I Retired early; now I’m broke!
When you don’t have any money, you are broke.
This is truly behind the scenes.
People enjoy reading my newsletter because they frequently get a “behind the scenes” look at my sometimes unusual lifestyle. That’s OK. I share in the hopes that it will bring a smile to your face and/or provide a tip that you can use to your advantage.
It’s not good to be too “cool for school.”
I’m not gonna lie. Sometimes, I think I’m just a little too “cool for school” when it comes to money. Let’s not forget that I manufactured $92,000 in before-tax earnings by manipulating credit cards. I don’t always win the game by a landslide like I did there. With what I will tell you next, I will equate today’s experience to a triple overtime victory. Let’s get started.
15 hours in a middle seat.
I returned to Los Angeles yesterday after a weeklong visit to Israel for trackchasing and touring. I flew on El Al Airlines. Honestly, I didn’t find El Al to be that great. That comes from a guy who usually thinks of most airlines as being generic.
The flight distance from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Los Angeles, California, is 7,578 miles. I flew standby. I was lucky enough to get one of the last seats available. That thinking shows that I have a really positive attitude toward life!
I would be sitting in a middle seat in coach for 15 hours. I wasn’t the MVP on that flight, but the young woman sitting next to me in the window seat was. She never got up a single time to pee, which is impressive.
I’ll be telling you about the Israeli trip somewhere down the line. For some reason, I was starting to feel the effects of a cold coming on before I boarded the plane. No one on an airplane likes a sneezer, right? My cold was getting worse by the minute.
A message from Carol.
As my plane was backing out of the alleyway in Tel Aviv, I got a text from Carol. A couple of checks had been mailed earlier than expected, and she asked that I get money into our account immediately. I told her I could meet her expectations… in 15 hours.
If only all of the world worked this way.
The Los Angeles International Airport has the slickest border entry for people with “Global Entry” of any place I’ve seen. I walk up to a camera, and the camera takes my picture. In three seconds, I’m back in the United States. I haven’t seen anybody meet or beat that performance.
As people from around the world gathered their baggage, I grabbed a seat, opened up my laptop, and went to Vanguard to get the $28,000 that Carol had requested.
Yes, $28,000.
Why $28,000? Each month, Carol gives me the “number.” The number is what she pays to cover our bills for that month. Hey! During the first 98 days of 2025, I’ve flown 85,000 miles. I’ve stayed overnight away from home for 64 nights. I was surprised she only needed 28 grand!
Cash can be king.
We keep some extra liquidity in a Vanguard money market fund and a Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF, VTI.
When the money market fund has money, moving it from Vanguard to our bank account takes a couple of days. On this particular occasion, the money market fund was empty. That meant I had to sell some of the Vanguard ETF. Not to bore you with too many details, but to do that and get the money, Vanguard moves the funds from the ETF into the money market fund, the settlement fund. Then, I must move the funds from the money market fund/settlement fund into our bank. That all takes a couple of extra days.
I want it, and I want it now!
Carol quickly informed me that we didn’t have an extra couple of days. It didn’t look like the money I would transfer would arrive in time to cover those checks.
That meant the checks mailed earlier in the week might be declined for insufficient funds. Now, that’s never a good thing, is it?
I never get sick…until today.
The morning after I arrived home from Israel, the flu started kicking in. I was bedridden, coughing and sneezing, having a runny nose, and pretty much sleeping all day. Even when I am sick, I don’t mention it. Nobody cares.
I didn’t eat dinner, and I didn’t walk my 4 miles for the day. I had a streak of a few months where I hadn’t missed a single walking day, but I just didn’t have the energy.
I could see where this was heading and it wasn’t good.
It was looking increasingly likely that the $28,000 I had taken out of Vanguard would not arrive on time. The checks were going to be cashed by the same credit card companies that gave me more than $90,000, and then I was going to get an email saying, ” Hey Randy, where’s the money?” We were in a bind.
I phoned a friend.
I texted J.J., our son. He lives nearby, is a tech wizard, and usually has some cash within reach. We discussed several alternatives, some of which I’ve never heard of. What is Zelle, anyway?
For the most part, it didn’t look like he could get the funds to us any quicker than what I had in process. I am a creative thinker when it comes to money and lots of other things.
Really? This would be the solution? Really?
I was seated at my desk in my home office. The solution to our problem was three feet away from me, maybe.
Elvis Presley was going to help us out?
You may have heard me talk about this in the past. I have a plastic “Elvis Presley” guitar-shaped bank. I got it as a gift from our daughter, Kristy. For years, I’ve been putting $20 a week in that bank and, once in a while, a little bit more.
Why put this money aside?
The purpose of those funds is to accumulate them and then spend the money on something wild and crazy…ala Die with Zero. I know; it seems as if I can’t complete a single newsletter without mentioning Die with Zero. Maybe that shows you the impact this strategy has had on me.
Some three or four years ago, I pulled all the money out of the plastic bank, totaling about five grand. Immediately, I bought an 83-inch flatscreen TV.
Bigger is almost always better.
I was in the Yodobashi—Akiba camera store in Tokyo, Japan, two weeks ago. This is the largest electronics store in the world, and I’ve shopped there many times. As you might imagine, they have a nice selection of TVs.
Their largest TV was 110 inches. As I recall, the retail price was 4,980,000 Japanese yen. That made me feel bad. What kind of guy only has an 83-inch TV when there are 110-inch TVs available?
Carol was concerned.
Back to Carol’s and my immediate money problem. My last and final idea to keep Carol and me from debtor’s prison was the Elvis Presley plastic bank!
After all the dust had settled, Carol told me $3,668.27 would get us through the storm for 2-3 days until the $28,000 arrived from Vanguard.
Quoting Clint Eastwood.
Here was the question. Did I feel lucky? Did the Elvis Presley bank have $3,668.27 in it? There was only one way to find out.
Getting a series of $20 bills and, once in a while, a $50 or $100 out of the thin neck of a guitar-shaped bank was difficult. Not a problem. Remember, I’m creative.
I had a telescoping back scratcher in my desk drawer. I pulled it out and started shaking the bank vigorously upside down.
The first thing to come out was a series of coins. Probably a couple hundred coins. That wasn’t going to help me much.
Soon, the first of the $20 bills came out. I was using that back scratcher a lot more tonight than I ever used it as a…back scratcher. Man and machine, we were all working together now.
This was my plan.
I planned to take each crumpled $20 bill and put them in groups of 50, making up $1,000. Some of those crumpled bills had been in the bank for three years or more. They seemed to have gotten comfortable being crumpled. I used the weight of my iPad to try to smooth them out.
Some good ideas are dumb ideas.
I should point out something that may or may not be obvious. Putting money each week into a bank like this is a good idea as a form of forced savings. On the other hand, financially, it’s a pretty stupid idea.
Had I moved $20 into my Vanguard Federal Money Market fund every week for the past three years, all of that money would’ve been earning nearly 6%. Six percent? Yes, that’s the tax-effective yield that comes with that fund. The earnings are not subject to California state income taxes.
Dumb.
Storing cash in an Elvis Presley money bank probably cost me $300-400 or more in lost interest. OK, I admit it. I was dumb to do that. Let’s move on.
I was working my plan.
While Carol showered for the evening, I, in my flu-ridden state, began counting $20 bills after $20 bills. I needed $3,668.27.
While I was doing this, J.J. and I were texting vigorously with all kinds of ideas. If it worked, Elvis Presley was going to be my best bet.
I could see how much I had counted and how much was left in the bank. I knew it was going to be close.
I won’t hold you in suspense any longer. Not counting the coins, I had $3,990 in the bank. I was more than $300 to the good. I let out a collective sigh of relief as I wiped my running nose.
With Carol now putting on the finishing touches of her nighttime routine, I added $10 to the total and presented her with four separate stacks of $1,000 each. I’m not sure if she was as excited about my accomplishment as I was.
Now she’ll put that money in the bank tomorrow morning. We should be good to go. This was a close one. My Elvis bank was now empty!
When the 28 grand finally comes in, I’ll deposit $3,990 into the Vanguard Federal Money Market fund and earn maybe a 5% tax-effective yield. Then I’ll think exactly what wild and crazy thing I will throw that money at.
I didn’t feel like exercising today.
It was now 9:30 in the evening. I had only walked 2/10 of a mile for the entire day. That was mainly from the bed to the bathroom. I was sick.
My adrenaline had started pumping due to our “cash flow” issue. Maybe I could walk 3.8 miles in the next 2 1/2 hours before the clock struck midnight! I made it past four miles by the deadline! The smallest bar on the above chart represents four miles of walking.
I entered the affectionately named “RANLAY Events Center” (my indoor basketball court) and began walking in circles. Walking 3.8 miles would take approximately 76 minutes at this speed, but I had 150 minutes to do it.
I am incorrigible.
Do I still think I’m too cool for school in terms of money? Honestly, yes. Am I creative? Yes, I’m pretty creative. Am I driven to achieve anything doable? I am.
Am I embarrassed to tell you this story? Not really. Am I embarrassed to share details of my personal life with you? Not really.
Welcome to Randy’s World.
I lead what in Randy’s World is a simple life. I don’t do anything dishonest or immoral. I try to work with the Ten Commandments. I do what I think to be “normal” stuff. However, in my world, what is normal to me, in all likelihood, is probably not gonna be normal to someone else. That’s OK.
Peeping Tom.
I think we all enjoy, at least a little bit, looking through the window of someone else’s lifestyle. I can imagine that the common thought for most who read what I share is that this guy is a little crazy. He does a lot of stuff I don’t think I would be comfortable doing, but he seems to enjoy it, and it pays off.
The next newsletter you get from me will be about Tokyo, Japan, which followed my visit with my grandson to Indianapolis, Indiana. One of these days, you’ll hear about my adventure to Israel. The racetrack I saw was just 25 miles from the Gaza Strip, which was exciting.
Before I walked, the next step was washing my hands. Counting money can be dirty.
Quoting Forrest Gump.
Then I went down into the Events Center and started walking. It’s kinda like Forrest Gump said, “I just started walking, and I liked it, and I just kept walking.”
Randy Lewis
Cutting it close in California.
P.S.
Listen and learn and then act.
After escaping the clutches of being totally broke, I began listening to one of my podcasts as I walked. The podcast advocated paying federal and state income taxes with a credit card. You do that, right? I do!
If you want to learn why you should pay your income taxes with a credit card, check this out.
Google this:
Point Me To First Class: Episode #110. 2025 Tax Payment Updates You Need to Know with Dr. Sujatha Murali
Or…try this link:
Audio version of Paying Taxes with a Credit Card