I (almost) look forward to a softening economy and corresponding market pull back so I can do more tIRA conversions to Roth at a ‘discount’. 
Yes, the stock market paid off handsomely in the past year.
I was frankly pretty surprised at that. Doesn’t feel like play money to us as we are years away from retirement age-wise. I’m going to think hard about how much is invested in which stocks. Fortunately, we have zero in airlines, hotels, entertainment ( possibly a bit). I just feel a dip coming soon.
Key when you analyze the investment choices in your portfolio: it is particularly important to see what doesn’t downturn (or downturn as much) when others do in addition to seeing the positive results.
2019 our four funds together increased 34.41%. Jan 2020 our four funds together increased 1.33% and in Feb was down 6.76% and in March was down 14.8%. However two funds stayed strong while the other two funds had the dips. So we changed the percentages invested in the funds to have the most money in the two high performing funds. That strategy paid off as 2020 our four funds together increased 34.85%. This 401k holds about half of our assets. We just drew off a little in January as DH retired and we don’t plan for him to draw SS until I start drawing in Oct when we both are 65.
I am working to educate DDs/SIL on finances.
I help DD2 with doing her taxes too (DD1/SIL have assistance already through Army Reserves).
Our Prudential Account has lots of add on features - one is a few articles under “preparing and protecting” - one was how to draft a letter to my children when I am gone (detail wishes, listing all financial accounts/instructions, wishes for how heirs use their inheritance), and another on 6 financial decisions after losing a loved one - about deciding on attorney, account for funeral expenses and various taxes, and closing/assigning bank accounts, insurance policies, investments.
It is a lot of work to get things set up ‘right’.
Have gotten a lot of good book suggestions on this thread and other sources. The Elements of Investing/Charles D Ellis; A Random Walk Down Wall St/Burton G Malkiel; The intelligent Investor/Benjamin Graham; A book I stubbled on - From Monk to Money Manager/Doug Lynam. An interesting read on a true story where an elite group of investors believed they could deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth: When Genius Failed/Roger Lowenstein.
This is after the kids have understood getting out of debt and how to grow ‘wealth’ - saving and their purchases; career growth. Having term life insurance in place.
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For those using Turbo Tax - they have $15 off if you purchase in Jan dates. It is now at Sam’s (their display is small - a card system and you purchase and they get the product out of the locked case). The discount price is what rings up. Don’t have all info in yet to do, but nice to be able to start when I want.
Same at Costco.
Any discounts on TurboTax download (ie no boxed media) ?
Also I have received emails from this site:
A little cheaper than Costco. I bought downloaded) from them last year with no problem.
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Anyone have a coupon code for TaxAct? They didn’t send me any this year.
For me, taxes are an incredible pain but others now do most of the work. I used to do them myself when I was a W2 employee, but my financial life is so complicated that I leave it to professionals. In November and December, we do a huge year-end push to close the books on my two companies, which is a complicated as they have some relationships. In Jan/Feb, the accountants are will complete the 1065 for one and the 1120 for the other (probably after they take a vacation). Then I gather the K-1s. My assistant uses Quicken all year long for our personal expenses and my wife’s art accounts (income and expenses). I will go over these again in detail looking for mis-categorizations. Then, my accountants do my personal return. Lots of detail. Foreign Tax Credits, AMTT (usually no tin it but they have to do the work anyway). Depreciation, lots of worksheets. All-in-all, my Federal return seems to be about 100 pages.
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Amazon sell (you download the code from them) but I doubt if much less. They had it available sooner.
Turbotax now uses thick cardboard for packaging the disc (I get Deluxe and it is good for Windows and Mac). The display has them also selling the Basic, Premier and Home & Business software.
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The Costco box has both a CD and a download code inside. Just bought one.
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When I had some inheritance and K-1, I knew I was not able to get to the right sections with Turbo Tax. I used a terrific accountant that understood the problem and did a tax fix quick, easy, and at a reasonable rate for his services. Good to use the professionals, and also smart keeping track of it all during the year to be able to review and retrieve as needed.
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1041 K-1 schedule for trust and inheritance are easily handled by tax software. 1065 K-1 and other business partnership K-1 might require professional help.
Sam’s has download code and CD as well, in slick card packaging - not a box as prior years.
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In the same boat as @shawbridge with complicated state and federal taxes. I could not for the life of me find a certain K1 investment last year that the account managed to find.
@Rivet2000, I agree. I think that the shift may now happen more quickly than it might otherwise have.
Turbotax is free online. I’ve also used FreeTaxUsa which I have found preferable to TurboTax and then I just go to the individual states that I need to directly to their portals and entire the state information and file the state returns online through the state departments of revenue that require state returns. So much easier in most cases. Sometimes I have had to upgrade the freetaxusa to the deluxe version but even that is only $20 or so.
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On to a different topic perhaps, SS. I filed last fall, being of full retirement age. My ex passed away, and I decided his benefit was sufficient. I faxed the appropriate documents after an interview, waited, checked the site and applied for was stated on line, waited some more. Finally on Saturday morning I received a call from SS stating that the previous rep had retired. They are all working from home and the previous person had not passed on the documents. So I needed to re fax the documents, AND I should not have applied for survivor benefits on line. So she did it for me, taking info from my on line application.
The surprise is that as a widow (never thought of myself in that way), I can allow my benefit to grow while taking survivor benefits, and claim mine later either when valued higher or at age 70. This gives me pause regarding retirement, which I had planned for later this year.
I had searched the SS website and never found exactly this information, but my wonderful, smart CC friend who knows these things just confirmed and found the appropriate page on the site.
Perhaps this information might help someone else, which is why I am posting. My financial advisor had no clue about survivor benefits. The SS rep stated that many financial advisors don’t understand the details. I would have only vaguely considered the survivor benefit if my ex’s spouse had not informed me that it is different from the spousal benefit.
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survivor benefits is one the of key things that many don’t factor in when doing a break-even analysis for claiming SS.
I’ve posted this before, but OpenSocialSecurity is a great, free site that will calc a pv using Survivor benefits.
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Anyone else here not liking the recent stock market action? It just… smells like 2000. SPACS, penny stock cos raising crazy amounts in secondary offerings, robinhooders taking on short sellers… too much froth!
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