Home - HumbleDollar

How much to provide a college student monthly?

Chris | Apr 25, 2026

"I should have thought about waiting! Excellent idea. Maybe she will get a summer job. Better if she can assume some responsibility for her spending. I can always help out if she needs the help. Thanks for the insight."

- Marilyn Lavin

A Life You Build

Jeff Peck | Apr 19, 2026

"Truly a great story. Thanks for sharing. I didn't benefit from the same things you did, but my grocery store manager father was Dave Ramsay before Dave Ramsay was Dave Ramsay. Would never get a credit card. Paid for cars by saving up for them. Paid off his house in 11 years. Bought utility stocks as they paid a dividend. I learned early on important all that was and though I have had credit cards I pay them off every month and until recently (70) I was always saving and investing."

- Pete Tittl

Live a little

greg_j_tomamichel | Apr 25, 2026

"Then enjoy your smuggled popcorn."

- Gary Klotz

Rethinking the “Right” Time for Social Security

Andrew Clements | Apr 23, 2026

"Another great HD contribution--thanks for this."

- Kristine Hayes

Investing Fundamentals: A Simple Guide for Beginners

William Housley | Apr 24, 2026

"Great article! This should be mandatory reading for young people."

- Kristine Hayes

Lonely Island (Correct Edit)

Mark Crothers | Apr 22, 2026

"Bob, what a great post!"

- DAN SMITH

Around the Obstacles

ArticleDan Smith | Apr 25, 2026

I WAS 48 years old when the judgement was final and the papers were signed. My former wife and I split our net worth 50/50. There were no arguments over household items like furniture; I didn’t care about that stuff. Pam gladly accepted my proposal that she keep the house, and all its equity, in exchange for me keeping an offsetting amount of the IRAs and my 401(k), a very good move for my future self. By giving up the house, I also escaped the mortgage, which was the only loan obligation I had. Had there been consumer debt (there was none), I would have eliminated that as quickly as possible, beginning with the highest interest loans. I was ordered to pay spousal support to age 65, or my retirement if I worked beyond 65. I would be lying if I told you that I liked paying alimony. Still, it wasn’t unfair considering our age at divorce, Pam’s depression, and the fact that she mostly stayed at home to raise our kids. Long before the divorce was ever final, I knew I’d have to make up for lost time if I ever wanted to retire in the manner to which I wanted to had become accustomed. The divorce wasn’t going to be the only obstacle I would have to overcome. Thirty years of delivering beverages resulted in osteoarthritis and plantar fasciitis; my days on the beer truck were rapidly coming to an end. I needed a plan. Where Was I? I had to understand exactly where I was, and what my options were.

My continued employment as a delivery driver would likely have left me on Social Security Disability (SSDI) by age 55.
I was very interested in personal finance, and knew many people in that field who would help me get my foot in the door.
I had acquired bookkeeping, payroll, and tax prep skills through my involvement with my local union, though I never pictured myself as the type to sit behind a desk, in a dimly lit office, crunching numbers beneath the glow of one of those green shade banker’s lamps.
As a last resort, I could fall back on my truck driving skills, using my commercial drivers license to get a job hauling ‘no-touch’ freight of some sort.
Last but not least, I needed a place to live. “Hello, mom and dad, I need my room back”. Sleeping on the twin mattress I gave up 25 years earlier, was not part of my plan.
I was determined not to let my occupation as a beer truck driver dictate my future job prospects.

Where did I want to be?

Where to live? Living with the folks was never meant to be a long term thing. After three months of that, I signed my first ever apartment lease as a lessee, as opposed to a lessor. That lasted two years, until a very large increase in the rent caused me to buy a duplex, and become a lessor again.
Where to work? I continued my work as a delivery driver for three more years. My position as the local union president, and my five paid weeks of vacation actually kept me off of the truck much of the time. That enabled me to tolerate the maladies that would eventually force me out of that job. Having absolutely no desire to spend the balance of my life languishing on SSDI and a minimal IRA balance, I set off on the path to becoming a financial services guy. That did not work out, and if you want more information on that, here’s a link.
To make ends meet, I turned to my last resort; driving a truck. Piloting an 18-wheeler was not how I envisioned my remaining working days. And although the freight was ‘no touch’, driving 600 miles every day in a Kenworth tractor is still pretty hard on your vertebrae. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do to survive and to keep your eye on your finish line. My heart goes out to full time drivers, that job is no walk in the park.
And what about love? My preference was to be in a relationship, but not any relationship. I wanted a good partner, I wanted to be a good partner as well. What qualities would I look for in a new partner? Independent, established, confident, and nice. Was I asking too much?

Making it All Work Finally, preparation collided with opportunity. In other words, I got lucky. Remember when I told you I didn’t picture myself as ever being a bean-counter? Two established financial services guys set me up with free office space and began funneling tax prep clients to me. What began with me preparing taxes for about three dozen of my union brothers, instantly turned into over 100 clients. There I was, a bean counter of sorts. I kept that truck driving job for several more years. And remember that duplex I bought after the rent spiked at my apartment? Well, there was this girl living next door. Enter Chrissy. We became best friends. She is no longer my neighbor. She is now my spouse. Of course, at the time we met, aside from being a nice guy, I wasn’t much of a catch. Man, she took a chance on me. As my client count went up, my days driving the big-rig went down. When the client count got to about 400, I retired forever from driving. No more trips to Chicago, Des Moines, Snow Shoe PA, or Jersey City. Chrissy and I began pounding 40% of our gross pay into savings. It would take until I was 70, but working together, we got to a place each of us only dreamed we would be. By living within our means, and keeping lifestyle creep to a minimum, we surpassed our goals. Chris retired at 64 and helped me during my final three years as a tax preparer. Lucky for me, Federal Wage and Hour never found out that I violated the minimum wage laws by never paying her in the first place. I sold the practice at age 70. I prepared 650 tax returns in my final year. It’s important to note that during our journey, we did not starve ourselves of food nor fun. We counted 27 trips during our first ten years together. Chris was great at finding great deals to various destinations in the Caribbean, and we turned several of her business trips into mini vacations as well. It’s important to prepare for the future, but have some fun along the way as well. I hope this piece inspires someone who is still on the road, dealing with similar obstacles, and wondering if there was a way around them. For 30 years, Dan Smith was a driver-salesman and local union representative, before building a successful income-tax practice in Toledo, Ohio. He retired in 2022. Dan has two beautiful daughters, two loving sons-in-law and seven grandchildren. He and Chris, the love of his life, have been together for two great decades and counting. Check out Dan's earlier articles.

The great COLA debate-maybe not the expected solution.

R Quinn | Apr 26, 2026

"FYI The current projected 2027 COLA is 2.8% to 3% to be determined by CPI data for July, August and September 2026."

- R Quinn

Why I use a Donor-Advised Fund

David S | Feb 21, 2026

"Great article. I also took SS at 67 (or maybe 68) - the "lost" dollars either way seemed to be insignificant and I didn't have to tap my investments the first few years (which then promptly grew tremendously with the market run-up.) I'm a big fan of blended solutions in lots of areas. I'm known in my family for that. For example, no 100% cotton or polyester shirts - I need a blended fabric of both. I've thought about a blend here, but I'm not yet sure it works. The article makes me reconsider. I'll noodle some more. Thanks."

- Martin McCue

Tax Free Income Trap, Dealing With MAGI

DAN SMITH | Apr 21, 2026

"[Comment deleted because I thought better of it.... need more coffee before posting....]"

- urbie53ca4a2392

Hidden Surcharge

DAN SMITH | Apr 21, 2026

"There was a time when the top rate was 70% and those writing the tax laws brought that down to 37%. But government spending never came down. The tools to collect just changed. I see a strange parallel to retirement, the sources of income change and life goes on."

- Mark Eckman

Something to Think About

David Lancaster | Mar 24, 2026

"It seems like you’re trying to time the market on your conversion? My understanding is that you have to be right on both sides of that trade. Even if it’s a Roth conversion."

- William Housley

Driving Prices

ArticleAdam M. Grossman | Apr 25, 2026

IN 2020, ELECTRIC car maker Lucid Motors brought in revenue of $4 million. Five years later, sales had risen impressively, to more than $1 billion. In 2025 alone, sales grew 68%. That sounds like a success story, and through that lens, it is. And yet, over that same period, the company’s stock dropped more than 89%. What happened? A better question is: What didn’t happen? Despite growing sales, the company has struggled to turn a profit. On sales of $1.3 billion last year, Lucid posted a loss of $3.8 billion. It’s experienced production problems and management turnover. It’s seen its competitors cut prices. As a result, it’s been forced to issue new shares, thus diluting the value of existing investors’ holdings, just to keep the lights on. In fairness to Lucid, the road to success is rarely a straight line. Arizona State University professor Hendrik Bessembinder studies the performance of public companies, and the results are sobering. In new research, he found that, over the past 100 years, the median return among stocks trading on U.S. exchanges was negative 6.9%. Only a minority of stocks, in other words, made any money at all. Why are these results so dismal? Four factors stand out. The first is emotion—specifically, investors’ emotions. After Lucid went public in late-2020, its stock began rising quickly, and in the early months of 2021, the shares gained nearly 500%. What was driving those gains? Since the company was just starting production, very little can be attributed to the company’s financial results. Instead, it was simply investor excitement around the electric vehicle market and the optimistic view that Lucid would become the next Tesla. But no sooner did the stock rise that it fell again. And in the years since, it’s been an overwhelmingly downward slide for investors. In the last interview he gave before he died in 1976, Benjamin Graham compared the stock market to a seesaw. “The present optimism is going to be overdone and the next pessimism will be overdone.” And that causes stocks to go to extremes. Fifty years later, Graham’s observation seems no less accurate. Indeed, investment manager Cliff Asness has argued that, because of the internet, the impact of emotions on the market is even worse today. Due to what he calls “the less-efficient market hypothesis,” inaccurate information can spread much more quickly today than it did in the past. You may recall the phenomenon in which a group of day traders, led by a YouTube personality who called himself Roaring Kitty, was able to drive up the stock of a nearly-bankrupt company for no rational reason. That couldn’t have happened in the years before social media. Another factor that can drive stock prices is government action, and this also explains part of Lucid’s slide. When the government ended tax credits on electric vehicles last year, that made electric cars much more expensive for consumers. And contrary to intuition, this year’s higher gas prices haven’t done much to entice buyers back to EVs. On the other hand, government action can sometimes be positive. In 2017, for example, Congress voted to cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, significantly boosting public company profits. Perhaps the most obvious factor that can drive stock prices is competition. This can take a few different forms. Coke and Pepsi, for example, have been battling for more than 100 years, but their relative positions don’t change very much. At this point, neither company is going to go out of business as a result of the other. In his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, the late Clayton Christensen described a much more disruptive form of competition—the sort that upends industries entirely, such as when 19-year-old Bill Gates outsmarted IBM. At the time, IBM was the most dominant company in the computer industry, but over time its position faded. It underestimated how important personal computers would become and didn’t take the market seriously. Years later, it ended up selling off its PC business entirely, and today makes very little hardware. The same sort of thing happened to BlackBerry, to Kodak and to Polaroid, among others. Like IBM, all of these companies had enormous resources. But, according to Christensen, it was their success that became their greatest weakness, because it caused them to underestimate threats and to downplay the likelihood that anything fundamental might ever change. Ken Olson, the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, a leader in minicomputers in the 1960s and 1970s, famously asserted, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” The tricky aspect of the innovator’s dilemma, though, is that it isn’t universal. Consider the early years of the auto industry. Before automobiles gained popularity in the early 1900s, it’s estimated that there were 4,000 companies in the horse-and-carriage business. The right move for any of these companies would have been to try to transition into automobile manufacturing. Carriage makers, especially, had relevant skills and were best positioned to make this leap. But they adopted a collective mindset that the automobile wasn’t going to succeed, dismissing cars as “devil wagons.” But one of these carriage makers, Studebaker, did correctly assess where things were going and successfully transitioned to making automobiles. The rest failed, faded away or switched into other businesses. Companies, in other words, can be very good at one thing but lose their footing in the face of change. That’s a key factor behind Bessembinder’s findings. A final factor that can cause companies to stumble: random events. Consider, for example, what occurred in Thailand in 2011. Heavy rainfall resulted in flooding that caused large industrial areas to become submerged. This included the factories of hard drive manufacturers Western Digital and Seagate, causing their stocks to drop 35% and 45%, respectively. Both recovered, but this is an example of how even good companies can run into bad luck. Years of research has shown how difficult it is to predict stock prices. Bessembinder’s new work, however, makes an additional important point, which is that, for all of the reasons discussed here, and likely others, stocks face many more roads to potential demise than to success. Thus, to succeed at stock-picking doesn’t just require research and hard work. It requires an almost prophetic ability to identify the tiny handful of stocks that will turn into homeruns. But since the odds are so steeply against success, that’s a key reason I see it as so important to stick with the simpler and less risky alternative of index funds. Adam M. Grossman is the founder of Mayport, a fixed-fee wealth management firm. Sign up for Adam's Daily Ideas email, follow him on X @AdamMGrossman and check out his earlier articles.

How much to provide a college student monthly?

Chris | Apr 25, 2026

- Marilyn Lavin

A Life You Build

Jeff Peck | Apr 19, 2026

- Pete Tittl

Live a little

greg_j_tomamichel | Apr 25, 2026

"Then enjoy your smuggled popcorn."

- Gary Klotz

Rethinking the “Right” Time for Social Security

Andrew Clements | Apr 23, 2026

"Another great HD contribution--thanks for this."

- Kristine Hayes

Investing Fundamentals: A Simple Guide for Beginners

William Housley | Apr 24, 2026

"Great article! This should be mandatory reading for young people."

- Kristine Hayes

Lonely Island (Correct Edit)

Mark Crothers | Apr 22, 2026

"Bob, what a great post!"

- DAN SMITH

Around the Obstacles

ArticleDan Smith | Apr 25, 2026

My continued employment as a delivery driver would likely have left me on Social Security Disability (SSDI) by age 55.
I was very interested in personal finance, and knew many people in that field who would help me get my foot in the door.
I had acquired bookkeeping, payroll, and tax prep skills through my involvement with my local union, though I never pictured myself as the type to sit behind a desk, in a dimly lit office, crunching numbers beneath the glow of one of those green shade banker’s lamps.
As a last resort, I could fall back on my truck driving skills, using my commercial drivers license to get a job hauling ‘no-touch’ freight of some sort.
Last but not least, I needed a place to live. “Hello, mom and dad, I need my room back”. Sleeping on the twin mattress I gave up 25 years earlier, was not part of my plan.
I was determined not to let my occupation as a beer truck driver dictate my future job prospects.

Where did I want to be?

Where to live? Living with the folks was never meant to be a long term thing. After three months of that, I signed my first ever apartment lease as a lessee, as opposed to a lessor. That lasted two years, until a very large increase in the rent caused me to buy a duplex, and become a lessor again.
Where to work? I continued my work as a delivery driver for three more years. My position as the local union president, and my five paid weeks of vacation actually kept me off of the truck much of the time. That enabled me to tolerate the maladies that would eventually force me out of that job. Having absolutely no desire to spend the balance of my life languishing on SSDI and a minimal IRA balance, I set off on the path to becoming a financial services guy. That did not work out, and if you want more information on that, here’s a link.
To make ends meet, I turned to my last resort; driving a truck. Piloting an 18-wheeler was not how I envisioned my remaining working days. And although the freight was ‘no touch’, driving 600 miles every day in a Kenworth tractor is still pretty hard on your vertebrae. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do to survive and to keep your eye on your finish line. My heart goes out to full time drivers, that job is no walk in the park.
And what about love? My preference was to be in a relationship, but not any relationship. I wanted a good partner, I wanted to be a good partner as well. What qualities would I look for in a new partner? Independent, established, confident, and nice. Was I asking too much?

The great COLA debate-maybe not the expected solution.

R Quinn | Apr 26, 2026

"FYI The current projected 2027 COLA is 2.8% to 3% to be determined by CPI data for July, August and September 2026."

- R Quinn

Why I use a Donor-Advised Fund

David S | Feb 21, 2026

- Martin McCue

Driving Prices

ArticleAdam M. Grossman | Apr 25, 2026

Manifesto

Apr 26, 2026

NO. 26: WE SHOULD strive to spend our days as we wish—by using our dollars to escape today’s chores that we dislike, while also saving for the ultimate prize: full financial freedom.

humans

Apr 26, 2026

NO. 32: WE REVISE our memories to make ourselves look better. Suppose we believe we’re smart at managing money, but then we panic during a market decline. The result can be the uneasy feeling known as “cognitive dissonance.” To escape our discomfort, we might revise our memory—and decide we stood our ground and perhaps even bought more.

think

Apr 25, 2026

TIME DIVERSIFICATION. Investors with long time horizons are encouraged to buy stocks. Yet such “time diversification” is controversial: While most of us assume the stock market is mean reverting—meaning good times follow bad—academics have argued that, if stock returns are random, healthy returns aren’t a sure thing, no matter how long we hang on.

act

Apr 25, 2026

GET A FREE CREDIT score. You can learn your score at websites such as Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, NerdWallet and WalletHub. Credit scores are also available from financial firms like Capital One and Chase, even if you aren’t currently one of their customers. Not all these sites will tell you your FICO score—the most widely used scoring system.

Money Guide

Manifesto

Apr 26, 2026

NO. 26: WE SHOULD strive to spend our days as we wish—by using our dollars to escape today’s chores that we dislike, while also saving for the ultimate prize: full financial freedom.

Spotlight: Careers

Coast FIRE! Who would have thought that FIRE could have so many flavors?

Scott Dichter | Jul 9, 2025

Coast Fire by Jason Kitces
Coast Fire sounds like a logical evolution of the FIRE (financial independence-retire early) idea. Not everyone thinks ending work is the greatest idea, but a lot of people might prefer less demanding jobs, such that they can both work and enjoy a lower stress life.
When I look at the technology and tools available to help people organize their personal finance and take over their lives I’m truly envious.

Is Remembered for…..

Andrew Forsythe | May 23, 2025

I’ve been retired from the practice of law since 2017, but I still receive the State Bar of Texas monthly magazine, The Texas Bar Journal. Towards the end of each issue is the Memorials section which contains obits for our fallen brothers and sisters of the bar. (There are a lot more brothers than sisters listed since most of the departed are older types who came of age when there was a much larger skew towards men in the legal profession.)
The obits are brief and contain the basic information such as city of practice,

Clumsy With People

Edmund Marsh | Jul 11, 2024

SOME PEOPLE ARE BORN clumsy. Tools never seem to fit their hands. Their hammer finds a thumb more often than a nail. For them, running looks and feels like an ungainly, uphill battle—even on level ground.
I don’t claim to be physically gifted. But my clumsiness shows up in a different way. I have a notable social deficiency: I’m naturally clumsy with people. Why is this important? It defined the first quarter-century of my life,

Navigating a Turbulent Career

Richard Connor | Apr 18, 2026

A RECENT article by Adam Grossman relayed an interesting story of the 2015 merger of Kraft and Heinz. One of the aspects that made this merger unique was the involvement of Warren Buffet. Adam’s story is a cautionary tale for investors – research shows that, more often than not, the hoped-for corporate synergies and growth are elusive. The story provides more evidence for the benefits of indexing to investors.
There is, however, another side to this story that is very important to an individual’s personal financial life.

A Crisis of Competence?

Ken Cutler | Aug 8, 2024

Do you think we are moving toward a competency crisis in this country? I told this story in a comment on an article a few months back:
“Seven years ago, I bought a 2005 Outback. Despite the pink slip being clearly written by the dealer, the title came back with ‘Culter’ as my last name. I went to AAA for advice and they filled out a correction form for me. The title was revised to read ‘Renneth Culter’.

Running Away from Home (Again)

steve abramowitz | Aug 22, 2024

Writing has always been my friend. Now uncertain about the direction to take it, I’ve been feeling a little lost. I became aware of this when Alberta discovered my high school yearbook while searching for papers she needed for a book chapter she was preparing.
It had been sixty years since I last opened the white book with “Hewlett High School Class of 1963” imprinted in dark blue across the cover. Slowly turning the pages, I became nostalgic reading the comments friends made alongside their postage stamp pictures.

Set Up to Succeed

Matt C. White | Feb 25, 2022

LOOKING TO IMPROVE your physical and financial health? You might have heard similar sounding advice: All you have to do is burn more calories than you consume—and to spend less than you make. While there's an element of truth to both platitudes, I don't find either helpful. There's a psychological canyon between such abstract ideas and putting them into practice. One thing experience has taught me: If I’m authentically stirred to want to do something, I'll go miles further than if obligation is my only motivation. I also need to come to terms with my own weakness. Willpower and determination can only take me so far. I need help to get where I want to go. After years of floundering, I’ve now been working out five times a week for more than a year. What changed? I finally got honest about my own limitations. My wife Sarah and I found a virtual fitness group with daily video workouts. We don't have to pack a gym bag or drive to a class. There's no need to arrange childcare. The workout routine is prepared for us. We just watch and imitate. We keep each other accountable, and we find encouragement in talking with friends in the group. It's become a therapeutic way to start our day together before the kids get up. What fascinated me about my workout experience: When I humbled myself and accepted help—when I bowled with the gutter guards up and gave myself a chance—it began to change me from the inside out. I began to want to work out, and I began to want to eat better, too. I’ve gone further than I ever thought I would. I've found that the same principle applies to my financial health. When I get truly excited about achieving a financial goal—like…

Read That Statement

Matt C. White | Jul 21, 2022

HAVE YOU HEARD that you shouldn’t check your 401(k) at times like this? Market volatility can wreak havoc not only with our account balances, but also with our decision-making. Ignoring our 401(k) statements might help us stick with our long-term investment plan. True as that may be, there’s a good reason to peek at your second-quarter statement: to see if you can find a new feature—the lifetime income illustration. It was mandated by Congress as part of the 2019 SECURE Act, but it’s only now showing up on many 401(k) statements. Here are three points to help you make sense of the new feature: Snapshot. These are the monthly payments that your 401(k) could potentially fund if you annuitized the balance as of the statement date—nothing more and nothing less. Other factors can have greater sway over your eventual retirement income, such as future 401(k) contributions, market performance, inflation, how much longer you work and the assets you own outside the 401(k) plan. The estimate ignores all of this. Annuity. Where do the estimated monthly payments come from? The lifetime income illustration assumes your 401(k) account balance is turned into an annuity—with the estimated income based on a uniform set of actuarial assumptions for ages, dates, life expectancy and interest rates that may or may not be true for your situation. The illustration assumes that you’re age 67 on the statement date, which is the simulated annuity start date or, if you're older, your actual age is used in the calculation. You’ll see both a single-life annuity and a qualified joint-and-survivor annuity modeled on your statement. The payments shown are not indexed for inflation. There would be no cost-of-living adjustment, so the monthly amount would lose spending power over time. Mindset. Why did the SECURE Act mandate this new statement feature? Lawmakers…

No Help

Matt C. White | Jul 4, 2022

OUR LAST SUMMER road trip didn’t exactly go as planned. That ordeal changed my mind about an annual expense I’d been paying without much thought. I gained a new perspective—even if I did learn my lesson the hard way. On a Saturday morning last summer, Sarah and I woke our kids at 4 a.m. for a predawn drive through the mountains of East Tennessee and across the Carolinas. We were on our way to enjoy the beaches of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. For the first eight hours of our planned nine-hour trek, we all watched the trees go by in peace—a significant feat, as any parent will tell you. Then suddenly, every light on the dash began flashing incessantly. The alternator had gone bad and the car battery was failing quickly. When I stepped on the gas, the car would barely accelerate. Luckily, I saw a pizza place coming up on the right. I coasted into the parking lot. Once everyone was inside—where they could enjoy lunch and wait safely for help—I stepped out and dialed AAA. I was calling for a tow using my roadside assistance coverage. To my chagrin, four calls and four hours of waiting produced nothing more than one extended wait-time quote after another. I was told repeatedly that all AAA-affiliated tow truck drivers were busy working on other calls, and the service was doing all it could. As the afternoon wore on, I finally realized that if we ever wanted to get out of that parking lot, I’d have to arrange for help myself. First, I took an Uber to a nearby service shop to secure a loaner car before it closed for the weekend. I’d arrived just in time. I had to give a “desperate dad” speech to convince the shop to release…

A Home Run

Matt C. White | Sep 12, 2022

MY WIFE SARAH AND I recently dusted off our old Scrabble board. We reviewed the rules and were reminded of the Scrabble Bingo—the 50-point bonus awarded to a player who figures out how to play every letter tile from the tray on a single turn. Neither of us could remember ever achieving the Scrabble Bingo. That wasn’t surprising, we reasoned, because it’s rare for all the stars to align. You’d need the right combination of seven letters, the vision to see the word they can form, and the perfectly accommodating space on the board to play the long word. On top of all that, you’d need to fit with at least one other previously played letter in a crossword-like fashion. Lo and behold, that very night I did it. I used all seven of my letters to intersect perpendicularly with an open “e” on the board—forming the word “infields” and tacking the 50-point bonus onto my score. I share this story not because I think you’ll be dazzled by my Scrabble prowess any more than Sarah was, but because I want you to recognize the significance of a tax planning opportunity that may be open to you—with the kind of serendipity that reminds me of the Scrabble Bingo. The tax break I have in mind is the personal residence gain exclusion. It’s the one that allows a married couple to sell their home and completely wipe out all taxes on a gain of up to $500,000. The exclusion is $250,000 for a single individual. Let me explain how the stars are aligning right now to make this tax benefit more relevant than ever to more people than ever—and how it could deliver a tax bonanza for those looking to move. Here's the trio of remarkable conditions that are coming together:…

Time to Settle Up

Matt C. White | Apr 12, 2022

TAX DAY IS ALMOST here, and I have a feeling that some of you may be less than excited. The cash that changes hands every year around this time gets a lot of attention, but it tells an incomplete story. The size of the check you write—or the refund you’re receiving—doesn’t, by itself, say much of anything about your tax situation. Back in the days before technology made transferring money so convenient, did you ever let a tab run both ways with a friend? Perhaps you were traveling and decided to take turns paying for meals, and then settled up any difference at the end of the trip. Just by looking at the cash that changes hands when it’s time to settle up, you wouldn’t know whether every meal had been a pricey fine-dining experience or gas station sushi. All you would know is whether you did a good job of taking turns paying and keeping the difference low. Ditto for your tax refund or the sum owed. Your total tax liability is a convoluted function of many factors—certainly the amount of income and the deductions that reduce it, but also the types of income, the corresponding tax rates that apply, and the credits that reduce your tax bill dollar for dollar. In many cases, the applicability of these factors depends on your income level—because some of them gradually phase in or out. The big question is, how well have you been taking turns paying throughout the year with your friend, the IRS? How did you complete your Form W-4 Employee’s Withholding Certificate? How much withholding did you have on retirement plan withdrawals or annuity payments? If you had income from investments, asset sales or self-employment, did you make quarterly estimated tax payments and, if so, how much? It’s tempting…

Christmas All Year

Matt C. White | Dec 24, 2021

I GAVE THE BEST PEP talk I could muster, but it didn’t help. Our family of four entered Walmart in solidarity, planning to buy gifts to fill an Operation Christmas Child shoebox. Two of us left early in disarray. I had to wrestle my screaming two-year-old all the way to the car because she knew only one way to approach the toy department—with herself in mind. Eliza melted down over her refusal to part with a cheap plastic toy. As much as we romanticize the idea of giving, it seems we have a hard time actually doing it. A growing body of research shows that giving does more for us than spending. It sparks various psychological and physiological benefits, including pleasure, greater sustained happiness and decreased likelihood of depression. What’s peculiar about such findings is that, even though most of us aren’t surprised to hear that giving makes us happier, we still default to the opposite behavior—and think spending on ourselves will lead to greater satisfaction. If giving doesn’t come naturally, wouldn’t it make sense to study how to get better at it? How can we get ourselves to give more? The fact is, if our aim is to maximize money’s utility for bettering our lives, then giving is the lever we need to pull. Unfortunately, I doubt that studying the research—no matter how convincing—will help much. Perhaps logic and reason could sway an open mind seeking to make an informed decision, but it’s powerless against those whose minds are already made up. In the movie Home Alone, I don’t think Kevin McCallister could have changed Harry and Marv’s ways with a detailed presentation on the benefits of giving. [xyz-ihs snippet="Holiday-Donate"] If logic won’t work, perhaps emotion can. Christmas is an emotional time. It is, after all, the season of giving.…

How much to provide a college student monthly?

A Life You Build

Live a little

Rethinking the “Right” Time for Social Security

Investing Fundamentals: A Simple Guide for Beginners

Lonely Island (Correct Edit)

Around the Obstacles

The great COLA debate-maybe not the expected solution.

Why I use a Donor-Advised Fund

Tax Free Income Trap, Dealing With MAGI

Hidden Surcharge

Something to Think About

Driving Prices

How much to provide a college student monthly?

A Life You Build

Live a little

Rethinking the “Right” Time for Social Security

Investing Fundamentals: A Simple Guide for Beginners

Lonely Island (Correct Edit)

Around the Obstacles

The great COLA debate-maybe not the expected solution.

Why I use a Donor-Advised Fund

Driving Prices

Free Newsletter

Get Educated

Manifesto

humans

think

act

Money Guide

Manifesto

Spotlight: Careers

Coast FIRE! Who would have thought that FIRE could have so many flavors?

Is Remembered for…..

Clumsy With People

Navigating a Turbulent Career

A Crisis of Competence?

Running Away from Home (Again)

Spotlight: White

Set Up to Succeed

Read That Statement

No Help

A Home Run

Time to Settle Up

Christmas All Year