Happy Sunday friends! Another Sunday, indeed, and we inch closer to the busy Christmas season with each passing hour. I’m not sure whether Christmas’s busyness is a good or a bad thing — there are so many people to connect with, and the joy of the season is worthy of praise and worship. But there’s also endless spending and gift giving; endless parties and events; endless drinking and eating. Every so often, the season can be overwhelming.

I’m still getting over the heartbreaking events of last weekend’s World Series finale. I truly don’t believe you could lose in a more crushing fashion. So much so that I’m unsure if I’ll ever get over the loss. Like, in my entire life. I’m expecting this is going to haunt me forever. Especially if the Blue Jays don’t make the World Series for another 35 years.

Lastly, I took the last week to do some research on margin investing and opted to open a margin account for the first time. I learned something pretty important, too, (which may cause some to question my financial capacity): You can actually lower your tax bill through margin investing. It is unclear to me why I didn’t know this before. This does depend slightly on your tax bracket — in Canada, you’d likely need to have taxable income greater than the base federal bracket of $57,000 for this to work. But here’s how it works:

Say you invest in shares in your margin account that pay you $100 of eligible dividend income. If you are paid at a 5% yield (which is high, admittedly), you’d have to invest $2,000 in those shares to receive the $100 of eligible dividend income. Let’s assume that $2,000 investment is made, all on margin.

If your margin borrowing rate is 4.5%, you’d pay $90 of interest in the year on that $2,000 margin investment.

Easy math, right off the bat — $100 of eligible dividend income less $90 of interest expense means you’re ahead by $10.

But there’s more.

On your tax return, eligible dividends are grossed up, and you receive a big eligible dividend tax credit. The marginal rate on eligible dividends is only slightly higher than a capital gain in Canada. This dividend tax credit offsets tax otherwise owing on the grossed up eligible dividend.

And then you deduct the interest of $90 from your net income.

If I run this hypothetical scenario in a tax return, the tax liability decreases by $15. Meaning not only are you ahead the $10 on the dividends, you’re also ahead $15 on your tax bill. $25 on a $2,000 investment is 1.25%, which isn’t huge, but it’s large considering you borrowed the money to purchase the shares.

Overall, I find this entire idea pretty interesting. Margin accounts are high risk/high reward, so I don’t believe they are recommendable for everyone. If you’re curious, though, I’d recommend doing some research.

Thoughts on Buying the Bells and Whistles

We recently had the opportunity to purchase a new vehicle, opting to retire the aging 2007 Toyota Corolla I have been driving for the last eight years. I’m going to miss that car — it was rock solid, cost me next to nothing in fuel and maintenance, and was super easy to drive in congested areas or in the city. We officially say goodbye to the vehicle this coming week. I will remember these nine years fondly.

A local dealer received a vehicle on trade that we had our eye on for quite some time. It came in with very low mileage and had the top-end trim package — every trick and doodad the vehicle could come with, this one had it.

Because of the bells and whistles, though, the used vehicle was slightly pricier than a brand-new model, albeit a more “baseline” model. We went back and forth a bit but opted for the slightly-used-but-fully-loaded option.

Within minutes of driving off the lot, I knew we had made the right choice. There are certain features inside this vehicle I would have never considered paying for before. Features like a 360-degree camera for parking, or sensors to kick open the back door if you have groceries in your hands, or a 28-way adjustable driver's seat. Are these features a person needs? By no means! But for the first time, I understand why vehicle manufacturers produce these features, why they charge more for these features, and why buyers like these features.

I’d be curious if this extends to other areas of life. Is it always worth spending the money for the extra features? Surely, it’s not a universal truth. But how do you know where it begins and ends? I know I won’t use 96 GB of RAM in a Mac, though I know I will appreciate having that amount occasionally, here and there. Is it worth it to spend the money?

All this is to say, “Are the bells and whistles worth it?” most certainly doesn’t garner a universally true answer. It doesn’t garner a “Nobody needs those features”, nor does it garner a “You’re not experiencing the real thing without those features”. You have to know what you like, and if you don’t know what you like, you might have to take the risk occasionally to determine if spending the money is worth it to you.

In this particularly case, I am glad we opted to spend the money to experience the highest-end features.

Delegate everything

Seth Godin touches on the dreaded “delegation” work, which I’ve come to believe is a swear word. Not that delegation is in and itself a bad thing, but rather that it’s so often used as a way to hide a poor work ethic.

I am well aware that delegation is a necessary part of business. The business owner simply can’t do everything, especially when their skill-set is better served doing high-level work. I’m an accountant — this is literally how accounting firms are built.

But you can’t lead a group of people and always be telling them what to do. Leadership requires that you get your hands dirty on things that you shouldn’t be getting your hands dirty with, if only to show you are in the trenches with your teammates.

And delegation itself requires time — time to create the standard operating procedure, time to create the educative-aspect for your teammates, time to review the task when completed. Those three time grabs, combined with others, often amounts to the amount of time it takes to do the task itself.

But Josh!, you say, give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime! Of course, those three-plus time grabs accrue benefit over time. However, they only accrue benefit if you have the same tasks over and over.

Again, I’m very well aware the modern professional world doesn’t work without delegation. And I’m hypocritical if I’m suggesting that I don’t delegate things to my teammates. I’m simply saying that “delegation” is far easier said than done, and is frequently done so much more poorly than what people lead on. I don’t think most delegators give delegation and its byproducts enough thought.

The Second Cup

Adam Savage’s Tested Review of the M5 Apple Vision Pro

I will order a Vision Pro here shortly to test for a few weeks. I have a few use cases I think it will work nicely for, including replacing my seldom-used Studio Display at home, watching sports, and end of day reading. We’ll see if it works — it seems most folks’ Vision Pro is simply collecting dust — but I’m hopeful.

Dodgers-Blue Jays was a World Series for the ages

Recency bias is so difficult in sports. I believe Connor McDavid is the best hockey player in the history of the world, simply because I have watched old hockey from the 1980s, and there’s no chance Wayne Gretzky would do today what he did back then. The same goes for baseball — I do not believe for one second Babe Ruth would have been a strong two-way player in today’s game given footage like this.

So if I say this was the best World Series of all-time? Well, there’s probably a lot of recency bias, and I’m most likely not correct. But to say it was the best World Series of my lifetime? I simply don’t remember any baseball ever being played in this exciting a fashion ever before.

Architect Breaks Down Iconic Baseball Stadiums

More baseball this Sunday. I can’t get enough right now.

QK Alice Duo, The Full Review

Alexotos is my favourite keyboard reviewer on the planet right now. His video work is great. He is entertaining. He’s Canadian! He shoots with a fantastic camera. And his photography is perhaps the best of the best. I’ve wanted an Alice Duo-style keyboard for some time, and I’ve largely held off because I am afraid of the build process. This review doesn’t help, though.

Happy Sunday. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.

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