While it is valuable information to know your financial net worth, you also have to be careful with relying on this information when determining financial independence.  Even aside from financial independence, you can’t rely on your net worth to determine your retirement plans.

One of the primary reasons is that you have to take into account your cost of living or your expected cost of living.  You could have a net worth of $3 million at the age of 55, but you can’t retire on this if you are expecting to spend $300,000 per year in retirement.

If you have a net worth of $3 million per year and only plan to spend $50,000 per year in retirement, this is a whole different ballgame.  If you diversify your investments and nothing crazy happens (like hyperinflation), then your money should last.

Your Home

There is debate about whether to include your house in your net worth.  For your net worth, I think it is appropriate.  After all, if you own a $500,000 house with only $100,000 left on a mortgage, you are far better off than someone who owns a $500,000 house with a $400,000 mortgage.

However, you do have to be careful counting your house when it comes to financial independence or retirement.

Let’s say that Person A rents an apartment but has a net worth of $2 million that is in investments.

Person B has a house valued at $2 million and has paid it off completely, but has no investments and almost nothing in the bank.

They both have a net worth of $2 million.  Yet, they are in very different situations.  Person A, depending on his expenses, might be close to retiring.

Person B might be close to retiring if he is planning to sell his house next month in order to rent or to buy something like a $200,000 house.

However, if Person B has no intention of moving any time soon, then the $2 million net worth means almost nothing in terms of being financially independent.  It’s the same situation as someone who owns a $300,000 house free and clear with no other assets.  If anything, the $2 million house is a bigger liability because of higher property taxes and maintenance costs.

Person B’s one advantage is that he doesn’t pay rent and doesn’t have a mortgage payment.  That’s the only advantage, unless he plans to sell his house and downsize.

Other Factors

There is a lot of messiness with calculating net worth and financial independence.  One big factor is taxes.

If someone has $1 million in a 401k plan, that will be taxable when it is taken out.  Meanwhile, someone else might have $1 million in a Roth IRA, which isn’t taxable upon withdrawal.

Both people have a million dollars, but one person’s million dollars is more valuable than the other’s because it isn’t subject to taxation.

I don’t even know how to fully account for this unless you want to get deep into the numbers and tax brackets.  But it is at least something that should be considered.  If you have a lot of money in a Roth IRA, you won’t need as much of it as you would need in an account that will be taxed.

The 4% Rule

In the financial independence community, people often reference the 4% rule.  This means that you should be able to live on 4% of your financial assets.  Another way to say this is that you need 25 times your annual expenses.

If you are planning to spend $100,000 per year in retirement, then you need $2.5 million to be financial independent and not have to generate additional income.

I am not that confident in this rule.  I think it is assuming stock market returns that we have seen more recently without considering that returns may be far less in the future.  Just a reversion to the mean will mean far lower returns in the coming years as compared to what we have seen over the last 15 years.

Another problem with the 4% rule is that it doesn’t seem to account for age.  If you spend $100,000 per year and have $2.5 million, it will likely be enough for you if you are already 80 years of age.

If you are 40 years old and plan to retire forever on this money, I doubt it will be enough unless you can generate really good and consistent returns.

One last problem with the 4% rule is inflation.  This is especially true for the younger person.  What if we have a period of high price inflation?  That $100,000 per year in expenses could go up to $150,000 per year in less than a decade.  If your $2.5 million didn’t grow to $3.75 million over that same time, then you are now living on more than 4%.  You can see the problem.

All it takes is a bad bear market and a few years of high price inflation to throw everything off.

This is why the 4% rule should only be a guide.  There is no guarantee of what will last in retirement.  You should at least be aware of the dangers of depending on the 4% rule.

Conclusion

Beware of anyone trying to make financial planning and retirement planning sound easy.  Also be careful of assuming high investment returns.

We often hear that the U.S. stock market generates 8% annual returns.  But these are not consistent returns.  They don’t account for inflation and taxes.  And most of all, there is no guarantee that they will continue.

When looking at financial independence and/ or retirement, your expenses matter a lot.  A paid-off house shouldn’t be counted in your column of financial assets unless you are planning to sell it.  The benefit is that you can lower your expense side if you don’t have rent or a mortgage payment.

Lastly, the thing that matters most is that you save.  Do something!  If you save money and buy investments that don’t do particularly well, you will still be far ahead of someone who doesn’t save at all.

The latest consumer price index (CPI) numbers came out for January 2025.  The numbers came in a little hotter than expected.

The CPI rose 0.5% in January, and the year-over-year rose to 3%.  It seems to be getting farther away from the Fed’s 2% target now.

The median CPI, which tends to be less volatile, was up 0.3% in January.  It now stands at an annual rate of 3.6%.

Yields on bonds went up on the news.  Stocks went down, but partially recovered during the day.  The Nasdaq actually finished slightly higher on the day.  Gold went down on the news but also recovered through the day.

My Experience at the Grocery Store

I went to the grocery store over the weekend before this latest CPI report came out.  I noticed some higher prices.  The price of some dark chocolate bars had seemed to have gone up.  The price of macadamia nuts and some other nuts was higher than what I had previously paid recently.

The eggs were the biggest shock.  Most of the shelves were empty.  Of the egg cartons that were there, there weren’t many choices.  I could get the “cheap” store version.  A dozen was just under $5, which is more than what organic cost for me five years ago.

There were also some expensive organic eggs that were more than $10 for a dozen.  Those were my only choices.  There are usually less expensive organic eggs that I buy.  Maybe a new shipment of eggs was coming the next day.  Still, it was noticeable.

When I compare prices to what they were five years ago, most things are quite a bit more expensive.  From my standpoint, given what I tend to buy, I think prices have gone up at a greater pace than what the price inflation numbers show.

Trouble for Trump

With the higher inflation data, this means that the Fed is less likely to lower its target interest rate.  It is more likely to continue its deflation of the balance sheet for a little while longer.

The yield curve was inverted for all of 2023 and most of 2024.  It is finally normalizing as longer-term yields are now above shorter-term yields, in general.

What will get the blame when the recession hits?  Will it be the tariffs?  Will it be the focus on spending cuts?

The tariffs are bad and hurt the economy and can contribute to higher prices.  Government spending cuts are good for the economy, at least in the long run, as resources are put to more productive uses.

The one thing that won’t get a lot of attention is the Austrian Business Cycle theory.  This is the main factor.  The Fed engaged in monetary inflation and artificially low interest rates during prior periods.  This misallocated resources and led to an artificial boom in the economy.  Now it has to be corrected.

If Elon Musk stays at it and spending actually goes down, then we will be better off if the recession hits sooner rather than later.  In three years or so, maybe we will have a real recovery with a reduced presence of government.

It is more important than ever to promote libertarianism and give proper explanations for what is happening in the economy.  The massive federal spending and the Fed’s willingness to monetize the debt in prior years is to blame for what is to come.

Donald Trump has a lot of issues, and this country will continue to have a lot of major issues.  But for any libertarian – or anybody at all – to say that Trump is just another part of the ruling elite is to not acknowledge the situation.

There are some people who just can’t find any good no matter what.  The Berlin Wall comes down and the Soviet Union collapses, but there are still people there assuring us that communism is actually winning and gaining ground.

Trump has a lot of faults, and many of them are indefensible.  It makes it much harder to defend him against his leftist enemies who like to call him a dictator when Trump makes threats to other countries.

Trump has made some disturbing comments about Gaza.  He doesn’t understand the situation in Ukraine well enough.  His threats over the Panama Canal are unacceptable.  His use of tariffs to blackmail other countries is immoral and harmful to us.

I also have a concern that there won’t be enough permanent changes coming from this administration on the good things.  If Trump uses executive orders to “fix” a lot of things, then they could just as easily be overturned by the next group that gets in there.

With that said, what Trump has done so far is absolutely incredible.  It is actually an embarrassment to the first Trump term and to every other administration of this century and probably long before that.

DOGE Shines a Light

In less than 3 weeks, Elon Musk and his DOGE team have uncovered more than every government agency has uncovered in the last 25 years.  It is actually shocking how much has been uncovered in such a short period of time just by actually investigating some things.

This is a little similar to what happened when Musk bought Twitter and exposed the government trying to “persuade” companies to censor content.  It wasn’t shocking that it was happening, and many of us knew it was happening, but we finally got the proof and the details of it.

With the exposure of USAID, it isn’t shocking that this stuff was happening.  It is just shocking that we are getting to see all of these details.

We know that the U.S. taxpayer through USAID was spending $1.5 million for promoting diversity in Serbia, $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, and $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.

These aren’t big amounts by federal government standards, but they are quite symbolic of what is going on.  The U.S. taxpayer has also been forced to pay many foreign media companies to spread the propaganda of the U.S. government.

And that’s just the point.  As Clint Russell pointed out, it isn’t just that this money is “wasted”.  It is money spent by the government to actively sabotage us – the American people – while enhancing the power of the ruling elite.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1887538325126262835?mx=2

Where Has This Been?

This just shows how evil, or at the very least, unconcerned, every prior administration has been for the last several decades.  While transgender comic books may be somewhat new, you know this has to go back many decades before the turn of the century and in agencies throughout the government.

How does Elon Musk come in and uncover more in 3 weeks than everything we’ve seen coming out of the government for the last several decades?  It is because he actually cared to do so and Trump let him do it.

Maybe it was the bullet to Trump’s head and all of the prosecutions.  But Trump 2025 is a different animal than before.

If Trump had officially won the 2020 election and continued in office in 2021, I don’t think this would have happened.  Maybe we had to suffer through Joe Biden for four years to get anything good and decent.  In saying that, I don’t mean to downplay the suffering and death that happened over Biden’s time in office.

If Elon Musk has been able to uncover this much in less than 3 weeks, what else are we going to see over the coming weeks and months?  Maybe the revelations will slow down, but it is nice to know that there are people in a position of power who are actually trying to uncover the truth.

Chaos

This has been a time of chaos.  We can still be sympathetic to government employees who might lose their job, as long as they aren’t the ones who were actively trying to destroy us.

At some point, things probably need to calm down a little.  I think there have been mistakes made such as forcing government workers back into an office and offering a blanket severance to anyone who quits.  Some of these actions could cause more spending.  If you get all of the people who issue the Social Security checks/ deposits to quit, I’m pretty sure Trump is going to have to refill those positions.

I know some libertarians might like that kind of chaos, but I don’t think we should wish for chaos.  We know that Social Security isn’t going away or even getting phased out under Trump.  We need some continuity and order given the realities.

It is also important to realize that some chaos is necessary.  When you have this monstrosity of a federal government doing all of these things and spending nearly $7 trillion per year, it isn’t going to be a pretty sight when things start to come undone.

Look at it this way.  There is going to be chaos no matter what.  If Trump 2025 did nothing new and allowed the federal budget and the debt to grow like crazy, we would eventually be hit with some kind of default or major dollar crisis.  Maybe we will get that anyway.  But at least this is a more controlled path to that.

I am not against giving severance pay to government employees in order to make it less chaotic and make some of them go away in a quieter fashion.  If we can eliminate many government jobs that aren’t necessary and are outright harmful, then we will be better off in the long run.

Supposedly, DOGE is going to be digging into the military next.  I hope they do not hold back.  We are paying for people to be stationed all over this country and all over the world, and most of it is not necessary to the defense of our country.  Some of it is obviously quite harmful.  There are literally hundreds of billions of dollars in waste per year to be found here.

For libertarians, we should celebrate these wins.  Trump is no Ron Paul, but who is?  Some of these actions would have been unthinkable a short time ago.  It is still stunning just how much has been done in the first 3 weeks of this administration.

The Senate saved the more “controversial” Trump cabinet picks for the end.  They are controversial because they sometimes tell uncomfortable truths to the establishment.  This included Robert Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel, and Tulsi Gabbard.

There was some controversy with Pete Hegseth too, which required a tiebreaking vote from J.D. Vance.  The controversy wasn’t really with Hegseth’s personal life.  It wasn’t even so much that he wants to “de-wokify” the military.  The controversy is that sometimes he just isn’t pro war enough.

I didn’t watch a lot of Gabbard or Patel, but I did watch a substantial amount of the questioning for Kennedy.  The senators, particularly those who are generously funded by big pharma, had the knives out for Kennedy.

The Democrat senators in particular showed just how awful they are as people.  They would comment or ask about five or six different things during their allotted time.  When Kennedy went to respond, they would cut him off or tell him to answer “yes” or “no” without allowing for any explanation.  It was a truly pathetic display of what happens in Congress.

I believe one of the questions was something like, “So, why Mr. Kennedy did you sell out?”  They should have just asked him when he stopped beating his wife.

Vaccine Obsession

The topic that perhaps got the most attention was vaccines.  The big pharma senators made it a habit to blame Kennedy for the death of any child in recent times that was attributed to the measles, polio, or any other illness that has a vaccine assigned to it.

The propaganda machine has made it so that any time someone brings up Kennedy, he is automatically associated with the issue of vaccines.  Kennedy has made it clear over the years that no vaccine is 100% safe or effective and that there should be more studies done to determine the risks and benefits.

They would certainly accuse Kennedy of being obsessed with vaccines, but I find it is actually the establishment people who are obsessed with vaccines.  Look at what Joe Biden and company did in 2021 and beyond.  They were so obsessed with vaccines that Biden stated several times that you can’t get COVID and you can’t die if you got vaccinated.

They were so obsessed with vaccines that they tried to mandate them for about 100 million people.  And if someone didn’t follow the mandate, then they were not permitted to work at their job.  In other words, get the jab or lose the ability to pay for food and shelter for your family.  Who is obsessed with vaccines here?

The blowhard senators questioning Kennedy from the left really liked to bring up the measles and imply that it is this horrible and deadly disease for children.  Of course, anything can technically be deadly to children, including the flu.  But the vast majority of children who had measles in the past just stayed home from school for a couple of days and quickly recovered.

As Marcia said in the Brady Bunch, “If you have to get sick, sure can’t beat the measles.”  There didn’t seem to be any controversy with this episode at the time.

Political Frustration

Kennedy certainly looked upset at times, but he was way too polite for my tastes.  I have read other people in comment sections saying the same thing.

Several times, Kennedy repeated that he is pro vaccine.  He repeated that he favors the childhood vaccination schedule.

Perhaps the Trump team recommended he say this so as not to upset any of the establishment Republicans who might vote against him.  This is why I wouldn’t make a very good appointee.  I would never get confirmed because of my responses to these ridiculous questions.

At the very least, I think Kennedy should have gone off on the so-called COVID vaccines.  Every time these horrible people brought up vaccines, Kennedy could have just gone off on the “experts” who said that COVID vaccines were effective in stopping COVID and preventing transmission.  I don’t think he would have lost support from anyone saying that.  There would have been quite a few people cheering at home.

Even the people who don’t feel strongly about the issue one way or another would have shaken their head in agreement with that.  Almost everyone knows people who were “vaccinated” yet got COVID anyway.

Abortion and Other Issues

When the horrible senators weren’t making up stuff about vaccines, they were questioning Kennedy on abortion and trying to play his views against Trump.  I don’t think this was effective.

They were also trying other “gotcha” questions and to call into question Kennedy’s competence.  Again, I would have had a different response than Kennedy.  I would have made fun of the people who were previously in the position of heading up the DHHS.  What have they given us?  More chronic disease?

The left also tried to use Kennedy’s voice impediment against him.  They would claim that he got flustered several times.  Maybe he was getting flustered by the stupidity and obnoxiousness of the questions.

They also used Kennedy’s own sister against him because of her unkind remarks.  To me, this is more of a reflection on her than him.

If I had a sibling who was a diehard statist who was up for a position like this, I really don’t think I would make it a point to publicly attack the person personally.  I might state that I don’t agree with their views.  I would certainly speak up for what I believe in.  But I don’t think I would personally attack a close family member in such a situation.

MAHA

I really do hope that Kennedy has a chance to “Make America Healthy Again”.  Or at least I want him to make America healthier than it has been.

Kennedy does not even need to implement any significant changes.  If he does, it needs to be in repealing regulations.  But the place where Kennedy will be most effective is just calling attention to issues.

You can recommend that fluoride not be added to water without forcing any local governments to do it.  You can recommend that childhood vaccines be more spread out so as not overburden a child’s immune system.  You can recommend that the food industry use less high fructose corn syrup, less processed foods, and less vegetable oils without mandating anything.  This has an impact and can spread.

Kennedy made this an issue for Trump.  They formed an alliance, which is just fine.  If it weren’t for Kennedy, this wouldn’t have been on Trump’s radar.  If it hadn’t been for Kennedy, who knows if Trump would have won the election.

If Kennedy doesn’t get confirmed, Trump should double down.  There should be a strong political campaign against every Republican who votes against his confirmation.

If Kennedy doesn’t get confirmed, Trump should pick someone who is even more radical than Kennedy.  Get someone who will not be polite in front of these awful senators.  Get someone with the views of Kennedy who has the brashness of Trump.  Keep doing it over and over again.  They might eventually be wishing they had just quietly confirmed Kennedy.