I think I may have found another good one. A few weeks ago when I laid out my ultimate plan for becoming financially independent, I thought I had really done a pretty good job of optimizing every single angle of my retirement savings options. My 401k. My IRA. Is there anything else I’m possibly missing where I could find even MORE tax-deferred savings? Apparently there is! And as it turns out it has a lot to do with this blog. So all of my blogging friends or people earning any kind of side income may want to listen up … … [Read more...] about Did I Just Find Another Great Retirement Saving Strategy? Understanding the SEP IRA Rules
Personal Finance
Putting Your Hobbies on Hold
The following post is a guest contribution from Jefferson at See Debt Run. If you would like to write for My Money Design, please feel free to contact me. People often ask us about the sacrifices that my family had to make when we were paying off over $20,000 in credit card debt. I usually respond by telling them about how we cancelled vacations, stopped eating out, and figured out ways to slash our utility bills. We also found ourselves having to get creative to find ways to spend our free time that didn't involve spending any money. Even many of our traditional hobbies that we used to pour ourselves into in our free time were no longer an option for us. With so much of our cash flow tied up in your repayment efforts, there was … [Read more...] about Putting Your Hobbies on Hold
You’re Going to Need A LOT More Emergency Cash – Bad Things Will Happen!
If you’re one of these people who walk around in a cloud of optimism thinking that nothing bad will ever happen to them, and that a safety net of $1,000 or so should suffice, I’ve got some bad news for you… You’re going to need A LOT more emergency cash. And I mean A LOT more than you think! Let me tell you what happened to us over the Christmas break. It’s a pretty funny story – funny for you to hear, but not funny to me at the time. All I can say is start saving! You never know when something like this is going to happen. But its inevitable that it will! Here’s my story… What Happened? On the last day of work before our official Christmas break started, I drove my wife’s GMC and noticed some pretty weird … [Read more...] about You’re Going to Need A LOT More Emergency Cash – Bad Things Will Happen!
How to Take a Vacation on a Budget without Breaking the Bank
The following is a post by David Bosier, a personal finance and money saving enthusiast with a background in the S&L industry. If you would like to write for My Money Design, please feel free to contact me. There’s nothing better than getting ready to go vacation. Soon you’ll have nothing to do but relax, play, eat, sleep, and explore. If you haven’t taken one in a long time, I can guess the reason why: Money! Hotels and airfare can add up really quickly. However, little do people know that it is actually pretty easy to take a vacation on a budget without spending an arm and leg. The trick is all in knowing where to find all those great extras and then using them to your advantage. How to Plan a Vacation on a … [Read more...] about How to Take a Vacation on a Budget without Breaking the Bank
Traditional vs Roth 401k – Is the Roth Really the Better Deal? Maybe Not!
Check this out. Recently my employer made a big announcement to our 401k plan: We now have the choice to save our money under a Roth option if we want to! If you already have a Roth IRA, then you’re probably already familiar with how this would work. As a quick refresher, the Roth option basically means that: Your contributions to the 401k will be invested using after tax money (i.e. you’ll pay your taxes now rather than later) Your money still grows tax free just like it did in a regular 401k When you finally retire, you DON’T pay any taxes. When you weigh a traditional vs Roth 401k, the Roth is considered to be a good thing for you and your money for a lot of reasons. By paying your taxes now, you’ll enjoy a tax free … [Read more...] about Traditional vs Roth 401k – Is the Roth Really the Better Deal? Maybe Not!
My ULTIMATE Plan for Becoming Financially Independent – December 2013 Update
For weeks I’ve been hinting at it, and at last I’ve finally put it all together! The end of the year and the beginning of the new one is the perfect time to sit down and revise your goals. So what better time than now to publish the latest edition of my ultimate plan for becoming financially independent! This is not a retirement plan you will find anywhere else. How can I make such a bold claim? Because my plan for financial independence does what no other plan on the web does – use real numbers to show just exactly how much money I plan to generate and how I will get there! … [Read more...] about My ULTIMATE Plan for Becoming Financially Independent – December 2013 Update
Tax Deferred vs Taxable Retirement Income Strategies, Take 2 – A Much More Substantial Difference!
One of the great things about running a personal finance blog like mine is that sometimes you think you’re right about something. So you publish it. And then you find out very quickly from your audience that you could have done a much better job! Just before Halloween, I published what started out as my valiant attempt to challenge the belief that investing in a 401k plan is the better of the retirement income strategies when you compare it to a regular taxable stock-based account. In case you haven’t read it yet, please feel free to check it out here. While I thought I had put forth a good effort, I was humbly delighted to receive a number of comments that pointed out several flaws with several of the assumptions I used to reach … [Read more...] about Tax Deferred vs Taxable Retirement Income Strategies, Take 2 – A Much More Substantial Difference!
You Got That Bad Investment Planning Advice From Dave Ramsey?
As much as we’d like to think that personal finance is a perfect science, it simply isn’t. To some degree there is an extent of art and skill that has to be applied. You have to look at certain metrics, past returns, and other intangibles to make some educated decisions about your investment planning prospects. At times the process can be very subjective. And when things are subjective, that can open us to being misguided or wasting time going down the wrong path. So if that were to happen, you would usually expect that kind of bad advice to come from some two-bit financial planner who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Or it would come from someone pushing his own agenda. But would you have ever expected bad investment advice … [Read more...] about You Got That Bad Investment Planning Advice From Dave Ramsey?
