- Hello, it's Sam from Financial Samurai and long time no speak. Thought we'd talk about some random things this December 2020, the year's almost over and I've got my wife here, Sydney, with me. - Hello, everybody. - So, how did you enjoy our dinner at the French Laundry the other week?

- Oh, it was incredible. - Was it amaze-ball? It was like unbelievable, right? Did you see Gavin? - Oh, yeah. - You know, it wasn't just 12 people, it was like 22 people. That was pretty cool. And then, you know, the next day, our San Francisco mayor, London Breed, was out there celebrating a birthday with eight people.

- Oh, yeah, yeah, we were there for that, too. - Oh, yeah, that was sweet. You know, it was like, you know how they say it's only $350 a head? I mean, it was more like, come on, $1,200 a head. - Right, and we had our kids there, too, right?

- We had the kids. And yeah, it was the socialites, basically the father of the socialite is a billionaire in China. And so, you know what? You know, politicians, money, power, they all come together. And where do you think this culture all starts out? - Maybe it starts at preschool?

- Oh, yeah, you mean all those preschools that we got rejected to? - Probably. - Man, we just didn't fit. We didn't fit the mold. You know, this is one of the problems with not having day jobs and not really being LinkedInable or anything. You know, when they look us up, they see nothing.

- They're lost, right? - I mean, I guess. You know, I was thinking one of the good things about the pandemic is that since we got rejected from six of these preschools, and we got into one, but we pulled them out. But anyway, we got rejected by six of these top preschools and given this pandemic, we wouldn't have sent our kids to the school anyway, right?

- I don't think so. I wouldn't have wanted to send them in the middle of the pandemic. I would feel silly. - Yeah, I mean, like why bother? Like we're both-- - Because we have the option and the flexibility. - Right. So I mean, if we had day jobs or we had to work, you know, whatever, eight, nine hours a day, probably, or maybe we'd send him back.

So the good thing about the pandemic again is that a lot of these preschools were shut down for several months. And so we were kind of all equal. But they're all back in session now. - A lot of them, yeah. - A lot of them are. And well, we wouldn't have gone anyway.

So it is what it is. We're gonna try again in 2021. And we'll find out whether we get into anywhere in the spring of 2021. So it feels like the year has gone by quicker now. Don't you think? - So fast. - So fast, right? Our daughter is gonna be one years old in December.

And it's kind of happy sad. Happy that she's grown and progressed so much, but sad that she's no longer a baby. - I know, it's gone too fast for me. Which I guess in a pandemic is a good thing, right? Because I know some people have really been struggling during this pandemic.

It's been hard for everybody. - I mean, we were struggling too. - Some people more than others for sure. And I think all of us are itching to go back to normal or pre-pandemic normal. - Semi-normal life. - Yeah, and so in that regard, I guess it's good that time has gone fast that we haven't had too hard of a time.

- Yeah, although you probably have had maybe a relatively easier time than I have because I'm more of a extrovert. So I like to go out more, hang out with people more and do stuff. And so it kind of, being at home all day. - Wasn't that new for me because I was kind of already doing that while I was pregnant and not that mobile and not feeling that well.

I was home a lot already. - Right, you're home more often than I was. But I've been used to being at home obviously since 2012, since I left the work. - Right. - So what do you think about the vaccine? Do you think you're gonna take it? Are you happy that you're not gonna be one of the first three or four stages to take it?

- I think it's fantastic that they've come so far and that it sounds like things are going well. I think the UK approved the Pfizer vaccine this morning. So I think it's great that we get the first responders, the people who need it the most first. - The doctors, yeah.

- The doctors, the people over 65 or who have preexisting medical conditions. I'm not in a rush to get the vaccine, I think because I don't feel I need it that urgently by any means. So I think the people who need it should get it first. - For sure.

- And the way to look at it is you're like the last bucket to get the vaccine. - Right. - Is that every person who does get the vaccine helps increase herd immunity, right? - I would think so, yeah. - Helps protect the people who don't or who haven't gotten it yet.

- Right. - And I think, yeah, who knows exactly for sure how effective it is. It's been rushed through the system although there's been plenty of trials. So I don't know, I don't think I'm in a rush to get it either actually. I'm happy to wait my turn which sounds like it'll be in April or May and then just try to stay safe during the winter because last winter we all got sick.

- Yep. - And in retrospect, I'm hoping that we all got COVID because that would mean that we have some antibodies now but who knows? - Yeah, we just don't know. - We just don't know, we just don't know. So how was November? How was Thanksgiving and Halloween? - Thanksgiving and Halloween were fun.

I really love celebrating the holidays with our family and Thanksgiving this year, I really tried to help our son understand what it means to be thankful. I think now that he's three and a half, it's really a good time to help instill some good values in him. It's challenging 'cause he doesn't have a very long attention span and he's always silly and whatnot but I think he really started to grasp what it means to be thankful.

- Yeah. - So that felt good. - Well, that's good. And I'm actually wondering for all you listeners out there with sons and daughters, whether boys are harder to raise than girls. It seems so far that it's been easier to raise our daughter in the infancy stage and I'm not sure whether it's because she has a easier going personality or because she's younger and she hasn't got to the terrible twos and three major years yet or whether we're more confident parents.

What do you think? - I think it's a mixture of a lot of different things. I think it personality is part of it for sure. I think we're also much more relaxed second time as second time parents. - Right. - And she naturally has had to learn to be patient from day one because we've got her brother to juggle.

And one of the things we talked about before she was born is making sure that he didn't build a resentment towards her. So we wanted, let's say both of them were crying, we wanted to be able to approach our son first since he is more aware of what's going on and can remember, yeah.

And to help address his needs. - First, yeah. - And then get to her, not say we're gonna ignore her obviously if she's in some urgent situation, but we wanted to kind of help her learn to be patient and also make sure his needs are getting addressed. - So do you think it's easier or harder to raise a girl than a boy?

- Well, I mean, just, I don't know if it has to do with gender or if it just has to do with personality, but she just seems more calm than he was as a baby. He was much more spunky and feisty, I guess. - I think the word is feisty.

- Feisty. - 'Cause she's pretty spunky too. - Yeah, she's a little, yeah. He was quite feisty. - Right. So I'd love to hear from all of you listeners who have sons and daughters, whether you think raising a boy is easier or a daughter in the initial stages. I've heard consistent feedback that raising a boy is harder initially and then easier as he gets older.

And for girls, it's the exact opposite where raising girls is easier when they're younger and it becomes more difficult as they get older. What are your thoughts? - I think so. Just based on my own experience, I know I was a lot closer with both my parents when I was young and I was very moody as a teenager.

- Why were you so moody? - I didn't get into trouble, but I remember being very moody and I think it's just from hormones and all that stuff. - Is that right? - So my mother and I clashed a lot in my teenage years 'cause I just remember I was grouchy all the time.

(laughing) - Yeah, moody and grouchy, these are like a couple of traits that are probably gonna keep on coming up over time. It's weird because I don't think I'm really grouchy or moody. I mean, if I'm starving and something's not going smoothly as planned, I'll probably get a little grouchy.

- Right, I think you're pretty even keeled. - You're pretty even keeled as well. - Yeah. - Well, so it is kind of interesting if you don't have kids now and you have kids, you're gonna have some pretty moody and grouchy years ahead of you, which you just have to get used to.

So let's switch over to the future. How are you feeling about 2021? - I think I'm feeling pretty good about it since the vaccine progress has been good and I think we've done a pretty good job of getting used to the current normal per se. So I think with vaccines coming out, I think things should only get better.

- Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean, after 10 months of the pandemic, lockdowns, just being cautious, anything seems like an upside. - Yeah, and I also try not to watch the news too much 'cause I feel like mainstream media loves-- - Loves doom. - Doom and gloom and fear and all that stuff.

So I don't read the news too much because it's just, it's too depressing and too disturbing. I think we all benefit more from positive thinking. - Now, that's something that I've been trying to do in the newsletters is to stay positive, to focus on the positives, because you can look at both sides of the situation all the time and why just focus on the negative, focus on the positive.

So if you have gotten sick, for example, in November, like our son got sick, well, the positive is that hopefully that will boost his immunity system going forward for this winter, because for nine months, he wasn't exposed to anything really. And then I think when we brought him back to the science museum, the viral load or the bacterial load or whatever kind of overwhelmed him.

So he was sick and he wasn't sick for long. It was like four or five days. - Yeah, he was actually in great spirits considering he kept saying, "Oh, I'm fine." Even though he still had a runny nose and whatever. So I was glad that it didn't affect his spirit or his mood that much, even though he had his symptoms.

- So a pessimist would say, "Oh, he got sick. "Maybe he got COVID and that's a terrible time "for five days." And an optimist, I look at it optimistically and say, "Look, he needs to build his immune system." That's kind of one of the benefits of going to preschool, getting sick, hopefully not getting terribly sick, but getting sick enough where you just kind of build your immunity over time.

So I feel like, okay, he wasn't sick for nine months, whereas in preschool, he was off and on sick for-- - Every three weeks. - Every three weeks, it was crazy. So I feel like this is a great way for us to build our immunity once again. - Yeah.

- So for 2021, I'm positive. I have max allocation. Well, we have max allocation to equities. We're also very highly allocated towards real estate. And I wanna be buying the dip. I wanna be buying the dip every time the S&P 500 goes down by over 1%. At the end of the day, we've got at least two highly efficacious vaccines.

You know, like the measles vaccine? There's no more measles. And that's because the vaccine has a 97% efficacy. That's something to think about when you're hearing Moderna and Pfizer have a 95% efficacy. That's unbelievable. We've got a supportive Fed. So the Fed futures market has indicated that the Fed funds rate will stay at zero to 0.125% for years.

I mean, we're talking 2024, 2025. I mean, so with interest rates this low, I mean, we've got a floor on interest rates, or maybe it's a ceiling on interest rates that aren't gonna go higher for a while. So you should continue to see strong borrowing across consumer debt, mortgage debt, all that.

That should help support the economy. - In addition, you're seeing the S&P 500 dividend yield much higher than the 10-year bond yield. Although the 10-year bond yield, watch out, folks, it's creeping back to 1%. Today, it's about 0.95%. So obviously higher interest rates mean higher borrowing costs. And also it means that equities are less attractive relatively than it was before, right?

So the ratio of the S&P 500 dividend yield to the 10-year bond yield has declined. It hit a peak of about 3.15 in April, March, April 2020. And now it's only, actually it's only around two now. But anything above one is a relatively bullish indicator. I'm also really excited about big city living again.

And that's why we're looking for opportunities to purchase real estate in places like San Francisco and New York City. I really believe it's gonna be a rush back to the cities because that is where the network effects are. That is where the opportunities to land your good gig is.

And that's just the way it's always been. We've gone through, I remember living in San Francisco in 2001, right after the dot-com bubble. It was dead for, I don't know, a year or two, two years. I remember the restaurants were really quiet and then boom, shakalaka, everything came back.

And it was kind of similar in 2008, 2009, 2010, not as bad as I think the 2001 dot-com bubble. So it's just the same thing over and over again. And you just can't fight human nature. But temporarily, I think it's really nice to have more space and less traffic.

Finally, I just wanna talk a little bit about Financial Samurai. It's been over 11 and a half years since we started the site. And I'm getting kind of tired. I really am. I mean, I think 2020 has really kind of beaten up a lot of people. And I'm proud that there has never been a week missed during the pandemic when there hasn't been three posts published a week or a newsletter published on average every week.

I'm tired. I mean, are there some things in 2021 you wanna downshift a little bit? - For me, not really. I've actually enjoyed getting back to work this year, albeit part-time. I'm hoping to continue that and actually get-- - Oh, you got a job? - What? - Wait, wait, wait, you're gonna get a part-time job?

- No, I'm talking about working on FS. - Oh, okay. - Come on. - I thought I was gonna finally convince you to go back to work so we can get healthcare benefits and make some big bucks. - I am back to work on our family business. - Oh.

- I love our family business. And I'm gonna continue to do more. I really like having a good balance between family and work. And it's challenging sometimes being at home with the kids. Like our son will come up and be like, "Mommy, I miss you," like right when I'm in the middle of something.

So it's easy to get distracted, but I am using the evenings more after the kids are asleep and especially the mornings to try and get more things done. And I'm having a good time and I wanna take more off of your plate. - Okay, well, good. So that means in 2021, I'm gonna check out more.

- Yeah. - Okay, good. Just take it easier. - Yeah. - Joe Biden, sounds like he's gonna be president. So maybe taxes will be raised. Maybe there'll be more healthcare subsidies for more people. I don't know. - Yeah, I don't know. - Maybe we can just kick back a little bit more.

- Well, we are saving some money on our health insurance in 2021. - Oh yeah. - Because we did go down a plan. So hopefully we'll all stay healthy and then we'll be able to benefit from a cheaper plan. - Right, by like $300 a month, right? - Yeah, something like that.

- Yeah, I mean, better than a poke in the eye. $300, well, actually that can't buy you one meal at French Laundry. (laughing) I mean, it can buy you like 80%, no, maybe 60% of one person's meal. - Okay, so like one little morsel. - Of corn. - Yeah.

(laughing) - Okay, so there you have it folks. In 2021, I'm gonna fade into the background. My wife's gonna take over. I'm gonna do more childcare, obviously, 'cause we gotta be balanced and have an equal opportunity and equal duty household. So that's it. - All right, thanks everybody. Happy holidays.

- Happy holidays. I'm not sure if we're gonna record more. We're just trying to take it easier for the last 25 days of the year. Maybe get our mental health and physical health up to par. 'Cause it's not over yet. We can still complete our goals that we set out for at the beginning of the year.

- I like to get excited about thinking about new goals, but it's important not to forget the goals that we set for this year that we haven't completed. - Our new goals, let's see, new goal is to review our old goals and complete them. All right guys, I hope everyone is well.

And if you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe, leave a positive review, 'cause we're not getting paid and there's not a lot of motivation to spend too much time on these podcasts because we're so tired and we have so much to do. So any positive comments are motivating and any negative comments are like, oh, okay, let's just take it easy.

Take care guys.