Financial Education for Colorado Educators (and those they love). Absolutely Free.
I've been doing some financial presentations for educators in various Colorado school districts. As part of the intro to my presentation I reference the fairly typical "90-minute New Employee Orientation" that school districts often provide for new teachers and that, while these are well-intentioned, they usually fall woefully short of what they could (and should) … Continue reading New Teacher (Financial) Orientation
Last April I shared our portfolio and some of the different ways we look at it. I thought it might be nice to update it each January. That previous post has a bit more descriptive verbiage, so refer back to it if you need to. Asset Location Like many people, by necessity we have our … Continue reading Our Current Portfolio and Recent Returns
I just contacted my Colorado state representatives to ask them to consider running a couple of bills in the upcoming session of the legislature (beginning in January). Both bills regard provisions of Colorado PERA, and both would benefit PERA members without costing the state or PERA employers anything, nor would they impact PERA's funded status. … Continue reading Two Colorado PERA Bill Proposals: An Open Letter to My State Representatives
Last week Congress passed - and the President signed - the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (pdf). This is the huge omnibus spending bill that funds the government, but also includes many changes to retirement accounts that were originally knows as the Secure Act 2.0. Jeffrey Levine does his usual wonderful, incredibly in-depth job of … Continue reading Some Notable Retirement Account Changes
I’ve written before about purchasing service credit, but I wanted to dive in a bit more here. Note that the following is specific to Colorado PERA and uses Littleton Public Schools’ 2021-22 salary schedule for reference. Having said that, the same logic will generally apply to almost all pension systems, although the details will be … Continue reading More on Purchasing Service Credit
The Individual Retirement Account (IRA) is well-named. (Technically, the 'A' actually stands for "arrangement", not account, but everyone just says account.) It describes really well what the account is for (although the details around it can still be confusing), and people quickly grasp the concept. The same can't be said, unfortunately, about employer-sponsored retirement plans. … Continue reading 401ks and 403bs and 457bs, Oh My!