Personal Finance (Not Investing) • Does your tax preparer provide you with a...
My long-time tax preparer retired last year so I hired a new person this year. The previous preparer always provided a useful summary document showing our effective tax rate, comparisons to previous...
View ArticlePersonal Investments • Investing Strategy/Money Management Advice?
Hello. I have been following this forum and sub-reddit for some time, and now kindly requesting a review of my first deliberate investment strategy. I want to build wealth to achieve an early...
View ArticleInvesting - Theory, News & General • SPIA: Roth or tIRA
I am trying to figure out the optimum place to put a SPIA for my wife. Based on family history and current health and history, this would be a single life policy with no refund.For context, we are...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Best way to pay for a car in cash with Schwab
So I pre-ordered a truck that is available at the dealer Monday morning. Currently we use Schwab for just about everything (Schwab Checking/Taxable Brokerage). Most of our cash is in T-Bills in our...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • Waive the spousal annuity? (Disability...
I am looking for help in deciding whether to take the full annuity with disability retirement from federal government (FERS), or whether to elect a survivor benefit. We are pretty flustered with life...
View ArticlePersonal Investments • Update on LEAPS
As an experiment I decided to buy some deep ITM LEAPS calls last summer on SPY (strike 350 Exp 6/20/25) and QQQ (strike 299.78 6/20/25) in my IRA. I bought a little more when things dipped in October...
View ArticlePersonal Investments • How to construct 3 fund portfolio.
Hello,I am currently invested primarily in target date funds throughout my portfolio, so my knowledge about investing is limited.I just wish to understand more about creating a 3 fund portfolio across...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Car Insurance Issues
Hi everyone, I'm flying out to Denver to relocate and need to have some new car insurance before I take that initial step. I want to buy a new car there on-site at a dealership with insurance ready to...
View ArticleInvesting - Theory, News & General • 2023 tax costs for value ETFs
Here is 2023 data on the components of the tax cost of value factor ETFs, and of Vanguard's popular non-factor alternatives (both value and blend), as guidance for which ETFs should be held in a...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Fidelity income tax error - how to resolve?
I took a distribution from my IRA held at Fidelity (US) late in December (this was not an RMD but I am close to that point). They were supposed to send 10% withholding to the IRS and wire the...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • Foreign tax paid and H&R Block software
This is the first year I try to use H&R Block in addition to TurboTax, just to compare the two.I have $900 in foreign tax paid so Form 1116 is required.I breeze through the TurboTax interview and...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • Eligible for Social Security now that back...
In the end, this is a question of when social security retirement benefits can be claimed now that we have submitted our past federal tax filings. Question: In order to start the claim with SSA, what...
View ArticlePersonal Investments • Transferring Rollover IRA to another custodian
If someone has a Rollover ("conduit") IRA from a 401(k), are there special considerations with transferring it to another custodian? Are the rules different from a Traditional ("contributory") IRA?...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • HSA Excess Contribution Issue
Hi All - I'm having some trouble understanding exactly what I need to do in order to correctly "cure" an excess HSA contribution for the 2023 tax year. I had a self-only HDHP plan from Jan - Nov so my...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • How to Estimate Return Rates for...
I'm planning to retire soon and am testing out various retirement planning tools. Some of them allow me to input optimistic and pessimistic rates of returns for specific accounts. What is a good way...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • Estimated Tax Payments with Zero Liability
I have searched without success for previous threads that discuss this. I assume the answer is straightforward.I am retired and expect no income for 2024 other than some dividends and long-term...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Undersizing whole house generator?
Our new home does not have a generator but is located in a town where we could conceivably be offline for a few days to a week from a winter ice storm or summer fire. A whole house generator would be...
View ArticlePersonal Investments • Good or bad time to invest in S&P 500 for Roth IRA?
Hi,Last year, I opened my first Roth IRA. I funded it with the max 7000$, putting 3000$ into VASGX fund and 4000$ into VFIAX fund. The market was more sluggish then, but now stocks seem to be hot and...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • 529 excess withdrawal
I am an undergraduate student who is not claimed as a dependent on any tax return, and my income exceeded half of my support. I am trying to claim the American Opportunities Tax Credit, but my concern...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • Spousal IRA - Who Makes The Contribution?
Hi, we are married and I work but my wife does not. We are above the limit for Roth IRAs so we plan to contribute the max to non-deductible IRAs.Does it matter which spouse makes the IRA...
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