I’ll bet you didn’t know you could use an IRA (called a “self-directed” IRA) to fund your business. I recently wrote about using IRA’s to fund businesses on my About.com Guide Site, U.S. Business Law & Taxes.

But I hesitated a long time before I wrote it. I don’t give investment advice, and I truly think this is not a smart way to invest an IRA. I have the ability to only think of two instances in which it MIGHT (note my emphasis) be ok:

1. You have lots of other money invested for retirement, and you have a defined benefit pension and health care from a large employer.

2. You are a very young baby boomer (late 40s) and you’ve lots of time to build you retirement funds back up if you lose the money you’ve invested in the business.

What do you think? Would you take into account investing your IRA into your business?

Tags: baby boomers, investments, retirement, self-directed IRAs, small business

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Pimp Your Work

Last week, I asked readers how they defined a good work-life balance.  Here are their answers:

Jean Murray from Small Business Boomers defined a good balance to be a four-day workweek.  According to Jean, this allows her to “get all the ’stuff’ (groceries, laundry, cleaning) done in one day and still have two to do what I want.”

Ren Garcia from Bookkeeping Solver shared a list criteria for her dream job, which included enough income to pay for her obligations and retirement, pleasant coworkers, ample free time, carries some prestige, and makes a difference.  Ren states that “If the dream job has stress within in tolerable / manageable limits, then I will have reached a Work - Life balance.”

For me, a good work-life balance means something simple: to work to support my life, and not the other way around.  I don’t want to use my life to support my work, I want to use my work so I have the ability to live my life in the way I want it.  If I have the ability to do this, then I have good work-life balance.

What’s a good work-life balance for you? 

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

Actor Willem Dafoe has a neat little home in Accord, New York that he’s trying to sell off. This home has one immediately distinctive feature, its exterior is clad in neoprene. Known as the Rubber House, it was built for the late choreographer Eugene Loring. It’s a relatively small (1,949 square feet) two-bedroom, tucked into a 6.8 acre plot of land. Inside the home has a sunny and spare look that’s currently somewhat marred by rather cutesy country furniture. I agree with the Real Estalker Mama who advocated a ” a more pared down palette.” Still, any home with a tower has my vote. It is listed at $850,000.

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Continue reading Willem Dafoe’s Rubber Home, Estate of the Day

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Filed under: Estates, Books

In his preface to Jake Rajs’ beautiful new book, Beyond the Dunes: A Portrait of the Hamptons (Monacelli Press, $60), New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger notes the photographer “shows us a vision of the Hamptons at once beautiful and fragile, prosperous but not smug.” No easy feat when it comes to portraying such a storied locale, and Rajs manages it magnificently. The book is divided into geographical sections of the South Fork: Westhampton, Quogue and Hampton Bays; Shinnecock and Southampton; Water Mill, Bridgehampton and Sagaponack; Sag Harbor and the Springs; East Hampton and Amagansett; and Montauk (or, as we like to call them: No Money, Old Money, New Money, Some Money, More Money and What Money?). Along the way he finds everything from privet hedges to pumpkin fields and fishermen to polo players. Pictured here’s an imposing “cottage” on Southampton’s fabled Gin Lane. The book won’t be out for another couple of weeks, but you can pre-order it now on Amazon. Meanwhile see the gallery for a preview.

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