Tag Archive: Retirement Planning

You Have Absolutely No Patriotic Duty To Pay High Taxes

I don’t want to pay higher taxes then what the law mandates.  In fact a large part of my day is spent helping people plan for the Federal and State Estate Tax and I love my job.  I am not sure why I get so excited helping people plan to lower their tax bill.  If…

Why the Hell are There New Active Public Pension Plan Participants?

I was talking to a buddy the other day and somehow the discussion of public employees came up, and we asked ourselves the same exact question at almost the same exact time: Why in the hell are new public employees still able to join State backed defined benefit pension plans? First and foremost, I am…

I Don’t Understand the Safe Withdrawal Rate Discussion

It isn’t hard to find an article that discusses Safe Withdrawal rates, but I am not exactly sure why it is such a hot topic in retirement planning.  Investopedia provides a pretty succinct definition of the Safe Withdrawal Rate (which they refer to as the 4% rule), What Does Four Percent Rule Mean? A rule…

Increasing my 401(k) Contributions to Avoid Leaving Money on the Table

I mentioned about a month ago I would open my books a bit more so I can look back at my archives and understand where I came from.  In both my goals and objectives for 2011 and my halfway update for those goals I mentioned that I contribute the amount to my 401(k) which garners…

No Research Reasons Why I Like Mature Dividend Paying Stocks

Between providing alternatives to the dividend aristocrats, discussing preferred shares and building a pension I feel like I have been talking about investment income a bit too much lately and I am going to slow down for November…right after this post.  The other day a pretty regular commenter, John from Curious Cat Investing Blog, said…

September Net Worth Update–Nominated for a Plutas Edition

Earlier this year I started tracking my net worth, but wasn’t entirely comfortable putting the number completely out there, so I came up with a system where I on January 18, 2011 I took my positive net worth made it a zero.  Feel free to check out my absolute zero net worth post.  This way…