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Welcome to the end of the week and another edition of Happy Hour! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy your end of the week roundup of all things interesting in the land of money.
The hopes and dreams of a perfect $1 Billion Bracket is all but lost thanks to Dayton’s upset of Ohio St. That game knocked out 80% of the participants. Sadly, I was one of them. While you toil away tracking your NCAA brackets, here’s a few things you can do between games. Continue Reading…
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One of the more confusing tax forms for investments is form 1099-B. Tax lingo is part of the cause. It’s like a foreign language at first sight. The tax code, and changes to it, cause the rest. It’s up to you to decipher what the 1099-B says.
Brokers and fund companies send form 1099-B when you buy or sell an investment, like shares of a mutual fund or stock. The form is a record of those transactions. When you plug the information into a Schedule D, you and the IRS can figure out your capital gains or losses for the tax year.
Of course, you owe taxes on capital gains, either short or long-term capital gains tax, based on how long you owned the investment. However, capital losses are used to offset gains or income and lower your tax bill. Continue Reading…
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Welcome to the end of the week and another edition of Happy Hour! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy your end of the week roundup of all things interesting in the land of money.
I doubt anyone saw how big an impact the internet would have after 25 years. Maybe someone did and I wasn’t listening, because I was too busy playing with a new piece of computer hardware called a modem that you could hook up to your phone line. You could connect with a computer several states away in as long as it took to dial a phone. Continue Reading…
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There are many investments that offer tax advantages to investors. Tax free bonds, like municipal bonds, are one popular choice for high income earners and retirees. That idea of not having to pay taxes on investment earnings will always get attention, but are you getting the best return on your money? To find out, you need the tax equivalent yield on a tax-free bond to know whether it offers a better return than a taxable bond.
Given the choice between a taxable and tax-free bond or bond fund with the same amount of risk, credit quality, and maturity, it’s easy to pick the one with the higher yield. In this case, there’s one problem. It is an apples to oranges comparison. Continue Reading…
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Welcome to the end of the week and another edition of Happy Hour! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy your end of the week roundup of all things interesting in the land of money.
After a cloudy, several decade long malaise, the sun is finally shining on solar energy (pun intended). Since the 70s, solar energy was a do-it-yourselfer backyard dream of unplugging from the monthly electric bill. It wasn’t cheap. It wasn’t efficient. But all that is changing. Continue Reading…
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Have you ever picked a number and doubled it over and over again until you can’t do the math in your head? The magic of compounding drives the numbers so high, so fast. Of course, this works with money too, just at a slightly slower pace. It’s called compound interest and it’s one thing all of us can take advantage of now no matter how investment savvy you are.
The most repeated financial advice is to save and invest early. Saving early puts time on your side and compounding plays a big role in that. The best way to show compound interest in action is with an example: Continue Reading…