Category: advice and tips

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401k and Personal Finance advice and tips Career

Don’t solely relying on the income from day job

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Reasons for that: economy and layoffs – we have zero control on neither; at certain point, companies and organizations started to discriminate against older workers in terms of hiring and firing (layoffs), due to their potentially higher salary, higher healthcare expense, and so on.

https://twitter.com/CNBCTechCheck/status/1745508231961620622
Tech Job Cuts: tweet and video by Dee Bosa of CNBC
https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1754953014153015490
Chances of layoffs at the Magnificent 7

Surprising, at least for now, AI is the not main reason for the tech layoffs, per the YT video below.

Note we have no controls over the layoffs, especially in terms of the company’s decision. In theory we have some influence such as do our job well, but this is not guaranteed to help one avoid layoffs.

Some of the things I can think of or I am doing

Blogging (make some ads money from Google, very hard). The downside of this one is it takes lots of traffic to generate a bit ads revenue. Similar for the YouTube video creation. For me this is even harder than the eBay.

Selling on eBay (is eBay increasing becoming a flea market, btw?). One side benefit of selling on eBay is declutter, as well as reduce, reuse and recycle theme. Reducing the carbon footprint is rewarding for me.

Part-time gig (e.g., adjunct teaching at Webster U). Note this is not scalable as it’s mainly selling time for money.

Stocks: note this one is risky. But it potentially could have more rewards (again, this depends on many factors, such as the capital one has).

A related topic is to reduce the expense via DIY

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401k and Personal Finance advice and tips Investing

Year end tax moves and my thoughts on personal finance and investing

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Some friends asked me about the year end tax moves, such as the tax loss selling etc. Here is a good article on the topic – Tax-Loss Harvesting: What It Is, How It Works. My take on tax: this is at least secondary maybe even more down the priority list. The No. 1 priority in the personal finance/investing is don’t lose your money. Ideally we don’t want any type of loss. Tax loss is applicable only after we lose the money during investing. If we don’t have loss in the 1st place, would it be better?

But I do appreciate the mindset of 亡羊补牢。Or salvage whatever we can (not exact translation).

Another question is what to contribute if we need to contribute to the regular IRA account. The latter is an easier question. The deadline to fund IRA is actually usually the tax day (the middle of April), so we still have time. As to investments, I only recommend the S&P 500 index funds and I explained it more here.

The 529 plans I setup for my girls

I have a fairly small 529 plan for my girls, which I started shortly after they were born (see my blog post one, blog post two, and blog post three).

With the enhancement of the 529 plans by the law passed by congress in the recent years, it becomes a tool for retirement as well. Read this for more details.

The thing I taught my 13 year old the other day, is the 12/6 compounded interest rule (snowball effect), an investment that grows 12% annually, in 6 years it will double. From 2010 to 2023, since I invested in S&P 500 index fund, and the S&P 500 index did well since 2010, the money I put in quadrupled. It was a small amount of money. But the compounded interest concept is important and we saw it in action.

Another thing many working people can consider is the HSA account. I heard it has even more benefits for retirement compared to the 529. So something to read about, think about and do something about 🙂

My free tips on PF and investing

Like many good things in life, don’t rush it. Take the time, savor the moment, think it through, before jump into the market and make big moves: Rome is NOT built in a day. So was the business empire such as Berkshire Hathaway, or the GPU, AI chip designer nVidia. They are built in decades.

Hindsight is 20/20

Look at the about 1,137% or 11 times gain of $CVNA. Below is the YTD chart of Carvana vs CarMax ($KMX), Tesla ($TSLA) and S&P 500 index. But the million dollar question is: who bought and hold the $CVNA this year (until today)?

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advice and tips Career Fun Life Life Tips

How I learned spoken English after coming to the USA and started teaching

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Using Spoken English the 1st time in the USA

97年夏天我第一次来美国，我的飞机航班是东航上海虹桥(SHA) 到洛杉矶 (LAX, China Eastern MU 583), 当时好像用的是麦道11(Btw, 93年好像有一次事故），再从洛杉矶坐TWA航班飞圣路易斯(STL)。我在洛杉矶机场犯了一个不大不小的错误。我当时很想上厕所，急着从机场（入境处和海关）出来，结果一出来就拿错了行李。等我发现我拿错了，我已经出了海关，我赶紧用我的英语跟美国机场的工作人员解释，还好他听懂了，让我进去跟东航的地勤人员说上话，交换了行李（取到了我自己的行李）。这个箱子是当时上海第一百货的牌子，估计我们都是在一百买的，这个箱子实用也较便宜。这一次是我的口语第一次在美国派到用场。

PS: 大概在2005/6年在圣村的机场，又碰到一件类似的事情，这一次是Diplomat的灰色硬壳箱。对方把我的箱子拿到家以后，没有多想，直接撬锁。后来她通过航空公司陪了我大概是五十还是一百块钱(USD)：她没有拿我的东西，就是赔我的坏掉的箱锁。那个箱子今年回国才退休。Also: I have other stories with the diplomat luggage (1 and 2) back in 2007 when I tried to replace a broken wheel. So this one really last for a long time: at least from 2007 to 2023. I think I bought it before 2007 too.

Learning English in Missouri S&T at Rolla

Note the adults tend to stay or social with her/his own ethic group or friends, and use the 1st language he/she is familiar with. When I was a graduate student in Rolla more than 20 years ago, I used to have an American professor, and he made a comment which I agree: American grad students stay with the Americans, Chinese students stay with the Chinese, and Indian students stay with Indians.

I have Indian born advisor, and I talked to Indian born graduate students. One nice thing is one fellow graduate student sometimes corrected my English, and that really helped. Not many people would correct or point out. Btw, that particular grad student is now a technology VP at a credit rating agency.

At one time, I was able to translate for the professors during a meeting. I think the fellow graduate student is from Africa and he has some accent, but it’s not too hard to guess or figure out.

Host family
When I was new to Rolla, I got to learn the Stoltz family through the international office’s host family program. And they helped my English (via conversations), and get familiar with the America culture in many aspects. I still remember, the dinners, the trips to the Governor’s Manson, to Branson and the Xmas gifts.

Fraternity

At one time because I live with American undergrad everyday, and listen to their talking daily, I felt English is almost like “my native language”. Also once my “big brother” told me: you lived in a quite unique fraternity. And I agree: in the beginning of my stay there, I rode bike from school to the fraternity house every day. When the weather was bad I would call the house for help, and my brothers never failed to pick me up. That includes the rides in the snow days too.

I retook the English test again a few years later: got a “fair” grade from another Indian born professor.

TV and Movies are also a very important source of education for my Oral English. Back in those days it was mostly the Blockbuster videos, and just movies on the TV. Now it’s mostly streaming mostly from Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. American middle schools and high school tv 📺 or movies 🎥
High School: Gilmore girls (Netflix)
High School: Breakfast club (I watched via Amazon Prime, free)
College: back to school 🏫 (Amazon, for a fee)

Holiday themed movies

Love Actually (a classic, watch it on Netflix before 12/31/2023)

Holiday in Vineyard (Netflix)

Christmas with a View (Netflix, going away on 1/1/24)

More

Romantic series: the Virgin River (Netflix, the series 5 just debuted and the last episode has holiday theme/Christmas celebration)

Other comedies:

Seinfeld

Friends

No Hard Feelings (Jennifer Lawrence, new on Netflix)

NPR

Most listened programs: morning edition, all things considered, market place, planet money and ted radio hour.

Listened in the past, enjoyed but no longer available or no longer listen much due change of taste or programming: Diane Rhem show, Fresh Air (Terry Gros), Car Talk, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Weekend Edition.

Including BBC World Service (in the night)

Teaching

https://twitter.com/435hz/status/1730065866195095985

I taught in China. Many years ago in SH. Failed. Will talk more about that exp. later, hopefully 🙁

When I was new to Rolla, I failed in the Teaching Assistant (TA) English test – later I tried to practice oral English with a English teacher during lunch (once a week). I didn’t teach when at Rolla (again because I flunked the spoken English test), and had to look for RA (research assistant) job in the school. Later on I taught in Abacus Rolla, to a few fellow grad students, and I did okay. It was friendly environment too.

This fall I started teaching graduate course at Webster U. 韦伯斯特大学客座教授（其实就是兼职 adjunct professor 🙂 Couple funny things:

  1. I was nervous before doing this, but my wife and 13 year old daughter were quite nervous too;
  2. I think it’s giving me some energy interacting with younger folks (all graduate students are younger than me). I do interact with my kids quite a bit too: to be precise more than interacting with them, or Uber-ing them around. But most kids will eventually grow up and live on their own. That’s where interacting with young folks becoming more important: I believe that’s one reason Warren Buffett likes to teach at school sometimes, or hosting the MBA students at his company’s HQ or at the annual shareholder meeting. Also the BRK meeting, plus Charlie’s Daily Journal Co and past Wesco shareholder meetings allow both of them to interact with many people, including many young people too. That’s one secret sauce of their longetibity.
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advice and tips

My blunder on presenting today

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Today I made a pretty bad mistake on my presentation. Basically, I messed up my audio shortly after I got started, and I was not aware of it for about 6 minutes or so: until I realized I was kicked out the meeting. The audio issue was caused by my airpods losing battery, and I switched to the bluetooth headset. But it appears the airpods is still connected as I did not put the airpods in the pod (partially due to presenting, and I was a bit overwhelmed). Because the airpods was making noise, my colleague dropped me from the meeting, which I did not realized as I was switch between the tabs on Chrome web broswer: the meeting was just a tab and it was not obvious.

Going forward, I am going to implement two changes: no two bluetooth devices at the same time (again due to not complete switch over or disconnecting issue); also I am going to pull out the google meet tab to its own window so that I can be made aware.

Remote working brings a lot of convenience, and it brings a lot of challenges too (remember the lawyer’s I am not a cat incident on Zoom?). One thing I think it’s important is the empathy. I think the place I am working is okay, but not perfect. Without getting too much details, I feel I did not get much support, rather received some criticisms instead. There are better ways to handle that. If I am a leader, I would handle it differently.

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advice and tips

Covid vaccine in St. Louis county

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St. Louis County COVID-19 Vaccines (pre-register)

Providers (hospitals in alphabetical order)

BJC

Mercy

SSM

St. Luke

Precautions / things to pay attention before taking vaccines.

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advice and tips Fun kids

Holmdel BOE election

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FB

Patch

betterholmdeleducation (Platform)

data, media (social media, year sign, email etc)

Linda Zhang

Irfan Lateef

Ladue

2012

Ladue School Board Candidate Q&A With Sheri Glantz ” If funding allows, adding the option of Chinese to our foreign language department would be a priority.” (do I hear any volunteer here? Kidding. I mean a part time Chinese instructor to be serious)

2013

5 Candidates State Their Positions on Ladue School District Issues

Jeff Kopolow, Dan Regelean Elected to the Ladue School Board (data)

2014

2015

BOE results: Glantz, Goldstein won (out of 5 candidates)

2016

BOE results: Johnson, Kopolow won (out of 3 candidates)

2017

FB: Kisha Lee: The Key to a Stronger Ladue (2017 Meet the Candidates Night; won again in 2020 run #unopposed). From my recent memory Kisha is the first African American woman to be elected to Ladue BOE. As you may have read from above, she started in 2013.

2018

Glantz and Goldstein Re-Elected to Ladue Schools Board of Education

for more detailed information on election, refer to County Board of Election (citizen can request)

2019

results (county board of election): Johnson, Kopolow won out of 3 canidates

2020: there was no election on this year and the incumbent ran #unopposed (there was no new comer). The bylaw says that if there is no bond issue, and there is no new comer, there is no need for election.

2021

Marissa Rosen 4 Ladue April 6, 2021

Procedure to file for BOE

Board Briefs (blog)

Official web site

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advice and tips kids

Where to buy masks

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Masks are much more widely available, and much more widely accepted now, compared to the early days of shutdown, or in February when the US was not directly impacted by COVID. I recall buying masks at Chinese grocery store, also at the Aliexpress.com (a subsidiary of Alibaba that serves customers outside of China). Also friends in China sent in some. All those are one time use “surgical type” or “dusk” masks. The quality was okay but great. Now those are more widely available in large websites or stores as well: Amazon, Costco, Walmart etc. The price came down as well.

But I am not a big fan of one time use masks. I had one cotton mask before the pandemic, and I used it a lot (I do need to wash it more often). Recently I found those Hanes masks are good or decent. They have 50 packs as well. It comes down to $2.50 per piece. I already received it, washed it, and started using it. I think one person can use one mask per day, just like undergarments. Use Code “SAFE20” for Extra 20% Off.

Also, some kids (and their families) in Ladue school, started this stl mask project: the money raised will be donated to operation food search.

I noticed some special purpose masks such as masks for running as well. Those cost a bit more than normal ones (see below), as cotton ones could easily cause sweat.

Last but not least, I think custom made or the name on mask can have some values, especially for teachers or healthcare workers. I found Etsy have some (adult personalized mask, adult custom name mask, and reusable kids mask).

(Update 07-20-2020) Found this deal on surgical masks at ebay. I ordered 300 🙂 Note I am still not big fan of one time use masks, but I plan to donate some and save some. Recently I found out I could misplace masks at home or in the car, so that’s the main use of one use masks.

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advice and tips finance

CAGR compound annual growth rate of one of my IRA account

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This IRA account was a bit unusual, as I took some meaningful losses earlier on. Then from 2017 (maybe a little bit more earlier, but I only have the balance history since Jan 3, 2017), things started to look up. In last 3.5 years, the CAGR is about 54.54%. My bigger winner during this time was $HUN, and more importantly $OKTA. This is the chart.

And the formula to do it via Google chart. Basically I imported the CSV (downloaded form broker website) into google sheet, and used the default chart, and added the formula for CAGR compound annual growth rate. Last but not least, one may adjust the formula a bit (maybe retype it), in my case, I used this formula: power (end value / beginning value, 1.0 / number of periods) . The ^ symbol (at least as I copied and pasted) seems have some issues, so I used the math power function, which is same as the ticker ^ symbol here. The period is year here, as I was looking for the annualized return.

Last but not least, this does not depict the full picture of my personal investments. I made some dumb mistakes here or there, and also, I put most of my 401k money in stock mutual funds (some in S&P 500 funds).

(Update 07-21-2020) The annual return is 13.34%, as shown in the chart. There was two meaningful drops in last 12 months. For comparison, the S&P 500 was up 9.25 % in last 12 months and Berkshire Hathaway was down -6.65% in the same period (yahoo Finance chart here).

In retrospect, I did not do well when I trade too much. One reason for more trading is since last last year, TDAmeritrade stopped the trading fees. Rohinhood was free since its beginning (2015?) and I did decently well in its early days. Then I got into sort of slump. This is similar to my main trading account (IRA at TDAmeritrade), I did well in 2017 and 2018, perhaps early half of 2019 too. But was just so-so in last 12 months (again refer to my chart). Update: actually I did not do very well in 2017 (+25%), but I did exceptional in 2018 (up 100%), then followed by 50% in year 2019. Overall still decent.

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advice and tips finance

Review 401ks II

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Today I started to look at other 401k accounts I have and evaluate whether I need to make any adjustments. This is a continuation of my earlier post.

In the past I do looked at them from time to time, but was not on a fixed schedule or anything. But I did start making some adjustments in last year or so, to my couple portfolios. For example, I got rid of the international funds in my Siemens 401k plan, I believe those will continue to underperform over the US equities in next 10 years or so. Most US companies are international companies too: I looked at the US large cap fund, the top 5 holdings are Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and Facebook. And its performance in last 1, 3, 5 and 10 years (10.5% vs 10.5% annualized) is fairly comparable to S&P index. Note in my earlier post I mentioned I am mostly keen on 10 years performance. Because we were mostly in a bull market in last 10 years (2010 to 2020). I recall Sept 2008 and March 2009 were two market lows last time around during financial crisis / great recession. So this is a bit confirmation of the market effect.

For this Siemens 401k account, I actually don’t plan to do anything today. I did update the address, since I moved from condo to current single family house in last August. I will still have a few more portfolio to look, as you can see from my linkedin profile, I changed job a bit in last 10 years or so. And I mainly used two choices when I deal with the 401k: leave them alone (for the most part); or move them to IRA (applicable to my 401k when I was in contractor position, as they usually will not let me leave the money there). I end up with 2 IRAs over the years, and a few more 401ks. Maybe at some point, I will consolidate, as management of those can become more tedious. As a minimum I need to have user name / password for them. The only place they have single sign on is the credit card company I worked for. A bit off topic, I recall a gentleman who used to work for Disney, and he said Disney has at least three SSOs. Then my colleague commented then it’s MSSOs 🙂

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advice and tips kids

Had a small scare at Creve Coeur lake

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Today I had a small scare at the CC lake. I was chatting with friends while keep an eye on Sophia the 5 year old. Serenity the 10 year old went paddle boarding with friend with their moms permission. I found out after the fact, and when I asked the moms (my wife and Serenity friend’s mom), who were watching them, they said “we don’t know where they are on the lake”. This made me start to worry. Our quick response is, we rent a kayak to search on the lake. We asked around, not seeing them, increasingly worried, and even thought about calling 911. At this time I asked if we can use “find my iPhone” to find the girl, because the other girl’s mom hanged the phone on Serenity’s neck. It eventually worked, and we found them not too far from where they started, and it’s near the bank too. We were relieved, and did a bit more kayak afterwards.

My lesson here is make sure Serenity has her own iPhone, and help her learn how to use. Basically the friend’s mom called the girls twice, and the girls did not pick up the phone properly (accidentally pressed the “declined” button, thus the ensuing panic). Because this time she had friend’s mom’s iPhone on her neck while she was paddling / using the roar to push forward. And we had to call her friend’s dad to run this “find my iPhone” to pinpoint the particular device. I also want to make sure we have better network: maybe Verizon or AT&T for my whole family down the road. Right now both my wife and myself have mint mobile which uses t-mobile network, and it’s considered not as good as the VZ and T.

Serenity’s mom’s thinking is we should keep an eye on them all the time, unfortunately due to the size of this lake, it’s a bit impractical.