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Happy Hour: BRK Meeting Review

May 9, 2014

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Jon

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 interesting reads in the land of money.

BRK Meeting Review

The annual pilgrimage to Omaha, the value investor’s mecca, was this past weekend. I wasn’t in attendance (not a shareholder). But enough travelers take notes every year, plus the media coverage, that anyone can get information on it. Every year there’s a few niblets to take away from the event. Continue Reading…
7 Tax Planning Ideas That Offer Big Savings

May 8, 2014

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Jon

Did you get the most tax savings possible this year? Is there anything you could have done differently that would have saved you more money? I bet there was.

You need to be proactive for big tax savings. By the time April rolls around it’s already too late to work the tax code in your favor. The only planning you have left is a last-minute IRA contribution before the deadline to salvage some savings.

Real tax planning is an ongoing process of making small financial changes that lead to big tax savings year after year. You need a plan for that and our extensive tax code offers up some places to start. Continue Reading…
Happy Hour: Thoughts On Cycles

May 2, 2014

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Jon

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.

Cycles

The markets roll in cycles. You pay attention long enough to market news, you can see this clearly. Though the market news has its own built-in cycle too. Much of it is filler, like the Sell in May headlines that already started popping up. That’s the hypothetical question that pits May sellers up against non sellers. My view – should a month decide your investment’s fate? Continue Reading…
How Long Should You Keep Tax Records?

May 1, 2014

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Jon

Tax season is stressful enough just getting those returns finished and sent in time. Now you have to deal with storing all those tax records. Or do you?

The good news is you don’t have to be a hoarder. But before you start force feeding that shredder, there are some tax documents you should hold on to for a little while.

If you’re like me, you may be holding on to tax records out of fear the IRS will show up for an audit or maybe it’s just a keepsake of incomes past.

The hard part is deciding what records should be kept, what is junk, and how long it all needs to take up space. The IRS, of course, has all the record keeping specifics you’ll ever need. Continue Reading…
Happy Hour: Apple Splits And Recency Polls

April 25, 2014

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Jon

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.

Apple Splits

The Apple earnings call always gets a lot of press. Apple is newsworthy when people expect to hear something new. As usual Apple didn’t disappoint the media. As for shareholders…

Among the big news was a 7 for 1 stock split announcement. What everyone wanted to hear, new product announcements, didn’t happen. Continue Reading…
Do You Know Who Your Beneficiary Is?

April 24, 2014

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Jon

A beneficiary review should be on your yearly financial to-do list. When you get life insurance or start a new retirement account, filling out the beneficiary designation is part of the process. It lets the company know where that money goes when you’re gone. But is that name you wrote down years ago still the person you want as a beneficiary? If not, the wrong person will get your money.

I recently got my monthly IRA statement from TD Ameritrade. Part of the email was a simple question that asked “Is your IRA beneficiary up-to-date?”.

Good question.

I wasn’t slacking on keeping it updated, since I haven’t had a reason to change it. But keeping track of it certainly wasn’t a priority either. Continue Reading…