Blog
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Learning to budget after my big gay divorce
I recently went through a big gay divorce, which makes for lots of great posts about finances, but hasn’t made for much emotional motivation to write about them. I’ve been healing very well, though and learning plenty of lessons on single life in the thirties with a career – and it’s quite different from the…
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Diffusion of responsibility: my accountant will tell me if it’s right or wrong
Yesterday on Marketplace, Kai Ryssdal interviewed Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist and author of Predictably Irrational about why some people are tempted to cheat on their taxes. Ariely pointed out that people who do their own taxes are less likely to cheat than if they have someone do it for them. Here’s why: It turns…
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Tax Day Round Up
“If five percent appears too small, be thankful I don’t take it all. ‘Cuz I’m the taxman, ye-ah I’m the taxman . . . and you’re working for no one but me.” ~The Beatles OMG – It’s April 15th! Have you been waking up in a cold sweat for nights on end wondering if you’ll…
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My Financial Implosion: When Expenses Exceed Income
‘œAnnual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.’ ‘“ Charles Dickens Two weeks ago, my wife’s long-term contract ended. It wasn’t entirely a surprise, as the company for whom she was working had been struggling. We’d been making…
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Charitable deductions warm you twice
One of the best tax deductions is a donation to charity. There is a saying that heating with wood warms you twice: once when you chop the wood, and once when you burn it. Similarly, a donation to charity makes you feel good for supporting a worthwhile cause, and it puts a little…
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Is your manbag insured?
Oh! Can I here the snickers and giggles now. Let’s start with a definition of a “manbag.” You can find several at Urbandictionary.com or Wikipedia but the gist of it is a bag carried by a man that has a shoulder strap. A traditional style briefcase is technically one also but what everyone calls a…
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Insurance as Foundation for Fiscal Fitness – Part 3
I know you are probably thinking ‘œenough about insurance already’ so I’ll try to make this one brief or at least combine two topics into one post. Most people know that health insurance is an absolute must in this country. But do you know why? Doctors and hospitals will treat anyone, insured or not. It…
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Experiencing the Self Storage Unit Auction
I was curious to see what was behind the door at a storage unit auction and curious about the prices that the storage units were bid up to. I also found out I’m not the only one who has experienced the ‘thrill‘ of an auction. I was determined to find one nearby so I didn’t…
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$3,000 for every man, woman and child
As usual, politics and the economy became topics of conversation after the family dinner yesterday. One of Jeanine’s relatives mentioned that the better stimulus plan would have been to give $1M to each citizen instead of the package that got signed earlier this year. Of course, nobody challenged his math. Everyone looked around the table…
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Why don’t more 401(k) plans include index funds?
This weekend, the Boston Globe had an article on a change made to 401(k) investment plans during the Bush administration. The change enabled businesses to automatically enroll employees in the retirement plan ‘” employees would have to take action to opt-out. In addition, if the individual didn’t specify how to invest the funds, they would…
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