Be Prepared!

“EDC is a collection of various, handpicked items carried on a daily basis. More importantly, it is a systematic approach to being prepared for anything the day requires.”

— gearmoose.com

Believe it or not there is a group of people who are obsessed with what is in their pockets or at the least on their person each time they go out. They call this pocket stuff EDC or Every Day Carry, meaning the things you never leave home without. There are entire YouTube channels and websites devoted to the topic. Some are more general and encompass all the items that might possibly be EDC such as: watches, pens, wallets, flashlights and more, while others drill down on one type of item, say pocket knives.

Then there are branches of EDC folks who are thinking along lines a bit more intense. These are the preppers and the survivalists who have bags devoted to allowing them to survive in a crisis of any kind.

EDC does not usually include the things that many people actually do carry every day. For example, a smart phone, a tablet, a computer would not be considered EDC even if you carry them every day. On the other hand, a notebook and pen could be EDC. EDC enthusiasts even fancy themselves a cohesive group (they’re not) and refer to themselves as the “EDC Community.” I have a fascination with all of this stuff and consume a lot of EDC and prepper content.

I was a Boy Scout for a few years. I didn’t think much of the paramilitary aspects of the group. Nor did I care much for accumulating merit badges or rank. When my troop dissolved when I was 15 or 16, I had only achieved the rank of first class, which was a long way from Eagle Scout. I was a Boy Scout mostly because we went on a camping trip every month and because I liked the gear that went along with camping: flashlights, lighters, lanterns powered by gasoline, compasses, and other cool stuff, much of which you could stash in your pockets.

One thing I did like about the Boy Scout “ethos” was contained in the scout motto: “Be Prepared.” Be prepared for what exactly? For anything!

Have you ever thought that when Tom Hanks’s character Chuck Noland got stranded on the Island in Castaway he would have had a much easier time if he’d had a lighter and a knife in his pocket? I have!

Sometime last spring I met my friend Scott for lunch at a “healthy food” themed restaurant in Fairfax, Va. As I sat down, I noticed that there were no saltshakers on the table. Fearing the worst, I drew a tiny bottle of salt from my pocket and placed it on the table as I sat down. “Salt,” I told him. “Just in case.”

He immediately insisted on my emptying my pockets and showing him what else I had. On the chance that it may interest you or even inspire you to add to your EDC, I’ll share the contents with you as I did with him that day.

Here’s what is in my pockets today and most days.

1. My keyring. Attached to it are my house keys and post office box key, a metal tube with a waterproof screw top that holds a two-week supply of levothyroxine (my thyroid medication), a bottle cap lifter, an AirTag in case I lose the key ring, and a mini rechargeable flashlight the size of my thumb.

2. A pocket knife. Most days I carry the Spyderco Chapperall - small enough that it doesn’t look like a weapon but large enough to cut slices of apple or open a box.

3. A lighter. (See Chuck Noland above). A simple Bic lighter would do fine but I have the Tokyo Pipe Company Field L in brass because it looks cool and is refillable, not disposable. When camping I use it to light the stove, otherwise it sits in my pocket unless a smoker needs a light.

4. My wallet. I have several wallets but mostly these days I am carrying a very thin wallet from a company based in Singapore called the Taurus Camp Grain Wallet. It is a beautiful little thing with no breakable parts. Each one is handmade by the guy who owns the company. He sent me a nice handwritten note with the wallet. The wallet holds what you would expect - credit cards, ID, and a few banknotes.

5. The sleeve I keep my phone in, which also has an AirTag in its pocket because I lose this sleeve all the time.

6. A 15ml Nalgene bottle of Jacobsen Sea Salt for times when I am in a restaurant, or someone’s house and the food is under salted. This happens a lot.

In addition to what is in my pockets, I also often carry a manbag (a purse by any other name). I carry the Waterfield Crossbody Essential bag in the compact size. This company makes wonderful bags. All made by hand in their shop in San Francisco. I have a lot of them.

The contents may vary depending on what I am doing that day but usually in the bag is:

Crown King of Sporks

1. A pouch with charging cables for my phone, watch, and iPad, and a power brick that can charge three things at once. The pouch is also made by Waterfield.

2. A 500ml water bottle.

3. An Apple magsafe battery to extend the battery life on my phone.

4. A notepad.

5. My Esterbrook Estie Fountain pen.

6. Chapstick.

7. Earplugs.

8. A spork so I can avoid using disposable plasticware if I get food while out and about. (I love this one in titanium. but you can get a plastic one for about $3.50.)

9. Sunglasses.

10. iPad Mini.

11. Apple Airpods Pro 2.

12. Tissues.

13. Yet another AirTag in case I lose the bag.

Finally, I have ANOTHER bag that I keep ready to grab should I need to evacuate quickly due to a hurricane, civic emergency, or should the Proud Boys try to take over the council chambers of our town (population 400). Inside this bag is:

1. My passport.

2. A headlamp and another flashlight.

3. A battery bank charger for phone or other items.

4. HP 12c Financial Calculator, simply the best financial calculator ever made.

5. A 3-month supply of levothyroxine.

6. One pair of my prescription glasses.

7. A multi-tool with screwdrivers, a blade, a can opener, and a corkscrew.

8. Aspirin, Advil, and Tylenol.

9. Band-Aids.

10. A simple toiletry bag with toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, nail clippers, and contact lens solution.

11. A notebook.

12. A three-month supply of fountain pen ink.

13. 6 KIND bars.

14. $10,000 in diamonds.

Ok, that last item is not true. However, I do have a roll of U.S quarters and a Canadian Loonie.

When I travel, all the pocket stuff and both bags go with me, and if I am hiking my backpack has a few additional items to survive a night in the woods:

1. A compass and a real physical map.

2. A water filter

3. A Garmin GPS device and extra batteries.

4. Another lighter.

5. A rain jacket.

6. A headlamp.

7. A long sleeve shirt.

8. A warm hat.

All of which to say, that when, last Wednesday, my wife and I underestimated the time needed to complete our ambitious hike in the Adirondacks and found ourselves in the backcountry with another hour and a half still to go after sunset, we were ready. We whipped out our headlamps, strapped them to our heads and hiked on in the moonless night to arrive safely back at the trailhead where the van waited.

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.

The Year of Living Negatively

June 30, 2022 somewhere in the Yukon Territory on the Alaska Canada Highway my wife and I overtook a significant mile marker, not on the Al-Can but on the highway of life. At the close of that day my wife worked what was likely her last day of her last full-time job and with that our earned income as a couple ceased.

I had stopped working full-time back in June of 2020 but my wife’s income had more than met all of our needs and though I turned the magical age of 59 and a half (the age at which penalty free withdrawals are permitted from an IRA) in February of 2021, we had not needed to draw any of retirement savings.

On July 1, 2022 that all changed.

I started saving for retirement in 1987. I was 26 years old, and Barbara and I had just returned from a 16 month trip backpacking around the world. Though we spent just $7 per day, we spent everything we had. We came home with a net worth of just about zero -- actually, a bit less than zero as we both still had undergraduate student loan debt. We found temp jobs, rented an apartment in Arlington, Va. And in July of that year, I found a regular job that offered a 403 (b) type retirement plan sponsored by ICMA Retirement Corporation. A rep. from the company came one day to explain how it worked.

It seemed like a good idea. I started putting in $20 per pay period of my own money into the plan and after six months on the job my employer started contributing a few percent to the plan on my behalf.

Even then I knew that neither my wife nor I was likely to have a traditional pension and future of Social Security seemed in doubt back then too. I wanted to be able to retire at an age when I could still enjoy it and realized that everything would depend on what we were able to save and invest.

Then I blinked and the day had arrived. After 35 years of living beneath our means, saving the difference between what we earned and what we spent, and investing it as wisely as we could, there were no more earnings. The spigot was shut and now we had to pull the proverbial plug and live on the water as it drained from the sink. It was a disconcerting feeling.

As it turns out, Social Security is still around. However, though I am eligible to apply this year, I have concluded that it will be better to wait until age 70 to claim as that will result in a higher monthly benefit for me and perhaps more importantly for Barbara should she outlive me. Barbara can apply for her benefit now but has not yet done so. While we decide on that, her benefit is also increasing each month we delay.

So, for the last year, we have lived mostly on our savings. I say mostly, because at the beginning of 2023, I took a part-time job with the Jewish Grandparents Network. The bulk of our living expenses, however, are still being drawn from savings.

Once over the shock of money moving in only in one direction – out, I needed to make a plan for how to draw and manage the flow. And since I am a DIY when it comes to finances, I needed to create the plan myself.

We had multiple goals that were sometimes at odds with each other.

First and foremost, we had to managing the withdrawals in such a way that they were likely to last as long as one of us was alive. Of course, the big challenge here is that for the most part, one doesn’t know how long one is going to live. It could be five years or it could be forty.

The quick rule of thumb is the “4% Rule.” This rule says that if you have a portfolio that is invested in 60% stocks, and 40% bonds you should be able to withdraw 4% of that in the first year of retirement and then adjust that amount for inflation in each subsequent year. Your money should last for 30 years. Outliving your savings is more of a problem that your savings out living you, so it makes sense to be conservative here. Some experts say 4% is too high and that the number should be closer to 3.5% or even lower.

The opposing goal is that you want to be able to draw not just enough to meet basic needs but to do the things you want to do. The whole idea of retirement is to have the time and the resources to travel and do the things you couldn’t do when you were working full-time. So, although you don’t want to outlive your savings, it doesn’t make sense to die with a bunch of money in the bank either if doing so means living a smaller life in retirement than you need to.

Lastly, there is the goal of minimizing taxes. The bulk our savings is in tax deferred accounts like IRAs. Uncle Sam kindly allowed me to stash away all that loot on a pre-tax basis. But now, the man with the red, white, and blue suit and matching top hat is camped on my front lawn. Each time I go outside, he wants to have a word. He says he wants me to pay income tax on that money I earned as long as 30 years ago. For purposes of taxes, each time I make a withdrawal from an IRA, it is taxed like earned income and if I go over a certain amount, it could push us into a higher tax bracket meaning more taxes on each additional dollar withdrawn. The Great State of Maryland wants its share too. That means the amount in the bank is actually significantly smaller than it appears.

Making things more complicated is future Social Security. When I do finally claim my benefit, it will reduce my draw on savings, which means that I can draw a more now than I could if there was no Social Security. I do that by calculating a present value for my social security payments, which considers the current interest rate, our future payments from social security and a guess at how long we might live. The longer I live the better the numbers look. And if I don’t live long, well then running out of money isn’t a problem!

In developing my withdrawal plan, I started with the premise that, if possible, I’d like to stay under the top of the 12% tax bracket. The next bracket (at least until 2025 when the current tax rates could expire) is 22%. That means that for each dollar drawn after that bracket is reached, you are paying 22 cents on each dollar instead of 12.

Fortunately, the top of the 12% bracket happens to be very close to the amount that we need to live on plus be able to do most of the things we want to do. It helps that though we travel a lot, we travel modestly – cooking our own food and sleeping in our car (van). But even if we live on less, it still makes sense to draw up to the top of the 12% bracket since in all likelihood, taxes will never be lower than they are today (but who knows?). We can save the extra in an after-tax account. The other reason to draw up to the top of the bracket is that eventually (for me age 75) our kindly uncle begins to get antsy about getting his share and you are required to withdraw from your pre-tax accounts. These are known as RMDs, required minimum distributions. If you haven’t taken enough in early years, you could find yourself in a higher bracket as you age with few options at that point for reducing your taxes.

Fortunately, when future Social Security is considered our burn rate is less than 3.5% even if we spend every nickel we withdraw.

Plus, I do now have a small income and even a little bit of money flowing in, makes a big difference psychologically. It helps justify small purchasing or indulgences; I might otherwise be inclined to skip. “A new iPad? Why not, I’m working.” “The fancier coffee? Why not, I’m working!” “A summer cottage in Maine… well maybe not”

Retirement is full of adjustments and many of them are psychological. I have friends who are in their 70s who continue to work at full time jobs. I don’t know what their financial situation is; perhaps they need to work (but I suspect not). They claim to love their jobs, which may be quite true. But part of the reason to continue to work full time when you no longer need to do so, is that work provides an easy sense of purpose, an anchor for one’s life, an identity.

For my part, coming to grips with the idea what I do for work is not who I am, finding meaningful ways to spend my time that is not work, and yes, enjoying spending what I saved has been a worthwhile endeavor.

Living negative can be a whole new way of valuing your time, your life, and your money.

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.

Mysteries of the Internal Revenue Service

I prepare my tax return myself and I file it promptly.

As soon as I have all my 1099s (many) and W-2s (rare these days) I start plugging the numbers into TurboTax, the software I love to hate. It’s not terribly complicated though there are a lot of pieces, and the tax software does most of the math. I enjoy preparing my taxes and it rarely takes me more than an hour to do both the federal and the state. I don’t mind paying taxes. U.S. tax rates are among the lowest in the world and though I wish more of my money went to national parks and less to nuclear warheads and that the system didn’t favor the wealthy, I do my best to accurately pay every penny that I owe.

Because (you will be shocked to learn) I keep careful records throughout the year not only for my and my wife’s businesses but also for our household, I can tell you down to the penny our local taxes, charitable contributions, and IRA withdrawals to the penny. The numbers I need are all right at my fingertips.

We don’t have employers to withhold taxes throughout the year so I make estimated payments to the U.S. Treasury every quarter. Not wanting to be penalized or pay interest, I tend to overestimate the amount I need to pay. I know it is not good for the government to owe you money, lost interest, etc. but most years I find that Uncle Sam owes me $5,000 or more and Maryland maybe $2,000.

So, in late February when I determined that the U.S.A. owed the D.K.B.R. more than $7,000, I was excited to get it back!

I waited another week just to make sure everything was right. There was a lot to review!

• Form 1040.

• Schedules 1-3

• Schedule B

• 2 X Schedule C (one for my wife’s business, one for mine),

• Schedule SE,

• Form 8889, and many more.

The PDF with my complete federal and state tax returns is 51 pages long and that is short compared with many past years.

Thankfully, one no longer has to print and mail the thing. Press one button and it’s on its way to Washington, D.C. and to Annapolis, Md. I also prepare my mom’s taxes and I filed them at the same time. By March 2, my returns were submitted.

With that taken care of, we set out on our trip to the Grand Canyon and points west.

Within days, my mom’s state and local refunds had arrived as did my Maryland refund. But the seven large from Uncle Sam was nowhere to be seen (or spent). In what is probably 20 years of filing electronically, this never happened to me. It is never been more than a few business days before my refund hits my account.

After a few weeks of no refund, I went to the website of the Internal Revenue Service. There you can plug in your filing status, Social Security number, and expected refund and it will tell you the status of your refund. The website simply said that my return had been received but that my refund had not been approved. No reason was given for the holdup.

So, I imagined some.

I imagined that some anomaly in my tax return had kicked it out of the computer into a massive pile that awaited human review in the woefully underfunded and understaffed IRS and then it had fallen behind a file cabinet.

I imagined they were holding onto my money in case the debt ceiling wasn’t raised.

I imagined that I had made a horrible mistake or that I would be audited and have to produce reams of documentation for every return submitted since 1979, the first year I filed.

I imagined going to jail.

But, as I reminded myself, I had done nothing wrong, certainly, not intentionally. So I decided to stop blaming myself and to blame Republicans instead.

The IRS tells you on their website not to call them about a refund. They won’t tell you anything over the phone, they say. If they want to communicate with you, they will send you a letter. But I was on the road and not getting mail. I tried calling once but it was not possible to reach a human being. The automated system just told me what I already knew. They received my return but hadn’t approved my refund.

I combed my copy of the tax return for errors, but I couldn’t find any.

When we arrived home in May, I anxiously awaited the next day when we could go to the post office and collect our held mail. I was certain that a letter from the IRS awaited me. Even though I was sure it would necessitate my traveling to an IRS office (I pictured walking into the massive IRS building on Constitution Avenue) with cartons of papers for the first meeting of what would, no doubt, be a year-long audit, at least I would know what was going on. Maybe I’d need to hire an accountant to accompany me. I don’t know any tax accountants.

Perhaps it goes without saying; there was no letter.

Throughout the following months, I continued to wonder and yes, worry, about the status of my return and my refund. I checked the IRS website at least once a week. Nothing changed. No letter arrived.

I considered my options. Send an inquiry to the Commissioner of the IRS? Write a letter to my representative, the Honorable Jamie Raskin? Write off the money as a lost cause? Or just do nothing and wait.

By default, the last option was the one I chose. I did nothing. I even stopped checking the IRS website.

I spoke with a friend who also does his own taxes. He said that something similar had happened to him once. Eventually, he got a reduced refund with a letter from the IRS explaining the mistake he had made. He found the letter incomprehensible and just accepted the reduced amount and went on with his life.

As the weeks turned to months, I began to believe that I would never hear anything at all. I started to forget about it.

Then yesterday, as I was updating Quicken a deposit from INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE appeared in my checking register. It was for the full amount. They paid me no interest and there was no explanation. It’s been five months since I filed. I had plans for how to spend the refund, but I have forgotten what they were.

Likely, I will never know why it took so long but perhaps there are lessons to be learned here.

One is to try and end the year owing the government a little rather then it owing you a lot but also:

Lessons about patience, about worrying about things you can’t control.

That sometimes the right choice is to do nothing.

To wait.

To allow things to happen in the fullness of time.

To accept that you will never know why.

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.