Tax Season – In Progress I finished filing the tax returns for both of my oldest two children. Both made well under $30k for the year. I laughed at how simple they were and also the sheer number of dark patterns that Turbotax employed to trick us into paying for what should have been a… Continue reading February 2021 Update
The other day, a friend asked me to tell them what I thought about one of the options in their workplace 401(k), “The Growth Fund of America” by American Funds, ticker AGTHX. To evaluate an investment option, I generally look at three things: objective, fee structure, and benchmark performance. What is AGTHX? AGTHX is an… Continue reading How to Evaluate An Investment Option using AGTHX
I’m not 100% rational. Few (any?) people are rational all of the time. And even though I am aware of psychological traps and my own irrationality, I still find myself occasionally trapped. Familiarity Bias I worked at Dumpster Fire Inc between 2013 and 2017. During my time at DFI, they went public at $40/share and… Continue reading Behavioral Economics
Following Frugal Professor’s example, I’m going to track my blog’s history with an annual State of the Blog post. Here’s the inaugural edition. Why I’m Blogging Before diving into the statistics, let me reiterate my current purpose of my blog. My primary reason to blog is that I love thinking about all things personal finance… Continue reading State of the Blog – 2020 Edition
January 2021 Update The tax forms are starting to trickle in. Probably won’t start reviewing them until mid-February once the brokerage statements all land. We’ll see if we have any drastic changes to the tax code to account for in 2021. Covered Calls Update I’ve written before about the covered calls that I’ve been writing… Continue reading January 2021 Update
In my last post, I laid out my plan for contributing to my children’s college education and creating incentives for keeping the cost down without sacrificing the quality of their education. My final contribution goal (including a 3% inflation) came to $299,901. That’s significantly smaller than the original number of $413,264, but still pretty high.… Continue reading Playing 529 Catchup (Part 3)
In my last post, I discussed the sticker price of a college education and some of the ways to fund it. If you recall, the total expected cost for my daughter’s college education is $57,629. Like me, you might be feeling some sticker shock! If you don’t have sticker shock, then at a minimum you… Continue reading Examining College Expenses with Incentives
The silver lining to the pandemic this fall was having our oldest home from school all the way from Thanksgiving to this week. This week, another semester starts and she’s back at school. During the holiday break, she put together a skeleton schedule for the next seven semesters. Simply taking a normal load each semester,… Continue reading The Cost of College
Happy New Year! I hope you had a merry Christmas and are ready for 2021! I know I am. Busting The Myths of Plastic Recycling This month I listened to Planet Money’s episode on recycled plastic, titled Waste Land. I remember hearing their earlier episode on how recycling of plastic has never been very viable. … Continue reading December 2020 Update
It’s the end of another year. Here are some end-of-year financial “chores” that you might consider as we close out 2020 and head into 2021. Adjust W2 Withholdings I track my expected tax burden in a custom spreadsheet and tailor my withholdings to be as close to zero as possible. I’m okay with underwithholding, but… Continue reading Year End Financial Chores – 2020 Edition
