:
Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:18 pm
I also hate the US citizen tax on worldwide income which falls under the category of “we do it because we can” and ex-pats don’t get any sympathy from anyone.
IIRC the first $90k earned abroad will not be subject to tax, so not too bad.
anesde wrote:
Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:18 pm
Asia should be much better for you. Effective tax rates in both Singapore and HK are less than 15%.
8-)

slowtraveler
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by slowtraveler »

$103,900 free of federal taxes. *

Including a full 401k: 19,000** excluding any match, Standard deduction: 12,000
Dividends/long term capital gains: 38,600***
Total: 173,500 tax free for a single filer

You can push this to 210,500 if you are maxing the 401k limits that include matching as the maximum total is 56,000, plus 6,000 to 62,000 if you're over 50**. Dont forget a defined benefit plan for further tax free income.

Unfortunately, you will still be paying social security on some income and medicare on all your income.

* https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p54.pdf
** https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/pl ... ion-limits
*** https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i8615

henrik
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by henrik »

Seppia wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:04 am
(another great one: ETF sales don't generate plus and minuses that can be compensated with plus and minuses from stocks).
anesde wrote:
Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:18 pm
Ouch, that sucks. I thought the US was bad by not letting you combine “passive” gains/losses (from rental income) with “investment” gains/losses (from stocks, ETFs, etc).
A common way around this is to do your investing in a holding company. Whether it makes sense obviously depends on personal circumstances and local tax rules. Using a holding company can also give you more flexibility in terms of residence - the company can "stay behind" or be established in another state/country in the first place.

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Seppia
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by Seppia »

September Update

September started off with a fairly irresponsible purchase, but when I saw this picture from a trusted guy and saw the asking price (below market) I simply could not resist:

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I'm a sucker for knives (mostly kitchen knives), and it's the only area (together with watches) where I must admit I own significantly more stuff than I really need.
1 good kitchen knife and maybe 1 folding/survival/whatever knife is enough, instead I own:
- 3 main kitchen knives: a large and midsize Zwilling chef knives, ad a small japanese paring knife (moki long hunter)
- 3 outdoor knives: this Hinderer, a large Sebenza Insingo and a Fallkniven A1 for those who like these kind of things

Still, September was a good month financially, with a 70% SR (78% YTD) in spite of the fact that for the first time in 2019 I collected no passive income.
YTD dividends have covered about 2/3 of this year's living expenses, and about 50% of the average expenses of the last 4 years.
This has been an unexpectedly frugal year so far, mostly due to the absence of one offs and a renewed focus on reducing expenses.

Asset Snapshot

I figured I'll put down a couple info on my AA so that I can come back here in the future and check how stupid or smart I have been, for a textbook "outcome over process" analysis. :lol:

Split as of today is stocks 85%, cash/CD 15%. No bonds as I live in europe. I don't like the idea of foreign currency denominated bonds, and I think Euro yields are insane.

Stocks are 43% in Index ETFs, 57% in individual stocks.
Indexes are split about 70/30 Europe/Emerging
Individual stocks are tilted towards safe dividends (RDSA, BAT, French utilities, GSK, etc) but overall diversified by sector and geography across Europe (for tax reasons).

Total assets value is around 20 years of expenses (average of last 4 years).

I do not include the value of my small apartment in the NW calculation.

Work/Travels

My work travels brought me to Japan and Vietnam this month.
Wasn't able to do much visiting in Japan, but while in Osaka I managed to meet a friend of mine in a pork skewer restaurant that looked fantastic.

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We decided to order randomly as the menu wasn't exactly gaijin-friendly :lol:

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Reminder: the japanese eat EVERYTHING

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While in Vietnam, I spent a couple days in Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon), again without much time for tourism.
It is incredible how different the cost of living is between the locals and the westernized areas.
I stayed at *random american hotel chain*, and prices for food were about the same as you would get in europe.
Then you head out, and this costs 30000 Vietnamese Dong (about $1.30), and it is DELICIOUS! (name is Pho Bo)

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Of course, the looks of the place aren't exactly up to the standards of average tourist:

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Last but not least, I had to spend a couple days in Hanoi, where I finally had a little time to decompress.
First, we had a fantastic mini-ERE meetup with fellow forumite slowtraveler and GF.
We had a great time and ate some fairly spectacular pizza (yes, pizza! One of my best friends is a pizzaiolo in Hanoi and we met at his place).

We had some great discussions, one in particular stuck in my mind for a while.
While I was raving about how it must be great for slowtraveler to be able to, well, slow travel across the globe thanks to having pulled the plug, he made a great observation about how, on the flipside, I'm being paid to do what I do.

So the takeaways for me were:
1- I must stop whining as I'm a lucky bastard
2- One of my best achievements in life has probably been to design a work path / career that matched very well with my personal interest.
Of course most of it was due to luck, as it almost always is the case with white males from a western democracy.

Then I was able to sneak a half day visit in the Ninh Binh area.
Pretty spectacular and made me want to come back for a vacation.

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Have a great weekend everyone!
Last edited by Seppia on Sat Oct 12, 2019 8:16 am, edited 2 times in total.

slowtraveler
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by slowtraveler »

That was a wonderful night, one of the highlights of Hanoi.

That may have been the best pizza of my life- literally the only pizza I ever had without the temptation to add a centimeter layer of parmesan. We waddled home so full and happy from the great company and food. Thank you Seppia.

Your life is pretty good though I have to acknowledge the price as well, I see 2 big ones:
1) You're far away from your sweetheart.
2) You find somewhere you love and you can't settle there as long as your heart wants.

I understand your frustrations and I still think it's as sweet a gig as anyone could have. You earned it man, luck is a factor for us all here but many people had your opportunities and didn't build the life you have.

Ps-What was the name of that last pizza? It was made for my taste buds.

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Seppia
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by Seppia »

The last pizza is not a standard recipe, it's Danilo's invention, combining the recipe of Amatriciana pasta sauce with pizza.

Should you want to replicate it, you need to start from a Margherita Pizza, then add some guanciale, grated pecorino romano cheese and some sundried tomatoes.

Here's the result for everyone to see. It was fantastic.

Image

horsewoman
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by horsewoman »

cimorene12 wrote:
Sun Oct 13, 2019 1:28 pm
Your photos from your trips to Japan and Vietnam are fabulous. I know that there are some (non-financial) costs associated with traveling so much. Nonetheless, it looks like it's mostly working at the moment.
What does it say about me that I preferred the picture of the pizza to the travel photos? :) We LOVE pizza in this house, and this one looks very delicious! :)

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Seppia
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by Seppia »

October Update

A couple big changes should be coming in the next few months.
It looks like finally I have a date for my move to Hong Kong, should be April 1st 2020!
I am slightly worried by the ongoing unrest, but having been there many times in the last few months I know the situation is not as bad as it seems.
Still waiting for the package offer, but while I obviously hope it will be as high as possible, at this point in life the money aspect is not so important any more.

We will have much more than we need, and when the question is "how much more than 50% will we be able to save all while living with great standards", who cares?
Both DW and I really want to have this life experience of living in Asia for a few years, being able to do so on while being paid is such a blessing that I'm not going to ruin my life negotiating hard for a few bucks.
Having little wants and being already financially safe really has a huge impact on quality of life.

I am so thankful to Jacob (and the other FIRE OGs as well) for all they've done for me.

I am stashing away miles and hotel points so that we should be able to travel on the cheap for a while (I did more than 100 hotel nights this year alone)

Work is going great, my area should end 2019 among the best performing in the whole company, so everybody's happy about the team I lead, and this makes corporate life easier.

October is one of my biggest months in terms of revenues from assets, with Index Funds and Royal Dutch (my biggest individual holding) paying dividends.
YTD, revenue from assets has covered 76% of living expenses, which is pretty cool although unsustainable.
2019 is shaping up to be an unusually frugal year thanks to the absence of one-offs + we spent almost zero on vacation time (we squatted DW parent's apartment in the Alps).

The last month has been a great reminder of why I like the strategy of making investment changes slowly.
While I've thought the markets to be overvalued for a while now, I did not sell any huge chunks or go all-in on different strategies. I've instead slowly accumulated a bit more dry powder.
Had I done anything more extreme, I would have missed on about 10% gains in the last 45 days.

Last work trip was in Australia and Hong Kong, did not take any pictures in Sydney and Melbourne as I had zero time for play, but in HK, during the weekend, I went to Sai Kung with a friend who's been living there for a few years.
We took a boat to Half Moon Bay.

It's incredible how one can be in an entirely different world in just 45 minutes.

HK:
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Half Moon Bay:
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2Birds1Stone
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Beautiful pictures and exciting news on the move. I'm sad you won't be in Italy when we arrive in April :(

Need anyone to house sit in Como? =D

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Seppia
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by Seppia »

We'll figure it out, I'm sure :)

Sent you more details via PM

slowtraveler
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by slowtraveler »

That's a beautiful sunset over the mountains. I'm glad you're having a good time.

Work can make life more satisfying at times.

About your concern on saving..
In theory, once you get to a 3% withdrawal rate, even if you're spending your whole salary, it allows more time for compounding. It virtually eliminates sequence of return risk since you're saving beyond the 4% to get to the ultra safe sub 3% withdrawal rate realm. Keep rocking on! Any saving beyond the 3% is a bonus so whenever you get there, there's no need for any stress. Life is good.

Frugalchicos
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by Frugalchicos »

Catching up with your journal, amazing pics and all the best with the move to HK!!

Also, a tip for getting back into fitness. Sign up for a race, like 10K or a half marathon. You will feel motivated and somehow will feel you "need" to work out in order to be ready for the race day. I hope it helps!!

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Seppia
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by Seppia »

2019 recap

Overall, 2019 was a great year.

We settled well in the new city we moved into late 2018 because of my job. We like it much better than the Milan area: better weather, less traffic, overall one of the gems of Italy.
It is one those "small but not so small" cities that seem to fare well in quality of life, because they're small enough not stress you out, but also big enough as to offer things to do.
We can confirm it's great.

Work was great, I had a fantastic year and my area was the best performing in the whole company.
This was due to some changes I implemented when I joined in the 2nd half of 2018 that worked, but also to a lot of luck. What I did right was to simply understand the opportunities that we had and capitalize on them.
The good results put me in a good place as I've earned the trust of the top management, which makes life a little easier in general.

Financially, 2019 was my best year ever, with a SR of 76% and assets growing an obscene 31%.
Dividends covered 72% of all living expenses.

The most important thing of all, though, happened in early January.
I introduce you to Alessandro, new member of the ERE family:

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He is doing great and does what he's supposed to do (sleep, eat, shit. Mostly shit. God there's shit everywhere).
Mommy is fully recovered from a fairly hard delivery where she lost 50% of her blood. My wife is clearly the real badass in the couple so she looks fantastic already. Had I lost 50% of my blood I would have curled into a ball and requested to be spoon fed for the next 15 years probably.

January is shaping up to be a very high expense month, because:

1- He really shits a lot. Diapers probably deserve their own line in our family budget.
2- A Paul & Shark outlet just had a 70% off sale so I jumped on it and bought 5 sweaters. Paul & Shark is one of the absolute best makers of wool sweaters in the world: they look great and they last ages.
I have a sweater that my dad bought in the late 80s and it looks almost new.
Most of my sweaters were on their last legs so it was a great opportunity. I do not expect to buy another sweater for around 10 years now, at which point I hope to be comfortably ERE'd not having to give a fuck about style.
3- Yes of course I bought a watch to celebrate the birth of my son. A used Sinn 903 for those who like this sort of thing.
4- Having been reminded how lucky I am, I just gave a fairly large sum to charity.

None of this really matters because I'm the happiest person on the planet.

theanimal
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by theanimal »

Congratulations to you and Mrs. Seppia!! That's great news. Glad to hear everyone's doing well.

wolf
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by wolf »

Congrats to you! :-)

classical_Liberal
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Re: Seppia's journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

Holy shit Seppia, I had no idea!. Congrats!!!

He's so cute, I wonder if I can find baby sized Korn shirts at the thrift store?

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