The second “Life Lesson” I see in The Matrix is the quote from Agent Smith about the first generation of The Matrix as follows, “Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.” We can always tell if a potential client is a great saver because they have already established this type of account. They took the Red Pill on that first day of work and maximize what is best for them. Since the account is completely under your control, there are no IRS limitation around how much you can save in there, when you can take the money out of the account and there are no requirements around how much income you make. The absolute best part: you get to pay capital gains rates! Capital gains rates have always been lower than what we call Ordinary Income rates so once again, you get to control your taxable income. The third option for saving that most people ignore because they blindly take the Blue Pill is savings in what we call a “taxable account”. People always ask me what this means and I simply say it’s like a bank savings account but you can 1) invest it into whatever you want and 2) there is absolutely no FDIC guarantee. This means I can buy an S&P 500 stock index fund and watch it go up (and down) from there. However, it should not be the only way that you save, there are better accounts to utilize. For example, Health Savings Accounts and Roth IRA’s might be a better place to save because their long-term growth is eventually tax free. 401k account balances eventually turn into ordinary income in retirement, both what you started with and the eventual growth. If your tax rate is higher in retirement, your upfront tax savings impact just got marginalized.Īnother issue with 401k savings is that at 70 ½, normally, you must start taking what are called Required Minimum Distributions. That is basically the IRS telling you that they want their taxes from your account. Roth IRA’s and Health Savings Accounts have no such requirements. This gives you all kinds of flexibility and allows you to control your taxable income accordingly. Saving money on a tax-deferred basis is something that is very important and should be part of your overall savings plan. The correlation I see here involving money is that people wake up every day with a choice on how they will approach their financial future. They can either think for themselves and try to understand their current situation and improve their future or they can just take the blue pill, meaning you do what someone else tells you. One example is your retirement plan at work. On the first day at your new company, your HR representative tells you that you need to sign up for your 401k, everyone else is doing it. If there is a match provided by the company, absolutely, it’s 100% guaranteed free money, you contribute up to whatever the company matches. After that, regarding any extra savings above and beyond the matching amount, you need to think through your actions and do what is best for you. Blue pill” scene. In this scene, Morpheus (played famously by Laurence Fishburne) meets Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) for the first time. Here is the exact quote from the movie, “You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” The first “Life Lesson” involves the famous “Red pill vs. One of my favorite movies of all time is “The Matrix” which came out in 1999. I remember going to the movie theater and witnessing it and knowing I would be back shortly to see it again. It was one of those rare movies that is better the second time you see it because you know what to expect and how to prepare for it. There are a few “Life Lessons” you can interpret from this movie that involve how you interact with money.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |