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…
Those of you small business owners will be familiar with the idea of quarterly estimated tax payments. The idea is that the IRS does not want to wait until April 15th to get all of their tax revenue from you. They want some all during the year. For people who are paid on a W2…
Super-fast blog today! If you are looking to generate regular payments out of your portfolio and find yourself in a quandary of what securities to sell, try this: Turn off the dividend/interest reinvestment feature in your mutual funds. Those distributions will go to cash and can build up your liquid position without selling shares. Caution: …
Is it safe to write about the banking crises that almost was? I try not to feed into the media frenzy when financial news is freaking people out. Maybe we can look back now and see what happened and if you should (or should not) worry about the banking system. First, why do banks fail? …
This week I am excited to share the expertise of interior designer Michelle Ku. What does this have to do with personal finance? Your house is a huge investment. Of course, you want to surround yourself with colors and objects that make you happy. But you might consider resale value when making design decisions. …
I think of creating retirement income plan in terms of funnels and buckets. The funnel is the decision-making process. The buckets are where your various accounts are placed and invested for income. First, the funnel. Start wide at the top with the overall retirement projection. This informs how much you can safely spend in…
Welcome back. For those of you who have stuck with this series, you are rounding 3rd base! Almost through the quick tutorial to help decide what order to tap your savings for retirement. Withdrawal Method #3: Pro Rata. Take withdrawals each year proportionately from the 3 types of accounts. Example: Joe and Sue have 50%…
Welcome back to the bite-size tutorial series about retirement withdrawal methods. This week we look at Method #2. Method 2: Tax-Deferred accounts first, Taxable (aka non-retirement accounts) second, Roth last. Pros: Spreads taxes owed on deferred accounts over a longer period of time. Get ahead of Required Minimum Distributions, possibly keeping yourself in a lower…
In last week’s blog, I introduced some thoughts and methods of tapping into your savings to create a retirement paycheck. This week, we will look at the Method #1. This is the first method just because it’s kind of the standard one people default to. It’s not necessarily the best for you. Method 1: Taxable…
Retirement in America is not for wimps. For most people, gone are the days when you hang up your tools one day and then go home to a steady pension for the rest of your life. Nowadays, we must consider Social Security claiming strategies, required minimum distributions rules, ever shifting tax brackets, and changing…
