Recently, I turned 59 ½ years old. Normally a half birthday doesn’t mean much, but this year was significant because now I can take IRA distributions without an extra 10% penalty. I was tempted to do so even though I’m still working and don’t need the additional taxable income! After 3+ decades of investing money into my IRA this is an exciting landmark! There are a lot of age milestones when it comes to finances, starting in childhood. Here are some: …
Seven Years Later – Micro Investing with Acorns
Seven 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. Seven 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 …
New Tax Break for (most) Taxpayers Age 65 and Older
You may have heard about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) which was signed in to law on July 4th, 2025. Critics deem the name a misnomer calling it Ugly rather than Beautiful, but I think almost everyone agrees it is in fact Big. There are dozens of provisions. Some go into effect immediately, others are implemented in later tax years. Some provisions end in various future years, while others are “permanent”, or as permanent as anything can be when it comes to legislation. Many of my clients are retirement age, so today I will review the OBBBA provision that effects most taxpayers over 65 and begins this year. Starting in 2025 (but ending after the 2028 …
How Much Federal Income Tax Do You Actually Pay?
Taxes are always on my mind, but I suspect we will all be hearing a lot about taxes for the rest of the year. That’s because unless Congress takes action, several provisions of the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) are set to expire on December 31st, 2025. According to the Tax Foundation about 62% of tax payers will see a tax increase if the TCJA is allowed to expire. About 29% of taxpayers would see no change. Which bring me to the topic of today’s newsletter. How much Federal income tax do you *actually* pay? I believe every American should know the answer to this question. In my experience, most people don’t have any idea what they pay. In fact, take a guess as …
How Much Does your Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Actually Cost?
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) …
