I'm responsible for all our hedging.  Since we sell the energy to end users we do mostly fixed buys, swaps and calls.  I'm a excel guru and dabble a little in SQL.  we have Crystal Ball as well but i have no idea how to use it.  I guess I'm trying to figure out if there is a tool that people use to help me analyze the spreads. or perhaps some reading material to help me through this. This is what i've been working towards for so long and i really don't want to fuck this up


If you're not a NY (tax) resident, then as long as you're not physically present in New York - you do not owe NY taxes on compensation for your services. But that is if you're a 1099 contractor/employee. If you're a partner/shareholder in a partnership/LLC/S-Corp registered or conducting business in New York, and that company pays you money - you do owe NY taxes. See this page of the NY revenue agency for more details.


"The reason ""on-line"" savings accounts (Ally, CapitalOne, American Express, and many others) provide much higher rates than brick-and-mortar banks is because they're not brick-and-mortar. They do not need to pay for a huge amount of real estate, utilities, public-facing employees, inter-office mail, security, etc etc. All that - allows them to pay more for your money. The back office of these banks is the same as that of Chase, BOA or Wells Fargo. Its just that they don't have the enormous expense of having a branch in every neighborhood, while still reaching all the same population of depositors. So no, its not a scam, these are reputable banks. Some have physical offices (for example, I know that CapitalOne has some branches in New York), some don't (IIRC neither Ally nor American Express Federal Saving Bank have physical branches). But they're banks nonetheless, insured as required by FDIC (or NCUA, in case of credit unions), and provide all the same services for less (or all the same savings for more, if you will). IMHO, giving 0.01% APR is a scam. Not the other way around. The old-style banks want your money for free, and you're worried why would someone else treat you better... Well, that's why the US has one of the most retarded financial systems in the Western world..."


Narratively from the POV of the landlord, the hip retailer ABC offered me a 10 year lease at $1000/month for an empty store front on an empty block.  I agreed.  ABC attracted a large youth market, so other stores filled in the rest of the block in the intervening decade, which I leased for 1200, 1500, 2000, and finally 4000 per month since the foot traffic and demographic is so strong. It's now year 9.  Next year, the lease will likely jump up to the comparable 4000 per square foot.  Their margin in this location probably looks great today.  But the purpose of the quote is to warn you to check the future.


First, you need to see if you actually qualify as a dependent under IRS rules; in short: While there may be exceptions to the cohabitation rule, I am not sure what those could be.  The takeaway is that if your parent is wishing to claim you as a dependent, they must be responsible for supporting the majority of your living expenses (e.g. food and shelter). If this is the case, then the next question is to look at how the impact of the exemptions play out.  In your situation, I would guess that your mother is correct:  your taxable income is likely to be so low that if you do not take an exemption for yourself, you probably would still have zero or minimal tax liability; but if you mother claims you as a dependent, she will be able to take a deduction. In the case of your grants and loans, the loans should not be taxable income since these need to be repaid (presumably, with future earnings).  Federal grants may be taxable--basically, the portion of the grant that is used solely for paying educational expenses toward a specific degree (tuition and books) is non-taxable, but the remainder may be subject to tax. As for tax credits, you would need to see how much you would get and how they would apply to you.  The bottom line is, there are too many variables to say for certain what the best approach would be, so both your and your mother's returns must be prepared under each scenario (you as her dependent, versus you claiming a personal exemption).


You should pay things off every month.  You don't want to be paying 10%-25% interest if you don't have to.  If you regularly use you card, the credit agencies can't tell the difference.  The way it works is that every month, they send the credit agencies your current balance and if you paid the last bill on time.  There is nothing that indicates if this is a standing balance, or if you charged all of it since the last payment. Any business that you legitimately owe a debt to can report that to the credit agencies.  Not all of them do.  This includes utilities, cell phone companies, landlords, etc. If any of them report overdue items it will show up on your credit report, and your credit card company can use that to raise you interest rate. Some cards will automatically raise you credit limit.  They are basically looking to make money fro you.  If you often charge near the limit, and pay the minimum balance each month, they may raise your limit to get you to charge more, and pay more interest.  You can also call them and ask.  They have some internal rules to decide if, based on your history with them and your credit history, if you are a good risk.


I love how this probably won't get many replies because your in the trenches doing it, keep up the hard work. I graduated high school with 1k in savings and dropped out of college to help support my depressed and unemployed mother with some help from my Father.   I am now a married new construction homeowner and we take home enough money to have new cars, save for retirement, and enjoy life with no college degrees. I went from 8 an hour to over 35 now in 4-5 years.  We both had to get off social media because of all our old high school friends who went to college for garbage degrees, never tried to get entry level jobs in their industry while in school or network, and now cry all day about how Bernie sanders didn't win the election and why school should be free so they don't have to pay off debt for a worthless degree as they wait tables. No sympathy


"I think the £35K band applies to the ""dividend income"" not the ""dividend paid to you"", and so you would only actually get £31.5K (90% of £35K) in your pocket before the next tax band kicked in. If your company will only supplying large VAT registered entities, then register for VAT yourself and elect the Flat Rate scheme - depending on your area of business, given that you have no expenses, your company will get an extra 7% - 14% on its income for free. Your clients won't care that you charge them VAT because they'll claim it back. Finally, depending on what your company is for, beware of the dreaded IR35"


Your max contribution to your Roth IRA and your traditional IRA share the same cap, so if you are maxing your Roth IRA you cannot have a traditional one as well. I would put the additional into your 401k or perhaps a 529 if you have any kids.


Yes, an overall $500 loss on the stock can be claimed. Since the day trader sold both lots she acquired, the Wash Sale rule has no net impact on her taxes. The Wash Sale rule would come into play if within thirty days of second sale, she purchased the stock a third time. Then she would have to amend her taxes because claiming the $500 loss would no longer be a valid under the Wash Sale rule. It would have to be added to the cost basis of the most recent purchase.


My first thought is get a Capital One Secured Card. Use it for small things and pay it all off when you get paid. It will build your credit and after six months of solid use your credit limit can go up and you can be eligible for a better non-secured card (not that you need to get one). It's great for starting or rebuilding credit.


I think they give away their shit for free (right?)  but if not... 100% true.  definitely going to be everywhere in China immediately... not even a debate.  people here who doubt this don't work in a Chinese company


"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."


I would try to avoid mixing business expenditure with personal expenditure so a second credit card might be a good idea. That said, I did get a business credit card for my company in the UK as I didn't want to be personally liable for the money that was spent on the business card (even though I owned 100% of the business) in case things went horribly wrong. As I didn't fancy signing a personal guarantee, this meant that the limit was quite low but it was good enough in most cases.


They just let you borrow a little more every months. When the owner dies/sells they get all their money + % back.


I was once the personal assistant to two wealthy NYC sisters. They did not pay for anything. For example, if we were riding the subway, I would pay, and be reimbursed by the Company. They had multiple residences and investment properties. Each property was purchased through a separate Limited Liablity Corporation, and paid for by the Company. When they purchased, donated or sold art, it was through their family Foundation. Their income primarily came from a draw of funds from the family estate, although one of them worked as an architect, which provided further income.


The simplest explanation is that a traditional IRA is a method of deferring taxes. That is, normally you pay taxes on money you earn at the ordinary rate then invest the rest and only pay the capital gains rate.  However, with a traditional IRA you don't pay taxes on the money when you earn it, you defer the payment of those taxes until you retire. So in the end it ends up being treated the same. That said, if you are strategic about it you can wind up paying less taxes with this type of account.


"Is there anyway to salvage my investment for short-term? No.  If by ""salvage"" you mean ""get back as much as you paid"", the only way to salvage it is to wait as long as you consider ""short-term"" and see if goes up again.  If by ""salvage"" you mean ""get some money back"", the only thing you can do to guarantee that is sell it now.  By doing so, you guarantee that you will get neither more nor less than it is worth right now.  Either way, there is nothing you can do other than sell the stock or hold it.  The stock price went down.  You can't make it go back up. Would it be better if I sell my stocks now and buy from other company? Or should I just wait for it's price to go up again? This depends on why you bought the stock, and what you think it will do in the future.  You said a family member persuaded you.  Does that family member still think the stock will go up again?  If so, do you still trust them? You didn't even say what stock it is in your question, so there's no way anyone here can tell you whether it's a good idea to sell it or not.  Even if you do say what stock it is, all anyone can do is guess.  If you want, you could look the stock up on Motley Fool or other sites to see if analysts believe it will rise.  There are lots of sources of information.  But all you can do with that information is decide to sell the stock or not. It may sound obvious, but you should sell if you think the stock will go lower, and hold it if you think it could still go back up.  No one can tell you which of those things is going to happen."


Wrong way round. Transitional arrangements are non-binding guidelines that the lenders can observe if they choose to. The borrower - like your friend - doesn't  get to choose whether to use them or not. Your friend obviously can't afford the property, so if you do this, all I can say is congratulations on buying your new house, and I hope you got a deal on the mortgage.


"For what it's worth, the distribution I'm currently using is roughly ... with about 2/3 of the money sitting in my 401(k). I should note that this is actually considered a moderately aggressive position. I need to phone my advisor (NOT a broker, so they aren't biased toward things which are more profitable for them) and check whether I've gotten close enough to retirement that I should readjust those numbers. Could I do better? Maybe, at higher risk and higher fees that would be likely to eat most of the improved returns. Or by spending far more time micromanaging my money than I have any interest in. I've validated this distribution using the various stochastic models and it seems to work well enough that I'm generally content with it. (As I noted in a comment elsewhere, many of us will want to get up into this range before we retire -- I figure that if I hit $1.8M I can probably sustain my lifestyle solely on the income, despite expected inflation, and thus be safely covered for life -- so this isn't all that huge a chunk of cash by today's standards. Cue Daffy Duck: ""I'm rich! I'm wealthy! I'm comfortably well off!"" -- $2M, these days, is ""comfortably well off."")"


One big advantage that the 529 plan has is that most operate like a target date fund. As the child approaches college age the investment becomes more conservative. While you can do this by changing the mix of investments, you can't do it without capital gains taxes. Many of the issues you are concerned about are addressed: they are usable by other family members, they don't hurt financial aid offers, they address scholarships, they can be used for books or room and board.  Many states also give you a tax break in the year of the contribution.


> Why is this always the top voted kind of comment whenever a blog post is submitted on Reddit?  It isn't. Decent blog articles get submitted every day.  > A blog is not an article so adjust your expectations or volunteer to be her pro-bono editor.  I do expect it to be at least coherent and consise.  >doesn't really contradict what the blogger was writing about: being sold a false dream.    Caveat Emptor. It precisely contradicts what the OP was about. If the contract isn't to your liking, don't buy into the dream.  Look - Freelancing is hard. You have to make decisions that regular employees don't have to. One of your tasks is vetting potential employees and negotiating contracts. If that sounds too hard or too difficult, go back to your fucking cubicle and fill out your TPS reports.


Finding a way to pay down credit debt is important, because you're probably paying in the high teens in APR. 401k should be last resort. Have you researched other options? E.g loan consolidation  If you don't mind me asking, how did you get that far in debt?


No, the dividends can't be exploited like that. Dividends settlement are tied to an ex-dividend date. The ex-dividend, is the day that allows you to get a dividend if you own the stock. Since a buyer of the stock after this date won't get the dividend, the price usually drop by the amount of the dividend. In your case the price of a share would lose $2.65 and you will be credited by $2.65 in cash such that your portfolio won't change in value due to the dividend. Also, you can't exploit the drop in price by short-selling, as you would be owing the dividend to the person lending you the stock for the short sale. Finally, the price of the stock at the ex-dividend will also be affected by the supply and demand, such that you can't be precisely sure of the drop in price of the security.


Simply, you should put your money into whatever has the higher interest rate, savings or repayment of debt. Let's say at the beginning of month A you put $1000 into each account. In the case of the savings, at the end of month A you will have $1001.6 ($1000 + 1000 x 2% annual interest / 12) In the case of a loan, at the end of month A you will have $1005.7. ($17000 plus 6.8 interest for one month is 17096.3. On $16000, the new value is 16090.6.  The difference between these is $1005.7. 5.7 / 1.6 = 3.56 Therefore, using your money to repay your loan nets you a return about 3.5 times greater.


"Can an employer force a person to take a stock?   From what I understand an employer can only offer stock options, doesn't that mean that the employee has to exercise that option in order for the stock to be valid?  Would it be legal to fire me for refusing a bonus?  Furthermore would owning stock necessarily make you an ""owner"" for the purposes of said law?"


Yes. It seems to me you got it right.  On my site, Stock Options Cafe, my last post was an illustration of a bullish call spread. In this case, I bought a 50 call, and sold the 60 call. This is a debit order as I was paying money, not collecting a new premium.


I didn't mean to imply that the perceived value of a company on the stock market somehow proved that the companies had not lost capital or value. But it sure is a clear datapoint to juxtapose against all of the other hard facts in play. Often, the stock market isn't wrong... even if it may lag. If these companies have all this loss, is that baked into the current price? But again I was just merely grasping for the details from the plethora of sources given. I surely missed the real meat of the data.


"If you are a permanent resident (and it wasn't taken away or abandoned), then you are a resident alien for U.S. tax purposes. (One of the two tests for being a resident alien is the ""green card test"".) Being a resident alien means all your worldwide income is subject to U.S. taxes, regardless of where you live or work. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to actually pay taxes on your income again if you've already paid it -- you may be able to use the Foreign Tax Credit to reduce your taxes by the amount already paid to a foreign government -- but you need to report it on U.S. tax forms just like income from the U.S., and you can then apply any tax credits that you may qualify for. As a resident alien, you file taxes using Form 1040. You are required to file taxes if your income for a particular year is above a certain threshold. This threshold is described in the first few pages of the 1040 instructions for each year. For 2013, for Single filing status under 65, it is $10000. The only way you can legally not file is if your income the whole year was below this amount. You should go back and file taxes if you were required to but failed to. Having filed taxes when required is very important if you want to naturalize later on. It is also one component of demonstrating you're maintaining residency in the U.S., which you're required to do as a permanent resident being outside the U.S. for a long time, or else you'll lose your permanent residency. (Even filing taxes might not be enough, as your description of your presence in the U.S. shows you only go there for brief periods each year, not really living there. You're lucky you haven't lost your green card already; any time you go there you run a great risk of them noticing and taking it away.)"


You can open Savings Bank Account with some Banks that offer better interest rate. Note there would be restriction on number of withdrawals in quarter. There are better interest rates if you lock in for 90+ days. The other option to explore is to open a Demat / Brokrage account and invest in liquid funds. Note depending on various factors it may or may not suite your requirements.


There are, of course, many possible financial emergencies. They range from large medical expenses to losing your job to being sued to major home or car repairs to who-knows-what. I suppose some people are in a position where the chances that they will face any sort of financial emergency are remote. If you live in a country with national health insurance and there is near-zero chance that you will have any need to go outside this system, you are living with your parents and they are equipped to handle any home repairs, you ride the bus or subway and don't own a car so that's not an issue, etc etc, maybe there just isn't any likely scenario where you'd suddenly need cash. I can think of all sorts of scenarios that might affect me. I'm trying to put my kids through college, so if I lost my job, even if unemployment benefits were adequate to live on, they wouldn't pay for college. I have terrible health insurance so big medical bills could cost me a lot. I have an old car so it could break down any time and need expensive repairs, or even have to be replaced. I might suddenly be charged with a crime that I didn't commit and need a lawyer to defend me. Etc. So in a very real sense, everyone's situation is different. On the other hand, no matter how carefully you think it out, it's always possible that you will get bitten by something that you didn't think of. By definition, you can't make a list of unforeseen problems that might affect you! So no matter how safe you think you are, it's always good to have some emergency fund, just in case. How much is very hard to say.


Not to be an asshole but the fact you are even asking the above tells me any form of financial service may not be for you.  How the fuck can you be licensed and not have a basic understanding of what it means? And even further, that rules for doing/not doing are much more determined by individual jobs and firm rules than by some industry exam.  You have confirmed my belief that our industry licensing is equivalent to a food handler's card, thank you.


"The game is not zero sum. When a friend and I chop down a tree, and build a house from it, the house has value, far greater than the value of a standing tree. Our labor has turned into something of value.  In theory, a company starts from an idea, and offers either a good or service to create value. There are scams that make it seem like a Vegas casino. There are times a stock will trade for well above what it should. When I buy the S&P index at a fair price for 1000 (through an etf or fund) and years later it's 1400, the gain isn't out of someone else's pocket, else the amount of wealth in the world would be fixed and that's not the case. Over time, investors lag the market return for multiple reasons, trading costs, bad timing, etc. Statements such as ""90% lose money"" are hyperbole meant to separate you from your money. A self fulfilling prophesy.   The question of lagging the market is another story - I have no data to support my observation, but I'd imagine that well over 90% lag the broad market. A detailed explanation is too long for this forum, but simply put, there are trading costs. If I invest in an S&P ETF that costs .1% per year, I'll see a return of say 9.9% over decades if the market return is 10%. Over 40 years, this is 4364% compounded, vs the index 4526% compounded, a difference of less than 4% in final wealth. There are load funds that charge more than this just to buy in (5% anyone?).  Lagging by a small fraction is a far cry from 'losing money.'  There is an annual report by a company named Dalbar that tracks investor performance. For the 20 year period ending 12/31/10 the S&P returned 9.14% and Dalbar calculates the average investor had an average return of 3.83%. Pretty bad, but not zero. Since you don't cite a particular article or source, there may be more to the story. Day traders are likely to lose. As are a series of other types of traders in other markets, Forex for one.  While your question may be interesting, its premise of ""many experts say...."" without naming even one leaves room for doubt.  Note - I've updated the link for the 2015 report. And 4 years later, I see that when searching on that 90% statistic, the articles are about day traders. That actually makes sense to me."


It depends what you mean by financial knowledge.  Often you will work in a group focused on some aspect of the company's business.  As an example, I work for a company and my group works on econometric models.  Although I have a degree in finance, I don't encounter or talk about corporate or personal finance.  I do talk about investing with a friend, but in general, our group is focused on one aspect of finance and economics for the company.   From another direction, often financial companies will offer financial literacy training through HR and benefits programs where you can improve your knowledge of finance outside of your groups focus.   In the end, you will learn the most by persuing new knowledge through reading on current financial literature.  I hope this helps. Edit:  If you add some specifics to what you would like to learn about I may be able to point you in the right direction.


"When people talk about ""the price"" of a stock, they usually mean one of the following: Last price:  The price at which a trade most recently took place.  If someone sold (and someone else bought) shares of XYZ for $20 each, then until another trade occurs, the last price of the stock will be quoted at $20. Bid price: The highest price at which someone is currently offering to buy the stock. Ask price: The lowest price at which someone is currently offering to sell the stock. As you can see, all of these are completely determined by the people buying and selling the stock."


Yes, you can deduct from your taxable profits (almost) any expenses incurred in the course of your business. See here for HMRC's detailed advice on the subject. The fact that you have salaried PAYE employment as well makes no difference.


Good addition. When learning finance and business, /u/msattam, realize the world does not work cleanly like it does in a textbook. You have added complexity, both systemic and human caused. And that there is a very good reason that we must understand agency issues and how to mitigate those risks.


"It's easy for me to look at an IRA, no deposits or withdrawal in a year, and compare the return to some index. Once you start adding transactions, not so easy. Here's a method that answers your goal as closely as I can offer: SPY goes back to 1993. It's the most quoted EFT that replicates the S&P 500, and you specifically asked to compare how the investment would have gone if you were in such a fund. This is an important distinction, as I don't have to adjust for its .09% expense, as you would have been subject to it in this fund. Simply go to Yahoo, and start with the historical prices. Easy to do this on a spreadsheet. I'll assume you can find all your purchases inc dates & dollars invested. Look these up and treat those dollars as purchases of SPY. Once the list is done, go back and look up the dividends, issues quarterly, and on the dividend date, add the shares it would purchase based on that day's price. Of course, any withdrawals get accounted for the same way, take out the number of SPY shares it would have bought. Remember to include the commission on SPY, whatever your broker charges.  If I've missed something, I'm sure we'll see someone point that out, I'd be happy to edit that in, to make this wiki-worthy.  Edit - due to the nature of comments and the inability to edit, I'm adding this here. Perhaps I'm reading the question too pedantically, perhaps not. I'm reading it as ""if instead of doing whatever I did, I invested in an S&P index fund, how would I have performed?"" To measure one's return against a benchmark, the mechanics of the benchmarks calculation are not needed. In a comment I offer an example - if there were an ETF based on some type of black-box investing for which the investments were not disclosed at all, only day's end pricing, my answer above still applies exactly. The validity of such comparisons is a different question, but the fact that the formulation of the EFT doesn't come into play remains. In my comment below which I removed I hypothesized an ETF name, not intending it to come off as sarcastic. For the record, if one wishes to start JoesETF, I'm ok with it."


"Never forget that student lenders and their collection agencies are dangerous and clever predators, and you, the student borrower, are their legal prey. They look at you and think, ""food."" My friend said she never pays her student loans and nothing has happened.  She's wrong. Something has happened. She just doesn't know about it yet. Each unpaid bill, with penalties, has been added to the balance of her loan.  Now she owes that money also. And she owes interest on it. That balance is probably building up very fast indeed. She's playing right into the hands of her student lender. They are smiling about this. When the balance gets large enough to make it worthwhile, her student lender will retain an aggressive collection agency to recover the entire balance. The agency will come after her in court, and they are likely to win.  If your friend lives in the US, she'll discover that she can't declare bankruptcy to escape this. She has the bankruptcy ""reform"" act of 2006, passed during the Bush 43 regime, to thank for this. A court judgement against her will make it harder for her to find a job and even a spouse. I'm not saying this is right or just. I believe it is wrong and unjust to make university graduates into debt slaves. But it is true. As for being paid under the table, I hope your friend intends on dying rather than retiring when she no longer can work due to age. If she's paid under the table she will not be eligible for social security payments.  You need sixteen calendar quarters of social security credit to be eligible for payments.  I know somebody like this. It's a hell of a way to live, especially on weekends when the local church feeding programs don't operate.  Paying people under the table ought to be a felony for the business owner."


[I think this quote is utter bullshit](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1400/0*ORZDlqkUmjUTH35z.png)- but that's just my opinion.   Since they referenced Dragons Den/Shark Tank- that's how you see so many entrepreneurs on those shows who are doing that and failing- divorced, remortaged house, no one left and a disaster.


"19500 - The balance isn't held all month. It's held on average for half a month (assuming the days money was spent was randomly distributed).  260/(1.5% - 4%/(24))  Edit: That answer only works if they pay off their balance at the end of the month - 260/(1.5% - 4%*(3/24)) gives 26000 if the average balance is held for a month and a half. But either way, leaving out the ""half a month"" results in a messy number."


"A stock split can force short sellers of penny stocks to cover their shorts and cauuse the price to appreciate.  Example:  Someone shorts a worthless pump and dump stock, 10,000 shares at .50.  They have to put up $25,000.00 in margin ($2.50 per share for stocks under $2.50).  The company announces a 3 to 1 split.  Now the short investor must come up with $50,000.00 additional margin or be be ""bought in"". The short squeeze is on."


If you are in an economy which has a decent liquid debt market (corporate bonds, etc.), then you may look into investing in AA or AA+ rated bonds. They can provide higher returns than bank deposits and are virtually risk-free. (Though in severe economic downturns, you can see defaults in even very high-rated bonds, leading to partial or complete loss of value however, this is statistically quite rare). You can make this investment through a debt mutual fund but please make sure that you read through the offer document carefully to understand the investment style of the mutual fund and their expense ratio (which directly affect your returns). In any case, it is always recommended to reach out to an investment adviser who is good with local tax laws to minimize taxes and maximize returns.


Be very careful to hold on tight to your money! I agree with paying for an investment advisor, but I would say use at least two to get different viewpoints, and get credentials and references! Don't let relatives convince you to invest in their business, or help them out, or any other such nonsense. Real estate still is one of the best investments out there in my opinion. You could buy a fixer upper and rent it out?


why can't I just use the same trick with my own shares to make money on the way    down? Because if you sell shares out of your own portfolio, by definition, you are not selling short at all. If you sell something you own (and deliver it) - then there is no short involved. A short is defined as a net negative position - i.e. you sell shares you do not have. Selling shares you own is selling shares you own - no short involved. You must borrow the shares for a short because in the stock market, you must DELIVER. You can not deliver shares you do not own. The stock market does not work on promises - the person who bought the shares expects ownership of them with all rights that gives them. So you borrow them to deliver them, then return them when you buy them back.


You can expect about a 7% return when investing in the general market if your horizon is ten years or more. The market fluctuates, which means that you should be absolutely fine with losing 10% or more of your invested money during this period. You say yourself that: I have been setting aside money (...) into a savings account earmarked for that purpose (repairs/maintenance) so that I don't have to take out loans. It's obvious from your question that the purpose of this money is not savings, this is money that you are already investing, not in stocks or bonds but in your house. While this money sits around, of course you could put it into the market and hope that it grows. It all depends on your horizon, which in your case sounds like about 1 year. Is that long enough to be fairly sure you will make a profit? From what I've written so far, hopefully you can gather that the answer is no. If you choose to invest $6,000 but you need that money back in one year, you need to be aware of the risk that you'll instead end up with $5,400 or even less. Your options are then to: If you're asking for personal advice, my opinion would be this: you're already investing in your house. The housing market, like most markets, fluctuate. Whether you like it or not, you're already a victim (or benefactor) of this value fluctuation. The difference is that a house is something you'll live in for a long time (probably), that will give you daily joy in a way stocks and bonds won't. Of course, saving up money and investing them is always a good idea anyway. You should still save a small amount every month and put it into low/medium risk bonds, in my opinion.


Right, so if a federal interest rate near 0 percent is not enough to stimulate the demand for those loans, then we have pretty much exhausted what we can do with monetary policy. So the only thing left is fiscal policy - raise spending or lower taxes


"Hmm... Maybe I somewhat misunderstood your question then.  Yes, trade deficits/surpluses are really the core of the country-level ""investment"".  But yes, it maters what they *do* with it, which is **why** so many countries put any excesses into US treasuries.   Going back to ""personal"" finance, if they pay down higher interest debt with their trade surplus, *great*; if they have no debt and can issue local currency (in PF land, ""take out a loan"") for under 2%, *great*;  If not... **Not** so great.  ""Saving"" money that costs over 2% isn't an investment, it's nothing but a loan disguised as one."


"There are a couple of misconceptions I think are present here: Firstly, when people say ""interest"", usually that implies a lower-risk investment, like a government bond or a money market fund. Some interest-earning investments can be higher risk (like junk bonds offered by near-bankrupt companies), but for the most part, stocks are higher risk. With higher risk comes higher reward, but obviously also the chance for a bad year. A ""bad year"" can mean your fund actually goes down in value, because the companies you are invested in do poorly. So calling all value increases ""interest"" is not the correct way to think about things. Secondly, remember that ""Roth IRA fund"" doesn't really tell you what's ""inside"" it. You could set up your fund to include only low-risk interest earning investments, or higher risk foreign stocks. From what you've said, your fund is a ""target retirement date""-type fund. This typically means that it is a mix of stocks and bonds, weighted higher to bonds if you are older (on the theory of minimizing risk near retirement), and higher to stocks if you are younger (on the theory of accepting risk for higher average returns when you have time to overcome losses). What this means is that assuming you're young and the fund you have is typical, you probably have ~50%+ of your money invested in stocks. Stocks don't pay interest, they give you value in two ways: they pay you dividends, and the companies that they are a share of increase in value (remember that a stock is literally a small % ownership of the company). So the value increase you see as the increase due to the increase in the mutual fund's share price, is part of the total ""interest"" amount you were expecting. Finally, if you are reading about ""standard growth"" of an account using a given amount of contributions, someone somewhere is making an assumption about how much ""growth"" actually happens. Either you entered a number in the calculator (""How much do you expect growth to be per year?"") or it made an assumption by default (probably something like 7% growth per year - I haven't checked the math on your number to see what the growth rate they used was). These types of assumptions can be helpful for general retirement planning, but they are not ""rules"" that your investments are required by law to follow. If you invest in something with risk, your return may be less than expected."


I wrote about this in another answer: You can sell the scrip dividend in the market; the capital gain from this sale may fall below the annual tax-free allowance for capital gains, in which case you don't pay any capital gains tax on that amount. For a cash dividend, however, there isn't a minimum taxable amount, so you would owe dividend tax on the entire dividend (and may therefore pay more taxes on a cash dividend). Since you haven't sold the shares in the market yet, you haven't earned any income on the shares. You don't owe taxes on the scrip until you sell the shares and earn capital gains on them. HMRC is very explicit about this, in CG33800: It is quite common for a company, particularly a quoted company, to offer its shareholders the option of receiving additional shares instead of a cash dividend. The expression `stock or scrip dividend' is used to describe shares issued in such circumstances. The basic position under tax law is that when a company makes a bonus issue of shares no distribution arises, and the bonus issue of shares is not income for tax purposes in the hands of the recipient. Obviously, if this is an issue for you, talk to a tax professional to make sure you get it right.


I don't like your strategy.  Don't wait.  Open an investment account today with a low cost providers and put those funds into a low cost investment that represents as much of the market as you can find. I am going to start by assuming you are a really smart person.  With that assumption I am going to assume you can see details and trends and read into the lines.  As a computer programmer I am going to assume you are pretty task oriented, and that you look for optimal solutions. Now I am going to ask you to step back.  You are clearly very good at managing your money, but I believe you are over-thinking your opportunity. Reading your question, you need a starting place (and some managed expectations), so here is your plan: Now that you have a personal retirement account (IRA, Roth IRA, MyRA?) and perhaps a 401(k) (or equivalent) at work, you can start to select which investments go into that account.  I know that was your question, but things you said in your question made me wonder if you had all of that clear in your head. The key point here is don't wait.  You won't be able to time the market; certainly not consistently.  Get in NOW and stay in.  You adjust your investments based on your risk tolerance as you age, and you adjust your investments based on your wealth and needs.  But get in NOW.   Over the course of 40 years you are likely to be working, sometimes the market will be up, and sometimes the market will be down; but keep buying in.  Because every day you are in, you money can grow; and over 40 years the chances that you will grow substantially is pretty high.  No need to wait, start growing today. Things I didn't discuss but are important to you:


Our two rentals have yielded 8.5% over the past two years (averaged). That is net, after taxes, maintenance, management, vacancy, insurance, interest. I am only interested in cash flow - expenses / original investment. If you aren't achieving at least 4.5-5% net on your original investment you probably could invest elsewhere and earn a better return on a similar risk profile.


The bank depends on the laws of large numbers.  They don't need to make money on every customer -- just on average. There are several ways that zero interest makes sense to them: You asked about banks, and I don't think you see this last scheme in use very much by a bank.  Here's why.   First, customers absolutely hate it - and when you drop the interest bomb, they will warn their friends away, blow you up on social media, call the TV news consumer protectors, and never, ever, ever do business with you again.  Which defeats your efforts in customer acquisition.  Second, it only works on that narrow range of people who default just a little bit, i.e. who have an auto-pay malfunction.  If someone really defaults, not only will they not pay the punishment interest, they won't pay the principal either!  This only makes sense for secured loans like furniture or cars, where you can repo that stuff - with unsecured loans, you don't really have any power to force them to pay, short of burning their credit.  You can sue them, but you can't get blood from a stone.


I have had better experiences with accountants in smaller towns.  It seems they are used to working with small businesses and their reputation is very important to them.


Not necessarily. You can set any rules that you like, and you can get capital from other sources. In our company's case, you have to work there for a year before you are eligible to join the co-op. The buy in is given as an interest free loan taken through payroll deduction. We don't get to share the profits generated by the labor of people who are not members of the company. Those stay as retained earnings. We can take on loans as well as outside investment as long as the outside investors aren't given voting rights (via restricted preferred stock).


Congrats on saving aggressively when you're young. I'm not a huge fan of tax-advantaged accounts because the rules can change on them, and there's already a penalty for you to take out that money for most purposes until you've almost tripled your age. Free money (a match) overcomes this reservation for me, but I'm not contributing anything beyond that.  I'm paying my taxes on the rest and am done with them. Watching your money grow tax-free for another 37 1/2 years only to see your (and everyone else's) marginal tax rate rise isn't much fun.  I'm not saying that will happen, but it certainly could.


In addition to a fee-only advisor, brought up by dg99, you could consider asking your questions on message boards such as Bogleheads.org. I have found the advice amazing, obviously conflict-free, and free.


As mhoran_psprep and others have already said, it sounds like the sale is concluded and your son has no obligation to return the car or pay a dime more. The only case in which your son should consider returning the car is if it works in his favor--for example, if he is able to secure a similar bargain on a different car and the current dealer buys the current car back from your son at a loss. If the dealer wants to buy the car back, your son should first get them to agree to cover any fees already incurred by your son. After that, he should negotiate that the dealer split the remaining difference with him. Suppose the dealership gave a $3000 discount, and your son paid $1000 in title transfer, registration, and any other fees such as a cashier's check or tax, if applicable. The remaining difference is $2000. Your son should get half that.  In this scenario, the dealer only loses half as much money, and your son gains $1000 for his trouble.


"Some 401k plans allow you to make ""supplemental post-tax contributions"". basically, once you hit the pre-tax contribution limit (17.5k$ in 2014), you are then allowed to contribute funds on a post-tax basis. Because of this timing, they are sometimes called ""spillover"" contributions. Usually, this option is advertised as a way of continuing to get company match even if you accidentally hit the pre-tax limit.  But if you actually pay attention to your finances, it is instead a handy way to put away additional tax-advantaged money.  That said, you would only want to use this option if you already maxed out your pre-tax and Roth options since you don't get the traditional tax break on contributions or the Roth tax break on the earnings. However, when you leave the company, you can transfer the post-tax money directly into a Roth IRA when you transfer the pre-tax money, match, and earnings into a traditional IRA."


I suppose it depends on the circumstances, but I wouldn't advise it. If you default on a loan to the bank it might ruin your credit, if you default to a family member it has the potential for much more damage in the form of fostering bad feelings and hurt the relationship.


There are two parts to this. Firstly, if you are also living in the property you have bought, then you should not consider it to be an investment. You need it to provide shelter, and the market value is irrelevant unless/until you decide to move. Of course, if your move is forced at a time not of your choosing then if the market value has dropped, you might lose out. No-one can accurately predict the housing market any more than they can predict interest rates on normal savings accounts, the movement of the stock market, etc.  Secondly, if you just have a lump sum and you want to invest it safely, the bank is one of the safest places to keep it. It is protected / underwritten by EU law (assuming you are in the EU) up to €100,000. See for example here which is about the UK and Brexit in particular but mentions the EU blanket protection. The other things you could do with it - buy property, gold, art works, stocks and shares, whatever thing you think will be least likely to lose value over time - would not be protected in the same way.


Here's a good rule of thumb. In any situation where you are required to purchase insurance (Auto Liability, Property Mortgage Insurance, etc.) you can safely assume that you aren't the primary beneficiary. You are being required to buy that insurance to protect someone else's investment.


"Here are some things you want to look at for evaluating a bank or credit union for your regular spending accounts: Convenience.  Do they have a branch in a convenient location for you?  Do they have no-fee ATMs near you? Website.  If you are like me, you will spend more time on the bank's website than you do inside a branch.  Some bank's websites are great, some are terrible.  Unfortunately, this is generally difficult to evaluate until you actually get an account.  You want a website that is easy to use.  It should allow you to easily move money between your accounts, get instant lists of transactions, show you your monthly statements, and have a billpay feature that works well.  If you use budgeting software that interfaces online with your bank, you want to ensure that it works well with your bank. Fee structure.  Some banks will nickel-and-dime you to death.  Watch out for minimum balance fees and ATM fees.  Banks and credit unions usually have a fee schedule page on their website that lists every fee they charge, making it easy to compare different banks.   I would not be very concerned about interest rates for savings.  Currently, all savings accounts have a universally terrible interest rate.  Therefore, I wouldn't base my bank choice on the interest rate.  Sure, one might offer double the interest rate of another, but double ""next-to-nothing"" is still ""next-to-nothing.""  When you accumulate enough savings that you want to start maximizing your earnings, you can look for a better rate at another bank to move your savings to, and you can keep your checking account at the bank with the best convenience and fee structure. In my limited experience, I have had better luck with credit unions than with banks when it comes to fees."


A 15% discount is a 17.6% return. (100/85 = 1.176). For a holding period that's an average 15.5 days, a half month. It would be silly to compound this over a year as the numbers are limited.  The safest way to do this is to sell the day you are permitted. In effect, you are betting, 12 times a year, that the stock won't drop 15% in 3 days. You can pull data going back decades, or as long as your company has been public, and run a spreadsheet to see how many times, if at all, the stock has seen this kind of volatility over 3 day periods. Even for volatile stocks, a 15% move is pretty large, you're likely to find your stock doing this less than once per year. It's also safest to not accumulate too many shares of your company for multiple reasons, having to do with risk spreading, diversification, etc.  2 additional points -  the Brexit just caused the S&P to drop 4% over the last 3 days trading. This was a major world event, but, on average we are down 4%. One would have to be very unlucky to have their stock drop 15% over the specific 3 days we are discussing.  The dollars at risk are minimal. Say you make $120K/yr. $10K/month. 15% of this is $1500 and you are buying $1765 worth of stock. The gains, on average are expected to be $265/mo. Doesn't seem like too much, but it's $3180 over a years' time. $3180 in profit for a maximum $1500 at risk at any month's cycle.


First, check with your lender to see if the terms of the loan allow early payoff.  If you are able to payoff early without penalty, with the numbers you are posting, I would hesitate to refinance. This is simply because if you actually do pay 5k/month on this loan you will have it paid off so quickly that refinancing will probably not save you much money. Back-of-the-napkin math at 5k/month has you paying 60k pounds a year, which will payoff in about 5 years.  Even if you can afford 5k/month, I would recommend not paying extra on this debt ahead of other high-interest debt or saving in a tax-advantaged retirement account. If these other things are being taken care of, and you have liquid assets (cash) for emergencies, I would recommend paying off the mortgage without refinancing.


To answer your precise question, your plans are not at all misguided, and are in fact very reasonable. You are clearly financially very comfortable, and from the tone of your post it sounds like you value security and simplicity over maximizing your investment return over the coming years.  If money was the most important thing to you then you would stay shackled to your high paying jobs. @JoeTaxpayer's answer has some great information for a person who is interested in maximizing their investment return.  If you followed that advice, you might increase your return on investments by up to 1%/year (I'm just throwing a ball park number out there). So your choice is simple.  Peace of mind on one hand and perhaps 1% additional return on investments on the other hand.


"As a contractor, I have done this exact calculation many times so I can compare full time employment offers when they come. The answer varies greatly depending on your situation, but here's how to calculate it: So, subtracting the two and you get I've run many different scenarios with multiple plans and employers, and in my situation with a spouse and 1 child, the employer plans usually ended up saving me approximately $5k per year. So then, to answer your question: ...salary is ""100k"", ""with healthcare"", or then ""X"" ""with no healthcare"" - what do we reckon? I reckon I would want to be paid $5K more, or $105K. This is purely hypothetical though and assumes there are no other differences except for with or without health insurance. In reality, contractor vs employee will have quite a few other differences. But in general, the calculation varies by company and the more generous the employer's health benefits, the more you need to be compensated to make up for not having it. Note: the above numbers are very rough, and there are many other factors that come into play, some of which are: As a side note, many years ago, during salary talks with a company, I was able to negotiate $2K in additional yearly salary by agreeing not to take the health insurance since I had better insurance through my spouse. Health insurance in the US was much cheaper back then so I think closer to $5K today would be about right and is consistent with my above ballpark calculation. I always wondered what would have happened if I turned around and enrolled the following year. I suspect had I done that they could not have legally lowered my salary due to my breaking my promise, but I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't get a raise that year either."


I'm going to be buying a house / car / home theater system in the next few months, and this loan would show up on my credit report and negatively impact my score, making me unable to get the financing that I'll need.


">Me: ""they pay it as regular income rather than LTCG"" >You: ""There's no LTCG tax on Roth accounts.""  Those two things aren't the same thing.  Among other problems, you were referring to tax-deferred accounts and I was referring to Roths.  >Me: ""they pay it as regular income rather than LTCG"" >You: ""You're only taxed once on the money""  Again, those are not the same thing.  There is no account out there where you would only pay LTCG tax.  So paying the tax as regular income RATHER than LTCG tax is not a concern.   >Me: ""they pay it as regular income rather than LTCG"" >You: ""The main advantage of 401ks is that you don't ever pay capital gains tax.""  Again, the word ""rather"" means there were two possible scenarios: paying regular income tax and paying LTCG tax.  This simply isn't true.   >I never mentioned Roth or taxable funds   Well, those are the only alternatives to a tax-deferred account, so...  >""Though what I said does also apply to Roth""  No it doesn't.    >""But please, keep digging...""  Nothing to dig for.  This isn't a difficult concept but for whatever reason you clearly don't understand it."


"The property tax valuation and the fair market price are NOT one and the same.  They track each other, correlate to each other, but are almost NEVER the same number. In some parts of the USA, a municipality has to re-assess property tax values every ten years.  In these places, the tax value of a property is on something like a 10-year moving average, NOT on the volatile daily market price. EDIT:  It is easy to fall into the ""trap"" of thinking that property tax valuation is intended to represent fair market value.  It's INTENT is to provide an accurate (or, as accurate as possible) RELATIVE VALUATION of your property compared to the other properties in the municipality. The sum of all the property values is the tax base of the municipality.  When the town budget (which is paid in part via property taxes) is set, the town simply divides the tax base into the budget total to arrive at the ratio of tax-to-collect, to the tax base, also called the ""tax rate per thousand dollars of valuation.""  i.e. if the town tax base is US$10,000,000, and the town budget is US$500,000, then the ratio is 0.05, or $50 per thousand dollars of valuation.  If your property is assessed at US$100,000, then you would pay 100 x $50, or $5000 in property taxes that year. Since this is the goal of the property tax valuation, NOT deciding what your house is worth on the open market, then we are left with the question of ""why use the market value of a house for property assessment?"" and the answer is that of all the various schemes and algorithms you can try, ""fair market value"" is the easiest and most accurate...IF TIME FLUCUTATIONS ARE TAKEN OUT.  For example, if I buy a house in a development for $250,000 today, and next summer the housing market crashes, and you buy the identical house next door to me for $150,000, it does NOT stand to reason that you should pay less taxes than me, because your house is ""worth"" $100,000 less.  In fact, BOTH our houses are worth $100,000 less. What matters most in property tax valuation isn't the actual number, but rather, is YOUR valuation the same as other essentially similar properties in your tax base?  Getting the RELATIVE ratio of value between you and your neighbors correct is the goal of property tax valuation."


Apply as many deductions as you are legally entitled to. Those are taxes you may never ever pay.  Then turn around and put any more monies above the maximum retirement contributions into a taxable account. But this time invest in tax efficient investments. For example, VTI or SPY will incur very minimal taxes and when you withdraw, it will be at lower tax rate (based on current tax laws). Just as you diversify your investments, you also want to diversify your taxes.


"Defining parity as ""parity is the amount by which an option is in the money"", I'd say there may be an arbitrage opportunity. If there's a $50 strike on a stock valued at $60 that I can buy for less than $10, there's an opportunity.  Keep in mind, options often show high spreads, my example above might show a bid/ask of $9.75/$10.25, in which case the last trade of $9.50 should be ignored in favor of the actual ask price you'd pay.  Mispricing can exist, but in this day and age, is far less likely."


Just use a credit card like AMEX Blue that categorizes your purchases, and reconcile at the end of the month. There is no good reason to use a debit card.


For your purposes, I would recommend using direct investment in a no-load mutual fund.  I mostly use Vanguard and would recommend them.  They just about invented index funds, usually have the lowest (internal) expenses for index and many other funds, if you take electronic instead of paper statements there is no maintenance fee, have no transaction commission, can do periodic automatic investment from a bank account etc.  A typical index fund there would require an initial $3000 investment and would have a minimum of $100 for each additional investment.  If you can't come up with an initial sum of that size, you might be able to find a broker with a lower minimum and suitable free ETFs trades as others have suggested.


Put it in the bank and earn the meager interest rate.  By far your most important investment is finishing your education and as such this money might be needed to do so. If you don't need the money during your education you will undoubtedly need it for a new apartment/furnishings/moving expenses.


This is taxed as ordinary income. See the IRC Sec 988(a)(1). The exclusion you're talking about (the $200) is in the IRC Sec 988(e)(2), but you'll have to read the Treasury Regulations on this section to see if and how it can apply to you. Since you do this regularly and for profit (i.e.: not a personal transaction), I'd argue that it doesn't apply.


"The question is, how do I exit? I can't really sell the puts because there isn't   enough open interest in them now that they are so far out of the money. I have about $150K of funds outside of this position that I could use, but I'm   confused by the rules of exercising a put. Do I have to start shorting the stock? You certainly don't want to give your broker any instructions to short the stock! Shorting the stock at this point would actually be increasing your bet that the stock is going to go down more. Worse, a short position in the stock also puts you in a situation of unlimited risk on the stock's upside – a risk you avoided in the first place by using puts. The puts limited your potential loss to only your cost for the options. There is a scenario where a short position could come into play indirectly, if you aren't careful.  If your broker were to permit you to exercise your puts without you having first bought enough underlying shares, then yes, you would end up with a short position in the stock. I say ""permit you"" because most brokers don't allow clients to take on short positions unless they've applied and been approved for short positions in their account. In any case, since you are interested in closing out your position and taking your profit, exercising only and thus ending up with a resulting open short position in the underlying is not the right approach. It's not really a correct intermediate step, either. Rather, you have two typical ways out: Sell the puts.  @quantycuenta has pointed out in his answer that you should be able to sell for no less than the intrinsic value, although you may be leaving a small amount of time value on the table if you aren't careful.  My suggestion is to consider using limit orders and test various prices approaching the intrinsic value of the put.  Don't use market orders where you'll take any price offered, or you might be sorry. If you have multiple put contracts, you don't need to sell them all at once. With the kind of profit you're talking about, don't sweat paying a few extra transactions worth of commission. Exercise the puts.  Remember that at the other end of your long put position is one (or more) trader who wrote (created) the put contract in the first place. This trader is obligated to buy your stock from you at the contract price should you choose to exercise your option.  But, in order for you to fulfill your end of the contract when you choose to exercise, you're obligated to deliver the underlying shares in exchange for receiving the option strike price. So, you would first need to buy underlying shares sufficient to exercise at least one of the contracts.  Again, you don't need to do this all at once.  @PeterGum's answer has described an approach. (Note that you'll lose any remaining time value in the option if you choose to exercise.) Finally, I'll suggest that you ought to discuss the timing and apportioning of closing out your position with a qualified tax professional. There are tax implications and, being near the end of the year, there may be an opportunity* to shift some/all of the income into the following tax year to minimize and defer tax due. * Be careful if your options are near expiry!  Options typically expire on the 3rd Friday of the month."


Under Income Tax Act, tax liability depends on residency as defined under section 6 of the Income Tax Act, and not on citizenship. If you are resident in India, then your global income is taxable. As it appears from your question, you are not resident of India (182 days stay in India in a FY), as such you will have absolutely no tax liability for whatever income you earn outside India.


"Already a lot of great answers, but since I ask myself this same question I thought I'd share my 2 cents.  As @user541852587 pointed out, behavior is of the essence here. If you're like most recent grads, this is probably the first time in your life you are getting serious about building wealth. Can you pay your loans down quickly and then have the discipline to invest just as much -- if not more -- than you were putting towards your loans? Most people are good at paying bills in full and on time, yet many struggle to ""pay themselves"" in full and on time.  As @Brandon pointed out, you can do both. I find this makes a great deal of practical sense. It helps form good behaviors, boosts confidence, and ""diversifies"" those dollars. I have been paying double payments on my student loans while at the same time maxing out my IRA, HSA, & 401k. I also have a rental property (but that's another can of worms). I'm getting on top and feeling confident in my finances, habits, etc. and my loans are going down. With each increase in pay, I intend to pay the loans down faster than I invest until they're paid off.  Again -- I like the idea of doing both."


When you want to pay a bill on line there are several ways to do it. You can give them your credit card details: Name on Card, zip code, credit card number, and 3 or 4 digit security code on the back. Most of the information is available on the card or via an easy Google search. If the crook has your card they can use it to buy something.  You can contact your bank's website and establish a one time or recurring transfer. You provide the information about the person/company. Your bank knows who you are because you used a secure system and your password. Their bank accepts the money because who would refuse money, they don't care who you are. You can provide the company with your bank info (bank number, your account number, and your name). If your bank limits their transactions via this method only to legitimate organizations, then your money will only be sent to legitimate organizations. But if the organization has no way of knowing who is on the other end of the phone or webpage, they may be withdrawing money from a bank account without the account owners permission.  In the example article a person found a charity that had lax security standards, they were recognized by the bank as a legitimate organization, so the bank transferred the money. The charity will point to the form and say they had permission from the owner, but in reality they didn't.  The subject of the article was correct, all the info required is on every check. It is just that most people are honest, and the few security hurdles that exist do stop most of the fraud.


You're being too hard on yourself. You've managed to save quite a bit, which is more than most people ever do. You're in a wonderful position, actually -- you have savings and time! You don't mention how long you want/need to continue working, but I'll assume 20 years or so? You don't have to invest it all at once. Like Pete B says, index funds (just read what Mr. Buffett said in recent news: he'd tell his widow to invest in the S&P 500 Index and not Berkshire Hathaway!) should be a decent percentage. You can also pick a target fund from any of the major investment firms (fees are higher than an Index, but it will take care of any asset allocation decisions). Put some in each. Also look at retirement accounts to take advantage of tax-deferred or tax-free growth, but that's another question and country-specific. In any case, don't even blink when the market goes down. And it will go down. If you're still working, earning, and saving, it'll just be another opportunity to buy more at lower prices. As for the house, no reason you can't invest and save for a house. Invest some for the long term and set aside the rest for the house in 1-5 years. If you don't think you'll ever really buy the house, though, invest the majority of it for the long-term: I have a feeling from the tone of your question that you tend to put off the big financial decisions. So if you won't really buy the house, just admit it to yourself now!


I think you'd be adding the transaction fee each time, so let's say it's 3% or minimum $10, your balance would be almost $580 by November.  Unless for some reason you have a permanent no balance transfer fee card or the two cards let you pay bills without charging a cash fee of some sort.


The two biggest issues that impact your question I would say are diversification and fees. If you have $10,000 to invest and only invest it in two securities, then a 20% drop in one security can have you lose 10% of your initial investment which I would consider a very high risk scenario. If you have $10,000 to invest and invest it in 20 securities, then a 20% drop in one security would only cause you to lose 1% of your initial investment. So far this is looking better from a diversification point of view. But then the issue of fees comes in. If you paid $10 per trade to buy those 20 securities you already spent 2% of your initial investment in fees! Not to mention you will pay at least another $200 to get out of all those positions. No right answer - but those are the two factors I always try to balance.


"Banks are currently a lot less open to 'creative financing' than they were a few years ago, but you may still be able to take advantage of the tactic of splitting the loan into two parts, a smaller 'second mortgage' sometimes called a 'purchase money second' at a slightly higher interest rate for around 15-20% of the value, and the remaining in a conventional mortgage.  Since this tactic has been around for a long time, it's not quite in the category of the shenanegans they were pulling a few years back, so has a lot more potential to still be an option.  I did this in for my first house in '93 and again in '99 when I moved to a larger home after getting married.  It allowed me to get into both houses with less than 20% down and not pay PMI. This way neither loan is above 80% so you don't have to pay PMI.  The interest on the second loan will be higher, but usually only a few percent, and is thus usually a fraction of what you were paying for the PMI. (and it's deductible from your taxes) If you've been making your payments on time and have a good credit rating, then you might be able to find someone who would offer you such a deal.  You might even be able to get a rate for your primary that is down in the low 4's depending on where rates are today and what your credit rating is like.   If you can get the main loan low enough, even if the other is like say 7%, your blended rate may still be right around 5% If you can find a deal like this, it's also great material to use to negotiate with your current lender ""either help me get the PMI off this loan or I'm going to refinance.""  Then you can compare what they will offer you with what you can get in a refinance and decide what makes the most sense for you.  On word of warning, when refinancing, do NOT get sucked into an adjustable rate mortgage.  If you are finding life 'tight' right now with house payments and all, the an ARM could be highly seductive since they often offer a very low initial rate.. however then invariably adjust upwards, and you could suddenly find yourself with a monster payment far larger than what you have now.  With low rates where they are, getting a conventional fixed rate loan (or loans in the case of the tactic being discussed here) is the way to go."


A general rule of thumb is to avoid having more than 5% of your investments in any single stock, to avoid excessive risk; it's usually even more risky if you're talking company stock because an adverse event could result in an inferior stock price and you getting laid off. Under other circumstances, the ideal amount of company stock is probably 0%. But there are tax benefits to waiting, as you've noted, and if you're reasonably confident that the stock isn't likely to jerk around too much, and you have a high risk tolerance (i.e. lots of extra savings besides this), and you're comfortable shouldering the risk of losing some money, it might make sense to hold onto the stock for a year - but never any longer. The real risk to holding a lot of company stock doesn't depend on how often you buy it and sell it per se, but having period purchases every month should make it easier for you to ladder the funds, and regularly sell your old shares as you purchase new shares. You might also consider a stop-loss order on the stock at or near the price you purchased it at. If the stock is at $100, then you buy at $85, and then the stock drops to $85, there are no more outstanding tax benefits and it makes no sense to have it as part of your portfolio instead of any other speculative instrument - you probably get better diversification benefits with any other speculative instrument, so your risk-adjusted returns would be higher.


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Being a tax professional, my understanding is that the threshold limit is a single limit for all your source(s) of income. Now many people who already draw salary which is liable to tax, develop application for mobile and generate some income. Such income is liable to tax, if along with other income they exceed the threshold limit.  Income will have surely related expenses. And the expenses which are related to earning of the income are allowed to be deducted.


Why not just leave it as is and register as foreign entity in New Mexico? You won't avoid the gross receipts tax, but other than that - everything stays as is. Unless Illinois has some taxes that you would otherwise not pay - just leave it there.


"Actually, calculating taxes isn't that difficult.  You will pay a percentage of your gross sales to state and local sales tax, and as a single-owner LLC your profits (after sales taxes) should pass through to your individual tax tax return (according to this IRS article. They are not cumulative since they have different bases (gross sales versus net profit). That said, when determining if your future business is profitable, you need to ask ""what aspects of the business can I control""? Can you control how much each item sells for? Increasing your prices will increase your gross margins, which should be higher than your fixed and variable costs.  If your margins do not exceed your costs, then you will note be profitable. Note that as a vendor you are at a slight disadvantage to a retailer, since tax has to be baked in to your prices.  A retailer can advertise the pre-tax price, and pass-through sales tax at the point of sale.  However, people expect to pay more at a vending machine, so the disadvantage is very small (you aren't directly competing with retailers anyways)."


"It depends on how the program is run. If the company runs the program out of treasury stock (shares that are authorized, but not issued), then there aren't any shares being purchased on the open market.   Because of that, the share price wouldn't be affected.    If you look in your employer's annual report, you will probably find how the program is run and how many shares are issued annually under that program. By comparing that to the daily trading volume of the company's stock you can gauge whether there's any likelihood of the share price being affected by the employee purchases. That is, of course, if shares are being purchased on the open market.  For example, here is Books-A-Million's program, as described in their 2011 annual report: Employee Stock Purchase Plan   The Company maintains an employee stock purchase plan under which shares of the Company’s common stock are reserved   for purchase by employees at 85% of the fair market value of the common stock at the lower of the market value for the   Company’s stock as of the beginning of the fiscal year or the end of the fiscal year. On May 20, 2010, the stockholders of the   Company approved an additional 200,000 shares available for issuance under the plan, bringing the aggregate number of   shares that may be awarded to 600,000. Of the total reserved shares, 391,987, 373,432 and 289,031 shares have been   purchased as of January 29, 2011, January 30, 2010 and January 31, 2009, respectively. This describes an instance of the employee purchase program being run from unissued stock, not open market purchases. From it, we can tell 18,555 shares were issued during the past fiscal year.  As their average daily volume is ~40,000 shares, if the program were run from a single open market purchase, it would have potential to ""move the market"".  One would think, though, that a company running it from open market purchases would spread the purchases over a period of time to avoid running up the price on themselves."


"The $1K in funds are by default your emergency fund. If absolutely necessary, emergency funds may need to come from debt, a credit capacity, focus on building credit to leverage lower rates for living expenses eventually needed. Profitable organizations & proprietors, borrow at a lower cost of capital than their return. Join your local credit union, you're welcome to join mine online, the current rates for the first $500 in both your checking and savings is 4.07%, it's currently the fourth largest in the U.S. by assets. You may join as a ""family member"" to me (Karl Erdmann), not sure what their definition of ""family"" is, I'd be happy to trace our ancestry if need be or consider other options. Their current incentive program, like many institutions have often, will give you $100 for going through the hassle to join and establish a checking and savings. Some institutions, such as this credit union, have a lower threshold to risk, applicants may be turned down for an account if there is any negative history or a low credit score, shooting for a score of 600 before applying seems safest.  The web services, as you mentioned, have significantly improved the layman's ability to cost effectively invest funds and provide liquidity. Robinhood currently seems to be providing the most affordable access to the market. It goes without saying, stay objective with your trust of any platform, as you may have noticed, there is a detailed explanation of how Robinhood makes their money on this stack exchange community, they are largely backed by venture funding, hopefully the organization is able to maintain a low enough overhead to keep the organization sustainable in the long run. The services that power this service such as Plaid, seem promising and underrated, but i digress. The platform gives access for users to learn how investing works, it seems safest to plan a diversified portfolio utilizing a mix of securities,such as low Beta stocks or ""blue chip"" companies with clear dividend policies. One intriguing feature, if you invest in equities is casting votes on decisions in shareholder meetings.  Another popular investment asset class that is less liquid and perhaps something to work toward is real estate. Google the economist ""Matthew Rognlie"" for his work on income equality on this type of investment. There are many incentives for first time homeowners, saving up for a down payment is the first step. Consider adding to your portfolio a Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs) to gain a market position. Another noteworthy approach to this idea is an investment commercial property cooperative organization, currently the first and only one is called NorthEast Investment Cooperative, one stock of class A is $1K.  If you are interested and plan to focus on equities, consider dropping into your college's Accounting Capstone course to learn more about the the details of fundamental and technical analysis of an organization. The complexities of investing involve cyclical risk, macro and micro economic factors,  understanding financial statements and their notes, cash flow forecasting - discounting, market timing, and a host of other details Wikipedia is much more helpful at detailing. It's safe to assume initial investment decisions by unsophisticated investors are mostly whimsical, and likely will only add up to learning opportunities, however risk is inherit in all things, including sitting on cash that pays a price of inflation. A promising mindset in long term investments are in organizations that focus on conscious business practices. Another way to think of investing is that you are already somewhat of a ""sophisticated investor"" and could beat the market by what you know given your background, catching wind of certain information first, or acting on a new trends or technology quickly. Move carefully with any perhaps biased ""bullish"" or ""bearish"" mindset. Thinking independently is helpful, constantly becoming familiar with different ideas from professions in a diverse set of backgrounds, and simulating decisions in portfolio's. Here is an extremely limited set of authors and outlets that may have ideas worth digging more into, MIT Tech Reviews (Informative), Bloomberg TV (it's free, informative), John Mackey (businessman), Paul Mason (provocative journalist). Google finance is a simple and free go-to application, use the ""cost basis"" feature for ""paper"" or real trades, it's easy to import transactions from a .csv.   This seems sufficient to start off with. Enjoy the journey, aim for real value with your resources."


"I too am a full-monthly-statement-balance payer and I received a balance transfer offer from my credit-card company. This one was quite different from many others that I have read about on this forum. I could do a balance transfer for any amount up to $X from another credit card, or use the enclosed ""checks"" to pay  some other (non-credit-card) bills, and I would not have to pay any interest for 12 months on the amount thus borrowed.  But, There would be a 2% service charge on the amount I was borrowing. This amount would be billed on the next monthly statement, and it would have to be paid in full by the due date of that month's payment, that is, within the 25-day grace period allowed for payment of monthly statements. Else, interest would start being charged on the unpaid part of the service charge at the usual humongous rate of H% per month. If I had not paid the previous month's balance in full, I would be charged interest at H% per month on the service charge starting from Day One; no free ride till the due date of the next month's statement. Of course, the balance carried over from last month would also be charged interest at H%. If I had paid last month's bill in full, but there were any other charges (purchases) during the current month, then  unless the entire amount due, this month's purchases plus service charge and that ""interest-free-for-twelve-months loan""  balance was paid off within the 25-day grace period, my purchases would be deemed unpaid and would start being charged interest. In short, the only way to avoid paying interest on the amount borrowed was to start with a card showing a $0 balance due on the previous month's statement, not make any charges on that card for a whole year, and pay off that 2% service charge within the grace period. It might also have required that one-twelfth of that interest-free loan be repaid each month, but  I had stopped reading the offer at this point and filed it in the round circular file. In short, while @JoeTaxpayer's tale of how ""As a pay-in-full user, I've used the zero rate to throw $20K at the 5.25% mortgage"" is undoubtedly how things worked once, it is not at all clear that they still work that way. At least, they don't work that way for me.  Heck, once upon a time, for a period of about 3 months, you could earn 1.5% interest per month from the credit card company by overpaying your credit card bill considerably. Their computers then just ""added on"" 1.5% interest by multiplying your credit balance -$X by 1.015 and so you got 1.5% per month interest from the credit card company. The credit card agreements (and the software!) got changed in a hurry, and nowdays all credit-card agreements state in the fine print that if you overpay your bill, you don't earn any interest on the overpayment."


If you put it in a normal account it is (1) taxed as ordinary income now and then (2) any growth is taxed again at the capital gains rate.  Additionally, (3) any dividends will be taxed each year.  If you put it in a 401(k), you will only be taxed once, at the ordinary income rate.   Mathematically, if you start with X and have a regular tax rate of t and capital gains rate of g and your investments return r and there are n years to retirement, then your total wealth if you put it in a mutual fund (ignoring annual taxes on dividends) will be While if you used a 401(k) it would simply be The whole g term (along with any annual taxes on dividends) is gone in the second case and that's potentially a lot of taxes.  The 401(k) is much better in terms of total wealth unless tax rates dramatically rise between now and when you retire so that the t in the second case is much higher than in the first. This is virtually never the case for people retiring now.  Of course, what tax rates the future holds, we do not know.


"How can I use a house I own free and clear to purchase another home? Answer: walk in to any bank, that's any bank, or any lending institution. State that you own a house free and clear. This will happen: In all jurisdictions, it's incredibly easy to borrow large amounts of money at the lowest possible rate, once you own a house outright. On top of that, you want to spend the money on another house (as opposed to s sports car or the like), so you have even more equity.  Winner! Your main question will be this.  Say your current house (owned outright!) is worth $500,000.  Go to a bank or lender, and say to them, ""How much money will you give me to buy house B putting both the houses on the mortgage.""  One bank will say ""fantastic!  buy any house you want up to $400,000!""  Another will say ""$450,000!"" another will say ""$300,000!""  In a hot market another will say ""$650,000!"".  So shop around and see who will give you the most."


"Lending of shares happens in the background. Those who have lent them out are not aware that they have been lent out, nor when they are returned. The borrowers have to pay any dividends to the lenders and in the end the borrowers get their stock back. If you read the fine print on the account agreement for a margin account, you will see that you have given the brokerage the permission to silently loan your stocks out.  Since the lending has no financial impact on your portfolio, there's no particular reason to know and no particular protection required.  Actually, brokers typically don't bother going through the work of finding an actual stock to borrow.  As long as lots of their customers have stocks to lend and not that many people have sold short, they just assume there is no problem and keep track of how many are long and short without designating which stocks are borrowed from whom. When a stock becomes hard to borrow because of liquidity issues or because many people are shorting it, the brokerage will actually start locating individual shares to borrow, which is a more time-consuming and costly procedure.  Usually this involves the short seller actually talking to the broker on the phone rather than just clicking ""sell."""


What you are describing is called a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). While the strategy you are describing is not impossible it would raise the amount of debt in your name and reduce your borrowing potential. A recent HELOC used to finance the down payment on a second property risks sending a signal of bad financial position to credit analysts and may further reduce your chances to obtain the credit approval.


While historical performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance, I like to look at the historical performance of the markets for context. Vanguard's portfolio allocation models is one source for this data. Twenty years is a long term timeline. If you're well diversified in passively managed index funds, you should be positioned well for the future.  You've lost nothing until it's realized or you sell. Meanwhile, you still own an asset that has value. As Warren Buffet says, buy low and sell high.


"Preferred dividends and common dividends are completely separate transactions.  There's not a single ""dividend"" payment that is split between preferred and common shares. Dividends on preferred shares are generally MUCH higher than common dividends, and are generally required by the terms of the preferred shares, again unlike common dividends, which are discretionary."


>Then we will have to agree to disagree.  The important thing is that we didn't give any solid advice to the original question :)  >The social discount rate isn't about borrowing it is about funding projects that would return a higher rate. To simply say the discount rate is the same as the borrowing rate (which is dirt cheap right now) isn't wise because different projects offer better social value. Think of it as your opportunity cost.  I agree with you that there may be better projects. But I am implying that as long as those other projects' IRR are above the borrowing rate, they also should be undertook. Basically keep on borrowing and going down the pecking order until the borrowing rate meets the IRR of projects not started. What every that equilibrium is should be the discount rate.  And while someone may say that borrowing takes away from private investment (and they are right), it is in the best interest of the country to ignore that. The market for government securities is global; the state could be taking more from foreign private investment than domestic.  However, this does ignore the manipulation on the rate that goes on from forced lending from citizens. Social Security by law has no choice but to invest in government securities. I don't know, I think I'm just rambling now.


"The argument you are making here is similar to the problem I have with the stronger forms of the efficient market hypothesis.  That is if the market already has incorporated all of the information about the correct prices, then there's no reason to question any prices and then the prices never change.  However, the mechanism through which the market incorporates this information is via the actors buying an selling based on what they see as the market being incorrect. The most basic concept of this problem (I think) starts with the idea that every investor is passive and they simply buy the market as one basket.  So every paycheck, the index fund buys some more stock in the market in a completely static way.  This means the demand for each stock is the same.  No one is paying attention to the actual companies' performance so a poor performer's stock price never moves.  The same for the high performer.  The only thing moving prices is demand but that's always up at a more or less constant rate. This is a topic that has a lot of discussion lately in financial circles.  Here are two articles about this topic but I'm not convinced the author is completely serious hence the ""worst-case scenario"" title. These are interesting reads but again, take this with a grain of salt.  You should follow the links in the articles because they give a more nuanced understanding of each potential issue.  One thing that's important is that the reality is nothing like what I outline above. One of the links in these articles that is interesting is the one that talks about how we now have more indexes than stocks on the US markets.  The writer points to this as a problem in the first article, but think for a moment why that is.  There are many different types of strategies that active managers follow in how they determine what goes in a fund based on different stock metrics.  If a stocks P/E ratio drops below a critical level, for example, a number of indexes are going to sell it.  Some might buy it.  It's up to the investors (you and me) to pick which of these strategies we believe in. Another thing to consider is that active managers are losing their clients to the passive funds.  They have a vested interest in attacking passive management."


"I can pretty much guarantee you that the vast majority of new small companies will NOT grow to have 50 workers (they probably won't even have 49 workers, or 48, or even 47).  Once they approach 40, other ""solutions"" -- even beyond the ""part time employees"" suggested by the author (a thing I would expect will be ""addressed"" by a change in the detailed regulations -- the Federal government will attempt to stop this obvious loophole by redefining what constitutes a ""full time employee"") -- MANY other solutions will be executed (dividing the company into two or three distinct entities with slightly different ownership {for example wife owns one location, husband another, etc}, plus the obvious expanded use of temp agencies, contract and/or subcontract workers, subbing work {especially generic administrative work} out to other firms, etc).  Any and all of those will probably cost far LESS than $40k a year (which is probably a woefully underestimated number)."


The main reasons are that investment are deducted from your gross income and earnings are not taxed until withdrawal. This applies to both traditional IRAs and 401Ks. Roth accounts have different rules but valuable benefits. My effective income tax rate is around 35%. This means that for every $1000 I earn in wage I only get to keep $650. Since my 401K contributions are deferred reductions from my income I can invest 35% more money into my 401K than I would be able to invest in a non-tax-advantaged account. Where I can invest $1000 into my 401K I would only be able to invest $650 into a non-advantaged account with the same wages. If I put $650 into an account yielding 10% then my one-year return on my income is $65 The 10% return on my $1000 is $100. Compared to what I would have been able to take home in the first place this makes my ROI $100/$650 = 15.3% Interest earned in non-advantaged accounts incurs taxes every year. Interest earned in advantaged accounts does not incur taxes until withdrawn. Compounding 10% annually for 20 years is significantly more than 6.5% compounded annually for 20 years. Imagine 10% on a 1000 investment with no additional cash flows over 20 year. The result is $6727, or 672%. Imagine your income tax rate does not reduce below 35%, your after-tax return is 4372, or %437 return. Now imagine you pay taxes every year on 10% take, so your take annually is only 6.5%... Now over 20 years you have $3523 (but you've already paid all taxes on this) and your return is %352 You have earned 24% more money because taxes were deferred until withdrawal! EDIT: Some tabular info for the commenters Your take home from the investment is $3752 because you have diligently paid your taxes every year on the earnings. Now, with the tax deferred until withdrawal! You then owe 35% tax on the withdrawal so you keep 7400 * .65 = $4810 $4810 versus $3750 means you have made an additional $1060, or 28%, from the compounding against tax-advantaged earnings. But Matthew! you say... Annual proceeds from your investments are not taxed at your income tax rate. This is true for now but the political winds are pushing this direction. However, even if you use a reduced rate in the first situation (let's say 30% instead of 35%, if you're a California resident) then the effect is $4140 rather than $3750. Less of a gain, but still a gain. In fact your capital-gains rate would have to be as low as 22% to even this difference out (versus a 35% income tax rate).... And remember that this assumes you're in the same bracket at retirement (which more people are not) You may also note that I used $1000 as the principle in both calculations. This was intentional to show the effects of compounding the taxable earnings alone. If you replace the taxable principle with $650 instead of $1000 then the effect is even more pronounced and only balanced out if your capital gains rate is actually zero!


You're welcome to disagree. Lol, and actually it'd be fairly easy to do an artificial markup on labor expense on a P&L, then show you price increase necessary to maintain margin, assuming a constant volume increase year over year. I've done many similar exercises.   My family has a small business too, yay. They probably wouldn't hire outside help at $15 an hour. I've worked for minimum wage before for multiple years, it's not like I got some small loan for a million on birth.   Also, I'm referring to a blanket national minimum wage increase. It would wreck small companies in cheap areas if too high.


Fuck managerial accounting to death. Anywho, I'm not sure what they mean by the variance being higher or lower in the budget. Variance in principle is the discrepancy from a budget and actual.   I'll try to answer this from what I can see.    The budget variance in this problem is unfavorable for Busy Community Support, mostly caused by a significant underestimating of your salaries expense in the budget.


There are several reasons why this may happen and I will update as I get more information from you. Volumes on that stock look low (supposing that they are either in a factor between 1s and 1000s) so it could well be that there was no volume on that day. If no trades occur then open, high and low are meaningless as they are statistics based on trades that occur that day and no trades occur. Remember that there has to be volume to get a price. The stock may have been frozen by either the exchange or the company for the day. This could be for various reasons including to prevent some illegal activity. In that case no trades were made because the market for that stock was closed. Another possibility is that all trades that day were cancelled by the exchange. The exchange may cancel all trades if there is unusual, potentially fraudulent or other illegal activity on the stock. In this case the last price for that day existed but was rolled back by the exchange and never occurred. This is a rare situation. Although I can't find any holidays on that date it is possible that this is how your data provider marks market holidays. It would be valid to ignore the data in that case as being from a non-market day. I cannot tell if this is possible without knowing exchange information. There is a possibility that some data providers don't receive data for a day or that it gets corrupted. It may be worth checking another source to ensure the integrity of the data that you are receiving. Whichever reason is true, the data provider has made the close equal to the previous day's close as no price movements occurred. Strictly the closing price is the price of the last trade made for that day and so should be null (and open, high and low should be null too and not 0 otherwise the price change on day is very large!). Therefore, to keep integrity, you have a few choices:


If I was bank, I certainly wouldn't give a **30 year** mortgage to a **57 year old** with a property which is worth less than the mortgage!  And I don't see why a bank should.  I get that it sucks for him to have a 6.35% interest mortgage, but that situation sucks for the bank as well.  I wouldn't offer a lower interest to someone in that sort of situation.


Yes!  This has bothered me for years because it's really obvious on the level of small businesses.  Any material/service cost goes up- ugh fine I guess we have to pay to stay in business.....          Can't find anyone to break their backs for $9/hr?  They'll do literally anything rather than pay more.  They will fuck up their business for years trying to find a way to pay the same labor costs.