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A few months ago during the Equifax hack, I read that it was smart to freeze your credit (duh), but also to secure your Social Security Identity online. What do I mean by that? I mean create an online account at the SSA with a strong password and two step authentication so that nobody can … Read more

*** If you care to learn deeply about the tax code, I have begun writing a book which contains everything I know on the topic. The book discusses wealth accumulation strategies, of which tax minimization is a key component. The (imperfect and incomplete) draft can be downloaded here.***     Today I noticed that Turbotax … Read more

I’m filing my taxes this year through a little-known company called FreeTaxUSA that I found out about through Bogleheads. It’s free to do federal filing (including itemized transactions, investments, and self employed income). Their business model is to give free federal returns and charge $13 for state. FreeTaxUSA properly handles backdoor Roth contributions (remember to enter … Read more

Some of my favorite bloggers have written about groceries in the past: Mr Money Mustache (link) Justin at Root of Good (link) Mr Money Mustache concludes that Costco is great. Justin at Root of Good concludes that Costco is for chumps and that WalMart prevails as low cost leader (with Aldi to supplement). Justin is … Read more

Taking 5 minutes yesterday to follow this advice from the Finance Buff saved me around $300 in taxes: https://thefinancebuff.com/make-mortgage-payment-due-january-1-december.html. The higher YTD interest paid already posted in my mortgage account today after making my payment yesterday. Easily one of the simplest tax hacks I’ve ever employed. Though this tax hack is mostly targeted towards those itemizing … Read more

The House and Senate released their new plans tonight. The gory details are here in this 570 page document: http://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/JointExplanatoryStatement121517.pdf It’s really easy to model in Excel because it’s so similar to the existing tax code. Took me about 5 minutes. To me, the biggest changes are: The Rubio-encouraged refundable child tax credit (up to 1,400 … Read more