Written by Scott Barnes on May 15, 2012.
Roth IRAs are one of the greatest wealth vehicles that has been made available to the average person in decades. By using after tax dollars to make your contributions, your growth and earnings are not taxed when you withdraw them after age 59 1/2!
Roth IRAs are similar to traditional IRAs, but with three major differences:
- All Roth IRA contributions are made with after-tax dollars.
- Investments in Roth IRAs grow tax-free and are not subject to tax upon withdrawal.
- Since Roth IRA contributions are made with after-tax dollars, they don’t qualify for tax deductions.
Roth and Traditional IRAs differ in a few other significant, but more complex, ways. The following table breaks down all the important traits of Roth IRAs, including all the specific features that distinguish Roths from Traditional IRAs.
You never have to pay taxes on any investment gains or withdrawals if:
- Your account has been open for at least five years
- You withdraw at age 59 1/2 or later
- You use the money to purchase your first home
- You become disabled or die
Free trading tools. R
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Written by Scott Barnes on May 10, 2012.
Students face the big decision after completing their A-levels on whether to further their education with a University or to enter the job market. A decision that may have become ever harder for students leaving college in 2012 with course fees set to rise to £9,000. When The Graduate Recruitment Bureau conducted their poll in 2010 the majority of students voted that they felt £5K would be a reasonable fee for a three year course; however with the new costs to be implemented students will be paying £27k. Such a cost only 9% of the students questioned may be willing to pay. In the current unstable employment climate, graduate jobs are far from guaranteed.
The Guardian suggests that 15% fewer applicants have been received for courses starting September 2012. Students are now expected to leave university with a £53k debt compared to the average debt being £25k in 2010 . Furthermore the salaries at which graduates can demand is at its lowest since 2003 . The
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Written by Scott Barnes on April 13, 2012.
Supposedly, the next big thing in financial tools is automated portfolio management getting a little slice of the billions of dollars sitting in peoples IRAs using mostly computer-generated guidance and less human hand-holding. A recent discussed three start-ups in this niche: , , and . Ill look at each of them separately this week.
Personal Capital attracted me most because it first lets you become comfortable with them with a nice free Dashboard tool that aggregates all your investments in one place. Its rather like , but with more of a focus on investments and asset allocation and less on bank accounts and budgets. The idea is to provide a “holistic” view of your money by letting you see how your money is distributed across all your banks and brokerage accounts.
The tool does provide some nice charts based on your investments. The
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Written by Scott Barnes on April 8, 2012.
With the price of gasoline continuing to skyrocket (supply and demand curves are so annoying), many people may consider buying a hybrid car, but there are costs associated with hybrids that aren’t taken into account by many who walk onto the dealer’s lot. To determine the true cost of buying and maintaining a hybrid car, and to assess whether a hybrid car will actually save you money, you must take into account:
- The costs involved in buying and maintaining a hybrid
- The potential savings you’ll get from owning and driving a hybrid
Hybrid Car Costs
The costs of owning a hybrid include the initial price – sticker prices for hybrids are higher than prices of comparable conventional cars – plus a few additional expenses you’ll incur in maintaining your hybrid car.
Hybrid cars contain new, much more expensive technology – and you’ll have to pay for it up front. When buying a h
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Written by Scott Barnes on March 28, 2012.
College loan debt is considered bad, but it has reached such an awful condition that now the debt is greater than auto loans and credit card balances combined! A report was published last week in the New York Fed in which four economists analyzed consumer credit data from Equifax in order to find out the scope and health status of student loans. Their findings showed that “outstanding student loans are now about $870 billion which is a greater debt pile than credit card balances and auto loans”.
Student loan was the only major loan category growing in the middle of the last year. Credit cards and auto loans were flat to some extent. Moreover, according to researchers, with the tremendous increase in college enrollments and costs of attendance, this balance is predicted to continue its rising trend.
The Fed economists wanted to know how poorly debtors perform on paying off their loans. Additionally, they wanted to identify what type of balances people owe into their 30s and 40s. The
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Written by Scott Barnes on March 22, 2012.
WASHINGTON –In a speech on the Senate floor today, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, outlined the failures and broken promises of the unconstitutional, $2.6 trillion health spending law. This Friday, March 23rd, marks the second anniversary of the law.
“All American families will pay for this $2.6 trillion spending law one way or another,” said Hatch. “After centralizing control of the nation’s health care system in Washington, and putting our health care decisions into the hands of government bureaucrats, we will all pay for it through higher taxes, less opportunity, and diminished access to care.”
Hatch continued, “And our children will pay for it, as a nation conceived in liberty is increasingly burdened by an unsustainable national indebtedness. That is, unless the American people get the final word on this. They certainly
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Written by Scott Barnes on March 14, 2012.
I know that there was some noise when the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was released and Quicken 2007 for Mac was reported by Intuit to be incompatible with any computer running the new operation system. Next, they release Quicken Essentials for Mac which was a neutered version of Quicken which quickly angered long-time customers even more. So they promised they would rewrite it to work on OS X Lion. Cost is $15. Thanks to reader Paul for the tip.
Data migration. According to their FAQ, users can import data from Quicken 2005, 2006 or 2007 for Mac, as well as from Quicken Essentials for Mac. File conversion is not possible for Quicken 2004 for Mac and prior versions.
So now you can pay more to use their 5-year old software, hurray! I still think its pretty clear that Intuit isnt going to spend too much more effort improving Quicken, instead they are spending more money on which is online and free to users (ad-supported). Has anyone tried it out yet?
Written by Scott Barnes on March 7, 2012.
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know I’m a BIG fan of PerkStreet, the world’s best debit card rewards program. PerkStreet customers are able to earn fantastic rewards (perks), the best of which is CASH when they purchase the things they need using their PerkStreet MasterCard. These have to be “non-pin debit card purchases” which means you use your debit card as a credit card and signing for it rather than keying in your personal identification number (read: Why Do I get Rewarded for Non-Pin Debit Card Purchases?).
Traditionally PerkStreet customers have been able to earn 2% cash back when their balance was above $5,000 and one percent when their balance was under that. But the vast majority of customers maintain less than $5,000 so PerkStreet decided to alter their rewards program so that more rewards are given back to their customers. I think it
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