The Finance Buff

like a friend telling you about money ...

Keep Your Airline Miles Active Via Online Shopping Portals

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When you fly you earn airline miles. They used to be based on the distance of your flight. Now the big three airlines in the U.S. -- American, Delta, and United -- all switched to giving you miles based on your ticket price. The miles you receive are not free. They are included in the ticket price you pay. You pay a little more than you otherwise would today for a possibility to get free travel in the future. Among the three airlines, Delta does not expire the miles you receive. American [...]

My Smartest Financial Decision

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This post is sponsored by Alliant Credit Union, where I’m a customer. All opinions are strictly my own. I made many financial decisions all these years, some smart, some disastrous. Thinking back, I would say my smartest financial decision was [...]

IRA Recharacterization Illustrated

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Some of you weren't so impressed when I drew diagrams to show that an IRA conversion doesn't really convert the IRA itself. It only moves the money from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, leaving the source IRA container intact afterwards. While [...]

Late Enrollment Penalty On Health Insurance

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A new health care bill American Health Care Act passed in the House. Just like the new tax plan outline, who knows whether it will pass in the Senate or what will change. From the previous post Health Insurance As A Tax we came to know that health [...]

High Income In Blue States Under Trump Tax Plan

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I said not to waste much time on the new tax plan outline from President Trump because we don't know whether it will pass or what shape it will be in if it actually passes. A few readers emailed me saying they were very concerned about losing the [...]

Import Quicken Downloads To Microsoft Money On Windows 10

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I bought a new laptop. It has Windows 10. Getting Microsoft Money to run on it the way I wanted took a few tweaks. I'm documenting them here in case someone else also wants to do the same thing. Microsoft Money is a software program on Windows for [...]