Easy Change

Reflecting Back.  Tax time always is a chance for me to look back after the business of the holidays is behind me. I had a few thoughts that I figured I would jot down as I wrap up the end of this year. In short, the amount of time seems somewhat compressed. I'm surprised that when we get to March, it will be a full year of the pandemic life. Living at home, working at home, with minimal options for socialization and the like.  Mental Health seems to be taking a real hit for many people, perhaps unsurprisingly in the wake of the pandemic, all while thousands of people continue to be dying. All of that serves as a stark reminder of how lucky those of us are that are blogging about money and personal finance who have not been harshly touched by this event.  Taxes are important, but having some gratitude and reflection on the good things that have happened this year can be a good aspect of the process too. Documents On Time All that said, the tax documents arrived early this...

I'm going to Grad School! For me, in my mid-thirties was the last time I would have expected to be doing this. After over 8 years at my job, I realized that I needed to learn new technologies and also revamp my skills. One might ask why not use Coursera or some other free tools to learn new skills (and I will talk about those in a separate post). In particular there are three items that I am trying to address with grad school: 1. Name Recognition/Degree Currently I hold a Bachelor's Degree of Computer Science. Unfortunately, the school I went to is a well regarded liberal arts university where only BA degrees are offered. In my field, many people want to see a BS. And I personally understand why the difference matters. My education certainly had plenty of theory and programming, but being a liberal arts degree (a double major with a foreign language), I feel strongly that this puts me head and shoulders above many people who are poor communicators in IT, but behind those wi...

Well, I've just done some research and I am pleased about what I learned about social security. I knew that there was a downside to retiring early. The check you get for an early retirement significantly reduces the benefits that you might have received if you waited until full retirement. However, I also knew that there were rules about what you could and could get in terms of income while still collecting social security. However, I discovered that I was wrong. The limits come into play only for people who are NOT at full retirement age. If you are at full retirement age, you can earn as much as you want with no penalty. So these wierd limits only apply to people who are "younger than full retirement age during the whole year". http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10069.html And even better, investment income, capital gains, 401k and IRA distributions etc are never counted as earnings that could reduce your social security benefits. Instead, the only things tha...

One of the things that I realize as I get older is that my body will start to slow down and want to pack on extra weight. I want to stay in shape more than ever. But I refuse to be sucked in to the idea that I need to run out and spend hundreds of dollars on a gym membership . That just seems silly to me. Of course, the drinking and chinese food I had last night probably aren't helping the cause very much at all either, but starting with today, its a new year and I hope to make the most of it by improving my life. I recently went to a wake and it has reminded me quite clearly that the time we have is precious and we may never get a second chance to make our lives better. So go out and seize the moment! And a Happy New Year to everyone.

Whenever you think of the talk, you think of safe sex right? The birds and the bees? Well, when it comes to personal finance and talking to your parents, the talk is when you talk about how they plan to handle the difficult stuff like what to do when they retire and all of that. Yesterday, I gave my mom a call and she was not busy and thought it would be a good idea for me to come over and we would talk about "money stuff". So, when I got over there I was totally impressed. Without even asking, she had written out exactly what her income and expenses were. She had a paystub to show me what she is currently contributing to savings and retirement accounts and was quite at-ease about the whole thing. This made me very happy and comfortable because I know that despite some of the debt hurdles and other issues she is facing, there is a reasonable plan to deal with them. We talked about how she would handle her debt and also discussed a couple of small steps for her to do. Next tim...