Married couples are at a disadvantage when it comes to getting the premium subsidy under the ACA.
Latest Blog Posts
Free Flu Shot Covered In Full By Insurance
This year’s flu shot campaign seems to have started earlier than previous years. My employer had the on-site flu shot clinics in mid-September. I got the email from HR but I didn’t pay attention to the dates. I thought it would be later in October or November; so I missed the on-site dates. Grocery stores, […]
Using a Reward Checking Account For Emergency Fund
A reward checking account is a checking account that pays a high interest rate up to a balance cap but requires you to use its debit card X number of times a month among some other easy-to-meet requirements. For instance the account I recently opened with a credit union pays 3% interest on balance up […]
Lifestyle Design: Choose What You Know
Not having had a personal finance class in high school isn’t an excuse. It’s always a choice. We all have limited time. You choose to invest your time in what matters.
World MasterCard Price Protection Refunds the Difference If You See a Lower Price
When you get a new credit card, you usually also receive a small brochure describing the various benefits your new card offers. Most of the benefits are common: rental car coverage, protection against loss or damage of a new purchase within the first X days, extended warranty, travel accident insurance, etc. Don’t just throw away […]
How To Get Money Off Rebate Debit Cards
I bought tires from a tire shop when it offered a $100 mail-in rebate for a set of 4 tires of certain brands. The mail-in rebate came in the form of a prepaid debit card instead of just a plain old check. Companies do that because their rebate vendors convince them prepaid debit cards work […]
Higher Yield On Brokered CD vs Early Withdrawal Option
Bond interest rates came up by about 1% after the Fed started talking about tapering Quantitative Easing. We are starting to see some higher rates in brokered CDs. This makes sense because brokered CDs compete directly with bonds. Brokered CDs don’t have the early withdrawal option. If you want out, you have to sell them […]
Is Home Mortgage Simple Interest Or Compound Interest?
I had a good chuckle while reading this epic discussion thread on the Bogleheads Investment Forum: Does a home mortgage use Simple or Compound Interest? It sounds a like factual question, as in "Is Miami located to the north or south of Boston?" The answer shouldn’t be ambiguous or subject to opinion or interpretation. You […]
Happy Trails With Income Poor
This is the third and final installment on my Asset Rich Income Poor strategy. The road to asset rich sounds simple at a high level but it’s not that easy at the details level, because every decision you make has tradeoffs. The tradeoffs affect the final outcome in ways you can’t know for sure. I […]
The Road to Asset Rich
The second part of the Asset Rich Income Poor strategy is relatively easy when you get overpaid, uh, increase the value, for what you do. I wrote about the basics in 3 Secrets to a Fat 401k. To achieve Asset Rich, we need to work on these 3 factors: the amount you invest; the rate […]