Your Unalienable Right to Pursue Happiness. Have You Forgotten You Have One?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” –The Declaration of Independence.

I ran into this quote from the Declaration of Independence the other day.  I don’t know how many times I have read this amazing document, but this time “…pursuit of Happiness” just sort of jumped out at me.  Pursuing Life and Liberty I get.  But a right to pursue Happiness? 

So, I wondered, how effective have I been at taking advantage of my own unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness?  How would I even measure my level of happiness or at least the progress I am making in my pursuit? 

The reams of material on pursuing, finding and maintaining happiness is staggering.  Wikipedia notes that the bulk of the attempts to measure happiness are subjective, or at least based on qualitative not quantitative measures.  Depending on where you live, age, race, economic status, weather, politics, religion, well just about every factor in our lives, can increase or decrease our self-reported level of happiness at just about any given moment.

Then they throw this in under “Happiness economics”:

“Micro-econometric happiness equations have the standard form: Wit=a+Bxit+Eit.   In this equation W is the reported well-being of individual; i, at time; t, and x  is a vector of known variables, which include socio-demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.”

I must say that did not make me any happier. 

I can just see someone building a similar equation into a health app as a way to measure our ‘happiness’ quotient.  Inevitably I know I would wind up in a situation where not hitting my goal of 10,000 steps per day would make my happiness quotient go down and therefore I would eat more ice cream to become happier and have to do more steps to get rid of the extra calories which I would not attain anyway so…well you see where this is going. 

In our business of collections, we see the sometimes very unfortunate results of our pursuit of happiness.  Consumer debt is now back to pre-recession highs. More of us are trying to ‘buy’ our way to happiness.  Unfortunately, once the glow wears off of the ‘best new thing’ the bill is still there and the consequences of not paying it, well, certainly don’t increase happiness.

From Wikipedia again: “Scholars at the University of Virginia, University of British Columbia and Harvard University released a study in 2011 after examining numerous academic paper in response to an apparent contradiction: “When asked to take stock of their lives, people with more money report being a good deal more satisfied. But when asked how happy they are at the moment, people with more money are barely different than those with less.” Published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, the study is entitled “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy, Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right” and included the following eight general recommendations:

  • Spend money on “experiences” rather than goods.
  • Donate money to others, including charities, rather than spending it solely on oneself.
  • Spend small amounts of money on many small, temporary pleasures rather than less often on larger ones.
  • Don’t spend money on “extended warranties and other forms of overpriced insurance.”
  • Adjust one’s mindset to “pay now, consume later,” instead of “consume now, pay later.”
  • Exercise circumspection about the day-to-day consequences of a purchase beforehand.
  • Rather than buying products that provide the “best deal,” make purchases based on what will facilitate well-being.
  • Seek out the opinions of other people who have prior experience of a product before purchasing it.”

Good suggestions all.  I am reminded, though, of how many of the suggestions for pursing happiness involve money, or lack thereof.  While money certainly was a part of what Jefferson et.al. thought would be involved in the “pursuit of Happiness,” I have to believe they were also thinking of the many more opportunities for happiness in our lives that are made possible by our simple unalienable right to purse them.  How is your pursuit?

 A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 10 years.

Tax write off; Yay or Nay?

Have you already done your taxes?  According to the IRS, 20-25 percent of us wait until the last two weeks to prepare our returns. If you are like me and are a part of this group I’ve got good news. This year we are going to have 3 extra days to either file or request an extension.

That’s right, the April 15th deadline has been extended to April 18th because the little-known holiday, Emancipation Day, celebrated only in the District of Columbia falls on April 15th. 

Even with the extra days the deadline is closing in on us. We better get cracking. 

While preparing your return have you ever thought about writing something off and then reconsidered figuring the IRS would never go for it.  Well, here are a list of deductions people actually took on their taxes.  Some the IRS allowed, others they did not.  Let’s see how good you are at determining which deductions were allowed and which ones were denied. 

  1. A swimming pool. Some guy put a swimming pool in his back yard after his doctor told him he needed exercise to improve his breathing.  Did the IRS allow this deduction? Yes.  They not only permitted this ‘medical expense,’ the upkeep of the pool, including the cost of chemicals, heat, and cleaning are also deductible.   
  1. An arsonist. Believe it or not, a furniture business owner hired someone to burn down his store.  Evidently the $500,000 insurance payout wasn’t enough, he deducted the $10,000 he paid the arsonist as a business expense. (Seriously, Dude?!) Did the IRS go along with this?   Nope!
  1. A gas station owner gave free beers to his customers and wrote the cost of the beer off as a business expense.  Did he get the write-off?  Yes.
  1. Cat food. The owners of a junkyard in Louisiana regularly put out bowls of cat food to attract feral cats. The wild cats kept unwanted snakes and rats away from the property, making the yard safer for customers.  Deductible?  Yes.
  1. Clarinet lessons. A couple bought their child a clarinet and paid for lessons after the child’s doctor told them it could improve their child’s painful overbite.  The IRS said yes to the deduction since it was a medical recommendation.
  1. Sex-change operations. After being diagnosed with a gender-identity disorder a gentleman underwent a sex-change operation and tried to deduct $22,000 for his out-of-pocket expenses. The tax court said yes to $14,000 for surgery and hormone replacement therapy.
  1. A business owner thought a case of whisky would make a great client gift.  He then deducted the cost of the whisky as ‘client entertainment’.  Was it allowed?  No.  (Beer, but not whisky? Huh!)
  1. African safari. The owners of a dairy took a ‘business trip’ to Africa. Was the cost of the trip deductible?    The IRS considered this particular business trip ‘ordinary and necessary’ since many of the activities of the trip centered on animals.
  1. Dancing lessons. Remember the swimming pool? Can you deduct dancing lessons as a ‘medical expense’ to relieve varicose veins, to cure arthritis or help with anxiety?  No, says the IRS.
  1. Breast enlargement surgery. A stripper deducted the cost of her plastic surgery.  Was it allowed?  Initially it was denied, but the courts decided the implants did add value to her business and the deduction was allowed. 

Believe me when I tell you the list of less-than-ordinary deductions I’ve seen goes on and on. When the IRS looks at my tax return this year, I can tell you the only thing the deductions on my return are going to elicit is a yawn.

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 10 years.

 

The Sonic Boomers: Facing Tough Choices When Enough is Enough

Have you heard a ‘sonic boom’?  I have, many times when I was a kid.  I remember the windows of our house rattling, dogs barking and that deep ‘BOOM’ sounding like a bomb dropped right next door.   

This memory should immediately identify me as part of the tail end of that great generation known as the ‘boomers.’  With that has come the realization that there are many significant decisions coming at me at supersonic speed. At least that is the way it feels.  Actually I guess you would call me a ‘tweener’—that is, too young yet to collect Social Security, yet close enough to need to be prepared to make intelligent decisions on a number of important lifestyle and financial choices when the time does come.

Before I go any further:   I am not a financial advisor (heck, I don’t even play one on TV!) am making no recommendations and this is not intended to provide any guidance whatsoever.  What I did want to share was a perspective on how individual these choices are and how much our heart, head–and bodies–play in making them.

With that disclaimer, I think it is fair to say that the general consensus of advisors I have read suggest taking Social Security benefits as late as possible, or at all events as close to full retirement age as practical.  The monthly benefits we receive increase nicely the longer we wait.  Yet there is an argument that goes in the opposite direction. That is, for many of us beginning to collect at the earliest possible moment, at age 62, is really the right thing to do.

This somewhat contrarian opinion came up in an article “Extending retirement age falls heavily on sore backs.” by Brad Allen, writing in the Minneapolis StarTribune.

Allen’s article initially focuses on the fact that for some of us taking benefits as early as possible is really not a choice.  Many of us have had hard, physically demanding jobs that preclude us from working longer due to injury or extensive wear and tear.  Putting up with more job related stress and strain can not only impact our quality of life, it can also be dangerous.  Yet I thought that most Americans waited until at least until full retirement age to ‘retire’.

Not so, apparently.  According to Allen: “Even though the proportion of older workers staying in the workforce past retirement age is increasing, according to government statistics, 58 percent of men and 65 percent of women applying for Social Security benefits in 2014 did so before reaching full retirement age of 66…So extending the retirement age even beyond its current limits is pushing against the overwhelming practice and expectations of the majority of older workers.” 

He goes on to quote Phyllis Moen, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota, who has studied the issue in more detail.  Her findings were that “…it’s not just the physical wear and tear from manual labor that causes people to retire early. Escaping the emotional toll of stressful work situations, providing care for an aging relative and being caught in corporate downsizings all force people to retire earlier than they otherwise might…”

Realistically, Moen contends, “…most workers are faced with only two options, full-time employment or full-time retirement…”  Allen says Moen “…advocates increased employer flexibility and policy options such as greater availability of phased retirement and prorated benefits for part-time or seasonal employment. Such moves, Moen argues, would make it easier for older workers to embark on an “encore career.” 

Truly, I think that our definition of ‘retirement’ in general is changing as is the image of a ‘senior’ given improvements in health care and longer life expectancy.  These decisions are not easy, however, and they can also be complicated. Allen brings up many good points, and are worthy of consideration as we ‘rocket’ toward that point in our lives when we simply ‘do something different’ than retire in the classic sense of the word.  Knowing, though, that there is a reasonable alternative to stretching our work lives beyond reason is helpful, especially when the alternative could be very harmful. 

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 10 years.