My father's probate was absolute hell. I dealt with it for nearly two years and basically got nothing but the headaches as the estate was insolvent. Building a house was definitely up there too. Great article.
Speaking of federal funds rate, what do you do when your bank keeps dropping its HYSA rates? Do you just ride it out and hope it goes back up or switch to another HYSA?
Ah yeah…this is annoying. You move all your cash there for a super low rate and then it goes down. It depends on the amount of interest you’re earning vs the time and hassle to change banks. If it’s less than $500,000, it’s probably not worth chasing a lower rate. Just make sure it doesn’t dip below within 1 percentage point of the federal funds rate. (I.e. if the fed funds rate is 3.5%, at minimum your HYSA should be paying at least 2.5%).
I just pre-ordered. I am a writer and will soon be a published author. Our family accountant gave me a wealth (pun!) of information on creatives and tax guidelines, and I think your book will give me an even better foundation. Thank you!
There is a tenth circle, and it is the one I spent thirty years in — the signature you do not remember giving. A personal guarantee buried in a commercial lease. An arbitration clause with a class-action waiver. A confession of judgment. None of them feel like anything in the moment. Each one quietly moves a risk off a company and onto a person, in a single sentence.
Ha — fair enough. Though the reason I keep dragging them onto money pages is that they only ever arrive as a financial event. The one I think about most is a personal guarantee tucked inside a commercial lease: the business closes, and the person who signed still owes $240,000 out of their own pocket. Nothing about it feels legal right up until the number shows up.
There is a tenth circle, and it is the one I spent thirty years in — the signature you do not remember giving. A personal guarantee buried in a commercial lease. An arbitration clause with a class-action waiver. A confession of judgment. None of them feel like anything in the moment. Each one quietly moves a risk off a company and onto a person, in a single sentence.
We lived with a torn-up kitchen for YEARS because we became very broke after we already dug into it but before I was laid off. I mean, you could look down and see soil because we removed the step-down floor so it could all be on one level. The lower part was an old mud room and porch, both of which were made part of the kitchen at some point. We ended up making the new cabinets from scrap wood and simply painting the floor blue and otherwise trading creativity for money.
I had the stove in the parlor and the microwave in the dining room etc. It was an insane way to live and I still made everything including bread from scratch because we had no money.
The contrapasso frame does real pedagogical work, because the first circle names the failure mode almost every beginner guide skips: the accidental sinner who moved money into the investment account and never bought the fund, blind to the loss precisely because the balance never visibly shrinks. Anchoring the escape route to the current fed funds target rather than a fixed rate is a small detail that keeps the advice from expiring. And Dante as a Florentine writing in the decades Florence invented modern banking is the aside that makes the whole device feel earned rather than decorative.
This is really good. I think there is a "Building a custom home" subcircle of The Renovation.
Oh gosh, yes. “Buying land.”
Love it! I'm ready for purgatory next! And also hilarious that probate is within the 9th circle of hell. Dickens would approve.
My father's probate was absolute hell. I dealt with it for nearly two years and basically got nothing but the headaches as the estate was insolvent. Building a house was definitely up there too. Great article.
Speaking of federal funds rate, what do you do when your bank keeps dropping its HYSA rates? Do you just ride it out and hope it goes back up or switch to another HYSA?
Ah yeah…this is annoying. You move all your cash there for a super low rate and then it goes down. It depends on the amount of interest you’re earning vs the time and hassle to change banks. If it’s less than $500,000, it’s probably not worth chasing a lower rate. Just make sure it doesn’t dip below within 1 percentage point of the federal funds rate. (I.e. if the fed funds rate is 3.5%, at minimum your HYSA should be paying at least 2.5%).
This was a really classy post, and informative as well. Thank you for a fun read.
Thank you!😊
I just pre-ordered. I am a writer and will soon be a published author. Our family accountant gave me a wealth (pun!) of information on creatives and tax guidelines, and I think your book will give me an even better foundation. Thank you!
There is a tenth circle, and it is the one I spent thirty years in — the signature you do not remember giving. A personal guarantee buried in a commercial lease. An arbitration clause with a class-action waiver. A confession of judgment. None of them feel like anything in the moment. Each one quietly moves a risk off a company and onto a person, in a single sentence.
Oh yikes, yeah, those sound more like legal hell. But there can be financial implications.
Ha — fair enough. Though the reason I keep dragging them onto money pages is that they only ever arrive as a financial event. The one I think about most is a personal guarantee tucked inside a commercial lease: the business closes, and the person who signed still owes $240,000 out of their own pocket. Nothing about it feels legal right up until the number shows up.
There is a tenth circle, and it is the one I spent thirty years in — the signature you do not remember giving. A personal guarantee buried in a commercial lease. An arbitration clause with a class-action waiver. A confession of judgment. None of them feel like anything in the moment. Each one quietly moves a risk off a company and onto a person, in a single sentence.
We lived with a torn-up kitchen for YEARS because we became very broke after we already dug into it but before I was laid off. I mean, you could look down and see soil because we removed the step-down floor so it could all be on one level. The lower part was an old mud room and porch, both of which were made part of the kitchen at some point. We ended up making the new cabinets from scrap wood and simply painting the floor blue and otherwise trading creativity for money.
I had the stove in the parlor and the microwave in the dining room etc. It was an insane way to live and I still made everything including bread from scratch because we had no money.
The contrapasso frame does real pedagogical work, because the first circle names the failure mode almost every beginner guide skips: the accidental sinner who moved money into the investment account and never bought the fund, blind to the loss precisely because the balance never visibly shrinks. Anchoring the escape route to the current fed funds target rather than a fixed rate is a small detail that keeps the advice from expiring. And Dante as a Florentine writing in the decades Florence invented modern banking is the aside that makes the whole device feel earned rather than decorative.