People form money habits over many years. Many of these habits are passed down from generation to generation as good ways to manage one’s money. Sadly some of these habits are going obsolete in the current low interest rate world. They made more sense when interest rates were high. They matter very little when interest […]
Latest Blog Posts
How to Save $4,000 in Your Graduation Year — Part 1: Taxes
[This is a guest post from Bogleheads investment forum participant Bob’s not my name.] If you are a college senior or if you graduated this year, pay attention. The year in which you finish college and enter the workforce presents unique tax circumstances. In addition, you may think you are achieving financial independence from your […]
How Much Will the New Health Care Taxes Affect Middle Class Families?
[This is a guest post from Bogleheads investment forum participant Bob’s not my name as a follow-up to his previous post How Much Will the New Health Care Taxes Affect High Earners?] There hasn’t been much discussion of how screwed middle class families with significant medical expenses are going to be by a couple of […]
How Much Will the New Health Care Taxes Affect High Earners?
[This is a guest post from Bogleheads investment forum participant Bob’s not my name.] There’s a lot of talk these days about the new Medicare taxes in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), so you may be wondering how much they will affect you. The short answer is: If your household income (married filing jointly) is […]
How To Deposit Cash To Online Bank Account
Do you use an online checking account such as Ally, Capital One 360, USAA, Fidelity, or Schwab? If you do, here’s a challenge: How do you deposit cash to it? It would be cheating if you first deposit the cash to a local, brick-and-mortar bank and then transfer it to your online bank. In that […]
New 401k Fee Disclosure Does Not Disclose Admin Fees
New regulations from the federal government forced 401k plan providers to give better disclosure to the plan participants about the fees they are paying. August 30 was the deadline for distributing the first disclosure. You should have received yours by now. I read the disclosure from my plan. It confirmed that the funds in the […]
Refurbished: Really Refurbished Or Just Lower Price?
I put in some insane hours at work lately. Management gave me a spot bonus. I treated myself to a Kindle. Not a Kindle Fire tablet, a real Kindle — Kindle Touch to be exact. I bought it refurbished, at 20% off new. It came in a sealed box, with a clear plastic sheet covering […]
Not Necessary to Tell Banks About International Travel
Urban legend says you must notify your credit card or debit card banks before you travel internationally so that they won’t block your cards. I used to believe it. Every time before I left, I would religiously call the banks and tell them the dates and the countries I was going. This last time when […]
Savings Secured Loan: Good Or Not?
I received an interesting offer in the mail from my credit union. It’s for a savings secured loan. The credit union offers to give me a loan if I pledge an equal amount in my savings account as collateral for the loan. If I pledge $10,000, they will lend me $10,000. If I pledge $50,000, […]
5 Stages of Grief and Low Interest Rates
I heard about the five stages of grief but I hadn’t really looked into it. When I read about it on Wikipedia, I thought the model fits very well how savers grieve about low interest rates. Denial "Rates have nowhere to go but up." "The Fed only controls short term rates. Low short term rates […]