Fee-Only Financial Planning Advice

Yes, You Can Practice Being Retired

Jan 07 2020

The practice of offering consumers the chance to take a vehicle they might buy on a test-drive has been in place for a long time. And a few years ago, realtors got into letting people “test-drive” homes by spending the night in them. And in “Test-Drive Your Retirement,” Kiplinger.com suggests that instead of just outlining your retirement goals on paper, you actually take those goals for a test-drive to see if the retirement life you are planning will really work for you.

Location, Location, Location: You would expect to be advised to try for an extended stay in …

IRA Contributions after the SECURE Act

Jan 06 2020

Following our articles last week – SECURE Act RMD Rules and The SECURE Act and Student Loans – today we’ll cover IRA contributions after the SECURE Act. A big change in store here for folks who are still working later in life, but not really earth-shattering.

With the passage of the SECURE Act, the prohibition for IRA contributions after age 70½ is lifted. Previously, once you hit that magical age, you were no longer allowed to make contributions to an IRA.

Employer plans, such as the 401(k) have always allowed contributions to continue as long as the employee was still …

The SECURE Act and Student Loans

Jan 03 2020

The recent passing of the SECURE Act brought about some changes that have impacted savers and retirees alike. Required minimum distributions (RMDs) from retirement account have now been raised to age 72. Also, gone is the ability to “stretch” required distributions from retirement accounts to non-spouse beneficiaries (with few exceptions).

One potentially beneficial change comes from the broadening of the expenses 529 college savings plans can cover. 529 plans are tax-advantaged savings plans that allow parent, grandparents, and other relatives to save money for education. Contributions grow tax-deferred and withdrawals for qualified expenses are tax-free. In the past, qualified expenses …

Business Tax Provisions of the FCAA

Jan 01 2020

As a year-end holiday gift, Congress included a number of individual and business-friendly tax provisions in its year-end spending package that was signed into law by President Trump on December 20, 2019. The “Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020” (oddly considered a 2020 Act) brought back to life many deductions and credits that had expired at the end of 2017, as well as a few others that had either expired at the end of 2018 or were scheduled to expire at the end of 2019.

In addition, substantial changes were made to retirement-related tax provisions, some of which may benefit your …

Don’t Let Holiday Spending Guilt Trip You Up

Dec 31 2019

Are you feeling a little remorse about the money you spent over the holidays? There is an online meme where a parent jokes about taking all of the holiday presents back because the children are behaving. Isn’t that how it is with the things we buy sometimes? They don’t produce the expected result or function quite as we would like and we want to go back in time. We were full of hope when we bought these things and it is only later that the regret sets in. We like to believe that the new year brings a fresh start… Read More

Unbiased financial advice from fee-only financial planners