The Finance Buff

like a friend telling you about money ...

What If You Invest In Actively Managed Funds?

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You probably heard lately investors found religion in indexing. Money is coming out of actively managed funds and going into index funds and ETFs. After Vanguard's Personal Advisor Services and Schwab's Intelligent Portfolio, Fidelity also came out with its Fidelity Go service, which uses index funds. It's great to see more and more people move into indexing for its simplicity and low cost. Why would someone even consider investing in actively managed funds then? Besides being misled by an [...]

2017 Social Security COLA

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The official announcement for 2017 Social Security cost of living adjustment (COLA) will come in October. However, for those who paid attention, it's widely anticipated that there will be a very small COLA in 2017. Social Security COLA goes by the [...]

Age 55 No-Penalty Withdrawals From 401k Plan

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As we all know in general you can't withdraw from retirement accounts before you are 59-1/2, otherwise you'd have to pay a 10% penalty. If you retire early and you want to use the money in retirement accounts before you are 59-1/2, there are some [...]

Encouraged By Others To Take Risks

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A co-worker quit. Her husband got a job in Asia. She's moving with him, together with their three school-age kids. She won't be working in that country. Everyone in the office gave her encouragement. "It's a great adventure!" "It's good for the [...]

HSA Transfer To Saturna Brokerage Services

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When I did the paperwork to move part of my IRA from Vanguard to a credit union, I also did the paperwork to move my Health Savings Account (HSA) to Saturna Brokerage Services. My previous HSA provider requires a minimum balance in a low-yielding [...]

2017 401k 403b IRA Contribution Limits

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The government released the official CPI number for July. Because of rounding rules, I'm able to safely project the 2017 contribution limits for various retirement plans and IRAs. Inflation is very low this year. For the most part, the limits in 2017 [...]

Transfer IRA From Mutual Fund To Credit Union For CDs

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Ever since I bought the 3-year 3% add-on CD from Northwest Federal Credit Union in October 2015, I was hoping a similar deal would pop up. But no, there hasn't been any. After the Fed raised the rate once from 0% to 0.25% in December 2015, they [...]

Not All High Deductible Plans Are HSA Eligible

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As you may know, in order to contribute to a Heath Savings Account (HSA) you need to be in a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) and you can't have other health coverage. Many people don't realize that just having a high deductible isn't by itself [...]