I can tell it’s tax time. Most of the questions posted to my old posts are about taxes. I’m not a CPA; I write about taxes only to the extent they affect me. The best way to get tax questions answered is of course asking a real CPA. I realize not everybody can afford a […]
Latest Blog Posts
Why Do People Buy Snake Oil?
Reader Ace commented in a previous post: I’m afraid that we have to live with the fact that people have been buying snake oil for centuries, and will certainly continue to do so. That got me thinking. Why do people buy snake oil? I can understand why people sell snake oil but why do people […]
Flexibility and Retirement Planning
This is a guest post by Mike Piper. Imagine this scenario: An investor (we’ll call her Susan) retires with a $700,000 portfolio. She plans to withdraw $28,000 in the first year of retirement and adjust that amount upward each year in keeping with inflation. In other words, Susan is using a 4% withdrawal rate–typically considered […]
Uninsured Motorist Coverage Is Not Expensive
A recent New York Times’ Your Money podcast had an interview with reporter Paul Sullivan about reviewing one’s insurance coverage. I was surprised to hear him saying uninsured motorist coverage in auto insurance is important but it’s expensive. I had to rewind and make sure I heard it right because that is not my experience. […]
Explore TIPS: A Practical Guide to Investing in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities
Long-time readers know I have a special interest in TIPS, the inflation-indexed bonds. At one of my annual reader surveys, a reader asked why I wrote about TIPS all the time. I like TIPS because they have guaranteed inflation protection. I wrote everything I know about TIPS into a book called Explore TIPS. I published […]
3.8% Medicare Tax on Unearned Income in Health Care Reform Bill
Reader Chuck asked about the 3.8% Medicare tax in the health care reform law. "Does the 3.8% tax on unearned income kick in all at once? You could be looking at an infinity percent marginal rate if you have, say $199,999 in wage income, and $50,000 in capital gains if one extra dollar of income […]
Health Care Reform: What’s In It for Me?
I admit I did not get myself emotionally attached to the health care reform one way or the other when it was being debated in Congress. I keep myself loosely informed from reading my friend Austin Frakt’s blog The Incidental Economist. Now that the final legislation is passed, everybody inevitably asks “What’s in it for […]
Last Train for Mortgage Refinance
On March 16, the Fed announced it would stop buying mortgage-backed securities effective March 31. Instead of going up, the mortgage rates reached a new low on the next day. As a result, I’m doing another no-cost refinance to lower my rate by a quarter of a percentage point. I think this really will be […]
Opportunity Cost and Paper Loss
Is an opportunity cost a real cost? That’s the question I have been pondering. I was deciding whether to buy an air ticket a few weeks ago. I saw a good price when I did the search in the morning. I was at work at that time and I decided to make the purchase that […]
How to Shop for Furniture?
The furniture I bought during the New Year’s holiday finally arrived. By the time they arrived, I almost forgot what they looked like. I’m so used to comparing products online. Buying furniture proved to be an entirely different experience. Although many stores sell furniture, there is actually very little information online. Many furniture stores don’t […]