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I've been searching for an answer to this everywhere but can't seem to find what I'm looking for. My wife will be retiring from teaching in July and the cost of family health insurance will be close to 12k per year out of pocket. This is in NY. We currently take the standard deduction and don't...

I found this information recently published by Sven Henrich very interesting. I wonder if the investing landscape will change from the current paradigm over the next year or two. Does this information make anyone else a little uncomfortable with the current markets? Seems like a very good...

Hospital expects the guy to pay the bill too... New Mexico man says he was anally probed 8 times after routine traffic stop - NY Daily News What country are we in again?

My brother sends me a monthly newsletter which has to do with wave patterns and social behavior, with every issue another gloom and doom prediction. I take it with a grain of salt, but I thought I should run some phrases through "Google Trends" and see if there is any increase in certain...

Been eyeing Cablevision, symbol CVC. It's currently paying over 5% dividend and it's at about the low end of it's 10 year trading range. COO recently left and went to run another cable company. If you're looking for a dividend play, would this be fairly safe for a long term buy and hold (say...

I was curious whether there are any benefits to paying off the mortgage and owning the title free and clear when it comes to selling the house and/or during the closing process? Other than saving on some interest and getting the whole check from the buyer, does being in this position offer any...

Any tax experts in the house? I'm not sure what if any tax consequences I will experience with the following maneuver, but I think I have to file a form 8606 for 2010, I'm just not sure how to fill it out. Here is a breakdown of events: April 2010 - Opened a traditional (non-deductable) IRA...

I was reading an old article from last year on early retirement that proposes saving 75% of net income if you have a goal to retire early but the extreme frugal lifestyle experienced by the author put me off a bit. It made me wonder how much my wife and I were saving as a percentage of net...

I hope there are a few tax experts who might be able to help with this question. I always do my own taxes and this year was able to take the new vehicle tax credit for a car purchased last year. I itemize deductions on both my federal and state returns. When doing my state return (NYS IT-201...

A bit dated, but found it interesting (about an hour). It focuses on our culture's assumption of continued growth... part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb3JI8F9LQQ part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyOw9IgtjY&feature=related part 4...

I was discussing various financial strategies with a coworker today and we got into talking about tax free bonds, CD laddering, mutual funds and the bucket approach to investing. We were trying to figure out how it came to be that interest from CDs and Money Market accounts are taxed at higher...

This is the spreadsheet I created this year for tracking my expenses. It's simple, but it works for me. I know a lot of forum users use Quicken or similar programs, but I found them to be too complicated for what I needed. Figured I'd post in case anyone finds useful. To update for 2008, you...

Came across this in another forum...listened to the whole thing and found it a bit alarming, but interesting nonetheless: Matrix Economy - Sat, July 28, 2007 Show (300+ Dow drop, Mortgage Resets & The Dollar Index Falling) Click on the audio link at the top for discussion on the charts...it's...

Just watched this presentation and it makes me wonder about impact of all the hedge funds out there as well as the role of the SEC: http://www.businessjive.com/nss/darkside.html Seemed thoughtfully layed out to me...anyone think this is B.S.?

I've been reading about Roth conversions and am trying to figure out if waiting for a window during the transition from working to retiring early is the best time to convert a standard IRA to a Roth. In my case, my wife will receive a generous DB pension when she turns 55, but if we decide to...

I was talking with a guy at work the other day about the Employee Stock Purchase Plan, which allows deductions from your pay check to purchase company stock at a 15% discount. The maximum amount you can contribute is $25k per year which comes to around $960 per paycheck (after tax money). The...

I received a solicitation in the mail from a company that performs tax grievance services for homeowners in my area. It contained a form to fill out regarding specifics about the property and dwelling, and also requested the homeowner SSN. I don't hand out my SSN on a whim, so I sent the company...

I just received the annual premium for my wife's whole life insurance policy that she took out 15 years ago and am thinking of dropping the insurance for a couple of reasons, the main one being that we really don't need it...or at least I don't think we do. The annual premium, which started at...

I've been looking at ways to reduce AGI, and found out today that there's a special 15 year service credit rule for those with 403(b) accounts. My wife has been contributing to her 403(b) starting just recently, but she has been working there for 15 years. I discovered that there is a special...

Besides maxing out 401k/IRA contributions, I'm trying to find a way to reduce our AGI for 2007. The AGI limits on a Roth IRA account for married filing jointly is raised to $156k, but we may be getting close to that and I don't want to go over it. What you folks do to reduce AGI when your IRA...

After thinking about the $80k mentioned in the first post, it occurred to me that a couple that I know who are both teachers on Long Island will be getting 64.5% of their final average salary after working for 33 years and retiring at age 55. They both make just shy of 100k and only have 18...

I've learned a lot from all of the discussions on this forum, especially the safe withdrawal rates and forward looking calculations based on inflation and market fluctuations, etc. Lately I've been absolutely facinated by the discussions about Peak Oil theory, mostly on this site...

Does anyone know how to carry over a capital loss from the previous year? I've been looking through the 1040 instructions and it only mentions how to apply it using schedule D, which would be filled out for capital gains/losses for the current year. I have no gains or losses for the current...

I'm dreaming of retirement.  I don't want to work till I drop.  I've been playing around with some retirement calculators, plugging in numbers and wishful retirement ages and it seems like retiring early...as in 12 years, might be possible with a little downshifting in lifestyle.  I'd appreciate...