Elon Musk’s hype machine is in full effect. Instead of cars driving themselves, it’s about creating a colony of a million people on Mars*. It’s Starlink beaming internet down from space. And it’s reportedly going to be the largest IPO in history, targeting a $1.77 trillion valuation.

That number is exactly why I’m going to pass. Actually, it’s only part of the reason. Let me walk through the rest.

I’ll get my bias out of the way first. I’m not a fan of Musk, and I’ve been less of one since his DOGE adventure in government. You’re free to disagree, but I think even he’d admit that he failed miserably at delivering what he promised.

Here’s the bigger problem, though. To buy SpaceX, you kind of have to buy the whole Musk story, and that story has a habit of moving the goalposts.

Look at Tesla. Its valuation has always seemed out of control to me compared to other car companies. Tesla makes great cars, but it’s still a car company, and it’s priced like something else entirely. Meanwhile, Musk seems less interested in cars these days and more interested in humanoid robots. Ten years ago, he sold us on full self-driving being right around the corner. It wasn’t. Today, Tesla is playing catch-up to Google’s Waymo and a Chinese company or two who are actually putting driverless cars on the road. So, having not delivered on that promise, the pitch has shifted to robots that are probably another decade away.

Now, what exactly are you buying with SpaceX? It’s a bundle. It includes Twitter (sorry, “X”), which Musk bought for $44 billion and quickly lost about 80% of its value. It includes xAI, his artificial intelligence company. xAI isn’t nothing, but let’s be honest about where it sits. It’s behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT, behind Anthropic’s Claude, and behind Google’s Gemini. I’d put it in fourth place at best, with Meta breathing down its neck. And every one of these AI companies is spending absolutely staggering amounts of money on data centers right now. That’s a scary business to be in, even if you’re winning. Being in fourth place and spending like you’re in first is scarier still.

Then there are the actual rockets, which are supposedly the whole point. The core launch business does real, impressive work. But the revenue is small for a $1.77 trillion price tag. SpaceX did somewhere around $19 billion in revenue last year and still lost nearly $5 billion.

Let me put that $1.77 trillion in context, because numbers this big stop meaning anything. Here’s what other trillion-dollar-ish companies actually bring in:

Alphabet (Google): over $400 billion in revenue last year
Microsoft: north of $245 billion
Meta: around $165 billion
Nvidia: $130 billion last fiscal year, and running far higher now

These are wildly profitable companies. In fairness, Alphabet (4.3B), Microsoft (3.2B), and Nvidia (5.2B) are still much bigger than SpaceX. However, Musk seems to think that SpaceX is equal to Meta without the revenue or profits. I’m not a Wall Street analyst, but I can do the revenue/market cap division, and it doesn’t add up for me.

I’m not the only skeptic. Morningstar just pegged SpaceX’s fair value at $780 billion, less than half the IPO target, and flatly said investors will get better prices after the IPO. The Motley Fool agreed, saying there’s no rush and a wait-and-see approach lowers your risk. When the pros are this lukewarm, why buy into the hype?

So would I ever buy? Sure, at the right price. IPOs have lock-up periods, and when early investors are finally free to sell, the price often drops. For me, I’d start to get interested after about a 70% drop from the IPO price. It’s the gap between the hype and what the business actually earns, factoring in the failures to deliver that I’ve watched for years. I can’t even begin to imagine what Warren Buffett thinks of this.

Am I being too cynical here? Are you planning to buy into the SpaceX IPO, or sitting it out like me? Let me know in the comments.

* Yes, Musk’s compensation package includes an incentive for creating a colony of a million people on Mars.

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I’m not going to pile on too much about the lack of humanity. I’d much rather cover some of his justifications. I’ll get to those in a bit, but these two sentences stood out right away:

We haven’t found another example in U.S. business history of a public company growing at more than 30% that laid off more than 20% of its workforce. Yet what we did is likely going to become the norm over the next year.

If he’s right, the economy will face very serious problems over the next 12 months.

He explains the layoffs using a book by Peter Drucker, published in 1954, called The Practice of Management. I’ve heard of Peter Drucker, but I’m not familiar with the book. It’s far from the equivalent of the Bible when it comes to business, but let’s presume it is very good. The concept that Price focuses on is that there are three main roles in business: builders, sellers, and measurers. Price describes them: “Builders create products. Sellers sell those products. Measurers do everything else: internal audit, revenue recognition, finance, legal, compliance, middle management, operations, and on and on.”

So, now we can get to some of his first very unusual statements:

“Contrary to what some analysts predict, builders aren’t going anywhere. If an engineer on my team can now be 10 times as productive, I’m going to hire as many as I can find.”

On the surface, that may make sense. However, it’s quite possible to overbuild. Let’s presume that the demand for product is X and you can meet that demand with 100 engineers. If the engineers become 10x more productive, it’s not useful to make 10x the product. The smart business would match the supply with the demand and save money by getting rid of 90 engineers.

This is essentially what the big tech companies in Silicon Valley are doing with the layoffs. It’s possible that the business could expand into other areas with the engineers, but keep in mind that other companies are doing the same thing. It doesn’t seem like every business could just expand into ten other businesses with their engineers. Eventually you have too many companies competing in the same businesses. Not only that, but it is unlikely that the demand supports all those businesses.

Next Price says:

“Sellers, too, are safe from extinction. Humans still control budgets, and they want to buy from people who take the time to understand their needs, build trust and fix whatever goes wrong.”

I think this depends on the business. How many sellers does Walmart or Amazon need? It feels to me like the shelf or computer system does the selling. You would need a seller to get your product on Walmart’s shelves, but that would be relatively few people and a one-time thing, since there are fewer retailers to sell to.

Price then moves on to measurers. It’s a long quote, so I will simplify it to say that’s important, but it’s what AI is replacing. Specifically, “Tireless, independent, efficient and available, AI systems can now measure an organization with a level of objective detail and precision that was previously impossible even for the best employees.”

So who did Cloudflare lay off? Price says he laid off middle managers, which I suppose could make sense. Still, I’d argue that they do communications that are thought to be one of the resistant jobs in a world of AI. He also says, “We significantly reduced our marketing team, which, like in most companies, was teeming with measurers.”

In what world is the marketing team a measurer instead of sales?!?! I guess you have to measure the sales, but marketing goes hand in hand with sales.

He pivots to an area of hiring and says, “We received almost a million applicants for 1,111 paid internships this summer. The interns we hired are extremely qualified and AI-native. They’re all builders or sellers, and we expect that the majority will get full-time offers.”

I know it’s a US-based business (he says it above), and there are probably international hires. I would expect most of the hires to be in the United States, though. I find it hard to believe that Cloudflare got almost a million real applicants. I suspect that they are counting something similar to the Common App, where people can apply en masse to a bunch of businesses. Can you imagine how many applications much, much bigger companies like Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Amazon, Meta, etc. get?

Perhaps it’s time to turn off electric submissions and make job seekers prove their interest the old-fashioned way- they write a cover letter, attach a resume, and hope to get a call from a real person. If I were hiring, that’s the kind of applicant that would get my attention.

Final Thoughts

Despite my criticism above, there’s some real value to what Price was saying. If he can grow the company 30% while shrinking headcount 20%, he’s almost forced to make that move to, as they say, “increase shareholder value.”

We’re just at the beginning of AI. ChatGPT hasn’t been public for four years yet. It’s difficult to see where this is going, and it’s only going to get crazier with quantum computers coming in 8-12 years (I think). My kids are about 10 years away from entering the workforce. For the first time in forever, I don’t know what that’s going to look like.

* Why do CEOs write editorials in newspapers that are paywalled? And why do newspapers paywall articles that aren’t done by their journalists or writers? This drives me crazy. I get that there’s print distribution for the CEO’s message, but it’s awful for 95% of the population that will find the article online.

The post Builders, Sellers, and Measurers appeared first on Lazy Man and Money.

I first started looking into college savings plans in 2007, when my nephew was born. I wanted to give him a little head start. I loved the idea my gift would be multiplied thanks to the power of compound interest. Now, he’s 18 years old! He’ll be off to college in the fall.

Unfortunately college savings plans can be a little difficult for a new parent to understand. This is why I wrote my guide for How to Choose a 529 back in 2007.

As new uncle, I put in a little money to seed the account and added more on birthdays and holidays. My nephew got himself an awesome little sister, so I opened up an account for her too. My mother (their grandmother) pitched in on holidays.

Today, he has more than $7,500 in his account. More than half of that is from stock market gains. College is expensive, but $7,500 is still something.

In 2012, we had kids of our own and we focused on saving in their own 529 Plans. We’ve got some work to do on that front, but we do have $50,000 saved. We have some saved in a Coverdell which is another educational savings plan. (In my opinion, 529s are better, but I did the Coverdell once because it was a little more flexible for some expenses). We also have my wife’s GI Bill. We’re investing in their education with the best private school in the area, so they better earn scholarships too, right? Finally, we want the kids to have some of their own money for their own education so they don’t skip classes.

In short, there are a lot of ways to save for college. Before we get started with my 29 thoughts on 529 Plans on 5/29, I have one update for 2025. I added my updates from 2024 with negative numbers, so I’ll continue with that system with this year’s update. (If I had more time, I’d consolidate a few of these thoughts to keep it at 29. Yes, you can laugh at my numbering system.)

-2. 2025 Update – While 529 plans are mostly the same for this year, keep an eye out for Trump/MAGA Accounts. They aren’t passed into law yet, but they’ve could be soon. If they do become a real financial product, it seems they won’t get the same tax benefit as 529 plans. So if you think you are going to use money for higher education, it’s likely going to be better to stick to the 529 plan. In any case, we’ll wait and see what those financial accounts look like when they are done baking… if they get done baking at all.

-1. 2024 Update – There was an update to one of the laws in 2024 that makes a 529 even more flexible. The law is the Secure Act 2.0 and you can read more about why a 529 plan is even better in 2024 from my friend Jim’s Wallet Hacks website.

0. 2024 Update – Here’s a brilliant hack to draw down from your 529k Plan if your kids don’t use all the 529 money you’ve saved. It comes from Justin at Root of Good:

Ultimate 529 draining methodology:

Enroll half time in a community college in fun interesting classes. Pay for 6 hours to be considered half time (cost ~$1k/yr)

Withdraw from 529 the $21,717 per year for Room and board plus the $1k tuition, all qualified educational expenses pic.twitter.com/nDd9fRoS5R

— Justin RootofGood, Worker Emeritus (@RootofGoodBlog) December 15, 2023

Jonathan at My Money Blog, explains it in more detail here. Essentially by enrolling part time in Community College you can use the amount of room and board as a qualified tuition expense. This means that you don’t have to pay the 10% withdrawal fee or taxes on the investment gains.

1. When money from a 529 plan is used for a qualified education expense, there are no taxes to pay on the investment gains.

2. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get great gains on a 529 plan since they are typically compounding for less than 20 years.

3. You might be able to reasonably double your money twice in that 20 years. Thus one dollar invested at a child’s birth may be worth four after high school graduation. This assumption uses the rule of 69 with 7-8% investment growth.

4. Thus, if you put one year of tuition in a 529 account at birth, it could fund their entire college education. (Unfortunately, very few people have tens of thousands to invest when a new child is born.)

5. 529 plans are run at the state level. As soon as you are done with this article, you’ll want to look at your own state’s specific plan.

6. Some states give you an extra incentive to open a 529 plan. My state, Rhode Island, gives a $100 grant if you sign up for a 529 plan when your baby is born.

7. I used this idea to help motivate a blogger friend to start a 529 plan. I offered $25 and a couple of other bloggers joined in.

8. Some states allow for a tax deduction or credit for saving in a 529 plan.

9. Some states have better investment options than others. When I lived in California there was no tax incentive for me to invest in the state plan. I decided it was best to invest in Ohio’s plan which had Vanguard funds with low expenses.

10. 529 plans can be rolled over to a new beneficiary such as a child. This can be done indefinitely, possibly creating a family legacy of education funding and compound interest.

11. 529 plan money can be used to buy computers. See this IRS page for more details.

12. 529 plan money can also be used to buy computer software subject to the same IRS rules mentioned previously.

13. 529 plan money can even be used for internet service.

14. 529 plan money can be used for tuition at private or religious elementary or secondary schools.

15. 529 Plans can be used for community and technical schools.

16. 529 Plans can be used for some nontraditional schools such as the Golf Academy of America, the commercial diving program CDA Technical Institute, and the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. Yes, golf, diving, and cooking can qualify.

17. 529 Plans can be used for online schools.

18. 529 Plans can be used for hundreds of international schools. Check with the government searchable database first.

19. 529 Plans can be used for online schools. Again, check with the government searchable database first.

20. There’s a limit of $10,000 per year for elementary and secondary use.

21. If your state has a tax deduction for 529 plan contributions, you may want to funnel money through the plan to save on your state tax.

22. If the beneficiary gets a scholarship an equivalent amount of the money in the 529 plan can be used penalty-free. However, taxes on the gains will apply.

23. Alabama and Illinois have a 529 Rewards Visa card where you can earn 1.529% rewards on your spending. A small annual fee may apply. As always, it’s best to pay off your credit cards every month to avoid the huge interest charges.

24. One of the best ways to grow a 529 is simply to create an automatic monthly transfer from your income. This “paying yourself first” creates forced savings.

25. A wealthy relative can use a 529 plan to circumvent the gift tax by “superfunding” 5 years of contributions ($70,000) in one year.

26. Almost 300 private colleges and universities belong to a Private College 529 Plan. It’s the only 529 plan not run by a state and it allows you to lock in tomorrow’s tuition at today’s rates. It’s not an investment.

27. However, if you plan to contribute to the Private College 529 Plan and go to a school that doesn’t participate, you may have done better investing in a regular 529 plan.

28. It’s possible to combine a Private College 529 for tuition and a regular 529 for other expenses such as room and board.

29. As 529 plans are intrinsically linked to taxes, please consult with your tax advisor before implementing anything mentioned here.

If you’ve made it through all 29 thoughts, I hope that you’ve been inspired to investigate at least a few of them further. Let me know in the comments if you have followed any of these down the rabbit and what your experience with 529 plans is.

The post 529 Plans: 29 Thoughts for 5/29 appeared first on Lazy Man and Money.

I originally wrote this article in 2007 after days of reading about to best gift money for my nephew’s college. Nearly 20 years later, the specifics of the plans may have changed, but the overall lessons and logic remain the same. My nephew and niece (who came later) have a combined $16,000 each in college savings in the plan. I’m keeping this in its original 2007 form even though a lot has changed since then. You may also be interested in This more recent article on 529 plans.]

I mentioned yesterday that I’m looking to give my newborn nephew a head start in his education savings. Having gone through a number of options, I decided that a 529 Plan was my best option. Unfortunately, a lot of research may be necessary to decide on the right state’s 529 Plan for you. Here are the steps I took to determine which state will receive my money. Remember that I’m looking to give $500 initially and $100 a year after that.

Check your own state first
My home state is California. I thought it would be very easy to see if there was a tax benefit for my state. However, states don’t often advertise that your invest is NOT tax-deductible. They are in the business of getting you to invest with them, so it doesn’t serve their cause to advertise a fact that could be construed as a negative. When the originating source isn’t helpful, I suggest looking for a third party. Kiplinger.com came to the rescue with a list of states that offer a 529 Plan tax deduction. It’s not the most recent list, but the best I could find. If your state is on that list, chances are your best option is to invest in your own state’s 529 Plan and take the tax deduction. The exception is if your own state has a significant reason to reject them, such as the ones below. If your state, like mine, isn’t on that list, there’s no particular advantage that I could find for going with that state. In fact, you may be better off looking at another state’s for a variety of reasons that we will cover now.

How is a state’s 529 Plan sold?
There are two basic ways to invest in a 529 Plan. The plans are sold directly or through an advisor. Some states may offer either one or both options. The direct sales is the do-it-yourself method and the advisor option is for people that wish to have a little more guidance. If you’ve been reading my writing for any length of time, you know that I’m a direct kind of guy. I hate paying fees when I can do the research myself, so I eliminated any plans that didn’t have a direct sales option.

How do I know if a state’s plan is any good?
Put simply, this is the biggest question for those that are looking outside their own state. With 50 states and some having multiple plans, you could spend a week reading about each of them. I typically find this stuff fun, but it has it’s limits. I spent a lot of time researching various articles that listed 4 or 5 good states, but none of them gave me anything to compare or went into detail on why they are good. I finally stumbled upon Saving for College’s 5 Cap Rating System. With their list you can pretty quickly scan through and weed out quite a few sub-par states. In my research, I only looked at plans that had 4.5 Caps for the out-of-state and had a direct sale option. This left me with just a handful to consider. I still needed to narrow it down which required me to reject some plans.

Reasons to Reject a state’s plan:

• Minimum Investment
  Since I intend to invest only $500, any plans that required more than that had to be excluded. I came across a few that were $1000 to start and some that seemed to require automatic deposits of $25 a month. After eliminating those I was left with about 4 or 5 different options.
• Maintenance Fees
  Some states charge $25 a year if you don’t have $25,000 in assets with them. We are expecting to contribute $100 a year in addition to our initial deposit. Those maintenance fees would be 25% of each year’s investment. This eliminated Utah for me despite the fact that it’s one of the best state plans according to most reviews.
• Expenses
  Like mutual funds, 529 Plans have expenses. Like you and me, the financial folks have to make their living. There are numerous reports on how index funds often outperform the managed funds, so I prefer to go with them. They typically have very low expenses since they aren’t out visiting companies to research their investments. So I looked at the expenses of the remaining choices. I was happy to stumble upon two states with expenses as low as 0.30% that matched all the above criteria.
• Investment Options
  I might be getting a little picky here as most plans offer the basics – age-based plans, equity plans, balanced plans, etc… However, a few plans go above and beyond and offer more choice. Other plans offer fund families you might already know and trust.

The Winner
Ohio passed all the tests with flying colors. I don’t have the beneficiaries social security number, so I haven’t signed up yet. Maybe during the final review there will be some kind of gotcha, but right now all systems are go. They seem to have put together a best of breed program. There are no fees, no significant minimums (just $15 per investment option). Their expenses are amongst the lowest I found (except for you lucky folks who live in Louisiana) as long as you go with their Vanguard option. I’ve read that you can mix and match a few different Vanguard funds, which, if true, is going to be icing on the cake. If it’s not true, then I’ll go with the Aggressive Growth option as it’s 85% Vanguard Total Stock Market Index and 15% Vanguard Institutional Developed Markets Index Fund. I love the way that Vanguard has handled my ETF portfolio, so I’m excited to give them a little more money to work with.

The Runner-up
Michigan almost had it all – it really was a photo-finish. The only differences I could find were in the investment options. TIAA-CREF is a great organization, but I don’t know them like I do Vanguard. They also had only three static investment options and it didn’t seem like you could build a portfolio from them at all. Though their all equity option was tempting, I’m passing Michigan for more choice.

Have you invested out-of-state 529 Plan? If so, I’d love to read in the comments what factors influenced your decision.

The post 529 Plans: How Do you Choose? appeared first on Lazy Man and Money.

In the past, I’ve done some personal/family updates, but I’ve started writing this over a week after I would like to have it published. I’ll quickly mention that I turned 50 in March, then get to the numbers.

Goals for 2025

I put all my goals in a spreadsheet that I stole borrowed from Retire By 40. Here’s what it looks like for this year:

(Click it, and it will open in a new tab.)

Steal this idea and make it yours. I always make a bunch of goals that I know I’ll never complete. It gives me the flexibility to fail on some things as long as I’m making progress on others. Most people would do the opposite, focus on fewer goals, and aim to get them all done. It’s much less overwhelming. I’m unusual.

Passive Income

I used to have three side hustles with a passive component: a dog-sitting business, this blog, and a website I manage for a non-profit. They all required some active work. However, I could do them all even while working a full-time job. I considered those partially passive income. This blog and the retainer for the non-profit website are minimal, so consider it almost all dog boarding.

Dog Boarding/Website Income

This is the least passive of all incomes. I only count this as 50% passive. Dog sitting has been very steady over the last few years. It’s been close to $50,000.

That’s changed this year. Business is down about 40%. It’s nice to have the break, but I’m ready to host more dogs. The summer is usually quite busy, but that hasn’t been the case.

April’s Dog/Web Real Income: $3,026.35

There’s a path to earning more from web work, and I’m probably going to pivot to that for a bit. I still have more than enough family stuff to do.

Rental Property Income

We have two rental properties. Both still have mortgages, and the rental income is around $1,100/mo. One mortgage is done in 2027. The other one is a small loan, but it has another 15 years on it. If they were both mortgage-free, we’d make around $32,000 a year.

For the purpose of this report, I calculate the rental property income using the following formula:

(Rents After Estimated Expenses) * (Equity Percentage Owned) = Income)

The idea is that we only own a percentage of the equity, so I should only count that percentage of the rent after expenses. When we own everything, the equity percentage will be 100%, and the rent will be after expenses.

Estimated expenses are insurance, property taxes, condo fees, and estimated condo maintenance. Equity Percentage Owned (EPO) is our total equity divided by the property value on Zillow. (Zillow is very accurate for our condos.) When the mortgages are paid off, we’ll have an EPO of 100% and be able to keep all the rent after estimated expenses.

In April, Zillow estimated our properties were worth $13,000 more than the month before. The seasonal market is just starting to hit its peak time. We also paid off almost $1,000 in mortgage principal. That meant our EPO went from owning 84.48% of our properties to 84.91%. The rents after expenses are $2,900/month. Using the equation above, our estimated income from this area would be $2,460. That’s up from $2,448 in March. Twelve dollars is a nice gain for this number.

Managing rental properties requires some work – a few days a year. For this reason, I only count 80% of this number as passive income. One of our new tenants has had a lot of needs, but they are mostly legitimate. I’m thinking of getting out of the rental property business. We’re probably going to sell one property next spring.

Dividend Income

My wife and I have been nearly maxing out our retirement accounts for a couple of decades. The markets have done very well over that time. Overall, we have a nice retirement nest egg.

I don’t track dividends from all the accounts. I’m doing well to get my wife to log in to her TSP (the government’s version of a 401k) account and give me the totals. I simply assume we could invest the money into an ETF that pays a 2.5% dividend. For example, HDV, a high-dividend ETF, currently yields 3.01%.

I also have profit-sharing income with a private company in which I own a small stake. I get a check each month that behaves like a dividend – it’s just taxed a little differently.

April’s estimated dividend income was $6218. In March, it was $5,897. You can see why the $12 in real estate gains are unexciting now. That was nice, but nothing compared to this $321 number. The stock market can jump around a lot, and I can see a 20%+ correction coming, but I’ve been wrong about that for a couple of years now. I’ll just keep on growing money while everything is going good. I have been putting more and more money into bonds and treasuries to try to protect these gains.

Unlike the previous two sections, this income is 100% passive. For this reason, I don’t have to adjust the numbers.

Total Passive Income

Dog/Etc.: $3,026 – Adjusted to $1,513
Rentals: $2,460 – Adjusted to $1,968
Dividends: $6,218 – Remains at $6,218

Dogs/Etc – Blue Line
Rental – Red Line
Dividend – Yellow Line

Total Adjusted Passive Income: $9,699

Here’s a graph of the adjusted passive income since 2017, when I started keeping track:

The blue line represents the monthly total adjusted passive income. The red line represents the 12-month average. This removes some of the seasonality of dog boarding. That’s the important one.

This April’s numbers were the biggest jump in some time. That important red line mentioned above has hit another new high, as it has for 13 of the last 15 months. The most passive components, real estate and dividends, passed $8,000 for the first time. They blew by the number at $8,186 – almost at the magic $100,000 milestone.

My wife continues to work as well. She has 27 years of high-level military service. That means she’s vested in a pension that would double all this passive income. I also earn some income that falls outside of the areas listed above. It’s not passive, so I don’t mention it here.

I can’t think of anywhere else to put this information, but our net worth gained 4.79%. I can’t remember too many months like that. I can’t remember too many months like that. It’s all the stock market, though, and it can easily go back down quickly. This is why I’m “pocketing” some gains in treasuries and bonds. They are less likely to go down and still give some income in the meantime. For the whole year, our net worth is up 5.81%.

Business and Other Money Goals

Personal Income ($80,000)

My income has been dropping over the last few years, going from $98K to 488K to $81K. Last year, I stayed mostly the same at $80,593.

Now that I’m 50 and we’ve got a good set of assets, I don’t feel the need to push this. It’s more for self-worth feelings than anything else, I guess.

In April, I made $5,026. For the year, I’m at $18,097. That pace would bring me to $54K. Dog boarding ramps up in the summertime, but we have some extra travel this year, so I’m very likely to fall short on this one.

Improve My Dog Boarding Website and Operations

I can’t remember doing anything to improve the website or operations. I have a whole list of stuff to do, but I was too busy to get to most of it. I’m also not motivated to do much for operations when we don’t have nearly as much business as we’ve had in the past.

AI Everything

I mentioned last month that I’m working on a guide for boys and young men on how to live the best life. It’s inspired by Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway (affiliate link), which I’ve been reading. I’m using AI to shape it, and I’ve added a bunch of other sources.

The problem is that it always feels like it can be improved. I have to call it good enough and print a version to present to the kids. Once again, perfect is the enemy of good. I should be able to finish this in a couple of hours this weekend.

I have also been using AI to research the value of private high schools. I don’t think I’ve ever been so flummoxed by anything before. I had always assumed that we’d send the kids to public high school, take advantage of dual enrollment, and hack together a great Bachelor’s degree in maybe three years.

Part of the master plan with this was to use my wife’s military discount for a cheaper private school and give them a head start. Our oldest (7th grade) doesn’t have to try to get A’s and is often bored by the material. When we visit the private high school classes, he finds them fascinating and engaging. I think he’s just sliding through the public high school classes.

I’m not sure if the AI is helping me come up with any answers, but I’m able to have it review some of the books on the subject and give me some analysis. I’m careful to take any findings to another AI for verification.

Health

As I mentioned above, I got old, turning 50 a few months ago. For my health goals, I’m mostly using this separate article about health goals from last year.

Weight and Body Fat (Lean-(fat*2) mass >60)

My goal this year is to add lean mass while losing fat mass. It took me a long time to figure out how to create a formula for that. I settled on the formula: lean mass minus 2×fat mass. This penalizes me if I add weight that’s a bunch of fat.

My weight this month was 175.9 lbs, and my body fat was 24.7%. That means my lean mass was 132.5, and my fat mass was 43.4 lbs. This is a score of 45.6 using my formula. Last month, my average weight was 173.3lbs, and my body fat was 23.6%. That was a score of 50.6. It turns out that I added 2.5 pounds of straight fat – almost no lean mass. That’s why my score dropped 5 points.

Higher is better, and I’ve been going in the wrong direction for a couple of months now. The vacation in March really set me back. I haven’t been able to get back to where I was. I’m making progress, but it takes time to lower the whole average.

My goal of getting this number to 60 could be achieved by losing 169 lbs and having a body fat of 21.5%. Wow, those numbers don’t seem likely at all, right now.

Body and Brain Points (300 and 225 respectively)

I rate my diet from 1 (poor) to 5 (great) each week. It’s mostly a gut feel for how the week went.

I used to do the same for exercise, but I’m switching that up to use Heart Points from my Pixel Watch. This is more honest than my gut feeling and just as easy for me to use. Then I add both scores (diet and exercise) for the month to get Body Points.

With the weather improving, I’m getting a little more active. My diet has been just average, though. I have 47 diet points and 40 body points, for a total of 87 points. That’s a pace for 261 points – not good enough.

I measure brain points on the same scale. They are based on doing things like Duolingo (Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, and Chess), and the NY Times puzzles (Wordle, Strands, and Connections). I want to include more creative stuff, such as drawing and/or music. Until I add those, I’m likely to max out at 4 points per week by doing all the previous stuff.

At the end of April, I got to 70 Brain Points. That’s a pace of 210 points. It’s close, but not quite there.

Blood Pressure (Goal: 115/75)

Last year, I found that I had high blood pressure. I was measuring it daily and putting it in a spreadsheet. However, now I have this blood pressure monitor and it tracks it over time in an app. (That link to the device is an affiliate link, by the way.)

I am able to bring this to my doctor, and she can adjust my medication based on the data.

In April, my blood pressure was 134/78. In March, it was 135/81. It’s a little better, but not perfect. However, by the end of the month, the latest increase in medicine has helped it stay in a good range. I feel like I’m in good shape here.

Doctor Appointments

I didn’t have any doctor appointments. It feels like the first time I said that in a while.

Longevity Research (40 hours)

I did a little longevity research. I’ve been watching Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever on CNN. That qualifies.

Hobbies

Most of my hobbies are related to AI nowadays. I can come up with some fun ideas and go down the rabbit hole. Here are a couple of others that I am working on.

3D Printing

The kids keep 3D printing, but it’s the same old stuff. I want them to create some new stuff with TinkerCAD or something. I need to help them set up accounts and such. They had them a long time ago, but it has been a few years. I haven’t found the time to get them going on that. Also, I’m spending the hours of 3-6 every day running them to karate, Scouts, or play practice.

Play a modern song on a ukulele

So far, no work on the ukulele. It sits tucked away under a table. I would bring it out so that it would be in view, and I’d be encouraged to play it. If I did that, it wouldn’t be long before my wife hid it back under the table to eliminate the clutter.

Family

Declutter and Organize House

My wife and I did a very good spring cleaning of the garage in April. IT took only about 2-3 hours and made such a big difference. We probably have another 5 hours left to go, which we could spread over a couple of days. We had been waiting until the weather gets better, because it’s no fun cleaning a garage that’s 35 degrees.

Travel

Last month, we focused mostly on planning our excursions for our upcoming Alaska cruise in June. I’m starting to look into planning what to do when we’re in Tuscany in August. So far, I’ve just gotten discouraged as it’s far from the major cities. It’s my wife’s idea for a trip, so I’ll let her take the lead.

Kids

The kids are at the age now (12 and 13) where they either love each other or hate each other. They are either working well together or getting into big fights.

In April, we put a lot of time into looking at high schools for the 13-year-old. I mentioned it above in my AI section. We toured four high schools, and they take the better part of the morning. It’s a different world than what I’m used to.

Final Thoughts

I’m so late in getting out, we’ll save any extra thoughts for another day.

The post My Passive Income and Life Goals Update (April 2026) appeared first on Lazy Man and Money.

You’re probably thinking, “Cool story, about your brain, bro.” That’s okay, I’m guessing there are a few of you out there who are the same way. Our society moves faster and faster every day. I’d like to blame it all on smartphones and TikTok, but I think it’s deeper than that. I find that as soon as I learn something about AI, it’s obsolete by the start of the next week.

Today, I thought I’d switch from personal finance to productivity. I don’t think it is a big departure; the two are intertwined. Much of my work is done on a computer, so that’s going to be my specific focus. To give it a little more of a financial focus, I’ll explain how it might save me hundreds on my next computer.

The Most Important Digital Tool: Your Web Browser

My web browser accounts for about 98% of my computer’s app usage. Some people use mail programs and office suites, but I use Google’s tools: Gmail, Docs, Sheets, etc. They are all browser-based.

I manage several different projects at any given time. Each of these has its own space, with its own workflows:

• Lazy Man and Money – This has its own browser window with Gmail, writing app*, social media apps, WordPress, and approximately 600 browser tabs of stories that I intend to read and write about someday. I’m not exaggerating. It is literally hundreds and hundreds of tabs.
• Personal – This is a generic window that handles most of my personal life. It has its own Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Google Messages for Web, Google Voice, and… another few hundred tabs of non-financial articles that don’t fit into the Lazy Man and Money profile.
• My Dog Boarding Business – This has the same Google suite of apps, but also my mailing list website, my Grasshopper (virtual phone) account, and the website/WordPress dashboard
• My Local Small Business Group – I develop a lot of projects for that group. I created an event system, a job board, and some apps that track how much business we refer to each other. I run all the technology, so it’s not just those, but the website, mailing list, and a bunch of other stuff.
• Kid Wealth – I have all the blogging links of Lazy Man and Money, but for my Kid Wealth website. I don’t go into this space much anymore, because it wasn’t worth slowing down my computer since few people visit the website.

It’s hard to log in to multiple G Suite accounts and apps at the same time. It can get confusing quickly. To keep all these spaces isolated, I created separate Firefox Profiles for each. I realize I’m one of the few people using Firefox, but Google Chrome has profiles too. The rest of this article will use my experience with Firefox, but please stick with me. Once you get the concepts, you should be able to apply them to the browser of your choice.

This works well for organization, but when I had more than 2 profiles open, my computer would freeze. I have a very powerful laptop with 64GB of memory, but it was no match for all this. Of course, having nearly a thousand browser tabs was a key problem.

Limiting the Number of Browser Tabs

It may sound easy to just say close them, but that causes me a ton of mental stress. I’m a digital hoarder, and I know it.

One solution I found was the OneTab browser extension. It opens all open tabs and lists them in a single browser tab. This is a good solution, because I can feel like I haven’t lost the “very important” information that I will (never) need. I would run this every couple of months to refresh my system. It works, but things get progressively slower until I declare bankruptcy and run this.

A few months ago, I found a complementary solution called unloading tabs. I could select all tabs and choose “unload tabs” from a context menu. This would essentially do the same thing as OneTab, but it wouldn’t delete the tabs – just the memory it uses. In the last month, I found the Auto Tab Discard extension. This automatically unloads tabs that you haven’t used after about 10 minutes. It works beautifully, and having a thousand browser tabs no longer slows down my computer.

Limiting the Number of Firefox Profiles

Having all those profiles was great for organization, but it means that I’m not running one Firefox, but five separate Firefoxes. If one Firefox process takes 7GB of memory (which is typical), then five of them take 35 GB. That’s not efficient. I still run some non-browser apps, so my computer can once again slow down.

While learning about Auto Tab Discard, I also learned about Firefox Multi-Account Containers. These work almost exactly like profiles, allowing me to segregate different areas of my life. The difference is that these use a single Firefox process, so adding a new workspace doesn’t use another 7GB of memory. The only downside is that I can’t have different extensions for each workspace. That’s a bonus for me, though, because I no longer have to think about whether I have all the right extensions in all my profiles.

It took a little work to make Multi-Account Containers work like profiles. Specifically, if I’m in my Lazy Man and Money container and open a new tab, I want that tab to be in the same container. Firefox assumes no container much of the time. It took me about an hour to figure it out, but once I installed the Multi-Account Containers and Sticky Window Containers extensions, it worked perfectly.

Dealing With All Those Tabs

This is still a work in progress. My plan is to dump them into Google’s NotebookLM. That’s an AI that can digest a lot of material and do some cool things with it. I’ve only used it briefly, but the podcast and mindmaps are useful. Ideally, I could find some way to roughly sort them into various areas such as health, technology, finance, etc. That would help me identify targeted areas to use.

If any readers are doing anything like this, please leave a comment or contact me.

Final Thoughts

From a financial perspective, making my computer run more efficiently is a HUGE win. I’ve been tempted to buy a Framework laptop that would let me upgrade and replace parts as they break over time. However, I’ve put off that decision because buying 64GB of memory to match the computer. You’ve probably read the news, but AI companies are buying up all the RAM, so prices have gone up from $250 to around $750-$800. Making my current RAM run more efficiently can hopefully help me wait until the memory supply picks up.

This article went into the nuts and bolts of Firefox, but many of the same concepts will work with your browser of choice. To come up with similar optimizations, you may have to spend some time with an AI app. If you spend a lot of time in a web browser, it is worth it.

As I was writing this, a voice in my head screamed, “Just change your habits!” It’s really hard to change yourself. I have some ideas on how to do that, which I might share in a future article.

I’ll leave you with one final piece of irony. One of the reasons why I stick with Firefox is that I don’t like the idea of one company controlling my technology experience. I do realize how silly it may sound to avoid Google Chrome and still use a dozen of its products, as I covered above.

* I’m currently using Simple Note as my writing app. I only like how it syncs everywhere. It has some major problems in managing many articles. It also doesn’t support Cut and Paste keyboard shortcuts. It’s inexcusable. If you have any suggestions for something better, I’m all ears.

The post How I Manage Dozens of Projects appeared first on Lazy Man and Money.

I’m often both ahead of the curve and far, far behind the curve. I write about an idea when only a few people are considering it, but I only execute on it long after everyone else has. I wrote about Bitcoin in 2011, but didn’t buy any until 2022.

I wrote about cutting cable television in 2007, but didn’t actually do it until last month. In both cases, tens of millions of people jumped in while I waited on the sidelines.

Why It Took So Long to Cut the Cord

The California Era

When I first considered cutting the cable, I had just moved from Boston to California. My brother had set up a Slingbox, so I could watch local Red Sox and Patriots’ games. Slingbox was a piece of hardware that took a TV signal and made it available over the internet. The picture was grainy for sports – you couldn’t see which football player just made the tackle. (This was before HD was common.)

I just bought the MLB.tv package. For the Patriots’ games, I had to go to a bar to watch their Sunday ticket, since we were renting and not allowed to get DirecTV. That was expensive, because I didn’t like to milk a drink for a three-hour game.

I also became accustomed to having a DVR. I had one of the first DVRs with ReplayTV (it was better, but less popular than TiVo). Without cable, there was no DVR, and it was literally like 1985 when you had to be there to watch a TV show.

I did give it a try, though, with a Mohu Leaf. That got a lot of channels, which I’ll circle back to later in the article.

Owning The Content Era

In 2011, I discovered that it was possible to create my own cable box and DVR. It used a CableCard, which is a standard created by law largely so that cable companies couldn’t own the cable box and kill off companies like TiVo selling DVR service. I bought a device called the HD HomeRun Prime, put in a cable card, hooked it up to a computer running Microsoft Windows 7 and enjoyed no DVR fees. It required Windows 7 because it had Windows Media Center(WMC), which had approval to work with CableCards to unscramble the paid TV channels. WMC included TV listings (the cable guide), which was also a key component.

I used this solution for 14 years, but it wasn’t easy. In 2009, Windows stopped developing Windows Media Center. I have a conspiracy theory that they were paid off by cable companies. Over time, Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7. A big blow was shutting off the TV listing service. Fortunately, one person created some software to make it work. I still had to subscribe to a service and pay $20 a year. The software was extremely difficult to set up, but fortunately it worked well after that.

Somewhere in 2023, the TV listing service changed in my local area. I couldn’t get it set up after that. For a couple of years, I just recorded things like an old VCR, setting the time and channel to record. These were almost always just Patriots’ games when I had to be elsewhere. By this time, I was already paying for a lot of streaming services.

Sounds like a lot of hassle, right? Yep. However, it saved me about $25 a month. That’s $300 a year… and over $4,000 over 14 years.

Just as importantly, I OWNED the content. Hard drive space over the years has gotten cheaper and cheaper, so I have a collection of so much. It would most pay off in the:

Kids Era

We had our first boy in late 2012 and our second in early 2014. It was extremely helpful to be able to replay episodes of shows like Blaze and the Monster Machines. It was great to copy the files over to a tablet or phone to help with those times in public when you just have to keep them busy while you tend to adult stuff (like have a conversation with a friend).

Fast forward to today, and I have episodes of Adam Ruins Everything that are finally age appropriate for them. You can’t stream it on any subscription service. You can’t even buy a DVD. You can “buy” the episodes on Amazon, but that isn’t really ownership. (In case you are curious, Amazon argued that specifically in court and the fight continues today.)

Resistance to Change

Last year, I decided to get a cable box. With the TV listings broken, watching cable was something that I rarely did anyway. I decided to give it a try – with TV listings and DVR back, would I watch more cable? I watched a little more cable, at first, but then stopped. My kids only watch YouTube and streaming channels. (My 12-year-old learned the other day that streaming TV doesn’t work when the internet is down – LOL).

I kept this up until last month. What changed? Our “bundle” (internet/cable) savings with Cox Communications (our cable provider) had expired. The bill exploded by another $40 or so. I could subscribe to a new bundle, but it would only save me about $15. I’d still pay $25 more than before. At this point, our bill was around $225 a month. That included our internet service.

My Solution to Cutting the Cable

I started to research how to cancel cable completely. I didn’t know where our old Mohu Leaf was (affiliate link), so I put one in my Amazon cart. I found that there are similar devices to my HDHomeRun Prime to record over-the-air TV. It looked like I’d get all the Patriots games with the exception of the ESPN ones. We’d still get the ones on Amazon Prime and Netflix. (The system of watching sports nowadays is an unmitigated disaster.)

The more I went down the over-the-air path, the more I realized it looked like my FrankenBox that I had for 14 years. Also, there’s the important point that my wife watches a few cable shows every night before bed. That never needed to be a DVR, so a $4/mo. The box was good enough.

There are a lot of streaming services that give you access to those cable shows. Some examples are Hulu TV, YouTube TV, Sling TV, and Fubo. DirecTV even offers a subscription for people who don’t want to install a dish on their roof. They typically run $45 to $70 and include a pseudo-DVR function. You can watch recordings later, but they expire, and you certainly don’t OWN them.

I looked into all of these and decided that YouTube TV made the most sense. It had all my local channels, so I had sports, and it had all the channels that my wife watches. Long-term, it is around $83 a month, but I might be able to get a plan with fewer channels for closer to $65. We’re getting a promotional plan now, so we’ll see what we really use.

Our Internet connection is still with Cox. I downgraded from 500Mbps to 300Mbps, which is still more than fast enough for everything we do. I didn’t need the 500Mbps speed before, but that was the bundle that saved us money. Going with the slower speed would have actually cost more.

The price for that internet service is $70/month. With YouTube’s $85, we’re at around $155. That’s a savings of about $75 a month. If we find we don’t need all the channels, it could be $90/month. My wife found that YouTube TV is actually a little easier to use than Cox. Our TV handles it natively through an app, so it’s one fewer remote control. She doesn’t have to think about how to switch from cable to streaming.

It’s worked perfectly for the last month. It turns out that I still don’t watch live TV. That will change when it comes to football season.

There is one “gotcha” that I glossed over. Watching the Red Sox has become a challenge. A subscription to MLB.tv like I had in California is $150/year, which comes to $12.50 a month. However, they are blocked from showing Red Sox games in Rhode Island where we live now. To get the games, we have to subscribe to New England Sports Network, which is largely owned by the Red Sox. (They have 80%, and the Boston Bruins’ parent company owns 20%.) That subscription runs $30/month. Ouch! There’s really nothing else of interest on the channel for me, so it feels like PPV of $1+ per game. I can usually catch about 2 games a week, so it realistically turns out to be $4/game. In contrast, my Disney+/Hulu subscription is about $5 a month (on their annual Black Friday deal). Both have ads.

It’s crazy to me that I can watch almost all the Patriots’ games for free, over-the-air, or included with local channels, and the Red Sox cost so much money. The demand for the NFL completely dwarfs the MLB.

Final Thoughts

I hope I didn’t get too far off-track. In the end, I found that watching television is personal. My tastes are very different from my wife’s. My kids’ tastes changed over time. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to television.

Additionally, where you are in life matters. We were far more frugal in our early 30s than we are now at 50. Back then, I wanted to save money and invest as much as possible. A dollar invested in the S&P 500 in February 2007 has grown to $6.86 today. I’ve got less patience to jump through hoops, but it works out because we can pay for convenience. While that may sound like we shouldn’t have cut cable at all, it barely took any time and is essentially the same. The $70/mo. will more than pay for our streaming services, especially on their annual Black Friday deals.

The post I Finally Cut the Cable (after Two Decades) appeared first on Lazy Man and Money.

Another busy week, and I completely missed Earth Day. I’ll make this a smaller post and call it good enough for Earth Week. Last year, I did a ten-year solar review, and there isn’t too much new to report.

In 2025, our solar panels have produced 8.3MWh. It looks like our average price per kilowatt hour was $0.28 last year. That’s down a couple of cents from the 30 cents last year. Overall, that means our bill would have been $2324. That’s an oversimplification, because the price changes in some seasons. I just used the AI answer because it’s good enough for these rough estimates.

Many people will have cheaper energy than we do in Rhode Island. Around 90% of our energy comes from natural gas, and the vast majority of that is pumped from Pennsylvania. The only way to control our energy costs is with green sources such as solar and wind. So while no one thinks of RI as a sunny state that would be good for solar, the math works out quite well.

Over the eleven-year lifetime, we’ve generated 98.2MWh. I have a dashboard that says it is worth $16,700, but there is no explanation of how it arrives at that number. It looks like electricity was 17.5 cents per kWh in 2015. With that growing over the years to 30 kWh, we can grab a rough estimate of around 24 cents kWh. If we do 98,200 * $0.24 we get $23,568 of value in that time. We had to pay $16,000 to get them installed. It seems we would have come ahead (as of now) if we had invested the money at around 3.5%.

The financial case doesn’t look great in hindsight. The markets have grown 12% annually. Our panels are still guaranteed for another 14 years, but that alternative universe has a huge head start. I don’t think it will catch up. Still, there’s also the fact that buying solar panels was a forced investment. We could have spent the $16,000 on frivolous stuff with no financial return. Instead, we locked in the savings for a long time and removed temptation from the equation. It’s also great not having to think about energy costs.

Finally, there’s the whole aspect that I’m writing this article for Earth Day. A financial break-even is still a win for Mother Earth.

That’s it for this week—more updates next time.

The post Eleven Years of Solar Power Reviewed appeared first on Lazy Man and Money.

For example, my son lost a lens of his glasses while we were traveling. His backup pair got cleaned up somehow, so tracking down a company that can make the unusual prescription was quite the hassle. So much for decades of hearing “LensCrafters… glasses in about an hour.” They, like nearly everyone else, could only promise 7-10 business days.

In the past, I’ve done some personal/family updates, but I’ve started writing this over a week after I would like to have it published. I’ll quickly mention that I turned 50 in March, then get to the numbers.

Setting Goals for 2025

I put all my goals in a spreadsheet that I stole borrowed from Retire By 40. Here’s what it looks like for this year:

(Click it, and it will open in a new tab.)

Steal this idea and make it yours. I always make a bunch of goals that I know I’ll never complete. It gives me the flexibility to fail on some things as long as I’m making progress on others. Most people would do the opposite, focus on fewer goals, and aim to get them all done. It’s much less overwhelming. I’m unusual.

Passive Income

I used to have three side hustles with a passive component: a dog-sitting business, this blog, and a website I manage for a non-profit. They all required some active work. However, I could do them all even while working a full-time job. I considered those partially passive income. This blog and the retainer for the non-profit website are minimal, so consider it almost all dog boarding.

Dog Boarding/Website Income

This is the least passive of all incomes. I only count this as 50% passive. Dog sitting has been very steady over the last few years. It’s been close to $50,000. The biggest variable is how much we travel. I can’t board dogs while I am away.

March’s Dog/Web Real Income: $2,601.67

The bad news is that the dog business is down around around 30% this year. The good news is that March was a little better than previous Marches since we took a shorter vacation.

Rental Property Income

We have two rental properties. Both still have mortgages, and the rental income is around $1,100/mo. One mortgage is done in 2027. The other one is a small loan, but it has another 15 years on it. If they were both mortgage-free, we’d make around $32,000 a year.

For the purpose of this report, I calculate the rental property income using the following formula:

(Rents After Estimated Expenses) * (Equity Percentage Owned) = Income)

The idea is that we only own a percentage of the equity, so I should only count that percentage of the rent after expenses. When we own everything, the equity percentage will be 100%, and the rent will be after expenses.

Estimated expenses are insurance, property taxes, condo fees, and estimated condo maintenance. Equity Percentage Owned (EPO) is our total equity divided by the property value on Zillow. (Zillow is very accurate for our condos.) When the mortgages are paid off, we’ll have an EPO of 100% and be able to keep all the rent after estimated expenses.

In March, Zillow estimated our properties were worth $6,500 more. We also paid off almost $1,000 in mortgage principal. That meant our EPO went from owning 84.14% of our properties to 84.48%. The rents after expenses are $2,900/month. Using the equation above, our estimated income from this area would be $2,448. That’s up from $2,438 in February. This number almost always moves slowly, so this is actually a nice gain.

Managing rental properties requires some work – a few days a year. For this reason, I only count 80% of this number as passive income.

Dividend Income

My wife and I have been nearly maxing out our retirement accounts for a couple of decades. The markets have done very well over that time. Overall, we have a nice retirement nest egg.

I don’t track dividends from all the accounts. I’m doing well to get my wife to log in to her TSP (the government’s version of a 401k) account and give me the totals. I simply assume we could invest the money into an ETF that pays a 2.5% dividend. For example, HDV, a high-dividend ETF, currently yields 3.01%.

I also have profit-sharing income with a private company in which I own a small stake. I get a check each month that behaves like a dividend – it’s just taxed a little differently.

March’s estimated dividend income was $5,897. In February, it was $5,949. The war in Iran, with crazy oil prices, has been making it hard for the market to do much. I actually expected it to be a lot worse. It may be several months or longer to move on from this, but when we do, I expect the market to jump significantly.

Unlike the previous two sections, this income is 100% passive. For this reason, I don’t have to adjust the numbers.

Total Passive Income

Dog/Etc.: $2,601 – Adjusted to $1,300
Rentals: $2,448 – Adjusted to $1,958
Dividends: $5,897 – Remains at $5,897

Dogs/Etc – Blue Line
Rental – Red Line
Dividend – Yellow Line

Total Adjusted Passive Income: $9,156

Here’s a graph of the adjusted passive income since 2017, when I started keeping track:

The blue line represents the monthly total adjusted passive income. The Red Line represents the 12-month average. This removes some of the seasonality of dog boarding. That’s the important one.

Even though the month’s numbers were very average, that very important red line above continues to hit new highs. In the long run, dog boarding will be nothing, but in the meantime, investments are supporting an increasing share of the income.

My wife continues to work as well. She has 27 years of high-level military service. That means she’s vested in a pension that would double all this passive income. I also earn some income that falls outside of the areas listed above. It’s not passive, so I don’t mention it here.

I can’t think of anywhere else to put this information, but our net worth lost 0.51% last month. For the year, our net worth is up 0.98%. The stock market has moved more in a few days this year than in the past few years combined.

Business and Other Money Goals

Personal Income ($80,000)

My income has been dropping over the last few years, going from $98K to 488K to $81K. Last year, I stayed mostly the same at $80,593.

As I get closer to retirement, I’m more than happy to keep pursuing the same goal.

In March, I made around $4,581. For the year, I’m at $13,071. It’s around 52K. That won’t get me to $80K. Fortunately, dog boarding ramps up in the summer months. I don’t know if it will be enough, though.

Improve My Dog Boarding Website and Operations

I can’t remember doing anything to improve the website or operations. I have a whole list of stuff to do, but I was too busy to get to most of it.

AI Everything

I’ve been reading Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway (affiliate link). A friend recommended it to me, and it is great. I highly recommend it if you are a young man or the parent of a young man. My wife is interested in reading it. It covers the life lessons the author has learned, including many of his own faults. Most people don’t talk about that stuff, and it’s very blunt and straightforward.

For the AI aspect, I’ve been working with Claude and ChatGPT to distill the main ideas of this book and several others into a consolidated guide to a “best life.” I want to set aside 20 minutes a day to go over one aspect with my own kids. For example, one topic could be the importance of grit. I have no grit, so I’m going to take the Galloway approach and be honest that it’s something that I need to work on myself.

Little projects like these that pop into my head and lead to the above section being, “I can’t remember doing anything to improve the website or operations.”

Health

I hit the big 5-0. For my health goals, I’m mostly using this separate article about health goals from last year.

Weight and Body Fat (Lean-(fat*2) mass >60)

My goal this year is to add lean mass while losing fat mass. It took me a long time to figure out how to create a formula for that. I settled on the formula: lean mass minus 2×fat mass. This penalizes me if I add weight that’s a bunch of fat.

My weight this month was 173.3 lbs, and my body fat was 23.6%. That means my lean mass was 132.4, and my fat mass was 40.9 lbs. This is a score of 50.6 using my formula. Last month, my average weight was 172.9lbs, and my body fat was 23.2%. That was a score of 52.6.

Higher is better, and I moved in the wrong direction. I am not surprised, though. My kids’ school break is in March, and we usually travel then. We went to Aruba, and I ate about 5 cows’ worth of steak. I was more active, but it wasn’t enough. I’m spending most of April making up for it.

My goal of getting this number to 60 could be achieved by losing 169 lbs and having a body fat of 21.5% . That might not be too ambitious, but changing one’s body composition is hard!

Body and Brain Points (300 and 225 respectively)

I rate my diet from 1 (poor) to 5 (great) each week. It’s mostly a gut feel for how the week went.

I used to do the same for exercise, but I’m switching that up to use Heart Points from my Pixel Watch. This is more honest than my gut feeling and just as easy for me to use.

I add both scores for the month to get Body Points.

With the weather improving, I’m getting a little more active. My diet has been just average, though. I have 32 diet points and 24 body points, for a total of 56 points.

I measure brain points on the same scale. They are based on doing things like Duolingo (Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, and Chess), and the NY Times puzzles (Wordle, Strands, and Connections). I want to include more creative stuff, such as drawing and/or music. Until I add those, I’m likely to max out at 4 points per week by doing all the previous stuff.

I haven’t had time to add anything else yet, so it’s still 4 a week because I have these down pretty well.

Blood Pressure (Goal: 115/75)

I started measuring my blood pressure every day (sometimes twice a day) last year. It was too high. However, it was never high in the doctor’s office, so my doctor gave me the lowest dose of medication. I got this blood pressure monitor and it tracks it over time in an app. I brought this to my doctor, and she upped my medication by a tiny bit. That link to the device is an affiliate link, by the way.

In March, my blood pressure was 135/81. In February, it was 138/83. That’s a little better. At the beginning of April, my doctor approved a slightly higher dose of my medicine.

Doctor Appointments

I had a cleaning at the dentist, which concluded a string of four straight monthly visits. After the appointment, they tried to book me six months out, but realized that they had no appointments left in 2026. They wouldn’t give me one in 2027, so they just put me on an emergency cancel text list that starts in October.

I’d switch to a different dentist, but my last three dentists didn’t know how to bill military insurance and would end up sending bills to my house. I had to mediate them for hours after every visit, which shouldn’t be my job.

Longevity Research (40 hours)

I didn’t do much longevity research in March. I put in one hour as a default, because I’m sure I came across some news stories. They obviously made an impact, since I can’t remember them.

Hobbies

Most of my hobbies will focus on the AI idea above. Here are a couple of others that I am working on.

3D Printing

The kids keep 3D printing, but it’s the same old stuff. I want them to create some new stuff with TynkerCAD or something.

Play a modern song on a ukulele

So far, no work on the ukulele. It sits tucked away under a table. I would bring it out so that it would be in view, and I’d be encouraged to play it. If I did that, it wouldn’t be long before my wife hid it back under the table to eliminate the clutter.

Year-to-Date Progress

I’ll give myself a few points for getting the 3D printing back working (it’s been broken a few times).

Family

Declutter and Organize House

I didn’t declutter much, but I’m counting another household upgrade in here. Our wifi has been having issues with dead spots throughout the house. I didn’t understand why it would suddenly not work. The mesh network had great coverage in the past.

Turns out that we’ve added too many devices that compete for wifi in the house. The wifi 5 standard simply wasn’t good enough. I upgraded to 7, and it’s been excellent. Hopefully, this will future-proof us for another 7-10 years.

Travel

We are still planning our trips; we do that throughout the year. In March, we went to Aruba for my 50th birthday. Aruba is easy for us because we own a timeshare. It wasn’t our week, but we had sold off the right to use it last year, so we could just use that money. I had only been in the October to December season, usually late November. It was much busier in March. All the cheap car rentals were sold out, so we just skipped the car and took a taxi everywhere. I estimate that we saved a couple of hundred dollars.

I had originally planned to go to Japan for my 50th, but I was only 70% prepared, so we’re going to try it next year. Ironically, we still have to flesh out a couple more trips this year, so I may be too late on Japan again.

Kids

The kids are at the age now (12 and 13) where they either love each other or hate each other. They are either working well together or getting into big fights.

This past month, my oldest decided that he’d just ride his bike to play practice across town without telling us. It’s probably normal for many 13-year-olds, but he just started learning last year and only went around our dead-end cul-de-sac a few times.

For a little backstory, I never learned to ride a bike. Well, I could do some basic circles, like around a track on a smooth surface. I didn’t trust myself on the streets with traffic. I’ve let my wife take the reins on teaching the kids, and a few years ago, they went out a few times, but nothing in the last couple of years.

It was fairly annoying to have lost a kid, but he’s pretty responsible and loves play practice, so we were able to put it together quickly.

In March, I also finished signing the kids up for camps. I also spent a lot of time filling out a scholarship application to a four-year private high school. It was like applying to college. It’s super competitive, but you miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take.

Final Thoughts

Life is just a whirlwind now. I’ve been struggling to find the time to get this out, and I have to turn around and write my annual Earth Day article. I don’t know how people with real jobs do it.

The post My Passive Income and Life Goals Update (March 2026) appeared first on Lazy Man and Money.

That’s probably the most ridiculous question I’ve asked. We’re far enough away from my April Fool’s day article that you know it’s not just an old article.

Before I get into that question, though, I have to add the standard disclosure for anything involving macroeconomics these days. I’m going to try not to be too political. However, how taxes fund our country’s security and services will always be inherently political.

I know some people who feel like there shouldn’t be taxes at all. Usually, when I bring up the idea of good roads, police, fire protection, military, etc., I get them to admit that there should be some taxes. There are not too many people on the other end of the spectrum – those who want to pay more taxes. Instead, there are plenty of people who enjoy many services and would like more of them. There is a wide range of people in between.

Should We Pay Taxes This Year?

Of course, we should pay taxes. It’s the ethical, lawful thing to do. I had never considered any alternative until recently. Here are a few reasons why:

1. The United States is Scamming Taxpayers

I wrote that article in 2018, but it boils down to one simple thing. The United States could make filing taxes VERY easy, like many countries. The government has the data for many people. They make you spend hours figuring out how much to pay them. Almost every other country does the math for you.

The US would be the same way, but tax preparation is a big business with government lobbyists. Click the link above if you want to learn more about that.

This has always annoyed me greatly, but I’m still the good little soldier paying taxes as I should.

2. The government doesn’t want your tax dollars.

That’s the message the government is sending to me. Here are some actions it has taken:

• Reduced IRS workforce – From this Reuters’ article on the downsizing of the IRS:
  

  ‘The IRS is navigating a period of significant upheaval, with its workforce reduced from approximately 100,000 in 2025 to around 75,000 staff currently. The reductions include a 30% cut to audit staff and a 20% cut in customer service representatives, leaving remaining employees working double time,’ [Jared Slipman, chair of Obermayer’s Tax Department] said.

• IRS Funding Cuts

  From this article:

  The administration has rescinded nearly $54 billion of the $80 billion previously allocated by the Inflation Reduction Act, specifically targeting enforcement and technology upgrades.

  Let’s focus on the part of eliminating funding for the enforcement of paying taxes. The IRS has put together a great page on the “Tax Gap” . The tax gap is the term that the IRS has for the amount of taxes that Americans owe and that they actually pay. That link shows the gap was over $600 billion in 2022. (This is further evidence that the government knows how much tax you should pay.)

  More money for enforcement catches the tax cheats and more than pays for itself. It’s probably the only area of government spending that actually makes the government more money. In fact, the link at the top of this section (here again) shows that $1 spent on enforcement of the top 1% of taxpayers brings in $14. If that money is focused on the top 0.1% of taxpayers, a single dollar brings in over $25.

  Why doesn’t the government want that money?

  I should be able to direct the tax dollars I pay for tax enforcement and keep the return for myself. Let’s pretend that I owe the government $10,000 so that it can perform all its functions. Can’t I just give $1000 for tax enforcement of tax cheaters in the top 1% income? That’s essentially the same as paying $14,000. The government would be making $4,000 on the deal. What a win-win!

• Shutting Down Direct File

  Remember what I wrote above about how the government doesn’t want to make filing taxes easier? It wasn’t entirely true.

  Recently the IRS shut down Direct File.

  They had a program called Direct File that the the Government Accountable Office found hugely successful. It was a pilot program in a few states. The biggest criticism that I found was that it wasn’t used very much because many people didn’t know about it.

  It seems to me that companies like TurboTax and H&R Block were opposed to the program as it threatened them.

So the government has reduced customer service and enforcement to catch tax cheats, while making it more difficult for people to file taxes for free.

If the government doesn’t want your tax money, why give it to them?

Trump Suing the IRS for $10 Billion

Perhaps this is being political, but I consider it calling a spade a spade. I purposely linked to the Fox News article to put it in the most favorable light for Trump.

Trump is suing the IRS for $10 Billion because an employee leaked his taxes. Yes, the taxes that he promised he’d share dozens of times, if only he weren’t being audited. (Note: Anyone can share their taxes at any time – it doesn’t matter if you are being audited. Also, it doesn’t appear he was being audited.) You’d think that would undermine the case, and it would be thrown out of court quickly. But it’s America, and only Judge Judy can decide ridiculous lawsuits in 11 minutes. In the meantime, taxpayers are going to pay for the courts, lawyers, etc., even if nothing ever comes of the case.

As President, Trump has shown that he controls the Justice Department, and he exerts a lot of power over the IRS by appointing the IRS commissioner. It feels like he is essentially the prosecution and the defense in his own case to steal $10 billion of taxpayer dollars? Who is representing the taxpayer’s interest?

How many places have lost Americans’ data? Imagine if everyone just sued each organization for $10 billion dollars. Forbes would have to create a new “non-billionaires” list.

I know, it’s not fair to compare the government leaking Americans’ data to private companies. However, that still means each American should be able to sue Elon Musk’s DOGE for stealing Social Security data. How about we cut them a deal and only take a billion dollars each?

Final Thoughts

Of course, I’m going to pay taxes this year. In fact, I’ve already paid them. There’s a small chance that we owe a little more money because my income doesn’t have income taken out of it automatically.

Even if I had the choice, I’d still pay taxes. Even if I could get over the moralistic issues, why take the gamble? I always play it safe, especially in areas where there are big consequences, such as jail.

I also love the services the government provides. Every year, news stories cover a survey about which countries have the happiest people. Scandinavian countries always seem to rank at the top. They often cite many of the things that those taxes pay for.

The post Should We Pay Taxes This Year? appeared first on Lazy Man and Money.

When I first started this blog, one of the reasons why I went with “Lazy” is that I wanted to stress money automation. You can automate most of your money with these three things:

1. set up a 401k plan with your employer
2. autopay on your credit cards/rent/mortgage
3. money from your bank to buy index funds

With the time I saved from automating my money, I moved into other areas. I bought Lutron Caseta lights and shades. I got an autoslide patio door kit. Now the dogs let themselves out whenever they want.

I even stopped parenting my kids several years ago. They learn a lot more by doing stuff themselves. They also appreciate the fruits of their labor, such as when they make their own grilled cheese.

Most of my stress wasn’t from doing things – it was from deciding things. So I started eliminating decisions. I eat the same cereal for breakfast every day. I eat the same Ramen and chicken breast for lunch every day. I found a great deal on Haggar Cool18Pro pants and wear them every day. Wearing the same clothes worked for Steve Jobs, and he made a lot more money than I could ever imagine.

I’ve worked hard to eliminate many chores. We’ve had landscapers come to handle the yardwork for years. We have had a cleaning service that comes every 10 days or so for years as well. I was probably one of the last people to embrace Instacart for groceries. I’ve also got a laundry service.

In many ways, AI was the missing piece. How doesn’t get too much email, right? Why write anything when I can harvest the collective wisdom and experience of a billion people in a neural network? Did you know that’s essentially how the human brain works anyway? Yes, AI can make mistakes, but it’s essentially four years old. Have you met a human toddler who doesn’t make mistakes? Typically, more than half of the United States thinks that the President makes a ton of mistakes – it doesn’t matter which party is in office. Given those two realities, most people should be fine with my automated email solution.

If you’ve followed my articles in the last year, I’ve worked on duplicating my voice with Eleven Labs’ AI tools. I’ve made a video version of me with HeyGen AI. I’ve hooked it up to OpenClaw to do all other computer work.

That brings me to this blog. I’ve put 20 years and around 3 million words into this blog. That’s enough to build a very strong neural network. In addition, over 95% of personal finances haven’t changed in that time. Is this article me or AI? What if it were a hybrid of 90% AI and 10% me to make it sound human? What if it was 25% AI to come up with the ideas and outline, and 75% me writing the words? Can you tell? Does it even matter if almost all of my articles get only one or two comments nowadays?

A couple of days ago, I turned 50. I thought the new decade would hurt, but I had ten years to get used to it. Yesterday, I had the day to live out my laziest dreams. I had nothing scheduled or urgent. I thought about what I should do, but I quickly got stuck. I hadn’t had to make a decision in a while. René Descartes in the 1600s famously said, “I think, therefore I am.” When I blew out the candle of my birthday cake, did I blow myself out of existence?

Full disclosure: The owner of this website would like to inform you that some of the links in the above article may earn a commission if you buy a product after clicking them.)