I first wrote on this topic two years ago and decided to revisit as the numbers keep marching upward. Whenever the topic of COBRA comes up, the immediate response is always: “COBRA is expensive!” That’s true - COBRA is expensive, because health insurance is expensive!* What is COBRA? The acronym comes from the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. COBRA gives employees the right to continue their employer-sponsored group health insurance when they leave their jobs. Generally employers with 20 or more employees must offer this continuation, usually for 18 months. Between 153-180 million people in the US (a little more than half the population) …
Are Stock Market Predictions Useful?
*spoiler alert: No, they are not. As I write this on the morning of February 13th, 2025, we are almost 6 weeks into the New Year and so far the S&P 500 is up 3.12% in 2025. The S&P 500 is a group of about 500 of the largest publicly traded stocks in the United States. It includes big names we’ve all heard of such as Google, Tesla, and Apple. It also includes many companies you may not have heard of such as Idexx Laboratories. They “help pets lead fuller lives by giving veterinarians the tools, technology, and insights to see clearly and get the answers they need.” How will this group of 500 stocks do the rest of the year? I do not know, and …
Is Your Financial Life Too Complicated?
Back in the olden days, there was a Public Service Announcement on television at 10PM asking “Do you know where your children are?” Today, I have asimilar question. Do you know where your money is? If your answer is “I’m not exactly sure” or “All over the place”, then your financial life might be too complicated! “H and W” are a husband and wife I worked with years ago. H and W had a lot of accounts in a lot of places. How many accounts in how many places? Let’s take a look at a chart I created for them: They had 16 different accounts at 8 different custodians. A custodian is the institution that holds and protects your …
Six Years Later – Micro Investing with Acorns
Six years ago, I wrote about my lifelong passion (some would say obsession) for spare change. This dates back to counting the spare change and “egg money” in my grandmother’s chipped gravy boat in the 70’s. Today, this is the spare change stash in my office: But here in the 21st century, I don’t have too many cash transactions, and therefore not a lot of physical spare change. Enter the micro investing app Acorns* which invests your digital spare change. Six years ago, I signed up for Acorns and linked my checking account. The checking account is my “funding source”. Then I linked my credit card. You can link more than one card including debit cards. For …
What’s In Your IRA?
If you are a certain age, like me, you may recall a series of clever credit card commercials from Capital One asking “What’s in your wallet?” Here’s one from 2000 featuring a band of plundering Vikings. Today’squestion is similar – but instead of your wallet my question is “What’s in your IRA?” This topic was prompted by a recent WSJ Article “The 401(k) Rollover Mistake That Costs Retirement Savers Billions” Workers miss out on billions in investment gains by pulling retirement savings out of the stock market after switching jobs—often without meaning to. From the article: Workers miss out on billions in investment gains by pulling retirement savings out of the …
