Josh Scandlen Podcast

I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that’s too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach.  And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple. Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand— that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive master-minding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith. https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/ --- Support this podcas

In this episode I answer a ton of questions Live on Youtube.  Here's just a small sampling: ***  I’ve been working at Taco Bell since July 11th, i am currently 16 saving for my first car. I have about 4,700$ saved up, should i file for tax returns? *** To avoid family or friends disputes over money, do you have any suggestions as who could be an executor of our trust? *** We noticed that over 50% of our networth is in Real Estate.  Is this normal or should we try to diversify more?   ***  Not sure if this is too personal but I would love to know what funds Josh Scandlen is personally invested in!   *** If you had to do it all again, starting in 2019 as a first time investor. What funds do you as a young(er) Josh Scandlen to have in his Roth IRA?  ***  as a young person just getting started on life were do you save or invest first because as a older person trying to play catch up I have accounts here there an every where trying to cover all the angels ? *** My que

First podcast episode of 2019!  A great one to start the New Year too. I had the privilege to interview Jane Brox, who wrote a most wonderful book called "Brilliant - The Evolution of Artificial Light" If you are into history, especially narrative history, the kind where you feel you are actually THERE - back in time with the characters, this book is for you.  Just an incredible journey of light and how human beings have come to rely on it so.  I can not recommend this book enough.  Get it here: https://amzn.to/2SXTVEJ Jane just published a new book: Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Time.  Get this book here: https://amzn.to/2Md631N --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/josh-scandlen-podcast/support

One of the most important lessons my mom taught me was that most IRS agents are reasonable. Thus, if you're in an audit, just do what they ask, don't be stupid and they'll be on their way soon enough. Of course, my mom said, the best thing is to not get audited to begin with. Well how do you do that? Be reasonable on your tax returns. For instance, don't claim a charitable deduction on the clothes you bought GoodWill by the purchase price of these clothes when at the retail store! Don't try to write off as a business expense the times you took your kids to Disney. That fishing rod you use to go fishing? Don't write that off unless you are truly in the fishing business! Pretty simple stuff, eh? But you'd be surprised how many people get wrapped up on "not paying anything more to the IRS!" So, they'll move mountains to write off every last penny. Why??? Say you end up paying a couple hundred extra in tax, is that really, REALLY, that big a deal? I don't see it. Thus, when it comes to your taxes, b

I can't tell you how excited I am to have Carrie Meyer on the podcast today. Carrie was a professor of mine when I was at George Mason in the early to mid 1990s. By the wonders of the interwebz we've been able to stay in touch over these 20 plus years. She had written a most wonderful book called "Days On The Family Farm" which is a literal daily diary from lady who was keeping the books of her family farm in Rockford, IL. The diary takes us back in time to the first time getting a tractor, a vehicle, a gas engine, through WW1 into the Depression, etc. A daily time stamp of happenings during that time. It's amazing. If you are into history, farming, energy use, economics, small business, you will love this book. Here's the link. https://amzn.to/2rwEibj Secondly, Carrie had just written a book called "Letters from the Boys: Wisconsin World War I Soldiers Write Home" which sounds like a fascinating book but one I have yet to read. Oh, it's certainly on my list! You can find the link here. https

File this under a Josh Rants episode please. Thus, if you're looking for financial planning specific info, this video is probs not for you. Because in this video I want to take a moment or 30, to talk about fear. And ponder why it is so prevalent in our modern culture. A culture where we have abundance like the world has never seen. Where we have so much food we refuse it when presented to us. Where we can literally go a whole day, a week even, and never know what the weather is outside. Where the biggest worry we may have is if a cop saw us roll through a stop sign and pulls us over. And yet, with ALL THIS, we seemingly live in more fear today than ever before. We fear Muslim terrorists. We fear there are Nazi's under every bed. We fear a child predator will snatch our kid. We fear a criminal band is going to do a home invasion. We fear apocalyptic climate change. We fear a market meltdown and hyperinflation. We fear running out of money in retirement. We fear everything it seems. But wh

Jeremy Siegel grants his annual interview to Robert Huebscher over at Advisor Perspectives about his thoughts on the markets. https://bit.ly/2DSRE8O For those of you unaware, Siegal wrote the NUMBER ONE book on investing you will ever read. Here is the link for his 5th edition. If you are interested in markets, I'm telling you THIS is the book for you. https://amzn.to/2ScKFeQ ================================= GET ALL MY LATEST BLOGPOSTS: https://heritagewealthplanning.com If you like what you see, a thumbs up helps A LOT. It tells YouTube that people are engaged and so the Youtube algorithm will show the vide to others who may be interested in the content. So, give me a thumbs up, please! Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSEzy4i9xrKPoaU9z0_XbmA?sub_confirmation=1 Contact me: Josh@heritagewealthplanning.com GET MY BOOKS: ALL are FREE to Kindle Unlimited Subscribers! The Tax Bomb In Your Retirement Accounts: How The Roth IRA Can Help You Avoid It https://a

The Market Is Down…have you checked your Monte Carlo projections??? Last month you ran a retirement scenario that showed you had a 85% probability of success. Which left you feeling good because it showed you could retire at your anointed time. Yay for you! Yesterday you ran the same exact scenario but your probability of success is now only 70% meaning your going to have to work at your crappy, old job for 2 more years. “Nooooooooo!!!!” You scream into the night in pure panic. “I CAN’T do it! I just can’t!” You hate your crappy, old job, after all, and you’re just there until you get to the point where your retirement projections show you’re ‘safe’ to retire. Suddenly though, in a month’s time, all your hopes and dreams have been shattered. Just. Like. That. Is it Trump? The Democrats winning the House? NYC banksters? Jeff Bezos? Who is to blame for your retirement plan being derailed? You’ve got to be able to blame someone, but whom??? And this, my friends, is why I despise retirement projections. Liter

I'm telling you folks, if you're not paying attention to the capital gain distributions your mutual funds pay you could be in for a world of hurt. Big distributions from many fund companies are coming your way. Even worse, yes WORSE, is that some funds distributions will consist of SHORT TERM CAPITAL GAINS too! What can you do about this? Well, stay tuned to find out! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/josh-scandlen-podcast/support

Lots of good stuff across the board from election day. Maine, Colorado, Florida, Washington state even passed either good initiatives or defeated bad ones. The march towards more liberalization on weed moves ahead. I am very happy to see this too. Unfortunately, the good folks in North Dakota weren’t quite ready to go all in. But even their ballot, which would have legalized entirely didn’t go down in too big a way not to be revisited. My concern on legalization, of course, is the folks who say “legalize it and tax it.” Yeah, that has done wonders for the black market on cigarettes. If you’re going to legalize you don’t do it for tax revenue. You do it for the peace and safety it creates. Never mind the freedom for people to engage in their choice of behaviors, as long as it doesn’t impact another’s ability to engage in his/her own choices. Washington state defeated, once again, their silly carbon tax initiative. Again, the idea CO2 is EVIL boggles the mind. But the Washington state law was even more si

Direct Primary Care (DPC) is a wonderful alternative to the current insanity of health care. DPC offers a one-to-one relationship with your primary care provider (PCP) for a monthly fee. You get to know your PCP, he/she gets to know you. Because a DPC provider doesn't accept insurance, there is no middle man. You pay that monthly fee and have access to your provider. It's literally that simple. And, given that there are no insurance company's to satisfy, the fee you pay is significantly lower than what you'd think. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Natalia Southerland out of Dallas, TX suburbs and she tells us her story of being raised in a WVA steeltown to becoming a physician who wanted nothing more than to help people like her family who couldn't afford to go and see a doc. She shares her frustration with the limited availability she had to see her patients. In fact, she mentions she had 3,000 patients "assigned" to her. How many did she have a close relationship with? Well, doesn't take a de

I can't begin to tell you how many times I receive an email where someone is concerned about their Social Security benefit being wrong. They look at their statement and see that they'll receive say $2,000 at FRA but when they calculate the numbers themselves they don't come up with anything close to that. Then they'll see Youtube videos and other blog posts saying "Your Social Security statement is WRONG!!!" And without understanding they'll simply believe what they see, hear or read. This is not good because it leads people to stay in their crappy, old job for many more years than they should, solely due to ignorance. So, let's look at how Social Security benefits are actually calculated. I've talked a million times to Sunday on the AIME (Averaged Indexed Monthly Earnings) numbers. You take your top 35 years of earnings, INFLATE THEM as per Social Security's guidelines) add them up, and divide by 420. That is your AIME. But your AIME is NOT your benefit amount. Your benefit amount is your PIA, which

You think science isn't politicized? Think again, my friends. In this episode I read from Ian Leslie's amazing article from 2016 "The Sugar Conspiracy" and you will see the politicization of "science" firsthand. Scary thing, though, is that science is supposed to be based on evidence. But what happens when evidence is not allowed into the public realm? Well, at least in terms of the food we eat, people die! And thus the purveyors of falsities need to be held accountable for why they are not allowing the public to hear divergent points of view. Well, we know why. Power, prestige and money. That three headed monster will make people do many bad things in order to solidify their positions. Which is exactly what happened for 50 years in the nutrition science world. We see the same in other aspects of "science" too, mind you. And similar to nutrition science we see the same disgusting misogyny as well. How dare a woman challenge the orthodoxy??? That woman "is an animal unlike anything I’ve ever seen bef

You think science isn't politicized? Think again, my friends. In this episode I read from Ian Leslie's amazing article from 2016 "The Sugar Conspiracy" and you will see the politicization of "science" firsthand. Scary thing, though, is that science is supposed to be based on evidence. But what happens when evidence is not allowed into the public realm? Well, at least in terms of the food we eat, people die! And thus the purveyors of falsities need to be held accountable for why they are not allowing the public to hear divergent points of view. Well, we know why. Power, prestige and money. That three headed monster will make people do many bad things in order to solidify their positions. Which is exactly what happened for 50 years in the nutrition science world. We see the same in other aspects of "science" too, mind you. And similar to nutrition science we see the same disgusting misogyny as well. How dare a woman challenge the orthodoxy??? That woman "is an animal unlike anything I’ve ever

What arrived in the mail the other day? Nothing more than a piece from Fidelity investments advertising they now have funds that are LOWER cost than Vanguards... Wow... To see the change in the industry from a few decades ago to now, is nothing short of incredible. John Bogle, Vanguard's founder, was/is a pariah in the investment world. WHy? Because he shown a light on the sickening nature of investment managers getting rid off the back of their investors without adding ANY value. For many a year, Bogle was demeaned. But the academics saw the light first and slowly, ever so slowly at first, the industry began to change. Now, that Fidelity is competing with Vanguard on price shows you which side actually won. However, there is still a lot to be wary about. Many an investment manager still charges well over 1%, even if the investments they use are low cost, such as Vanguards. Don't fall for this, my friends. If your investment guy is flying around the country in a private jet or going off on his ya

Social Security and Medicare are NOT going broke, my friends. This doesn't mean there aren't issues to contend with but please, for the love of all that is good, do not fall into the trap that you shouldn't use Social Security in your planning. Now, with that said, I will not be shocked in the least if you pay more in taxes for your benefits, or even worse, more taxes ON your benefits. In fact, buried well in the Trustees report that say they say "An increasing fraction of all earnings will be subject to the higher tax rate over time because the thresholds are not indexed. By 2092, an estimated 79 percent of workers would pay the higher rate." Hmmmm....a tax that is NOT indexed for inflation. Ever heard that before? Of course you have! Social Security taxation of benefits. So, prepare accordingly. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/josh-scandlen-podcast/support

Latest episode of Josh Scandlen Podcast --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/josh-scandlen-podcast/support

I like the TSP. No, I LOVE the TSP! And you should too. However, when it comes to distributions from the TSP, you literally could not make it any more complex. For this reason alone, it would be wise to roll your TSP over to an IRA upon separating from service, unless you really, and I mean REALLY, want to leave your heirs with a nightmare. Now, when I say rollover to an IRA, I don't propose you put it into a high cost fund or annuity. You can get similarly cheap investments at Vanguard and other places as TSP. But with those firms come much more flexibility in distribution options. https://heritagewealthplanning.com/rolling-over-your-thrift-savings-plantsp-dont-do-that/ ================================= GET ALL MY LATEST BLOGPOSTS: https://heritagewealthplanning.com If you like what you see, a thumbs up helps A LOT. It tells YouTube that people are engaged and so the Youtube algorithm will show the vide to others who may be interested in the content. So, give me a thumbs up, please! Don't forget to

Medicare Annual Enrollment is upon us. That means it's your time to investigate new plans. Do not allow inertia to take hold and assume your old plan is still competitive, especially in the Medicare Advantage arena. SHOP to see if better plans are available! But how do you do that? Medicare.gov??? Good luck with that. As Elaine Floyd talks about in this article Medicare.gov did not list plans that ARE available to her and were actually quite favorable plans too. In fact, only by mistake did she go to medicare.com and saw plans available to her that Medicare.gov didn't have. Plans that have been available to her for years, that she missed. Thankfully a friend told her about a plan she used and thus Elaine made the decision to do some research on her own. What a mess though! As she shares with us here. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/josh-scandlen-podcast/support

More Americans are worried about health care costs in retirement than about running out of money. How does that make any sense? Nassim Nicholas Taleb in one of his books talks about more people thinks it's more likely that an earthquake in California will kill 3000 people than a natural disaster anywhere in the US will kill 3000. The first is a subset of the second. The first can't exist without the second existing too! So, if you're worried about the first, you should be inherently more worried about the second. Same thing here. How can you be more worried about health care costs, which is a subset of retirement planning, than you are about running out of money? Yet here we are. Why? Because we keep hearing how expensive health care is in retirement. We're all going to die!!! We need health insurance and we need it now!!! We've been told for years taht we're only one paycheck away from being homeless. That we could all go bankrupt in retirement. That we'll all eat catfood alone in our last few y