As you start getting your tax information together, don’t forget to look for tax deductions.
While it is mostly too late to rack up new tax deductions, you can go back through your expenses from last year and figure out if you are eligible for another deduction or two. Every little bit helps when it comes to decreasing your tax liability.
Now that 2012 is underway, many are concerned that it is too late to log more deductions for 2011.
For the most part, you’re out of luck: It’s too late to sell those losing investments for a deduction, or donate to a charity for a 2011 deduction. December 31 has passed, and many of your chances to lower your taxable income have passed along with the old year.
However, it’s not too late to squeeze in a couple other tax deductions.
Indeed, you have the opportunity to find new tax deductions if you can contribute to a Health Savings Account or a traditional IRA. You have until April 15 to make contributions to traditional IRAs and HSAs for the previous tax year (this year April 17th). Continue Reading
No one likes to lose money on their investments.
However, in some cases, it is unavoidable. If you are looking at some investment losers, though, you might consider how you can use them to your advantage.
Tax harvesting your losses allows you to get a deduction when you sell for less than you bought for. As you get close to the end of the year, and you begin planning to maximize your tax deductions, consider how your investments losses can reduce your tax liability:
There are few things in life as traumatizing as the death of a spouse.
Whether your spouse passes suddenly, in an accident, or suffers from a long-standing illness, it’s hard to face life without your companion and partner.
And one of the most difficult things to work through is the money.
When you lose a spouse, there are financial implications — especially if you aren’t the primary breadwinner.
While it isn’t pleasant to think about the loss of a spouse, the fact of the matter is that you need to consider the possibility, and come with a plan to ensure that your finances survive the blow.
In 2009, the government rolled out the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). The program is meant to help those who are underwater on their mortgages refinance into a more affordable monthly payment.
Unfortunately, some of the requirements for participation in the program limited its effectiveness.
In order to expand the program so that it reaches more homeowners, some changes have recently been made to HARP.
One of the ways that many people decide to invest in real estate, or create a passive income stream, is to purchase a rental property with the intention of becoming a landlord.
Owning property that you can rent out to others can be one way of creating income, and also of waiting for a property to increase in value.
However, being a landlord isn’t for everyone.
You should consider whether or not you are truly cut out to be a landlord. Continue Reading
We tend to think that unemployment is a bad thing.
Losing a job seems to be the height of catastrophe. And, in some cases, it really is a huge setback. After all, your job provides you with the income you need to survive, and unemployment benefits can rarely supply the amount you are missing.
Without your job, it can be difficult to make mortgage payments, buy food, and meet other obligations. However, unemployment doesn’t have to be all bad.
If you plan matters right, your time unemployed can actually be of benefit to you. Continue Reading
It’s true: A payday loan provider actually sponsored the Financial Blogger Conference that took place in Chicago not too long ago. Not only did the payday loan company sponsor, but a representative actually appeared on a panel.
I’m not going to lie. I still think he was pretty brave to get up there and tell a bunch of financial bloggers who hate payday loans that he was a payday lender. He did try to talk up the fact that the provider also provides prepaid debit cards, but everyone zeroed in on the payday loans.
I felt bad for the guy as he tried to explain that payday lenders provide a needed service to a certain segment of the population.
Obviously, payday loans are in demand, since there are plenty of providers that seem to be doing well enough. While a payday loan might be just the thing to hold you over if you don’t want to be kicked out of your house, or have the power turned off, you run the risk of getting caught in the payday loan trap. Continue Reading
When car insurance companies look at your risk profile, they take a number of factors into account. From your driving record, to your coverage amounts, to your credit score, an insurance company wants to get an idea of how likely it is that they will have to pay out on a claim on your behalf.
One of the factors that insurance companies look at when setting premium amounts is your age.
If you want to save money on your insurance premiums, it helps to understand how age affects what you pay. There might not be a lot you can do about it, since you can’t change your age, but you can compensate for your age.
Let’s take a look at how age affects your car insurance and what you can do about it.Continue Reading
Many of us, when looking at the debt we have, feel despair: How is it possible to pay down so much debt? When my husband and I were first married, I had credit card debt, and it didn’t take long for him to get into the spirit of using credit cards, since we were poor students without jobs.
A couple years later, we were staring at the bills and wondering how we ended up with so much credit card debt. We had income by then, but it wasn’t much. We were already so careful about our spending! How could we cut back even more? How could we find the money to pay down debt?
The cold, hard truth, of course, was that we really weren’t being careful with our spending. I had an “ah-ha” moment when I read a book my mother gave me, Debt Free on Any Income. The book suggested that studies show that the average household wastes between 10% and 15% of its monthly income. After taking another, more honest, look at our finances, it became clear that there was still plenty of room in our budget.
All we had to do was find the waste and apply it to our debts. Continue Reading
