Financial Update Jan 2018

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Another month, another update. A few random comments. Good Reads/Listens/Watches PBS Frontline Report called “The Retirement Gamble” on the impending retirement crisis (link). If the above link is broken, search “The Retirement Gamble” within YouTube for non-broken link. 55 minutes long, but this video should be required viewing for every American. I showed it to … Read more

Aldi vs Costco vs Walmart

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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

Financial Update Dec 2017

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Another month, another update. A few random comments. Good Reads/Listens/Watches Sebastian Thrun on Machine Learning & AI. Found through “TED Talks Daily” Podcast. Youtube link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_QrGglKG64. Sebastian is optimistic on the future of AI unlike many others. I liked the following quote: “Today 75% of us work in offices and do repetitive things. We’ve become … Read more

Not itemizing next year? Make your Jan 1 mortgage payment by Dec 31

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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

Model of New Tax Plan (House + Senate Compromise)

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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