Personal Finance Advice

By David John Marotta and Beth Anderson Nedelisky The average college student graduates with almost $20,000 in student loans. While this is a daunting sum, it is still possible to build wealth even while paying off student debt. But earning the degree and paying for the degree require two different kinds of smarts. In fact, [...]

By David John Marotta Putting all of your retirement eggs in one basket is easy to carry, but risky. Most workers are putting all their retirement assets in the basket of their employer’s retirement plan. They are depending on one employer and two dozen eggs (funds) to hatch and maintain their lifestyle, independence and dignity [...]

By David John Marotta and Beth Anderson Nedelisky Income-shifting is one of several tax planning tools families have used to lower their tax bill. Historically, parents could save a bundle by transferring highly appreciated investments to their children who are in lower tax brackets. However, this year, Congress has made income-shifting a dream of the [...]

A few weeks ago, I discovered a hardware store receipt among some papers my in-laws had given us. Because my father-in-law works in maintenance, I called them to see if he needed the receipt for reimbursement from his job. No, my mother-in-law told me, it wasn’t a work expense; it was the receipt for their [...]

You’ve probably heard before that it doesn’t always make sense for both adults in a household to work because the second spouse’s income is all taxed at the marginal rate. When childcare costs are factored in, there can be little-to-no financial motivation for both parents to work. But did you know that taking a full-time [...]

I think almost every week I hear someone who makes over $70k a year mention their wonderful student loan interest tax deduction. It’s time to take a few minutes to educate the masses about the student loan interest. Plain and simple, if you make a good wage you will not qualify for the student loan [...]

There is a story making it’s way around about a waitress that received a $10,000 tip and what a wonderful gesture it was. No doubt about it, except that because of the way it was given, the waitress is going to have to pay taxes to the IRS for it. Granted, if the person giving [...]

Something has been bugging me about IRAs lately. Most of the time I read an article or discussion about Traditional IRAs, as opposed to ROTH IRAs, I see that it is a pretty common assumption that income tax rates will be lower when one retires. Every time I see any mention of tax rates most [...]

Here’s a question. You don’t have a whole lot of money and I want you to save more. So I create a plan where for every dollar you save, I will take away $2.60 worth of benefits from you. How likely are you to want to save money? That is exactly what a new study [...]

The state of California recently reviewed a sample of state tax returns which claimed large mortgage interest deductions and found that 75% of the tax returns had claimed excessive interest deductions. There are rules that limit how much interest you can deduct for your mortgage and other monies borrowed against your house. However, historically, only [...]

On May 25, President Bush signed a bill that included a minimum wage increase as well as a few tax provisions. Federal Minimum Wage Increased: The federal minimum wage will increase to $7.25/ hour over the next two years. The federal minimum wage has been at $5.15/hour since 1997. Under the new law, it will [...]

A huge financial challenge which many working couples face is the cost of child care. If the only reason that both parents are working is for the extra money the second income provides, you may want to take some time to see if the second income is really providing as much money to the family [...]

When it’s time to leave a job you have more than the loss of income to think about in regard to your personal finances. You also need decide what you will do with the accumulated money in retirement plans at the company. That is a question that this reader has: My wife will be retiring [...]

When talking about taxes, the issue of tax bracket often comes up and it’s an important factor in deciding what tax options are best for your situation. The problem is that the average person probably doesn’t know which tax bracket they are in. Knowing your tax bracket can be useful when trying to make decisions [...]

Some good, basic financial advice for both working and stay at home moms in this short clip from CBS News Early Show and financial advisor Ray Martin. There are a lot of working moms out there these days: approximately 70% of moms are in the workforce, but the number has been decreasing in recent years. [...]

Just when you think the tax code couldn’t get more complicated, we approach 2010, when a multitude of taxes are waived and taxpayers are given large breaks (e.g. estate taxes repealed in 2010). There is one newer tax provision, however, that I have not heard discussed much at all is very lucrative for middle income [...]

No doubt you have heard of the Two-Income Trap. I think a major issue that is often overlooked with the Two-Income Trap are taxes. I come from a situation where when it came down to having kids and wanting a spouse home, we never saw much of a loss going down to one income because [...]

I’ve been noticing a lot of confusion on the kiddie tax rules lately so figured it was time to break it down. Too many parents are deciding not to put a token amount of money in their kids’ name in fear of the “kiddie tax” when in reality this tax should only hit you if [...]

Donating appreciated stock to charity is a very common tax tool for the wealthy. When you donate stock that you have held for more than a year (through direct transfer of the stock to the charity) you get a tax deduction for the fair market value of the stock, on the date of donation. In [...]

I came across an interesting online discussion the other day, about how maxing out both a 401k and an IRA was simply a lot of over-saving. The discussion was based on some article about a single adult male who maxed out his 401ks and IRAs every year, and had another $1200/month to invest. His income [...]