Author: kfisch

Filing Taxes for Free with FreeTaxUSA

I wrote last year about asking around about alternatives to TurboTax and someone suggested FreeTaxUSA. After reading some reviews, it looked very promising but, since I had already filed my taxes for last year, I didn't have personal experience with it. Well, now I do, and I highly recommend giving it a try. For me, … Continue reading Filing Taxes for Free with FreeTaxUSA →

A Penny Saved is 1.62 Pennies Earned

Joseph-Siffrède Duplessis (French, 1725-1802) | The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The saying “A penny saved is a penny earned” is attributed to Benjamin Franklin (although the exact quote from Poor Richard’s Almanack is slightly different). With due respect to Mr. Franklin, this saying is not quite accurate. For many teachers in Colorado, for example, … Continue reading A Penny Saved is 1.62 Pennies Earned →

How to Help Your Savings Keep Up with Inflation

Most people have a savings account. Sometimes folks have that savings split into different "buckets", perhaps money set aside for future specific purchases (a car, a new furnace), for contingencies (car repairs, an appliance breaks), or more generally as "emergency savings". By its nature, "savings" is different than "investments", because you generally want to take … Continue reading How to Help Your Savings Keep Up with Inflation →

How to Make $2,000 in 30 minutes (For Real)

Yes, it's a clickbaity headline, but it's accurate. If you ask most people if they would take a job that offered to pay them $4,000 an hour, they would most likely say yes (assuming it wasn't dangerous, illegal, or against their principles). If you followed that up with the condition that the total duration of … Continue reading How to Make $2,000 in 30 minutes (For Real) →

Time to Buy! Buy! Buy! (Service Credit)

Many pension plans allow members to purchase service credit. This may be counterintuitive for some folks, but many plans allow you to "buy" years where you didn't work under the pension system and then treat those years as if you had. This typically both increases your ultimate pension benefit and often can allow you to … Continue reading Time to Buy! Buy! Buy! (Service Credit) →