I wrote this story in my original blog but since I rebooted it, the archives got zapped so I’m writing it again because it was an experience that changed my life. Cancun In early 2000’s, as I recall, my wife and I took our kids down to Cancun, Mexico for a family vacation. We stayed…
Category: Money Management
How I’m Investing My Buckets of Money: Tax FREE Bucket
This is part 3 of my buckets of money and how I plan on investing the funds in them. Although the funds are already invested, it’s become clear that I need to re-think how I’m investing funds in each account. Tax FREE Bucket My third bucket is the “tax FREE” bucket. This is a bucket…
How I’m Investing My Buckets of Money: Tax Deferred Bucket
Part 1 here was all about investing my Taxable bucket. This is part 2 of my buckets of money and how I plan on investing the funds in them. My Tax Deferred Bucket, although the funds are already invested, it’s become clear that I need to re-think how I’m investing funds in this account. Tax…
How I’m Investing My Buckets of Money: Taxable Bucket
I have separated my money into three buckets as I wrote about here and after some research, I’m coming close to determining the best way to invest the money in these buckets. Keep in mind that the money in all of these buckets is already invested but after doing some serious planning for retirement, I’ve…
My 10 Year Anniversary With Kiva.org
One of the ways I like to give back to the community and help others is through Kiva.org. If you don’t know what Kiva is, here is a blurb from their About page: More than 1.7 billion people around the world are unbanked and can’t access the financial services they need. Kiva is an international…
Retirement Planning: Step 5 – Putting It All Together
Let’s review my five retirement planning steps in case you missed any…click on the Steps to go to the appropriate Step. Step 1 – Total all retirement accounts. Step 2 – Estimate how much social security might provide. Step 3 – Estimate what the IRS standard deduction might be during my retirement years. Step 4 – Estimate…
Retirement Planning: Step 4 – IRS Tax Brackets
It’s 2:00 a.m. on a cold February morning, do you know which tax bracket you’re in right now? If you don’t, you’re in luck because I put this table together from the IRS that shows the tax brackets for 2023. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that tax brackets are…
Retirement Planning: Step 3 – IRS Standard Deduction
Do you know what the IRS standard deduction is and how it fits into retirement planning? First the definition of the standard deduction from the IRS: The standard deduction is a specific dollar amount that reduces the amount of income on which you’re taxed. Your standard deduction consists of the sum of the basic standard…
Retirement Planning: Step 1 – How Much Money?
Step 1 in retirement planning seems easy and straight forward but it can be a little complicated, especially if you have changed jobs, industries and types of employers. The goal of step 1 is to identify ALL the buckets of money you have in retirement accounts (tax deferred), bank and brokerage accounts (taxable) and accounts…
Are All Financial Advisors Snake Oil Salespeople?
After reading The New Retirement Savings Time Bomb by Ed Slott, it lit a fire under my feet to update my retirement plan. While retirement may be 10+ years away, I figured I’d better double check my strategy and confirm some of the choices and assumptions I’ve made. To that end I have been contacting…