The Finance Buff

like a friend telling you about money ...

Why Reward Flights Or Hotel Nights Are Not Free

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Comments from reader msf on the previous post Keep Your Airline Miles Active Via Online Shopping Portals gave me the idea for this post. You keep your airline miles active because one day you want to redeem those miles for a flight. Putting aside the small fee you will still have to pay when you book a reward flight, is the reward flight free? Pay Forward Some say of course it's free because you don't have to pay when you book the flight (again ignoring the small fee). It's not so obvious [...]

Getting A Lost Gift Card Replaced

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Whenever I buy a gift card at a grocery store the cashier always hands me a small receipt separate from the regular receipt. I'm told it's the activation receipt. It serves as a confirmation that the gift card now has value on it. Without activation, [...]

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 [...]