Get your minds out of the marijuana plant. I’m not talking about that type of rolling. Rather, the pros and cons of rolling your old 401k/403b plans into a Rollover IRA. Generally, I say YES, you should move money out of an old employer’s plan into a retirement account in your own name as soon…
To encourage you not to leave all the year-end tasks until, well, the end of the year, I’d like to explain a charitable gifting hack for readers aged 70 ½ and older. The Qualified Charitable Distribution (aka QCD) allows people aged 70 ½ and older to gift money directly from their tax-deferred IRAs to a…
We’ve revisited some financial rules of thumb this month. Here are a few more bits of (maybe obvious) advice to achieve financial security. Simple portfolios work just fine. Investments don’t have to be complex or expensive to be good. A diversified portfolio can be achieved with 5 mutual funds or even one target date…
Do you remember how when you started back to school, teachers would spend the first week or so reviewing things you learned last year? Probably to prime the pump for your brain to bring in the new information. In that spirit, September blogs are going to review some back-to-basic financial concepts. Some things you will…
The government just loves to roll out new investment tools and then spend the next 50 years tinkering with the rules. 529 college savings plans are no different. Lately there is good news and bad news on the legislative front. The good news, and this is HUGE, is that with the SECURE 2.0 Act, parents…
Writing blogs every week is hard work. Therefore, I love a nice series. Even better when it coincides with a season. August being back-to-school month seemed like a good time to share some college planning info from Michael Van Boening at College Invest. First up, FREE MONEY! Did you know you may be able…
Picking up from last week, this blog is not about predicting the economy. Even the definition of a recession is subject to debate. It’s always good to be ready for a recession, since we don’t know when the next one will hit. For those of you still working, the biggest risk is losing your job…
Don’t hit the panic button; I’m not predicting a recession this month/summer/year/decade. I don’t know when the next recession will be any more than the talking heads on TV (trust me, they don’t know either). But, as the scouts say, it’s always good to be prepared. Prepared for a recession means different things at different…
Yay, inflation! No, really. Thanks to high inflation, interest rates have gone up (sorry borrowers) so that people who want to keep a stash of safe money and actually earn interest on it may do so. Money markets at 4%? CDs at 5%? I can barely remember the last time safe money sounded this good.…
Except that you do. First off, what is cost basis? The term refers to what it cost you to buy something. Plus improvements (in the case of real assets.) For example, if you bought Amazon stock at $50/share, $50/share is your cost basis. If you bought a house for $150,000 and put $50,000 of improvements…
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