Do you have enough liquidity in a difficult economic environment? According to a recent NerdWallet poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans believe we may go into a recession within the next 12 months. That may not be the case, especially with a relatively low unemployment rate of 4.3% as of January 2026. However, some companies have begun adopting AI in certain functions and may reduce the number of future entry-level positions, causing higher unemployment. While the […]

From JL: Turns out you can still travel, even with a kid. Who knew? Certainly not their detractors. For years they confidently said, “You can only travel as you do, and be FIRE’d, because you don’t have kids. Once you have a kid, you’ll have to settle down and very likely have to go back… [Continue Reading] The post Yes, you can rent with kids! appeared first on JLCollinsnh.

Ten years ago, we bought our very first home — a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo in the inexpensive city of Gainesville, Florida. And after living there ourselves for a while, it became our very first rental property investment — providing us with extra income as we traveled the world from Canada to Australia to Iceland. After what felt like a very successful decade of homeownership and landlording, we just sold that condo and ran the final […]

Publishing a book is no joke, but publishing a book while trying to raise a kid is the next level of crazy. Before having kids, we had no idea how much sacrifice, time, and effort goes into parenting. Now that we’re in the thick of it, we have so much respect for all parents out there. Hopefully this book will make your lives easier. I’m so thankful for the support of all our friends along […]

Don’t miss an episode of our podcast, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. Tune in on: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Now, here’s today’s article: When the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) was signed into law in July 2025, it created a new type of savings account, named the Trump Account, which can be opened and funded beginning in July 2026. Trump accounts can only be opened and contributed to on behalf of children prior to their 18th birthday. In simple terms, the Trump account is a modified version of a Traditional IRA. Typical IRAs are rarely used by children because they require the owner to have earned income to make contributions. But Trump accounts are meant explicitly to be funded for minor children with no income of their own. The goal here is to incentivize giving children a head start on their retirement savings. Trump accounts use tax deferral: interest, dividends, and capital gains in the accounts are not taxed until they’re withdrawn. This tax-deferred growth resembles Traditional accounts, Roth accounts, 529s, HSAs, and other Qualified accounts. Trump accounts are also designed to accept contributions from many different sources: parents, other relatives, employers, and even charities and government organizations. Opening a Trump Account There is a Trump account pilot program for children born in 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028. Children born in those years will receive $1,000 into their accounts. Other children under 18 can have the accounts opened for them, but they will not receive the $1,000. If you need to open a Trump account on behalf of a minor, you can do so via a federal website (TrumpAccounts.gov) or via a form when filing your taxes (Form 4547). Important note – to open this account and receive the $1,000 seed money, you must OPT IN. It won’t be automatically done for you. Trump Account Contributions & Tax Complexity Trump account contributions are limited to $5,000 per year, but that number will be indexed for inflation – meaning it’ll go up over time, much like 401(k) or IRA contribution limits. And that $5,000 limit does actually have two exceptions: the first exception is the initial $1,000 from the government, and the second is contributions from charitable organizations. But it gets a little confusing… the basic contributions (from a parent, a grandparent, etc.) are made with after-tax dollars. They are non-deductible. But employer contributions are pre-tax—meaning the Trump account owner will have to pay income tax upon withdrawal. Charitable contributions and the $1,000 from the government are also pre-tax dollars. Almost all Trump accounts will contain a mix of after-tax and pre-tax dollars. Any and all growth in the account is considered pre-tax. So a quick re-explanation there… Your contributions themselves are after-tax. But as your contributions begin to create investment growth, that growth is considered pre-tax. This is clearly a negative feature compared to how most tax-advantaged accounts work. In all other tax-advantaged accounts, the contributions and the

For the past few decades, being in shape was the ultimate “proof of work.” You couldn’t buy it. You had to earn it. Unless you had top 5% genetics, you had to build your physique through diet and exercise. But then something incredible happened. GLP-1 agonists (like Ozempic) hit the market and, overnight, a better body was only a weekly injection away. As a result, the old signal (being fit) became less valuable as it could now be acquired without the physical exertion. The same thing is happening with writing. Writing used to be a craft where someone toiled for hours thinking through a set of ideas before putting them out into the world. Today, that’s no longer necessary. You can have an LLM generate seemingly infinite text at will. This explains why I saw more books published in 2025 than I can remember in recent years, especially by people who don’t write regularly. Funny, huh? Of course, if you rely too heavily on AI, your “writing” won’t be all that good. Either way, the written word is far less useful as a signal of thought or effort than it used to be. I call this signal collapse and it’s happening again and again across different domains. For example, writing code used to be a reliable signal of skill and dedication. But with OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s ClaudeCode, today that seems less true. AI doomer articles over the past few weeks haven’t helped the situation either. On February 9, Matt Schumer released Something Big is Happening, and on February 22, Citrini released The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis, which both went viral.  There’s a lot I don’t agree with in both articles, yet both seem directionally accurate. We are moving toward a future more reliant on LLM-intelligence, not less. And in that future, many signals that used to demonstrate value will be easier to fake. So, how do we display value going forward? What’s the new proof of work? The New Proof of Work In a world increasingly dominated by low-effort, here are a few ways to signal the opposite: Leverage Your History: If you had a particular skill before it became commoditized, demonstrate that. Lean into it. By showing people that you did something before it was easy, it proves that you are willing to put in the work to master something. More importantly, it showcases that you have an actual interest in the field. If I had to pick between hiring a programmer who’s been doing it for 20 years or one who started with AI a few years ago, I’d take the veteran every time. Though knowledge is becoming commoditized via LLMs, experience, taste, and judgement are still at a premium. This explains why top lawyer fees have skyrocketed even as AI usage explodes. Unfortunately, leveraging your history won’t be helpful for those just starting out, but it showcases how you can go about building your career. Do Deep Work: Focus is a superpower

Curious to see what a family of 8 in California spends on groceries for a whole year? I’m pretty sure we’re not your average family, but I’m happy to share our family’s annual spending on groceries last year. One of the side benefits of keeping meticulous financial records is all the data that you end up with! Thanks to our YNAB budget, it’s easy to see all of those numbers. And you know I love […]

I love using the Empower dashboard to manage our investment portfolio. Not only is it worth its weight in gold, but the price of $0 is something worthwhile, too! They’re hoping you decide to use their investment services, but it’s not a requirement. I don’t use their services, but I have heard good things about them. So, if you want an easy way to aggregate all your financial life into one dashboard with amazing retirement […]