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Well, that happened pretty fast. My Coronavirus Stimulus 2.0 hit my Fidelity (which has lightening fast ACH processing times) account this morning. If you don’t bank with Fidelity, presumably this will hit your account tomorrow?   Here’s what I understand about the new stimulus: $600/adult + $600/kid if aged 16 or younger. 5% phase out … Read more

The Not-Terribly-Astute Observation I frequently marvel at the grand 401k experiment that we’re embarking on. In the absence of pension funds, all of us with 401k’s are pension fund managers. As such, our future livelihoods depends on: Having the discipline to save early and often by forgoing consumption now Understanding how to leverage the US … Read more

Frustrating (but Important) Committee Work I was asked by my university to serve on a committee to help select “an expert consultant” to tell us what is wrong with our 401a/403b/457 plans. If you haven’t had the joy of serving on an administrative university committee before, you’re missing out. It’s about 10 times more inefficient/frustrating … Read more

I tend to check out a lot of books from the library. Here’s a list I currently have on my shelf. I want to love reading books, but I find it hard to finish them because: It seems to me that most books could & should be summed up in a couple of bullet points. … Read more

Unless you have been sleeping under a rock for the past decade or two, you may have noticed that interest rates have fallen quite a bit. This is manifest in a few obvious places: the interest rates available to investors (e.g. bond yields) and the rates at which borrowers can borrow (e.g. mortgage rates). Below … Read more

A friend of mine who reads this blog emailed me recently for advice about about tax loss harvesting (abbreviated TLH in this article). The allure and promise of TLH, to pay less in taxes, is indeed sexy. Who doesn’t like this promise? TLH is one of the major supposed value-adds of robo-advisors like Wealthfront and … Read more