I was going to say that as well since our mortgages are paid by others, on top of which we make profit and can sell the paid-off-by-others real estate when we retire to have ample play money if need be. Property manager handles it all, so we don't do a darned thing but spend the cash. Mortgage free is not the way to go currently given the low interest rates in this country, but the last time I dared suggest that I got ragged on by the generally older audience here at pinside, so this time I'll let you take the slings and arrows for it and I'll leave it at that

As for the pins, honestly just sell all the common ones. I find it's good sometimes to just purge, it helps you to see what you really need. If you miss some no biggie, since they are common ones you can eventually re-buy them. But I suspect you'll find that you actually miss far less of them that you'd have thought!

Are you sure this is true? For example from this article:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/federal-tax-refund-2019-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-changes-isadora-bielsk-colorado-8000-tax-bill/

"Many Americans are learning their tax refund is not as much as they expected, or they are receiving a big tax bill. The average refund compared to last year has dropped nearly nine percent, according to the IRS. This is the first tax season since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect."

So even the IRS themselves are saying that the average refund has dropped.

Here's how I'd summarize:

1) If money *truly* is the concern here then sell most of your pins and buy a rental property that would be making you money, rather than the pins which maybe on average stay cash neutral.

2) If debt is the concern, then sell some pins and pay more of it off to give you some peace of mind.

3) If quality of life is the concern then maybe sell a few common pins to go through the exercise of it without pain, and at the same time alleviate some debt.

End of the day, it's your call.

Ok gotcha so it was all in the clever article wording, that figures. Serves me right, usually I first read several varying sources but in that case I just did a quick one time search, my bad. Although to be fair the reason I assumed it is because my accountant says it's hit or miss, some have it worse some have it better. Plus I haven't found any concrete data on whether or not withholdings are indeed more or less this year, so there is no definitive answer, it really is case by case. Like in our case I faired better this year but my wife faired worse.

For sure if you don't have the means then that's a totally different story. But I presume we're all talking about people that can afford to buy pinball machines, or in this specific case ~$90k worth of pinball machines hence the assumption is that these people aren't living paycheck to paycheck.