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How to transfer personal auto lease to business auto lease?
I'd approach the lender that you're getting the lease from, but be prepared for them either saying 'no' to putting the lease into the name of an LLC without any proven track record (because it hasn't been around for a while) or require you to sign a personal guarantee, which partially defeats the purpose of putting the...
Do the activities of my LLC need to be limited to a particular field?
No. When you file your Articles of Organization, simply state that your business will operate under the law. You don't need to give any further specification.
Pay off credit cards in one lump sum, or spread over a few months?
Should I allow the credit cards to be paid out of escrow in one lump sum? Or should I take the cash and pay the cards down over a few months. I have heard that it is better for your credit score to pay them down over time. Will it make much of a difference? Will the money you save by increasing your credit score ...
How to share income after marriage and kids?
I started out thinking like you but I quickly realised this was a bad approach. You are a team, aren't you? Are you equals or is one of you an inferior of lower value? I think you'll generate more shared happiness by acting as a team of equals. I'd pool your resources and share them as equals. I'd open a joint account ...
Could the loan officer deny me even if I have the money as a first time home buyer?
A financial institution is not obligated to offer you a loan. They will only offer you a loan if they believe that they will make money off you. They use all the info available in order to determine if offering you a loan is profitable. In short, whether they offer you a loan, and the interest rate they charge for tha...
How to read bond yield quotes? What do the time, coupon, price, yield, and time mean?
The first thing that it is important to note here is that the examples you have given are not individual bond prices. This is what is called the "generic" bond price data, in effect a idealised bond with the indicated maturity period. You can see individual bond prices on the UK Debt Management Office website. The me...
Do I need to prove 'Garage Sale' items incurred a loss
This is what this sounds like to me: https://www.thebalance.com/having-a-garage-sale-or-yard-sale-what-to-do-first-399030 also: http://blogs.hrblock.com/2012/07/25/garage-sale-money-does-the-irs-need-to-know/ Selling a personal item at a loss is generally not a taxable event. You cannot report it as a loss, and the IRS...
What to think of two at the money call options with different strike prices and premiums?
As other uses have pointed out, your example is unusual in that is does not include any time value or volatility value in the quoted premiums, the premiums you quote are only intrinsic values. For well in-the-money options, the intrinsic value will certainly be the vast majority of the premium, but not the sole compon...
When does it make financial sense to take advantage of employer's tuition reimbursement program?
If you know that you want that advanced degree; And there is a way to have your employer pay for some of it or all of it; And you are reasonably certain that you will not be quitting for X years after completing the degree; Then it is financially sound to consider having the company pay for it. If you are interested in...
Is inflation a good or bad thing? Why do governments want some inflation?
Inflation is what happens, it is not good or bad in and of itself. But consider the following. In a thriving economy with low unemployment, people are buying, buying, buying. People are not saving for later, they are buying now. Industry is also making purchases. Now. From economics 101: high demand for goods/serv...
Are the “debt reduction” company useful?
They are a complete waste of money, see my answer here for more details.
A University student wondering if investing in stocks is a good idea?
For most people, investing in the stock market directly is one of the last things to do. That's not to say you shouldn't, but rather that there are other things to consider as well. Start with automatic monthly deposits to a liquid account such as savings or money market. The morale boost you get from seeing the balan...
Does it make sense to buy a house in my situation?
The $3K includes property tax, right? It looks like the mortgage alone will be about $2150 or so. If your (cal) state tax is enough to put you into itemized deductions, your mortgage and property tax are a write off, and the $3k will actually be closer to the $2K you are considering for rent. The wild card as I see it...
How could I find someone to find a room for me to live in? (For a fee, of course.)
Many colleges have offices that can help students find off campus housing. They will have information about rooms being let by families, and about houses being shared by groups of students. The biggest issue is that many of the best places were filled months ago. With only a month to go before classes start time is tig...
What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund?
Emergency funds are defined in terms of months of tightened-belt living -- that's according to the usual gurus such as Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey etc. They aren't for short-term emergencies like a blown transmission. Use other money for those. Why? People with bad financial habits have short-term emergencies all the ...
What is today's price of 15 000 Euro given 15 years ago?
There's often a legal basis to answer this question. For instance, Austria (guessing from your profile) currently uses a 4% Statutory interest rate. You'll need to dig up not just the actual but also the historical rates. Note that you'll want the non-commercial interest rate - some countries differentiate between loan...
What am I actually buying when trading in CFDs
The economic effect of a CFD from your point of view is very close to the effect of owning the stock. If the stock goes up, you make money. If it goes down you lose money. If it pays a dividend, you get that dividend. You'll typically pay commission for buying and selling the CFDs in a similar way to the commission on ...
Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains?
On Black Friday, 1929,the market fell from over 350 to just above 200. If you were following your plan then you would buy in at about 200. But look what the market did for two years after Black Friday. It went down to about 50. You would have lost around 75% of your capital.
Are variable rate loans ever a good idea?
What's going on here is that the variable rate loan is transferring some of the risk from the bank to you. In a reasonable deal taking on risk brings with it reward. It's the same thing as deductibles on insurance--they're transferring some risk to you and thus your expected total cost goes down. Thus the proper eval...
Is CLM a stock or an ETF?
Cornerstone Strategic Value Fund, Inc. is a diversified, closed-end management investment company. It was incorporated in Maryland on May 1, 1987 and commenced investment operations on June 30, 1987. The Fund’s shares of Common Stock are traded on the NYSE MKT under the ticker symbol “CLM.”[1] That essentially means th...
Why is mortgage interest deductible in the USA for a house you live in?
It's a scam pushed through to benefit the banking system. Tax payments become income for the banks. Any alleged benefits for property holders are ultimately reduced by increased property prices, capital gains tax and estate taxes
How is Massachusetts state tax on unrealized capital gains calculated?
Massachusets does no such thing. The 5.25% tax is only on realized gains. "Unearned" means "doesn't tie to your trade/business", i.e.: is not gained through your personal performance.
Pay off credit cards in one lump sum, or spread over a few months?
I have heard that it is better for your credit score to pay them down over time. Will it make much of a difference? I have never heard that, however, the financial institutions (who are charging you an amount of interest which was at one time in the not so distant past classified and punishable in state criminal codes)...
Do I need to file taxes jointly with my girlfriend if we live together?
In Ontario, common law marriage requires 3 years of cohabitation, and doesn't give rights to property (which remains separate). I'd say in your situation you can still file as single, but I'd suggest asking your tax accountant to be sure.
How can I find/compare custodians for my HSA in the United States?
In general, things to look for are: Things to look out for: I'd recommend two places: I'd recommend reading up on HSA's in this related question here.
Official Bank Check
The legal department at the Bank left me a message telling me that the bank check was paid & the recipient got the funds. Call up the bank and find out who the recipient was. Generally it can only be cashed by the person whose name is on it - the original business partner to whom it was intended. It is unlikely to be c...
What is a good 5-year plan for a college student with $15k in the bank?
First thing to do right now, is to see if there's somewhere equally liquid, equally risk free you can park your cash for higher rate of return. You can do this now, and decide how much to move into less liquid investments on your own pace. When I was in grad school, I opened a Roth IRA. These are fantastic things for y...
Why do 10 year Treasury bond yields affect mortgage interest rates?
The yield on treasury bond indicates the amount of money anyone at can make at virtually zero risk. So lets say banks have X [say 100] amount of money. They can either invest this in treasury bonds and get Y% [say 1%] interest that is very safe, or invest into mortgage loans [i.e. lend it to people] at Y+Z% [say at 3...
Income tax on my online drop-shipping business (India)
I find that there are two violation of law , prima facie , if someone earns money by depositing in the online account and then not reporting it ( including in his total income for the year ) and not bringing in India. Income Tax Act violation 1. It is simply comcealment liable for penalty & prosecution under I.T.Act. 2...
Is my mother eligible for SNAP?
If she lives by herself, my guess would be that she qualifies as a household of one. Either way, her monthly income is below the threshold, so she should be eligible. Per the linked website The only way to determine if your household is eligible for SNAP benefits is to apply. I'd say it's worth a try.
Free/open source Unix software that pulls info from all my banks/brokers/credit cards?
Buxfer is a personal-finance web app which you might like. It's not open-source. But at least none of your complaints about financeworks.intuit.com apply to Buxfer. Buxfer offers a piece of software you can download to your own PC, called Firebux. This macro-recording software provides automation that helps you down...
How do day-traders or frequent traders handle their taxes?
Starting of 2011, your broker has to keep track of all the transactions and the cost basis, and it will be reported on your 1099-B. Also, some brokers allow downloading the data directly to your tax software or to excel charts (I use E*Trade, and last year TurboTax downloaded all the transaction directly from them).
Online brokers with a minimum stock purchase lower than $500
The $500 minimum is a policy of the ASX. As such any broker that offered a different policy would not be offering direct purchase of exchange traded shares. Note however that this policy applies only to the initial purchase. From the CMC FAQs: The ASX requires a minimum parcel of $500 to be traded if you don’t currentl...
Is there a candlestick pattern that guarantees any kind of future profit?
By definition, there are no guaranteed profits. There are sometimes arbitrage opportunities, which are more accessible to some investors than others. In this case, I'm not referring to HFT as that is covered elsewhere on this site already. At certain times, in certain equity markets, candlestick charts were used for p...
How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent?
I am sorry to say, you are asking the wrong question. If I own a rental that I bought with cash, I have zero mortgage. The guy I sell it to uses a hard money lender (charging a high rate) and finances 100%. All of this means nothing to the prospective tenant. In general, one would look at the rent to buy ratio in the ...
Figuring out an ideal balance to carry on credit cards [duplicate]
One key point that other answers haven't covered is that many credit cards have a provision where if you pay it off every month, you get a grace period on the interest. Interest doesn't accrue at all unless you rollover a non-zero balance. But if you do, you pay interest on the average balance, not the rolled-over ba...
Can value from labor provided to oneself be taxed?
I've heard of handyman type people making a living this way untaxed. They move into a fixer-upper, fix it up while living there, stay over two years and sell. They can pocket $125k/yr tax free this way assuming they produce that much value in their fixing-up. (Beware, though, that this will bite you in low social se...
How to evaluate investment risk in practical terms
Generally investing in index-tracking funds in the long term poses relatively low risk (compared to "short term investment", aka speculation). No-one says differently. However, it is a higher risk than money-market/savings/bonds. The reason for that is that the return is not guaranteed and loss is not limited. Here vol...
College student - I'm a 'dependent' and my parents won't apply for the Parent PLUS loan or cosign a private loan
I was in that same situation years ago with my parents. One way she could apply for a loan in her name without her parents is if she is not currently living with them she shouldn't need them to cosign if she doesn't have bad credit. But if she isn't living with them and they aren't financing her room and board they can...
If someone gives me cash legally, can my deposit trigger an audit for them?
Am I right to worry about both of these? Of course. Who carries $75K in cash for no good reason? Your friend got the cash from somewhere, didn't he? If its legit - there's paper trail to show. Same for your parents. If you/they can show the legit paper trail - there's nothing to worry about, the hassle, at worse, is a ...
Buy or sell futures contracts
Futures contracts are a member of a larger class of financial assets called derivatives. Derivatives are called such because their payoffs depend on the price of other assets (financial or real). Other kinds of derivatives are call options, put options. Fixed income assets that mimic the behavior of derivatives are cal...
Why is gold not a good investment?
Gold is not really an investment at all, because it doesn't generate an income. It's only worth money because people think it's worth money (it has some industrial uses, but most gold is used as a store of value and not for industrial purposes), not because of its income stream.
What would I miss out on by self insuring my car?
You lose your agent services. When my wife wrecked our car 3 years ago our agent took care of everything. He got us a rental car, made the arrangements to get it fixed, checked in to see how we were doing, and even helped us set up a second opinion on my wifes wrist surgery. The accident was ruled the fault of the un...
Finding a good small business CPA?
Consult your local Small Business Administration office - they may have resources that can help you find what you're looking for.
College student - I'm a 'dependent' and my parents won't apply for the Parent PLUS loan or cosign a private loan
Smart parents not wanting to get stuck with a student loan or co-signing on a loan. because rent is so high Are you able to live with your parents? Is there anyway to reduce the cost of rent like renting a room? Can you move somewhere where the rent is cheaper? working 25 hours per week Working 25 hours per week an...
How can I check my credit score?
Different states have different laws, check your local laws concerning credit. Some states even guarantee you to get one free credit report per year. If you recently apply for an apartment, a mortgage or denied a credit card or loan, you can usually get a free copy from whomever you authorized to pull your credit repor...
Why is the bid-ask spread considered a cost?
This is a misconception. One of the explanations is that if you buy at the ask price and want to sell it right away, you can only sell at the bid price. This is incorrect. There are no two separate bid and ask prices. The price you buy (your "bid") is the same price someone else sells (their "sell"). The same goes wh...
What's a reliable way for a non-permanent resident alien in the USA to get an auto loan?
I don't think that they ask you for your citizenship status when you apply in a dealership. At least I don't remember being asked. I know of at least 3 people from my closest circle of friends who are in various immigration statuses (including one on F1) and got an auto loan from a dealership without a problem and with...
What ETF best tracks the price of gasoline, or else crude oil?
UNG United States Natural Gas Fund Natural Gas USO United States Oil Fund West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil UGA United States Gasoline Fund Gasoline DBO PowerShares DB Oil Fund West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil UHN United States Heating Oil Fund Heating Oil I believe these are as close as you'...
Blog income taxes?
If the money comes to you, then it's income. If the money goes out from you, it's an expense. You get to handle the appropriate tax documentation for those business transactions. You may also have the pleasure of filing 1099-MISC forms for all of your blogging buddies if you've paid them more than $600. (Not 100% su...
Is there lesser or no tax on assets?
US federal tax law distinguishes many types of income. For most people, most of their income is "earned income", money you were paid to do a job. Another category of income is "capital gains", money you made from the sale of an asset. For a variety of reasons, capital gains tax rates are lower than earned income tax ra...
Advice on low-risk long-term strategy for extra cash?
Look at a mixture of low-fee index funds, low-fee bond funds, and CDs. The exact allocation has to be tailored to your appetite for risk. If you only want to park the money with essentially no risk of loss then you need FDIC insured products like CDs or a money market account (as opposed to a money market fund which is...
Is it legal for a vendor to reuse credit details from a previous transaction
It is very much legal and in fact depending on the fine print of the purchase you make, you have now established a business relationship among which gives the business the right to hold on to your information (unless privacy policy states otherwise) and reuse it under certain circumstances (such as auto shipments) and ...
What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?
You should invest your money. To figure out what rate of return you need, use this equation: (How Much Money You Want Per Year) / (Total Amount of Cash You Have) = (Annualized Interest Rate) If we plug in the amount of annualized interest you can expect to safely get while not managing your money personally, 2% by my e...
Is there any benefit to investing in an index fund?
Why not figure out the % composition of the index and invest in the participating securities directly? This isn't really practical. Two indices I use follow the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500 Those two indices represent 2500 stocks. A $4 brokerage commission per trade would mean that it would cost me $10,000 in tra...
Deposit a cheque in an alternative name into a personal bank account (Australia)
You don't have much choice other than to open an account in your business name, then do a money transfer, as @DJClayworth says. You will not without providing your name and street address and possibly other information that you may consider to be of a private nature. This is due to laws about fraud, money laundering ...
When a stock price rises, does the company get more money?
Seems like no one in this thread has heard of "treasury stocks", which indeed allow a company to own and sell its own stock. Think about it. When there is a stock buy-back funded by excess profits, where does that stock go?
Why do stock or commodity prices sometimes rise suddenly just before market close?
This is often the case where traders are closing out short positions they don't want to hold overnight, for a variety of reasons that matter to them. Most frequently, this is from day traders or high-frequency traders settling their accounts before the markets close.
Are Forex traders forced to use leverage?
While it's not true that you have to use leverage to participate in Forex, the alternative makes it impractical for most people to be able to do so. You need to be able to put a lot of money into it in order to not trade on leverage. The fact is, most accounts for "normal" people require leverage because the size of t...
how much of foreign exchange (forex/fx) “deep liquidity” is really just unbacked leverage and what is the effect?
First it is worth noting the two sided nature of the contracts (long one currency/short a second) make leverage in currencies over a diverse set of clients generally less of a problem. In equities, since most margin investors are long "equities" making it more likely that large margin calls will all be made at the sam...
Better ways to invest money held by my small, privately-held Canadian corporation?
The issue only arises when the investments grow in size. A small amount won't trigger the higher tax rates. If the amount is large enough, then consider using either: Insurance products that are 'segregated', or RRSPs in your own name after your business pays you wages, or Gifting to other family members.
Insider trading of a linked security like an ETF your company has a heavy weighting in
If you are in a position to have information that will impact the shares of a stock or index fund and you use that information for either personal gain or to mitigate the losses that you would have felt then it is insider trading. Even if in the end your quiet period passes with little or no movement of the stocks in ...
Buy and sell stock at specific earnings
Enjoy the free trades as long as they last, and take advantage of it since this is no longer functionally a tax on your potential profits. On a side note, RobinHood and others in the past have roped customers in with low-to-zero fee trades before changing the business paradigm completely or ceasing operations. All bro...
How to pay for Alzheimer's care?
See Paying for Care | Caregiver Center | Alzheimer's Association. Notable excerpts: For most individuals 65 or older, Medicare is the primary source of health care coverage. However, private insurance, a group employee plan or retiree health coverage also may be in effect. [...] In addition to Medicare, the per...
Value investing
As an aside, why does it seem to be difficult to get a conclusive answer to this question? I'm going to start by trying to answer this question and I think the answer here will help answer the other questions. Here is a incomplete list of the challenges involved: So my question is, is there any evidence that value inv...
Premium classification when selling covered calls in a traditional IRA?
If you hold stock in a traditional IRA and sell a covered call against that stock, the premium received for writing that call belongs to the IRA just as would any other gain, dividend, or interest. It is not a contribution but simply adds to the balance in the IRA. The nature of the gain (capital or ordinary) is not ...
does interest payment on loan stay the same if I pay early
The typical case would be - as you expected - that the interest goes down equally dramatically, and you would pay much less interest. Note that that does not remove your obligation to pay the full 1000 every month - even though you could argue that you are 90 months ahead in paying, you still need to deliver 1000 a mon...
What pension options are there for a 22 year old graduate in the UK?
Major things to consider: If you're expecting to look at the property market: it might prove to be sensible to start doing it now, since the market is just recovering, and (IMHO warning -I'm not a professional investor, just a random guy on the internet) prices still hasn't caught up with value fundamentals. check out...
Is there a reason to buy a 0% yield bond?
No, there isn't. There are a number of reasons that institutions buy these bonds but as an individual you're likely better off in a low-yield cash account. By contrast, there would be a reason to hold a low-yield (non-zero) bond rather than an alternative low-yield product.
When investing, is the risk/reward tradeoff linear?
The relationship is not linear, and depends on a lot of factors. The term you're looking for is efficient frontier, the optimal rate of return for a given level of risk. The goal is to be on the efficient frontier, meaning that for the given level of risk, you're receiving the greatest possible rate of return (reward)....
How much time does a doctor's office have to collect balance from me?
They have forever to collect a balance from you. Furthermore they can add whatever penalties and fees they wish to increase that balance. Worst of all, they don't have to remind you or send you bills or any other notification. You owed it when you left the office. (There very well could be local laws that require n...
How to motivate young people to save money
In the United States you can't, because the average millennial in the United States has no opportunity to save money. Either you get a college education, then you will be burdened with a student loan. The cost of college education skyrocketed in the past decades. It is now practically impossible to enter the workforce ...
Primary residence converted to a rental property & tax implications
You will need to look at the 27.5 year depreciation table from the IRS. It tells you how you will be able to write off the first year. It depends on which month you had the unit ready to rent. Note that that it might be a different month from when you moved, or when the first tenant moved in. Your list is pretty good. ...
Employer rollover from 403b to 401k?
403b plans are used by school districts, colleges and universities, nonprofit hospitals, charitable foundations and the like for their employees while 401k plans are used by most everybody else. I would suspect that a school district etc can use a 401k plan instead of a 403b plan if it chooses to do so, but the reverse...
Fringe Benefits (Lodging) for single member S-Corp
None whatsoever, no. Moreover, trying something like that would very likely trigger a full audit.
Investing: P/E Ratio basic question
While on the surface it might not make sense to pay more than one dollar to get just one dollar back, the key thing is that a good company's earnings are recurring each year. So, you wouldn't just be paying for the $1 dollar of earnings per share this year, but for the entire future stream of earnings per share, every ...
Does a stock really dip in price on the ex-dividend date? And why would it do this?
The stock price is what people think a company is worth, this is made up of When a company pays out a dividend the money in the company’s bank account reduces, therefore the value of the company reduces. When a company says they are going to pay a larger dividend than expected, we start to expect they are going to m...
Asset allocation when retirement is already secure
You will hear a lot about diversifying your portfolio, which typically means having a good mix of investment types, areas of investments, etc. I'd like to suggest that you should also diversify your sources. Sad to say but the defined benefit pension is not a rock solid, sure fire source of security in your retirement...
Why do some people go through contortions to avoid paying taxes, yet spend money on expensive financial advice, high-interest loans, etc?
I think sometimes this is simply ignorance. If my marginal tax rate is 25%, then I can either pay tax deductible interest of $10K or pay income tax of $2.5K. I think most americans don't realize that paying $10K of tax deductible interest (think mortgage) only saves them $2.5K in taxes. In other words, I'd be $7.5K...
Are Australian mutual fund fees large compared to US?
This is a Vanguard-specific difference in the sense that in the US, Vanguard is a leader in lowering management fees for the mutual funds that they offer. Of course, several US mutual fund companies have also been lowering the expense ratio of their mutual funds in recent years because more and more investors have be...
Is it mandatory to report Capital Loss on line 21 of Schedule D?
You are not allowed to pick and choose what years to take a loss once the stock/fund is sold. While I realize it might be too late for you to do anything now, in the future if members should read this, they might consider doing a Roth conversion during that year they will have $3000 in losses. This way they will show ...
How do I know what loan terms I can qualify for?
You can find out the most money they will loan you for a car loan when you approach your current bank/credit union. They should be willing to layout options based on your income, and credit history. You then have to decide if those terms work for you. There are several dangers with getting loan estimates, they may be w...
mortgage vs car loan vs invest extra cash?
Without knowing actual numbers it's tough to say. Personally, I would pay off the car then, going forward, use the money that would have been paid on your car note toward your mortgage. I always think of things in the worst possible scenario. It's easier, and faster, to repossess a car than to foreclose on real esta...
Why can't I short a particular stock?
In order to short a stock, you have to borrow the number of shares that you're shorting from someone else who holds the shares, so that you can deliver the shares you're shorting if it becomes necessary to do so (usually; there's also naked short selling, where you don't have to do this, but it's banned in a number of ...
First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house
Having recently been given basically the same question it hinges on a few major factors. What does your apartment provide (e.g. heating, internet/etc)? My (personal) example. With my numbers (which includes taxes, insurance estimates, minor repairs to home as needed), also ignoring all costs that are shared (e.g. food,...
Why is tax loss harvesting helpful for passive investing?
I wrote a detailed article on Tax Loss Harvesting to show the impact on returns. For my example, I showed a person in the 15% bracket. In years with no loss, they trade to capture gains at 0% long term rate, thus bumping their basis up. In years with losses, they tax harvest for a 15% effective 'rebate' on that loss. ...
To rebalance or not to rebalance
Yes E[x] is expected value of x. E[x|y] = expected value of x, given y. c, k are some constants Let E[s_{n+1}|s_n=c] = c, but if E[s_{n+1}|s_n,s_{n-1},...,s_{n-m}] ->some constant k as m->\infty (call this equation 1) then rebalancing makes sense. Notes:
Non Resident Alien(Working full time on F1-OPT) new car sales tax deduction
A non-resident alien is only allowed for deductions connected to producing a US-sourced income (See IRC Sec. 873). Thus you can only deduct things that qualify as business expenses, and State taxes on your wages. In addition you can deduct a bunch of stuff explicitly allowed (like tax preparation, charitable contributi...
Would I ever need credit card if my debit card is issued by MasterCard/Visa?
If you are solvent enough, and organised enough to pay your credit card bill in full each month, then use the credit card. There are no disadvantages and several plus points, already mentioned. Use the debit card when you would be surcharged for using the credit card, or where you can negotiate a discount for not subj...
Stock market vs. baseball card trading analogy
Baseball cards don't pay dividends. But many profitable companies do just that, and those that don't could, some day. Profits & dividends is where your analogy falls apart. But let's take it further. Consider: If baseball cards could somehow yield a regular stream of income just for owning them, then there might be y...
Married, 55, grown kids: Should I buy life insurance, or invest in stocks? The ultimate decision
Life insurance is not an investment -- by definition, since the companies need to take a profit out of it, the average amount paid in exceeds the amount paid out, yielding a negative rate of return. Get life insurance if your death would cause severe financial hardship for someone. If you have sufficient savings that y...
Why are taxes on actively managed funds higher than those on index funds?
This depends on the particular index, of course. Capital gains taxes occur when stock is sold (for a profit). This occurs less frequently in an index fund: Where an active manager frequently buys and sells stocks (after all, he wants to be active :-) ), the index fund only sells stocks when the particular stock leaves ...
How can I deposit a check made out to my business into my personal account?
If you sign the check "For Deposit Only", the bank will put it in your account. You may need to set up a "payable name" on the account matching your DBA alias. However, having counted offerings for a church on several occasions, I know that banks simply have no choice but to be lax about the "Pay to the Order Of" line ...
Would it make sense to buy a rental property as an LLC and not in my own name?
You need to first visit the website of whatever state you're looking to rent the property in and you're going to want to form the LLC in that particular state. Find the Department of Licensing link and inquire about forming a standard LLC to register as the owner of the property and you should easily see how much it co...
Does girlfriend have too much savings, time to invest?
It's time she look into what employer provided retirement plan she can use. She's at the point where she should think about investing for the long term, with retirement in mind.
Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent?
It's doable, but there's a fair amount of risk involved. The biggest issue is that your roommates could move out. It's possible that they could have a falling out, get a job in a different city, or just move on. How difficult would it be to find another roommate? How many roommates can you lose and still afford to pay ...
How does giving to charity work?
Charitable donations can be deducted from your income, and in that way make your taxable income lower, hence lower taxes. That's the meaning of "tax deductible". As to "if I donate it then the money will be given right to the charity instead of spread out to many other places" - taxes are being used by the government b...
Buying a house, how much should my down payment be?
As observed, there is no answer that will fit all, but below are some considerations: Your monthly requirement is 5000, so you have 3000 left to pay the monthly instalments (EMI). However, if you do pay 3000, you will have no money left for any other activities (holidays etc.) till your EMI is finished Set off a sum, l...
Why do non-electronic stock exchanges (with floor traders) still exist?
Non-electronic stock exchanges still exist because they used to exist. There are a lot of people in trading firms who grew up with floor trading and don't want to give it up, either because they feel more comfortable with it or because they might lose their job if they went away from it.
Advantages of paying more of your mortgage while you know you won't continue to live there your whole life
The main factors you have to consider are: Could you get a better return on that money by investing it somewhere? The investment rate should basically be more than the mortgage rate. If you find yourself suddenly in need of money (eg, loss of job) do you have enough savings to ride that out? If not, investing the ext...