Financial Education for Colorado Educators (and those they love). Absolutely Free.
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
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
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)
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)
Read this for updated Info as of 10/6/23 I've written about 529 plans before and how I believe, for most folks, they are the best way to save for a child's possible future college education. This is especially true if your state plan offers some kinds of tax incentives. For example, in Colorado your contributions … Continue reading Colorado’s First Step Program for College Savings
The Teachers' Retirement System of Illinois (TRS) is rolling out a new 457b plan in January of 2022 called the Supplemental Savings Plan (SSP). This does not change anything with the TRS pension, but is simply an optional additional tax-advantaged savings vehicle. This post will look at the pros - and cons - of this … Continue reading Illinois TRS SSP: A Good (but not great) 457 Plan
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