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There are also middle grounds between full managed service at 1% to nothing. We hired someone fee for service for like $750 to review our finances and give us a plan largely to put our minds at ease around cash flow and retirement number go up. She then gave us a glossy brochure on how to spend 1% aum with her, life insurance information, etc, along with all of the information we asked for plainly laid out. It was great. Well worth the money. If I hadn't found the long term investment thread here I likely would sign up with my father in law's person who is a 1% aum kind of person. He gives good advice (almost everything is vanguard index funds, time in market is king, here is how to draw down now that you are retired, here is how to afford a nursing home, etc.) but costs a lot more than the  my friend spent on a gift registration to this site for me.
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Jan 7, 2023 16:31
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For most people their investment situation isn’t a lot more complex than the flowchart. If you make it to the end of that with a bunch of money left over you may want to consider an advisor. Or if you have complicated poo poo like owning your own business or inheritance windfalls or something like that, but for most people it’s hard enough to save sufficient money for retirement in addition to maintaining a reasonable lifestyle.
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Jan 7, 2023 20:02
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The flowcharts are in the op and seem sound. Beyond that something like vanguard target date retirement fund is pretty standard advice.
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Jan 10, 2023 13:03
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Whats the current best go to for tax prep this year? I see freetaxusa.com recommended on Reddit a bunch.
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Jan 10, 2023 19:25
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It sounds like an insane scam website but it is actually good
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Jan 10, 2023 20:29
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Ive been using FreeTaxUSA for a few years now with no qualms.
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Jan 10, 2023 22:31
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:It sounds like an insane scam website but it is actually good This is the truth, and honestly, part of the appeal to me is that it sounds so shady.
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Jan 10, 2023 23:27
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we tried freetaxusa and the free (edit: well, gimped and cost some money to file but mostly free?) online turbotax last year and turbotax gave us a better refund... so we went with that. no IRS objections so far 
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Jan 11, 2023 00:03
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And if you don’t want to use the site that sounds like a scam, taxhawk is from the exact same company and has the exact same prices just with different branding.
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Jan 11, 2023 05:38
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I use Free File Fillable Forms. It's... not great. But it gets the job done. And I make too much for most of the other free options, and don't mind doing my own math. My taxes also aren't very complicated (a W-2 and two 1099INT forms). If I ever buy a house (in my loving dreams), I might wind up paying for it.
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Jan 11, 2023 06:25
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Ham Equity posted:I use Free File Fillable Forms. It's... not great. But it gets the job done. And I make too much for most of the other free options, and don't mind doing my own math. My taxes also aren't very complicated (a W-2 and two 1099INT forms). If I ever buy a house (in my loving dreams), I might wind up paying for it. Owning a house isn't an automatic schedule A anymore due to SALT restrictions and the massive increase in the standard deduction. I have kids, a house, stock sales, two state returns to file, my wife is an independent consultant, and I'll still be doing mine on Free File Fillable Forms because I'm ideologically opposed to paying for tax prep. And it's not hard, just a bit time-consuming. I'll probably use turbotax to check my work though since you can do all the inputs for free. They only charge you when you submit.
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Jan 11, 2023 07:08
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I'm the guy who just buys TurboTax every year so I can do my taxes in 10 minutes. I know there's free options but I consider my time worth it. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go lay on the couch for 4 hours binging TV
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Jan 11, 2023 13:45
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Due to my credit union’s abysmal rates and fees, I am thinking of moving my checking to fidelity’s cash account and my savings account to their money market fund, as opposed to trying to chase rates with a HYSA of the month. Is this a valid strategy? Also how long should I keep my old account active? I figure at least through tax time so the IRS can get the new account info before I close the old one. Does that sound about right?
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Jan 11, 2023 23:46
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My sister's husband passed away last year and there has been an intense amount of drama with his family about his finances. We're in the process of getting an estate attorney to deal with that, but I want to have her go to someone to do her taxes this year as they'll likely be a bit more complex than either of us have dealt with. Any tips on finding a "good" tax preparer?
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Jan 12, 2023 16:55
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The estate attorney will know who to use and who they can work will well. This is part of their job. Don't make it harder by choosing someone they don't know/aren't familiar with.
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Jan 12, 2023 17:06
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Motronic posted:The estate attorney will know who to use and who they can work will well. This is part of their job. Don't make it harder by choosing someone they don't know/aren't familiar with. Fair enough, good call.
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Jan 12, 2023 17:10
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Jows posted:I have kids, a house, stock sales, two state returns to file, my wife is an independent consultant, and I'll still be doing mine on Free File Fillable Forms because I'm ideologically opposed to paying for tax prep. And it's not hard, just a bit time-consuming. It's not hard except figuring out the tax adjustment or whatever for the government portion of my index fund, I can't even remember what it is but it makes no sense to me. As long as I'm just typing values from forms though it's fine.
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Jan 16, 2023 22:05
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nelson posted:Due to my credit union’s abysmal rates and fees, I am thinking of moving my checking to fidelity’s cash account and my savings account to their money market fund, as opposed to trying to chase rates with a HYSA of the month. Is this a valid strategy? Yeah, take your pick of the big players. Ally has been fine enough for me. Looks like Fidelity offers pretty good rates too and were pretty good when I had a 403b with them. As for winding down the old one, I’d switch things over and keep it open for a month or so to catch any autopay stuff you may have missed. If you want to keep it for your refund, cool, but it’s not totally necessary I don’t think.
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Jan 20, 2023 03:03
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nelson posted:Due to my credit union’s abysmal rates and fees, I am thinking of moving my checking to fidelity’s cash account and my savings account to their money market fund, as opposed to trying to chase rates with a HYSA of the month. Is this a valid strategy? I think Synchrony's HYSA has been toward the top of the rates chart for a while, if you want to get a decent return without chasing rates around between the small/niche/PITA institutions. Theirs is 3.75% right now, while Fidelity's Money Market Fund returned 1.49% last year (according to their website). Alliant and Ally are also beating it by smaller margins. Nothing wrong with using that money market fund if you just want to have all your poo poo at Fidelity, but if that's not your primary concern then there are equally easy options with higher rates. Their cash management account, on the other hand, looks pretty good. I'm personally of the opinion that if there's enough in your checking to worry about the interest rate, you should move some of that to your HYSA instead. But if you are still worried about it, that 2.21% is better than any other fee-free no-hoops checking account that I'm aware of. Unsinkabear fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Jan 20, 2023 |
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Jan 20, 2023 03:59
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nelson posted:Due to my credit union’s abysmal rates and fees, I am thinking of moving my checking to fidelity’s cash account and my savings account to their money market fund, as opposed to trying to chase rates with a HYSA of the month. Is this a valid strategy? I was trying to figure out whether to do this or just buy treasuries directly, for my non-checking money.
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Jan 20, 2023 04:02
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Unsinkabear posted:Their cash management account, on the other hand, looks pretty good. I'm personally of the opinion that if there's enough in your checking to worry about the interest rate, you should move some of that to your HYSA instead. But if you are still worried about it, that 2.21% is better than any other fee-free no-hoops checking account that I'm aware of. I spoke too soon, Sofi has 2.5% APY on checking as long as you direct deposit, and the same 3.75% as Synchrony on their savings. I have no idea how good their user experience is or how consistent their history with rates is, though (as in will they stay that high relative to the rest of the industry, or bait and switch down to 0.5% or some poo poo in the future). Maybe someone with personal experience can weigh in?
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Jan 20, 2023 04:09
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nelson posted:as opposed to trying to chase rates with a HYSA of the month I'm looking to do the opposite. I have had an account with Ally for a while, and I'm still perfectly happy with them for my main checking and emergency fund. However, I am planning on saving ~$15k-$30k for a couple of years, and the difference of the ~1% or so between Ally and MySavingsDirect adds up to around $300/yr. I wouldn't plan on doing anything with that money until the end (maybe a few deposits and withdrawals here and there, but truly just a handful per year). Has anyone used MSD? I don't expect anything elaborate, but are there any fees or other hassles I'm not thinking about?
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Jan 20, 2023 16:44
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Since this looks like the closest thing to a stupid questions thread: how much money should I keep in my checking account? I looked at my checking account balance and realized I need to at the very least, move some money to an HYSA. But I'm not sure how much money I should leave in the checking account.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:28
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Godzilla07 posted:Since this looks like the closest thing to a stupid questions thread: how much money should I keep in my checking account? I looked at my checking account balance and realized I need to at the very least, move some money to an HYSA. But I'm not sure how much money I should leave in the checking account. I cashflow all of my regular bills from regular income (paid every 2 weeks) so I tend to leave about 6 to 8 weeks of that in checking to account for two mortgages hitting on the first of each month. I'd cut it down further if I was paid twice per month but this seems to be a pretty good autopilot number for me that I have mostly hammered out where I don't have to touch anything with a split direct deposit between that account and a separate account that gets swept to HY savings.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:34
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Very much "it depends" thing but as a rule of thumb I wouldn't leave more than 1 month's budgeted expenses in there at any given time.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:35
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I do 8 weeks or so with finer adjustment as I see if growing or shrinking. I look at it once or twice a month generally when paying my annoyingly variable preschool bill.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:01
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I only leave $500 for random popup things in it and move money over from a HYSA to pay for bills/CC.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:15
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H110Hawk posted:I do 8 weeks or so with finer adjustment as I see if growing or shrinking. I look at it once or twice a month generally when paying my annoyingly variable preschool bill. Yep one of the it depends things is variability of expenses. We're pretty consistent month to month, but if we were not I am sure we would keep more on hand. We also get paid 2x/month so we're a couple checks ahead at minimum with 1 month. It also looks like we rarely dip below 1.5 months of expenses when I looked at it.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:15
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I think the variability on this is going to depend a lot on your willingness/ability/need to keep a close eye on things. You're not missing out on a lot of interest money from keeping an extra month's worth of expenses in your checking account, so if that's worth it to you to not have to spend extra time shuttling money back and forth, and you're confident that you won't forget for three months and bottom out, then it's fine.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:31
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What're the thread's thoughts on simply hooking up bills directly to the savings account where possible to minimize (or even outright eliminate) the amount of money sitting in the low-yield checking account? The Fed dropped the 6 withdrawal limit cap back in April 2020, so the only reason I can see to avoid it is if you want to limit the blast radius of other party not to gently caress up somehow and drain your account.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:58
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Cugel the Clever posted:What're the thread's thoughts on simply hooking up bills directly to the savings account where possible to minimize (or even outright eliminate) the amount of money sitting in the low-yield checking account? The Fed dropped the 6 withdrawal limit cap back in April 2020, so the only reason I can see to avoid it is if you want to limit the blast radius of other party not to gently caress up somehow and drain your account. I think that's a terrible idea. When I was talking about my "checking account" above I'm talking about what a business would describe as a "clearing account". The reason you limit the balance is to limit the risk because it's the account things come into (potentially checks that could bounce) and go out of i various ways that can go wrong like direct debit form the account, your ATM card, the It's a risk partitioned account for me. E: could not remember the word "debit" until Kyoon posted it. Motronic fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Jan 23, 2023 |
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Jan 23, 2023 00:03
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Cugel the Clever posted:What're the thread's thoughts on simply hooking up bills directly to the savings account where possible to minimize (or even outright eliminate) the amount of money sitting in the low-yield checking account? The Fed dropped the 6 withdrawal limit cap back in April 2020, so the only reason I can see to avoid it is if you want to limit the blast radius of other party not to gently caress up somehow and drain your account. I don't see a whole lot of advantage. You aren't going to be able to completely eliminate the checking account as I don't think you can get a debit card directly linked to a savings account without a checking account, so now you have to manage your checking account balance in addition to your savings account balance. It's more work for what is in my view a pretty marginal reward.
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Jan 23, 2023 00:12
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Motronic posted:It's a risk partitioned account for me. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:You aren't going to be able to completely eliminate the checking account as I don't think you can get a debit card directly linked to a savings account without a checking account, so now you have to manage your checking account balance in addition to your savings account balance.
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Jan 23, 2023 00:33
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Cugel the Clever posted:Can definitely see this as a strong argument against it and is the primary reason I've not attempted to do so yet. I'd be curious about what recourse there'd be for a faulty/malicious debit, if any, and what kind of timelines would be involved. Presumably not something I'd like to stake my life on. Recourse is strong and in your favor. Timelines are hugely variable and I'm not gonna suggest something like playing games with that when......what did the last hair on fire article say? 62% of the US lives paycheck to paycheck. It can be really bad for most people to just have to wait a week to get that money back. You need to make your own risk vs. reward calculations here and I'll admit I haven't bothered to do that in a long time because I'm fortunate to be able to be "a check ahead" in that account with a backstop of an emergency fund.
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Jan 23, 2023 00:43
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Cugel the Clever posted:I agree that ditching a checking account entirely isn't feasible pending antiquated businesses and government agencies getting dragged kicking and screaming into the future. On the other hand, I've had zero use of my debit card in the last decade and written only a single check in the last four years I generally think it's useful to be able to access cash wherever I am in the world, but whenever I post that a bunch of indoor kids show up to tell me actually nobody uses cash any more.
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Jan 23, 2023 01:06
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I generally think it's useful to be able to access cash wherever I am in the world, but whenever I post that a bunch of indoor kids show up to tell me actually nobody uses cash any more. They've not been to the right places if they feel no need to use cash. Some of the absolute best street food I've ever had on multiple continents was (local) cash only.
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Jan 23, 2023 01:18
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Yeah I was going to say money talks at a lot of places still, first thing that came to mind was flea markets, trade shows, and garage sales.
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Jan 23, 2023 01:24
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And not to start a tipping derail but I don't tip on credit cards. I leave cash. People who work jobs where tipping is part of their actual income can decide if they want to report that and/or how much.
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Jan 23, 2023 01:27
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I generally think it's useful to be able to access cash wherever I am in the world, but whenever I post that a bunch of indoor kids show up to tell me actually nobody uses cash any more.  I have a few twenties sitting in my wallet for "emergencies", but they've similarly been untouched for years.
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Jan 23, 2023 01:42
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Motronic posted:And not to start a tipping derail but I don't tip on credit cards. I leave cash. People who work jobs where tipping is part of their actual income can decide if they want to report that and/or how much. hell, that's a fair point. here's another example of cash's utility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2_SjB016e4
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Jan 23, 2023 03:21
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