As the parent or grandparent of young children, you might be thinking about the best way to save for college. 529 plans, introduced in the 1990s, are a great way to shelter investment for college from taxes. BUT, as with all things there are drawbacks. One worry clients routinely express is, what if they overfund…
That’s right folks, our elected officials got something done in 2022 that has bearing on your everyday life. The passage of the SECURE Act 2.0 brings up some interesting planning opportunities for your finances. Since the name of my blog game is short-and-sweet, I’ll just hit a few highlights. Click on the article below for…
Yep, your investments are down and so are your spirits. Those looking for a silver lining may be talking about tax loss harvesting. What does that even mean? Warning, if your money is all in retirement accounts (IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, this concept doesn’t apply. Tax loss harvesting is only for accounts where capital…
Maybe inflation isn’t all bad. Social Security checks are going up 8.7%, you can buy a 1-year CD earning 4.5% interest, and (for those who aren’t spending every last time on more expensive groceries) we are seeing a big jump in retirement contribution limits for 2023. To summarize: 401(k), 403(b), 457 plans: Under age…
The IRS has done it again. Taken an already unfortunate new rule about inheriting IRAs and made it even worse. To recap, if you inherited IRA/Roth IRA/Workplace Retirement Account money from someone who died in 2020 or after, the SECURE Act states that you must take that money out of the account within 10…
Let’s start off with a direct quote for how the October 2021 version of this blog started: “I guess it’s a good year in the stock market when the worst performing sectors (so far, as of writing this blog on September 13th) aren’t negative, just not up as high as the best performers. My sage…
Ugh, September is one of those months with FIVE Thursdays. That’s a lot of blogs to write so I’m taking a breather this week and re-running a Blog from July 2022 about risk tolerance and stock market drops. The financial services industry has for years been collectively handwringing about how to measure clients’ real…
You may have heard of Bill Bengen’s 4% rule for retirement withdrawal. Through back testing and calculating and thinking really hard, Mr. Bengen concluded that a retiree could start taking 4% out of investments and have his/her nest egg last through a 25-year retirement. This assumes the retiree will need to increase withdrawals over time…
Having just signed up for AARP (saved me $80 on a hotel reservation!), I got to wondering, what do other countries offer their seniors to make life healthier, happier, and more affordable? If you get a retirement visa in Panama, look forward to big discounts on entertainment, local transportation, airfare, power bills, medication, movie…
I bonds are getting a lot of interest because inflation is finally up. Over the past 10 years, the return has been around 2%-3% average over the long term. Consider these things about I Bonds: You can only put $10,000/year per Social Security number in them per year. You must hold them for 1…
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