Prom -- Grapevine, Texas -- High School Prom -- April 13, 2024

As a junior, Olivia was a team captain of the Grapevine High School women's soccer team.

That team went to the state championship in the spring of 2023 and took the state championship for 5A schools.

That was a first for Grapevine High School women's soccer and possibly something we may never see again.

That was one year ago. 

This year, that team did not even advance to state. That's how fast things can change. Their cross-town rival, Colleyville Heritage did advance to finals but finished second in the state in an incredibly close final game in which they lost to Frisco High School, 3 - 2.

But the Grapevine High School juniors became seniors and remained best of friends.

These are the seniors of the Grapevine High School women's soccer team, 2023 - 2024: high school senior prom, April 13, 2024.

Olivia, again, this past year, one of four captains, and I believe, the only player to be a captain of the team two years in a row.

Olivia is in yellow.

Flessner Or Oksol? April 7, 2024

Jan asked the siblings if they felt more "Flessner" or more "Oksol."

Here's my "on-the-fly" response. 

I'm a strong mixture of the two; mostly depending where I am  / what I'm doing. 

If I'm in the Bat Cave -- I'm a Flessner -- straightening up things, sorting memorabilia. Enjoying the peace and quiet; love to be alone. I am an island. Released in 1965 - 1966 -- I was transitioning from middle school to high school and had no clue what this song was all about. I do now. It's Ekke. It's Ruth.

When I'm traveling, when I was hitchhiking, when I was exploring I was a Viking, a Norwegian, an Oksol. This came out in 1969, the year I graduated from high school and began hitchhiking!

And even, more specifically, I'm a Carl. I'm a Connor.

But at the end of the day, I'm US military through-and-through. This is who I thought I was when I was having my best day ever, flying out of Bitburg AFB, Germany in 1984.

But on my worse days, this was also me:

By the way, while assigned to Grand Forks AFB, ND, I made a movie of our local MASH unit and used the movie as the soundtrack. Best movie I ever made. It was on Super 8 and no longer available. But it was good. No nominations for an Oscar. But I could have been a contender. LOL.

So, am I an Oksol, or am I Flessner? It depends where I am, what I'm doing. And both Ekke and Carl were in the military, one US Army, one US Navy (US Coast Guard). 

And, today, in the Bat Cave, I'm this:

Milestones: Olivia -- College Acceptances -- March 30, 2024

Olivia acceptances:

• UT-Austin: safety school; automatic admission based on grades / standing in class
• Texas A& M (an Aggie)
  
• Harvard
• Duke -- early early admission
  
• Stanford

Only major school rejection: UC-Berkeley. Olivia would have been applying as an out-of-state student.

Milestones: Olivia -- Texas Soccer -- March 26, 2024

 March 26, 2024

Hi, Olivia,

Your soccer note tonight hit me like a ton of bricks. I was overwhelmed with sadness; I re-lived a decade of memories in the blink of an eye.

Your grandmother and I were with you from your first days with Kiki in Belmont / Boston. And then the transition from Massachusetts to Texas. Year after year after year of driving you to soccer practice and going to so many games in all kinds of weather and to see the pinnacle of success last year when, as a junior, you were named (a) captain of the team and took your team to state.

With public school soccer, club soccer, and ODP soccer, we drove you to so many practice fields and soccer stadiums. So many of my most wonderful memories are of our longer trips to practice fields, like Rockwell (ODP) about 45 minutes east of here. I got to learn the geography of Texas by taking you to soccer events and Arianna to water-polo practice and tournaments. I remember so many little things about all those trips, I think you would be surprised.

I did not know you had a game tonight. I was upset that we were not there, but grammy said it was an “away-game” and instead we went to watch Sophia play her game in Oak Grove Park. I remarked to Sophia on the way through Grapevine that the trip out to Oak Grove brought back so many memories of driving you to the same soccer field for practice and for games. Little did I know that while remembering those trips, you were playing what would be your last game.

And, then watching Sophia play. Oh, my goodness, she looked just like you and played just like you when you were her age. Sophia has said many times she learned so much from watching you; she was always so appreciative of the time you spent with her teaching her soccer. And, wow, she looked just like you tonight.

You mentioned you were the only one to score a PK point tonight in your last game. Ironically, Sophia also scored the only point for her team, in a game, her team also lost. Sophia was so thrilled with scoring that only point, winning/losing that game did not matter.

You brought us years — a decade —of wonderful memories through soccer. It’s going to take me a long time to get over my sadness.


Papa

Gift Tax -- March 5, 2024

Gift tax made simple.

I finally figured out the annual gift maximum.

This is simply amazing.

In 2024, the maximum is $18,000 per-person,

As a couple, May and I can give up to $36,000 each year to as many individual people as we want, and we don’t have to file that information with the IRS.

If we gift $40,000 to Sophia, then we need to file with the IRS but the $2,000 is only taxed after we die and only if it exceeds the lifetime limit, which is $13.61 million per person.

On top of that, certain gifts are completely exempt.

Link here.

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The Gift Tax

I've done a lot of surfing on the web looking for information regarding the "gift tax."

I was absolutely amazed that I couldn't find any discussion regarding the "gift tax." 

But this is what it seems to be.

In a sense there are two parts to the gift tax, but it starts with the "death tax."

The "death tax": after one dies, the estate, up to some amount, is tax free to the heirs of the estate. That seems easy and straightforward. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but for purposes of this discussion, that's all one needs to know. 

The problem is that rich folks could game the system and give their money away while they were alive, to make sure their estate was less than the threshold / the "exclusion." 

Currently, the exclusion is $13.61 million.

To prevent folks from gaming the system, the federal government set a limit on how much money could be given away as a gift on an annual basis, to dovetail with the annual tax.

If one gives away, each year, less than the annual maximum, the taxpayer does not have to inform the government of any tax and no taxes are due. 

The gift tax is one donor, one recipient. The single donor can be a single individual or a married couple. The current annual limit is $18,000. It is much like a "standard deduction" which minimizes the need to itemize one's gift over the year for most folks.

A single person can give any other person, as of 2024, $18,000 without filing any form and without paying any taxes. Gift taxes are paid by the donor, not the recipient. Money given as a gift is not considered income. A couple can give any other person, as of 2024, $36,000 without filing any form or paying any taxes on that gift.

The government figures that in the course of normal human behavior folks will give money to others in the course of the tax year. Obviously there has to be some sanity with regard to how much can be given away without being taxed; and, the figure had to be high enough to preclude folks from having to keep detailed records on giving money to others.

The amount has to be reasonable. And in this case, some would argue it's quite generous. Others might argue it's not generous enough. Doesn't matter. In 2024, the amount is $18,000 per individual, $36,000 for a married couple.

After that, it gets tricky. but this is what confuses folks. It appears that the annual limit simply applies to whether one has to file the gift tax information with the IRS or not. It has nothing to do with actually paying the tax. 

This took awhile to figure out.

There are two IRS forms with regard to gift taxes. There is Form 706 and Form 709.

Form 706 is filed by the executor of the deceased, and, I assume, is filed only once, on the death of the taxpayer.

Form 709 is filed by the donor while alive for gifts exceeding the annual limit even if no tax is required due to the lifetime exemption. Only one Form 709 is filed each year.

Gifting for a "529" has a special provision allowing one to jump-start a 529 contribution:

If one knows one's estate will be well below the $13 million exemption, it seems one could easily give more than the annual limit every year. But I don't know how that works, and the Form 709 is not helpful.

Apple -- March 4, 2024

Some folks have asked about Apple which is in a rough spell right now. 

Whether to hold, sell, buy -- very different ways to think about this based on one's situation.

For me it all depends on one's reason for having AAPL in one's portfolio in the first place, and one's time horizon.

My time horizon is a rolling 30 years -- that is, every day, when I wake up, my time horizon for my portfolio is 30 years. If I live to 89 years of age, my time horizon will still be 30 years. I will never see the money in this portfolio. It will end up -- 100% of it -- in my estate for the grandchildren.

So, the only question I ask, is this: if I were 30 years old and planned to invest money into a portfolio for my retirement 30 years from now, would I buy AAPL as part of a diversified portfolio?

If the answer is "yes," then there are only two questions that remain, "at what price" and "what percent of the diversified portfolio is invested in AAPL?"

Under those conditions, if I want AAPL in my diversified portfolio, would I pay $170 for it now or wait to see if it might drop to $160? 

I re-balance my portfolio every so often -- sector allotment. This is for new money, not the actual total portfolio. Only for new money.

So, years ago, my energy sector was about 50% of my portfolio. Big mistake and I learned a lot from that.

Two years ago, I worked hard at re-balancing my portfolio, decreasing percentage of energy and increasing tech.

Two years ago, I was not adding any new tech to my portfolio. That changed. I started adding 40% of any new investment money I got into tech. I completely quit adding new energy.

In my "tech" bucket I have seven companies (seven ticker symbols).

Now that my portfolio is re-balanced -- it took two years -- and tech has gotten so expensive, I am putting no new money into tech (with one exception). 

In my "energy" bucket I am interested in only two companies in which to put new money. 

So, back to "tech."

At such high prices, I am putting no new money into tech with one exception: AAPL. Under $185 I definitely buy more AAPL.   Again, not all "new" investment money but a percentage based on my allotment rules.

This is an example. This was my allotment breakdown for "new money" back in January. I am in the process of updating the sectors based on how high tech is right now.

I will definitely remove SNAP; that was a one-time trade which I have since sold.

Change from January, 2024: I will move AAPL to at 10%, new money.  (As of January, 2024, I was adding no new AAPL, but with AAPL this low and other tech so high, I will move AAPL to the tech sector and that will be part of new money for tech stocks.)

UNP will likely be removed; DE has been removed. Percent new money will increase for CAT.

Having said all this, none of us should be doing our own investing; it should be done by a professional but that's a discussion for another time.

This only has to do with the question of AAPL, whether to buy, hold, or sell.

This is subject to change on a daily basis but this gives you an idea how I approach personal investing that is not managed by professionals. 

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The Bigger Question

Why is the financial advisor calling a client to advise selling AAPL after it plummets 9%. Why didn't the advisor call the client to advise selling AAPL when it was climbing faster than usual? One can't time the market, but one can certainly point out to a client when things are moving too high too quickly.

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Another Observation

Brokers should be optimists / buy side, not pessimists / sell side.

Brokers often call to advise selling a particular stock when it's dropping or when it has become too "overweighted" in one's portfolio.

In fact, the broker / financial advisor needs to be watching for buying opportunities, and then call their clients, tell them they've found a great buying opportunity and if they have cash they should consider buying it. If they don't have cash, the clients should consider harvesting tax losses to raise cash to take advantage of the buying opportunity, and if there are no good choices for harvesting tax losses, then the broker should suggest possible shares to sell to raise cash to pay for this buying opportunity. But just to call to advise selling on background noise seems the wrong way to do it.

Comedy