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investing

Timeless Thoughts on Investing

Excerpt from The Money Game which provides timeless thoughts on the concept of investing, items we should all review from time to time.

Principles of Pollex: Investment Allocation

Looking at an age-old investment rule of thumb. What’s good about it, what’s not, and how you might use the structure for your own rule.

Organization, Efficiency & Discipline

Using these three pillars can help to guide you along the way to financial success, no matter what your goal is.

Tax Diversification for Investments

Reviewing the benefits of tax diversification among your retirement and other investment accounts. Timing along with your lifetime taxation.

IRA Investment Planning for Taxation

The question often comes up – what types of investments are best for my IRA? Of course, any investment that you make in a tax-deferred fashion is a good one, at least in theory. But there are some investments that make the most sense for your IRA versus other vehicles… and some investments that make more sense in other kinds of investment accounts, where possible. Listed below are a couple of considerations to take into account when considering taxation of your IRA and non-IRA investments. Bonds and other interest-bearing vehicles Given the nature of the IRA – deferring taxation on current income and growth, investments that would otherwise be taxed at ordinary income tax rates would be best for your IRA. This includes the likes of interest-bearing investments, such as CDs or bonds. Since, presumably, your tax rate when you begin taking distributions will be either the same or less […]

Know Thyself

Understanding the limiting notions that we carry around can be helpful when facing adversity in our financial lives.

Prohibited Transactions and Disqualified Persons

There’s a fine line when transacting business with individuals using your IRA. You need to make sure they’re not prohibited transactions.

Wash Sale Rules and IRAs

Do you know how the wash sale rule applies to IRAs? You need to be careful about what you’re doing when harvesting tax losses.

Wash Sale Rules

If you sell an investment at a loss, you need to be careful about how you re-invest the money so that you can avoid the wash sale rules.

Are You Really Diversified?

You may not be as diversified as you think. Learn more about correlation among various asset classes and how you can use this to your benefit

Social Security vs. Saving

Examining Social Security versus saving – a hypothetical exercise, answering if we’re better off with Social Security or saving the money.

3 Ways of Dealing Without Recharacterization

Recharacterization of a Roth conversion has been gone for quite a while now. Risk reduction is more complicated now, but still possible.

No, You Can’t Contribute Stocks to Your IRA

Ever wonder if you could just contribute stock to your IRA? Follow along for the answer to this interesting question.

Using Capital Gains and Losses to Help With a Roth Conversion

Using capital gains and losses to help offset your cost when doing a Roth conversion. This income offset can really help keep the cost down.

Bonds and Bond Funds

Do you know the differences and benefits between investing in individual bonds or bond funds? This article may help you better understand it.

Mistakes With NUA

If you’re not careful there are several mistakes with NUA that can cause big problems for you. Pay attention when using NUA.

Just Starting Out – Resources to Help With Money Stuff

Resources for money “stuff” when you’re just starting out, fresh out of college. Includes blogs, podcasts, and video-logs.

Why Most People Are So Bad At Stock Picking (and what does Howie Mandel have to do with it?)

Comparison of the old game show “Deal or No Deal” to stock picking strategies, and why contestants and stock pickers lose more often than not.