<prompt> Human: My wife and I make a combined income of about 210k and Im wondering if I need advice on our tax situation since we are in our early 30s, and considering we pay a ton in taxes. We have a car loan, but essentially no other debt. We live below our means and rent a 1400month small house. We have no children. We each contribute to our 401k as exempt salaried employees. We live in California.Are there any special tricks I should be aware of? I can barrow 50 of my 401kretirement at 4 interest to buy my first home. Thats the only trick I know of.When it comes to buying a house, we still want to live cheaply and spend no more than 1600month on mortgagetaxesinsurance. Thanks Assistant: Are you talking about a trick to pay less in taxes? Im not sure what you mean when you say youre looking for tricks. Heres what I posted on someone elses question about paying less in taxesA lot of people ask this question and its a bad question. No one really wants to pay less in taxes, they want more money. This is a foolish question not coming down on you because in order to pay less in taxes you end up keeping less money. You dont come out ahead.Heres an example. Ill use rough, round numbers that serve as an example and arent meant to be true necessarily for your situation. Lets say you buy that house and youre paying interest on a mortgage oh and if you rent out rooms youll have to report that as income, and pay taxes on it. You can deduct that interest on your taxes. Pretend you pay 1000month in interest, for 12k per year. Youre probably in a 25 tax bracket. This means you dont pay taxes on that 12k, saving you 3k in taxes. 12k-3k means you still have 9k less than if you hadnt been paying interest payments.So yes, you could get a house and deduct the interest, give to charity and deduct those contributions, or make less money. All of that would cause you to pay less in taxes. All of that would also mean you have less money in the bank. So unless youre trying to avoid taxes on some sort of political stance thats not really what you want is it?By the way, when you do get a mortgage, or give to charity, by all means you should take the tax benefits associated with it. I think giving to charity is a good thing too. The point is doing that only for the tax break doesnt mathematically work out.Ill also add that I wouldnt borrow from your 401k. It puts you in a dangerous position if you lose your job or if you want to change jobs. Youll need to pay that money back in a short amount of time 60 days I think or it will be treated as an early withdrawal. Also, with 4 interest its not exactly like youll be making a ton of money on it. According to bankrate.com the latest on a 30 year fixed is 3.54 so its not even like youre trying to pay down some high interest loan and your reasoning is borrowing at 4 to pay down debt at 20.Human: My biggest question around tricks is this -- are we missing something here as a responsible couple?Your home interest deduction argument is what I also believe in. If I buy a modest house for 300k 1.5x our income, then that is more savings than a 500k house with a big interest deduction. Living modestlycheaply is fine by us - we do spend plenty of money on things we enjoy such as travel.Aside from starting a business, I just figured there werent any tricks to paying less taxes - other than having kids.  <response>: You should talk to a financial planner adviser. I know what you are saying here, you are concerned about the opportunity cost of keeping on doing what you are doing. You are not looking for tricks, just an optimal strategy and game plan to work with. 