"You would put your earnings (and expenses, don't forget) on Schedule C, and then do a Schedule SE for self-employment tax. http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98846,00.html 1040ES isn't used to compute taxes, it's used to pay taxes. Generally you are supposed to pay taxes as you go, rather than when you file. There are exceptions where you won't be penalized for paying when you file, ""most taxpayers will avoid this penalty if they owe less than $1,000 in tax after subtracting their withholdings and credits, or if they paid at least 90% of the tax for the current year, or 100% of the tax shown on the return for the prior year, whichever is smaller"" from http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306.html  i.e. there's a safe harbor as long as you pay as much as you owed the year before. If you owe a lot at the end of the year a second time in a row, then you get penalized."


A retail revolving account is a more formal name for a general credit card.   A revolving account is an account created by a lender to represent debts where the outstanding balance does not have to be paid in full every month by the borrower to the lender. The borrower may be required to make a minimum payment, based on the balance amount. Retail Revolving Account Wikipedia This is different from something like a car loan or mortgage or other more structured or secured debt.   It used to be somewhat common for very large retailers to issue lines of credit to their customers in the form of a store card.  This card was a lot like a credit card but only accepted at the specific retailer.  These kinds of cards are all but extincted.  Now major retailers will simply co-brand a credit card with a major bank, the differentiation being preferred rewards when used at the retailer.


If you can get a rate of savings that is higher than your debt, you save.  If you can't then you pay off your debt.  That makes the most of the money you have. Also to think about:  what are you goals?  Do you want to own a home, start a family, further your education, move to a new town?  All of these you would need to save up for.  If you can do these large transactions in cash you will be better off. If it were me I would do what I think is a parroting of Dave Ramsay's advice Congratulations by the way.  It isn't easy to do what you have accomplished and you will lead a simpler life if you don't have to worry about money everyday.


"Steve VanWieren, VP of DATA   ""it bothered me how much access just about any employee had to the personally identifiable attributes. I would see printed credit files sitting near shredders, and I would hear people speaking about specific cases, speaking aloud consumer’s personally identifiable information.""  TL;DR - Pretty much a majority of employees were LAZY, talked to each other about the files, made fun of the scores, printed them out, and did not give shit."


"Gold is not debt, ""money"" is debt (whatever it is made of).  In the example above, everything could have been exactly the same, except using certificates written on sharks instead of on paper.   Now, sharks have value, paper has value, and gold has value. When you print money, the stuff you make it out of has some utility separate from its use as currency. But when you are using it as currency (regardless of what it is made from), it is a marker for debt.   You go to work for an hour, your boss gives you a marker that you can trade for a cheeseburger or some gasoline or a ferret or cantaloupes, or whatever you want. That marker is an IOU for the work you did. You give it to the cantaloupe store, and it becomes an IOU for the value of one cantaloupe. They give it to the store employees or the cantaloupe-grower or whatever, and so on.   It doesn't matter what that marker is made out of, its function is the same. If it were gold, you could melt it down and make a ring out of it. If it's paper, you could use it as a bookmark or a shopping list or to blow your nose, if it's a shark you scare people with it in the pool.  N.B., this is totally separate from the question of whether we should be using gold as a currency, which has to do with the fact that the gold supply is a lot more stable than the paper supply, and whether being able to easily print more money on demand is a good thing or a bad thing."


"Your retirement PLAN is a lifelong plan and shouldn't be tied to your employer status. Max out your 401(k) contribution to the maximum that your employer matches (that's a 100% ROI!) and as much as you can afford. When you leave the work force rollover your 401(k) to an IRA account (e.g.: you can create an IRA account with any of the online brokerage firms Schwab, E-Trade, Sharebuilder, or go with a brick-and-mortar firm like JP Morgan, Stifel Nicolaus, etc.). You should have a plan: How much money do you need/month for your expenses? Accounting for inflation, how much is that going to be at retirement (whatever age you plan to retire)? How much money do you need to have so that 4.5% of that money will provide for your annual living expenses? That's your target retirement amount of savings. Now figure out how to get to that target. Rule #1 Invest early and invest often! The more money you can sock away early in your career the more time that money has to grow. If you aren't comfortable allocating your investments yourself then you could go with a Targeted Retirement Fund. These funds have a general ""date"" for retirement and the assets are allocated as appropriate for the amount of risk appropriate for the time to retirement."


>The financial press is full of articles about the massive flow of investors to Treasuries  Wow, yeah I mean if you read about it or saw it on the news, then it must be true.  But of course, if that were *really* true, then it would bring about the question... **[why the F! would the Fed have bought 61% of US Treasuries in 2011](http://www.moneynews.com/Headline/fed-debt-Treasury/2012/03/28/id/434106)???**


You will probably not be able to figure out the bank from the account number. You can check for your name on registries of abandoned bank accounts or unclaimed money, but without more information, you don't have a lot of options.


You're not seeing the forest for the trees.    Proper capital allocation takes diligent research from a community in choosing the best prospects.  That community then supports LONG-TERM investment in that company.  This is how proper companies are fostered; proper research is done; technologies advance, societies develop.  Long-term investment leads to proper capital allocation.  Please do tell me how short-term investment has any value in proper capital allocation.


MICR fields are defined by their distance to the right edge of the check. The routing number is always the same distance from the right edge. Business checks are longer and have more room for auxiliary information on the left if the bank chooses to use it.


"I'd also look into index funds (eg Vanguard) as they have low management fees. you can buy these as ETFs as well - so you can buy in at a very low starting amount. An index fund can also be a talking point for your kids about what an industry index is and how it relates to the companies that fall into it. Also about how mutual funds try to ""beat the market"" - and often fail."


I don't know if I would go so far as to hire an accountant. None of those things you listed really complicates your taxes all that much. If you were self-employed, started a business, got a big inheritance, or are claiming unusually large deductions, etc. then maybe. The only thing new from your post seems to be the house and a raise. The 3rd kid doesn't substantially change things on your taxes from the 2nd. I'd suggest just using tax preparation software, or if you are especially nervous a tax-preparation service. An accountant just seems like overkill for an individual.


The IRS has a calculator for this purpose.


"Its is considered a ""hobby"" income, and you should be reporting it on the 1040 as taxable income. The expenses (what you pay) are hobby expenses, and you report them on Schedule A (if you itemize). You can only deduct the hobby expenses to the extent of your hobby income, and they're subject to the 2% AGI threshold."


Apparently Amazon's legal team that is battling to prevent online retailers from getting taxed was not consulted as to whether an idea like this would look *really* bad for their case. It's brilliant, but a wee bit diabolical. Brick and mortar retailers really have no recourse against something like this.


Without more information about what tax bracket you are in, I cannot make a recommendation about what your best option is, but here are a few things to consider:


Read more closely:   If you do not change your current withholding arrangement, you will have $7,817 withheld for 2014 resulting in an overpayment of   $2,467. and later... Assuming this recommendation is in effect for the rest of 2014... If you do nothing you would get a refund of the full $2,467. If you follow the advice of whoever wrote that you wouldn't pay as much tax for the rest of the year and consequently will get back less when you file, because you are getting it back now.


No. $188.23 has $11.76 tax = $199.99 $188.24 has $11.77 tax - $200.01 So, unless the based price contained the half cent for $188.235, the register would never show $200.00 even. How does the receipt to customer look?


The short Answer is NO, HMRC do not like disguised employment which is what this is as you fall under IR35 you can bill them via an umbrella company and you should be charging the contractor rate not a permie rate.  http://www.contractoruk.com/


The simple answer is that whatever strategy is implemented with e-series, could be implemented at a lower cost with ETFs.


Having stock options means that you have worked for and rightfully earned a part of the company's capital appreciation. Takeover of the company would indicate someone is interested in the company (something should be valuable). It would be unwise to not strike before the period lapses since the strike price is always lower than market price and takeovers generally increases stock values ... it is capital gains all the way my friend. Good luck. *observations not in professional capacity. pls consult a professional for investment related advice.


It may work with an individual selling things but not for a retailer.  Imagine the price of an iPhone increasing week on week and then stabilising. Again, this won't work for luxury/veblen goods.  How do we go about it? Focus groups, user surveys, test markets. Not second guessing the price. You will lose all customer loyalty, piss of the later buyers who paid more for it, you'll be seen as fickle and not trustworthy. One pricing, all people, all markets, all time.


My former accountant, used to provide this service as part of him doing my taxes.  During the off season, he would provide a planning session and he would review strategies that I might look into.  Since he did not make any money off of providing investments, he was about as unbiased as one could be.  However, something like that might not be enough for you guys. You could go with someone online, Scottrade is going into the business of providing advice, as well as Charles Schwab or Fidelity, but you might need someone more personal. In that case, I would use my network.  Talk to people, ask who they use, like, and respect.  I would say it is very easy to find mediocre investment advisers, the good ones are hard. I would look for one that teaches.  It is very easy to tell someone what to do, much harder to teach them what is the right thing.   One thing that is easy about your situation:  Planning to buy a home.  Put money for a down payment in a high interest savings account.  What I mean by high interest, is they still pay almost nothing.  You can't really make a mistake.  If you find one with .5% instead of .85%, what is the real difference after 5 years?  About $180?


It says expense ratio of 0.14%. What does it mean? Essentially it means that they will take 0.14% of your money, regardless of the performance. This measures how much money the fund spends out of its assets on the regular management expenses. How much taxes will I be subject to This depends on your personal situation, not much to do with the fund (though investment/rebalancing policies may affect the taxable distributions). If you hold it in your IRA - there will be no taxes at all. However, some funds do have measures of non-taxable distributions vs dividends vs. capital gains. Not all the funds do that, and these are very rough estimates anyway. What is considered to be a reasonable expense ratio? That depends greatly on the investment policy. For passive index funds, 0.05-0.5% is a reasonable range, while for actively managed funds it can go up as much as 2% and higher. You need to compare to other funds with similar investment policies to see where your fund stands.


If your gross income is only $3000, then you don't need to file: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf That said, pay careful attention to: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxpayers-living-abroad You should be reporting ALL income, without regard to WHERE you earned it, on your US taxes. Not doing so could indeed get you in trouble if you are audited. Your level of worry depends on how much of the tax law you are willing to dodge, and how lucky you feel.


"It's also refreshing that they were somewhat realistic about their worst-case scenario (only affluent executives would use the service).  Also interesting that they completely glossed over the legal challenges they must have known they'd see from the regulated taxi industry.  One wonders whether they really believed they'd be exempt from medallion requirements because they were a ""members only"" service.  When you're successful, you get to construe every lucky victory as a strategic masterstroke."


I bought 1000 shares of a $10 stock. When it doubled, I sold half, no need to be greedy. I watched the shares split 2 for one, and sold as it doubled and doubled again. In the end, I had $50,000 in cash pulled out and still had 100 shares. The shares are now worth $84K since they split 7 for one and trade near $120.  Had I just kept the shares till now, no sales, I'd have 14,000 shares of Apple worth $1.68M dollars.  $130K for an initial $10,000 investment is nothing to complain about, but yes, taking a profit can be the wrong thing. 25%? Was that all the potential the company had?  There's one question to ask, not where is the price today compared to last year or two years ago, but what are the company's prospects. Is the reason I bought them still valid? Look at your investment each quarter as if you were making the decision that day. I agree, diversification is important, so the choice is only hold or sell, not to buy more of a good company, because there are others out there, and the one sane thing Cramer says that everyone should adhere to is to not put your eggs in one basket.


No, there is no special leniency given to first time tax payers. In general, this shouldn't be an issue. The IRS collects your taxes out of every one of your paychecks throughout the entire year in what is called a Withholding Tax. The amount that the IRS withholds is calculated on your W-4 Form that you file with your employer whenever you take a new job. The form helps you calculate the right number of allowances to claim (usually this is the number of personal exemptions, but depending upon if you work a second job, are married and your spouse works, or if you itemize, the number of allowances can be increased. WITHHOLDING TAX Withholding tax (also known as “payroll withholding”) is essentially income tax that is withheld from your wages and sent directly to the IRS by your employer. In other words, it’s like a credit against the income taxes that you must pay for the year. By subtracting this money from each paycheck that you receive, the IRS is basically withholding your anticipated tax payment as you earn it. In general, most people overestimate their tax liability. This is bad for them, because they have essentially given the IRS an interest free loan (and weren't able to use the money to earn interest themselves.) I haven't heard of any program targeted at first time tax payers to tell them to file a return, but considering that most tax payers overpay they should or they are giving the government a free grant.


PKO Bank polski has  a feature of free incoming,outgoing transfer.


"When we calculate the realized yield of a bond, we assume the coupons are invested at an interest rate. I assume it is some kind of vehicle that guarantees a return, thinking it is government bond, savings account or something. Investing in a benchmark bond index might be risky though for this ""interest rate""."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-23/brady-signals-retirement-changes-are-still-on-tax-writers-table) reduced by 60%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Almost 12 hours after President Donald Trump ruled out changes to 401(k) retirement-savings plans, a top congressional tax writer indicated that retirement savings remains under review.  > One alternative plan would call for people to fund their retirement with after-tax earnings, but allow them to withdraw the money tax-free later on, according to Senator Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican - essentially moving toward the model for &quot;Roth&quot; individual retirement accounts.  > Giant asset managers such as Vanguard Group and Fidelity Investments have said they fear that cutting 401(k) tax deferrals to just $2,400 a year would reduce the American public&#039;s notoriously low savings rate even more, jeopardizing their retirement income.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/78ovy5/brady_signals_retirement_changes_are_still_on/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~234978 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **save**^#1 **retirement**^#2 **tax**^#3 **accounts**^#4 **income**^#5"


At the most basic level, the employee is getting a share of ownership in the company and would get a percentage of the sales price. That said, as littleadv alluded to, different share classes have different priorities and get paid in different orders. In a bankruptcy, for example, some classes almost never get paid in practice because they are so far down the ladder of priority.  The first step you should take would be to try to clarify what you are getting with the company itself. Failing that, contact a financial professional or an attorney in your area who can read the terms and give you a better understanding of the contract before you sign.


For most goods there is no license required, unless you are trading in restricted goods. Remittance need to be routed via banks and they should comply with FMEA. Your Bank or a qualified CA can guide you.


>This goes on until they simply drop dead. Substitute debt for alcohol and you have our situation exactly.  *Exactly.* It is well known that the US entered an unprecedented depression after its unprecedented borrowing during World War 2. It is all very simple and easily predicted.


"I'm going to give a simpler answer than some of the others, although somewhat more limited: the complicated loan parameters you describe benefit the lender.  I'll focus on this part of your question: You should be able to pay back whenever; what's the point of an arbitrary timeline? Here ""you"" refers to the borrower.  Sure, yes, it would be great for the borrower to be able to do whatever they want whenever they want, increasing or decreasing the loan balance by paying or not paying arbitrary amounts at their whim.  But it doesn't benefit the lender to let the borrower do this.  Adding various kinds of restrictions and extra conditions to the loan reduces the lender's uncertainty about when they'll be receiving money, and also gives them a greater range of legal recourse to get it sooner (since they can pursue the borrower right away if they violate any of the conditions, rather than having the wait until they die without having paid their debt). Then you say: And if you want, you can set a legal deadline. But the mere deadline in the contract doesn't affect how much interest is paid—the interest is only affected by how much money is borrowed and how long has passed. I think in many cases that is in fact how it works, or at least it is more how it works than you seem to think.  For instance, you can take out a 30-year loan but pay it off in less than 30 years, and the amount you pay will be less if you pay it off sooner.  However, in some cases the lender will charge you a penalty for doing so.  The reason is the same as above: if you pay off the loan sooner, you are paying less interest, which is worse for the lender.  Again, it would be nice for the borrower if they could just pay it off sooner with no penalty, but the lender has no reason to let them do so. I think there are in fact other explanations for these more complicated loan terms that do benefit the borrower.  For instance, an amortization schedule with clearly defined monthly payments and proportions going to interest and principal also reduces the borrower's uncertainty, and makes them less likely to do risky things like skip lots of payments intending to make it up later.  It gives them a clear number to budget from.  But even aside from all that, I think the clearest answer to your question is what I said above: in general, it benefits the lender to attach conditions and parameters to loans in order to have many opportunities to penalize the borrower for making it hard for the lender to predict their cash flow."


"None of what I say is advice directed to you. It is how I would continue to analyse the situation you have, were it mine. First off, I prefer to work in certainties more than possibilities.  Saying that, paying down the mortgage makes sense as I can calculate the amount I will save. I also believe that rate rises are coming in the future, based on the talk from the BofE, so any money I pay off now means guaranteed less interest to pay in the future. Also, the lower my loan-to-value ratio, the better/lower interest rates I can receive in the mortgage market. If I do not want to work until retirement age, it'd be nice to have as few bills as possible in the decade or so prior to retirement age. I could then do early-retirement or part-time work in the run-up to retirement. I could use my savings to fund life until retirement pays out. I'd be aiming to put 15% of my gross income into ""future investing"" - using ISAs to build up a savings pot, taking advantage of retirement products. That way all the money is not tied to a normal retirement age before it can accessed. And it's not touchable by future greedy Government taxation... Any income leftover above the 15%, I'd be throwing at the mortgage - taking advantage of the 10% overpay window, remortgaging as LTV comes down. In theory, overpaid mortgage equity is money that could still be accessed (provided house prices don't decline and remortgaging is a possibility). So, in short, I'd follow a plan along these lines of logic. 1) Make sure I have 4-6 months of living expenses as a Rainy Day Fund. Insulate myself from fluctuations in my financial situation. 2) Put away 15% of annual gross income towards ""future saving"". ISAs first, pension second. 3) Overpay the mortgage and look to remortgage as LTV drops. When LTV nears 60%, look to lock in to a longer-term fix. eg. 2 year fixes at 90% LTV, 5 year fixes at 60%. 4) Reassess steps 2 & 3 as life happens, circumstances change, work fluctuates, etc. 5) Once the mortgage is paid off, build as much wealth as possible - ISAs first, then non-tax efficient savings products. Aim for keeping expenses down and raising my savings % rate as much as possible. [Your analysis was thorough and shows you are thinking through consequences. Never forget to factor in the risk of carrying debt. Having no/low debt as you get older means there's more income left to build wealth. Ignore the American view of carrying debt for life and trusting investments to outperform the debt. You have to pay monthly to keep that debt around - and it ain't a pet!]"


"The complete opposite of ""sunk cost"" is the term ""unrealized gain""; until you sell it, then it is a ""realized gain"". There is also a term ""paper profit"" to point out the ephemeral nature of some of these unrealized gains."


If you are trying to invest in closely held / private companies (things that don't trade on the stock market), you will run into a variety of regulatory problems. For various reasons, most private companies only raise funds with accredited investors. To be an accredited investor you basically have to have $1,000,000 in net worth - NOT including your primary residence, OR you have to make over $200,000 a year for the last two years and expect to keep making that much. This is a class distinction the Federal government created, you will see different but similar wealth and investment classes worldwide. So your best most organized opportunities are left out, unless you do qualify as an accredited investor. There are tons of other companies, things you will find locally, that will let you invest in their smaller time operations. (Think like a local yoga studio looking for $20,000 and willing to split the profits with you). But the problem here is lack of accountability, where partners skip town or just stop answering your calls, and the legal remedies cost you more than your claim. That being said there are people that provide capital to smaller publicly traded companies on the bulletin boards and pink sheets. They have opportunities do much better than the actual stock market investors in these companies, because you can negotiate contracts that let you cash out in their inevitable financing death spirals with very little risk to you. You can do these things as an individual or as a holding company, but the holding company will limit your liability to the amount your holding company invested, instead of your personal assets, in case your financing starts to incur liability with the company.


Say one makes $60k/yr. The net gain is that half these funds are received about 2 weeks prior. To keep the math simple, let's assume a 12% return per year on the funds during this time. $30K * 12% is $3600. But 2 weeks is about 4% of a year, so $144. That's at a 12% return. In an offset mortgage the return will be closer to 4%, a $48/yr benefit.  With short term rates at or below 1%, we're really looking at a gain of $12 or so for the extra time with the funds.


Hitting the 25% marginal rate does not mean all of your earnings are taxed at 25%, only those that exceed the top of the 15% bracket. You can deduct any expenses for upgrading or repairing your apartments, those are subtracted from the earnings before tax is calculated as income, so you will probably stay in a lower marginal rate. Property tax will hit you annually, and capital gains tax will hit you when you sell them at the end. If you already have experience with this business in your home country, then this sounds like a good option for you. The only caution that I would give you is to find an accountant to help you with your taxes and pay for a consultation before you get started so that you know what to track that will help him/her minimize your tax bill.


The safest investment is probably a money market fund [originally I said a TIPS fund but they appear to be riskier than I had thought].  But you might not want to invest everything there because the returns are not going to be great.  High returns come with high risk. The best portfolio has some percentage (which may be 0) of your money in a safe asset like a money market and some in a risky portfolio (this percentage may also be zero for some people).  You should consult your own risk aversion and decide how much money to put in each.  If you are super risk-averse, put almost all of it in the money market.  If you want a little more return, put more of it in the risky portfolio.  This is a fundamental result of finance theory. What's the risky asset?  A fully diversified portfolio of bonds and stocks.  People don't agree on exactly what the weights should be.  The rule of thumb back in the day was 60% stock and 40% bonds.  These days lots of financial planners recommend 120 minus your age in stock and the rest in bonds.  But no one really knows what the perfect weights in the risky portfolio should be (the rules of thumb I just gave have little or no theoretical foundation) so you have to choose for yourself what you think makes sense.


Ok, see that was my thinking too.  Historically, stocks and land values have always gone up, even after the depression.  So, it seems to me, that if you have a buy and hold strategy with a horizon of 10-20 years, then you should be fine.  Is my thinking realistic along those lines?


Sounds like a bad idea. The IRA is built on the power of compounding. Removing contributions will hurt your retirement savings, and you will never be able to make that up. Instead, consider tax-free investments. State bonds, Federal bonds, municipal bonds, etc. For example, I invest in California muni bonds fund which gives me ~3-4% annual dividend income - completely tax free. In addition - there's capital appreciation of your fund holdings. There are risks, of course, for example rate changes will affect yields and capital appreciation, so consult with someone knowledgeable in this area (or ask another question here, for the basics). This will give you the same result as you're expecting from your Roth IRA trick, without damaging your retirement savings potential.


Just as a renter doesn't care what the landlord's mortgage is, the buyer of a house shouldn't care what the seller paid, what the current mortgage is, or any other details of the seller's finances.  Two identical houses may be worth $400K. One still has a $450K loan, the other is mortgage free. You would qualify for the same value mortgage on both houses. All you and your bank should care about is that the present mortgage is paid or forgiven by the current mortgage holder so your bank can have first lien, and you get a clean title.  To answer the question clearly, yes, it's common for a house with a mortgage to be sold, mortgage paid off, and new mortgage put in place. The profit or loss of the homeowner is not your concern.


I'm not sure it is the best idea, but you can buy only 4 stocks generally.  As you alluded to, you should take notice of the fees.  Also note that many stocks trade at significantly lower prices than Apple's per shares, so you might want to factor that into your decision.  You could probably get a better feel for transactions if you bought say 50 shares of a $30 stock; then it might be easier to see what it's like to sell some, etc. Note that specific trading sites might have various limits in place that would pose as barriers to this sort of behavior though.


"Your are mixing multiple questions with assertions which may or may not be true. So I'll take a stab at this, comment if it doesn't make sense to you. To answer the question in the title, you invest in an IRA because you want to save money to allow you to retire. The government provides you with tax incentives that make an IRA an excellent vehicle to do this. The rules regarding IRA tax treatment provide disincentives, through tax penalties, for withdrawing money before retirement. This topic is covered dozens of times, so search around for more detail. Regarding your desire to invest in items with high ""intrinsic"" value, I would argue that gold and silver are not good vehicles for doing this. Intrinsic value doesn't mean what you want it to mean in this context -- gold and silver are commodities, whose prices fluctuate dramatically.  If you want to grow money for retirement over a long period, of time, you should be invested in diversified collection of investments, and precious metals should be a relatively small part of your portfolio."


"I'm not intimately familiar with the situation in Australia, but in the US the powers that be have adopted an interventionist philosophy. The Federal Reserve (Central Bank) is ""buying back"" US Gov't debt to keep rates low, and the government is keeping mortgage rates low buy buying mortgages with the proceeds of the cheap bond sales. While this isn't directly related to Australia, it is relevant because the largest capital markets are in the US and influence the markets in Australia. In the US, the CPI is a survey of all urban consumers. If you're a younger, middle class consumer with income growth ahead of you, your costs are going to shift more rapidly than an elderly or poor person who already owns or is in subsidized housing, and doesn't spend as much on transportation. For example, my parents are in their early 60's and are living in the house that I grew up in, which they own free and clear. There are alot of people like them, and they aren't affected by the swing in housing prices that we've seen in the last decade."


As someone who used to be an IT contractor in the UK and used to work from home, my advice is to talk to your accountant in detail. It's been a few years, but IIRC you can write off some small stuff like proportional heating costs etc, but in my case it was so minuscule that it wasn't worth the effort. You're likely better off to just leave it. <subliminal message> Talk to your accountant :). </subliminal message>


The 'same day rule' in the UK is a rule for matching purposes only.  It says that sales on any day are matched firstly with purchases made on the same day for the purposes of ascertaining any gain/loss. Hence the phrase 'bed-and-breakfast' ('b&b') when you wish to crystalise a gain (that is within the exempt amount) and re-establish a purchase price at a higher level.  You do the sale on one day, just before the market closes, which gets matched with your original purchase, and then you buy the shares back the next day, just after the market opens.  This is standard tax-planning.  Whenever you have a paper gain, and you wish to lock that gain out of being taxed, you do a bed-and-breakfast transaction, the idea being to use up your annual exemption each and every year.  Of course, if your dealing costs are high, then they may outweigh any tax saved, and so it would be pointless. For the purpose of an example, let's assume that the UK tax year is the same as the calendar year. Scenario 1. Suppose I bought some shares in 2016, for a total price of Stg.50,000. Suppose by the end of 2016, the holding is worth Stg.54,000, resulting in a paper gain of Stg.4,000. Question.  Should I do a b&b transaction to make use of my Stg.11,100 annual exemption ? Answer.  Well, with transaction costs at 1.5% for a round-trip trade, suppose, and stamp duty on the purchase of 0.5%, your total costs for a b&b will be Stg1,080, and your tax saved (upon some future sale date) assuming you are a 20% tax-payer is 20%x(4,000-1,080) = Stg584 (the transaction costs are deductible, we assume).  This does not make sense. Scenario 2. The same as scenario 1., but the shares are worth Stg60,000 by end-2016. Answer.  The total transaction costs are 2%x60,000 = 1,200 and so the taxable gain of 10,000-1,200 = 8,800 would result in a tax bill of 20%x8,800 = 1,760 and so the transaction costs are lower than the tax to be saved (a strict analysis would take into account only the present value of the tax to be saved), it makes sense to crystalise the gain.  We sell some day before the tax year-end, and re-invest the very next day. Scenario 3. The same as scenario 1., but the shares are worth Stg70,000 by end-2016. Answer.  The gain of 20,000 less costs would result in a tax bill for 1,500 (this is: 20%x(20,000 - 2%x70,000 - 11,100) ).  This tax bill will be on top of the dealing costs of 1,400.  But the gain is in excess of the annual exemption.  The strategy is to sell just enough of the holding to crystallise a taxable gain of just 11,100. The fraction, f%, is given by: f%x(70,000-50,000) - 2%xf%x70,000 = 11,100 ... which simplifies to: f% = 11,100/18,600 = 59.68%. The tax saved is 20%x11,100 = 2,220, versus costs of 2%x59.58%x70,000 = 835.52. This strategy of partial b&b is adopted because it never makes sense to pay tax early ! End.


"You may want to look into robo-investors like Wealthfront and Betterment. There are many others, just search for ""robo investor""."


Debit card purchases without PIN are treated as credit card purchases by merchants, and that includes ID verification. In addition to the ways you mentioned, you can get a debit card in any grocery store and load it with cash, and these debit cards don't have a name imprinted on them. But then if you lose them - you may have troubles proving you did in fact lose them when you try to recover your money, as anyone can use them. Technically you can register them online and call in and request refunds for fraud losses just as any other debit/credit card in the US (with $50 deductible), but in practice it may be difficult. These cards have very high fees, and may not be accepted for rentals etc.


The default is FIFO: first in - first out. Unless you specifically instruct the brokerage otherwise, they'll report that the lot you've sold is of Jan 5, 2011. Note, that before 2011, they didn't have to report the cost basis to the IRS, and it would be up to you to calculate the cost basis at tax time, but that has been changed in 2011 and you need to make sure you've instructed the brokerage which lot exactly you're selling. I'm assuming you're in the US, in other places laws may be different.


If the work was 90% finished, you can only defer 10% of the income until next year.  You can only fully defer revenue that you haven't made deliverables on yet - you can fund the project with deferred revenue, however.  Of course, there's a gray area as to completion percentage, but you're starting to play with fire when you do too much of that.  Probably depends on his business, short answer.


Unless you're running a self-employed business with a significant turnover (more than £150k), you are entitled to use cash basis accounting for your tax return, which means you would put the date of transactions as the payment date rather than the billing date or the date a debt is incurred. For payments which have a lag, e.g. a cheque that needs to be paid in or a bank transfer that takes a few days, you might also need to choose between multiple payment dates, e.g. when you initiated the payment or when it took effect. You can pick one as long as you're consistent: You can choose how you record when money is received or    paid (eg the date the money enters your account or the date a cheque   is written) but you must use the same method each tax year.


The deposit slip at the institution that keeps your Roth IRA should have a place where you can designate the tax year the contribution should apply to.


It essentially works the same. Some states don't have any income taxes at all (like Florida or Wyoming), some only tax income derived in the state, and some tax worldwide income (like New York or California), similarly to the Federal income taxes. However, if you're living abroad (i.e.: you're a citizen or resident of a foreign country and you live there), you're not considered resident by most of the states (check with your state for specific definitions) for most, if not all, the time of your residency abroad. In such case - you don't pay state taxes, only Federal. You have to remember that foreign income exclusion doesn't apply to the income from your 401k, so you pay the taxes as if you're in the US. You can not use foreign taxes credit as well (but depending on the tax treaty with the country you're moving to, your 401k income might not be taxable there). In some cases you may end up with double taxation: US will tax your 401k income as you're a US citizen and the income is derived from the US sources, and the foreign country will tax the income based on its own laws. This is not a tax advice, and this answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer.


I found a good description of these on the Laurentian Bank website.  Very similar to Abraham's answer, but the details are a little different (perhaps because it's Canadian). Certified cheque: A cheque which has been certified by the bank that the funds to be drawn are available and locked in for the sole beneficiary. This type of payment is guaranteed in case of theft, loss or destruction. Certified cheques can be entirely replaced after investigation (may be subject to a fee). Official cheque: As for the certified cheque, the official cheque is guaranteed by the bank against theft, loss or destruction. This type of cheque is different because it will be automatically and fully reimbursed within a 30 to 90-day period. If the amount is over $1,000, fees will be higher than   those of the certified cheque. Money Order: The money order is also a bank-guaranteed payment in case of theft, loss or destruction. As with the official cheque, it will be replaced or totally refunded within a 30 to 90-day period. Its difference resides in the fact that the maximum amount is $1,000 and it can be issued in US dollars. Bank draft: A bank draft is the ideal guaranteed payment vehicle for all your foreign currency transactions. It’s guaranteed against theft, loss or destruction and will be replaced or totally reimbursed within a period that varies according to the currency. If you are an immigrant or an emigrant or if you make purchases outside of the country, you could require this payment vehicle.


Mutual funds don't have intraday prices. They have net asset values which are calculated periodically (daily or weekly or any other period depending on the fund).


There's nothing stopping most of these people from renting or delaying moving out from their parents.   If you're broke but keep shopping at expensive grocers instead of minimizing your consumption so that you're able to eat the next day in case you get fired then it's your fault as well for not planning for it financially.   People over extended themselves and they need to start accepting part of the responsibility. Sometimes the only way to win the game is to not play.  See I can use shitty analogies too when I feel like it.


When you want the transaction to be concluded in the current year vs an expiration in the next year.


"A well diversified retirement portfolio is going to have some component in cash or near-liquid investments. So I tend to put it all in one place knowing that I can draw on it (at least from the ROTH account) in the event of an emergency.  Obviously, you don't want to do this very often, but hopefully emergencies don't happen often either. You also have to attenuate your idea of an emergency so that it doesn't mean ""I didn't get a bonus check this year and can't afford gifts for the kids as nice as last year!"""


Here would be the general steps to my mind for creating such a plan: Write out the final desired outcome. Is it $x in y years to fund your retirement? Is it $a in b years to put as a house down payment? This is the first step in defining how much money you want at what point in time. Consider what is your risk tolerance and how much time do you plan on spending in this plan. Is it rebalancing once a quarter and that's it or do you plan on doing monthly research and making tweaks all the time? This is slightly different from the first where one has to be mindful of how much volatility would one handle and what time commitment does one have for an investing strategy. Also, how much money would you be adding to the investments on what kind of time table would also be worth noting here. Construct the asset allocation based on the previous two steps along with historical returns averaged out to be a first draft of what you are buying in general. Is it US stocks? Is it a short-term bond fund? There are more than a few choices here that may make sense and it is worth considering based on the first couple of responses that determine what this will look like. Retirement in 40 years may be quite different than a house down payment in 2 years for example. Determine what brokerages or fund companies would offer such funds along with what types of accounts you'd want to have as in some countries there may be tax-advantaged accounts that may be useful to use here. This is where you're almost ready to start by doing the homework of figuring out how will things work. This may vary depending on one's jurisdiction. Get the applications from whatever institutions you'll be using and run with the desired asset allocation across various funds and accounts. Note that in the first few steps there were points of being aware of how much would you have, how aggressive are you investing and so forth. This is where you actually send in the money and get things rolling. Run with the plan and make tweaks as needed to achieve result, hopefully desired or better.


"'Buy and Hold' Is Still a Winner: An investor who used index funds and stayed the course could have earned satisfactory returns even during the first decade of the 21st century. by By Burton G. Malkiel in The Wall Street Journal on November 18, 2010: ""The other useful technique is ""rebalancing,"" keeping the portfolio asset allocation consistent with the investor's risk tolerance. For example, suppose an investor was most comfortable choosing an initial allocation of 60% equities, 40% bonds. As stock and bond prices change, these proportions will change as well. Rebalancing involves selling some of the asset class whose share is above the desired allocation and putting the money into the other asset class. From 1996 through 1999, annually rebalancing such a portfolio improved its return by 1 and 1/3 percentage points per year versus a strategy of making no changes."" Mr. Malkiel is a professor of economics at Princeton University. This op-ed was adapted from the upcoming 10th edition of his book ""A Random Walk Down Wall Street,"" out in December by W.W. Norton. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703848204575608623469465624.html"


"This will happen automatically when you open an interest-bearing account with a bank.   You didn't think that banks just kept all that cash in a vault somewhere, did you?  That's not the way modern banking works.   Today (and for a long, long time) banks will keep only a small fraction of their deposits on hand (called the ""reserve"") to fund daily withdrawals and other operations.  The rest they routinely lend out to other customers, which is how they pay for their operations (someone has to pay all those tellers, branch managers, loan officers) and pay interest on your deposits, as well as a profit for their owners (it's not a charity service).  The fees charged for loan origination, as well as the difference between the loan interest rate and the deposit rate, make up the profit.   Banks rarely hold their own loans.  Instead, they will sell the loans in portfolios to investors, sometimes retaining servicing rights (they continue to collect the payments and pass them on) and sometimes not (the payments are now due to someone else).  This allows them to make more loans.   Banks may sometimes not have enough capital on hand.  In this case, they can make inter-bank loans to meet their short-term needs.  In some cases, they'll take those loans from a government central bank.  In the US, this is ""The Fed"", or the Federal Reserve Bank.   In the US, back around the late 1920's, and again in the 1980's some banks experienced a ""run"", or a situation where people lost confidence in the bank and wanted to withdraw their money.  This caused the bank to have insufficient funds to support the withdrawals, so not everyone got their money.  People panicked, and others wanted to take their money out, which caused the situation to snowball.  This is how many banks failed.  (In the '80s, it was savings-and-loans that failed - still a kind of ""bank"".)  Today, we have the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) to protect depositors.  In the crashes in the early 2000's, many banks closed up one night and opened the next in a conservatorship, and then were literally doing business as a new bank without depositors (necessarily) even knowing.  This protected the consumers.  The bank (as a company) and its owners were not protected."


"Though @mehassee mentioned it in a comment, I would like to emphasize the point that the financial planner (CFP) you talked to said that he was a fiduciary.  A fiduciary has an obligation to act in your best interests.  According to uslegal.com, ""When one person does agree to act for another in a fiduciary relationship, the law forbids the fiduciary from acting in any manner adverse or contrary to the interests of the client, or from acting for his own benefit in relation to the subject matter"".  So, any of these Stack Exchange community members may or may not have your best interest at heart, but the financial advisor you talked to is obligated to. You have to decide for yourself, is it worth 1% of your investment to have someone legally obligated to have your best financial interest in mind, versus, for example, someone who might steer you to an overpriced insurance product in the guise of an investment, just so they can make a buck off of you?  Or versus wandering the internet trying to make sense of conflicting advice?  In my opinion, a fiduciary (registered CFP) is probably the best person to answer your questions."


The setup is a purchase of 200 shares at $40 with a cash deposit of $4000 and margin loan of $4000 which a year later grew to $4240. With a margin requirement of 30%, the loan can be 70% or a total stock value of $6057. 1) $30.29 2) -24.3% (The stock fell to $30.29 from $40) 3) -54.6% (Your $4000 fell to $1817)


It would be better for you to sell yourself and pay capital gains tax than to transfer to your parents and pay the gift tax. Also, sham transfer (you transfer to your mother only so that she could sell and transfer back to you without you paying taxes) will be probably categorized as tax evasion, which is a criminal offense that could lead to your deportation. What the US should or should not claim you can take to your congressman, but the fact is that the US does claim tax on capital gains even if you bought the asset before becoming US tax resident, and that's the current law.


Yes, you may make non-deductible contributions to an IRA. The main benefit of a non-deductible IRA is tax-deferred earnings. If the investment pays out dividends, they will be kept in the IRA (whether you take them in cash and put them in a Cash Management Account, or you automatically reinvest them). You do not get taxed on these earnings until you withdraw from the IRA during retirement. If your income at that time is significantly lower than your income while you're working, you will be in a lower tax bracket (unless tax rates change drastically between now and then), so the taxes you pay on these earnings will be lower than if you'd invested outside the IRA and paid taxes along the way. You also get the benefit of compounding of the tax-deferred earnings. There's one caveat -- when you withdraw from the IRA, all the growth is treated as ordinary income. Even if some of it is capital gains, it will be taxed at your ordinary income rate, not your capital gains rate. So this is most beneficial for investments that produce dividends.  If you have a mix of deductible and non-deductible contributions to your IRA, the tax on the principle portion of your withdrawals is pro-rated based on the ratio of deductible to total contributions. This ensures that you eventually get taxed for the deductible portion (it's not really tax-free, it's tax-deferred), but don't get taxed twice for the non-deductible portion. Another option, if your 401(k) plan allows it, is to make after-tax contributions to the 401(k). At the end of the year, you can make an in-service distribution of these contributions and their earnings from the 401(k) to a Roth Conversion IRA. This allows you to contribute to a Roth IRA even if you're above the income limit for normal Roth IRA contributions. You can also do this even if you're also making non-deductible contributions to your regular IRA.


"This is an excellent topic as it impacts so many in so many different ways. Here are some thoughts on how the accounts are used which is almost as important as the as calculating the income or tax. The Roth is the best bang for the buck, once you have taken full advantage of employer matched 401K.  Yes, you pay taxes upfront.  All income earned isn't taxed (under current tax rules).  This money can be passed on to family and can continue forever.  Contributions can be funded past age 70.5.  Once account is active for over 5 years, contributions can be withdrawn and used (ie: house down payment, college, medical bills), without any penalties.  All income earned must be left in the account to avoid penalties.  For younger workers, without an employer match this is idea given the income tax savings over the longer term and they are most likely in the lowest tax bracket. The 401k is great for retirement, which is made better if employer matches contributions.  This is like getting paid for retirement saving.  These funds are ""locked"" up until age 59.5, with exceptions.  All contributed funds and all earnings are ""untaxed"" until withdrawn. The idea here is that at the time contributions are added, you are at a higher tax rate then when you expect to withdrawn funds. Trade Accounts, investments, as stated before are the used of taxed dollars.  The biggest advantage of these are the liquidity."


Is this for the US? Or does it apply here in the UK in a general sense?  Obviously I think we are using different terms, but this is just a general run down of the different business types really right?  I'm wondering if the use of a name thing matters here in the UK or not. I'm happy to trade under my actual name, but would prefer a name for the business that is separate to my own name.


Danger. The affidavit is a legal document. Understand the risk of getting caught. If you are planning on using the condo to generate income the chances that you default on the loan are higher than an owner occupied property. That is why they demand more down payment (20%+) and charge a higher rate.  The document isn't about making sure you spend 183+ nights a year in the property, it is making sure that it isn't a business, and you aren't letting a 3rd party live in the property.  If you within the first year tell the mortgage company to send the bill to a new address, or you change how the property is insured, they will suspect that it is now a rental property.  What can they do? Undo the loan; ask for penalty fee; limit your ability to get a mortgage in the future; or a percentage of the profits How likely is it? The exact penalty will be in the packet of documents you receive. It will depend on which government agency is involved in the loan, and the lenders plan to sell it on the secondary market.  It can also depend on the program involved in the sale of the property. HUD and sister agencies lock out investors  during the initial selling period, They don't want somebody to represent themselves as homeowner, but is actually an investor. Note: some local governments are interested not just in non-investors but in properties being occupied. Therefore they may offer tax discounts to residents living in their homes. Then they will be looking at the number of nights that you occupy the house in a year. If they detect that you aren't really a resident living in the house, that has tax penalties. Suggestion: If you don't want to wait a year buy the condo and let the loan officer know what your plan is. You will have to meet the down payment and interest rate requirements for an investment property. Your question implies that you will have enough money to pay the required 20% down payment. Then when you are ready buy the bigger house and move in. If you try and buy the condo with a non-investment loan you will have to wait a year. If you try and pay cash now, and then get a home equity loan later you will have to admit it is a rental. And still have to meet the investor requirements.


I don't think you are missing much, if anything, Brendan. You get massive diversification and low fees with a fund like VTI. I'm not sure if it is good to have everything with only one broker though. I would add to the conversation that the goal shouldn't be to have a giant pile of money in x years..and then spend it down in retirement. A much better/safer goal is to have enough dividends being generated that you never have to touch your capital. Looks like you are starting young so congrats.


Unless you have the storage and transportation facilities for it, or can come up with the money needed to rent or build those, no -- or not in any significant quantity.  Buying oil futures is essentially an on-paper version of the same bet. Futures prices are already taking into account both expectations about price changes and the fact that there's cash tied up until they come due, but storage costs also adjust to follow those expectations.


You're extremely fortunate to have $50k in CDs, no debt, and $3800 disposable after food and rent. Congrats. Here's how I would approach it. If you see yourself getting into a home in the next couple of years, stay safe and liquid. CDs (depending on the duration) fit that description. Because you have disposable income and you're young, you should be contributing to a Roth IRA. This will build in value and compound over your lifetime, so that when you're in your 70s you'll actually have a retirement.  Financial planners love life insurance because that's how they make all their money. I have whole life insurance because its cash value will be part of my retirement. It may also cover my wife if I ever decide to get married. It may or may not make sense for you now depending on how soon you want to buy a home and home expensive they are in your zip code.  Higher risk, higher reward- you can count on that. Keep the funds in the United States and don't try to get into any slick financial moves.  If you have a school in town, see if you can take an Intro to Financial Planning class. It's extremely helpful for anyone with these kinds of questions.


Recommend using quickbooks for account management. If you use the manufacturing and wholesale you can track POs from vendors, estimates, bill payment quotes and invoicing (there's an editor to customize your set up)Also, most accountants are very familiar with this platform so come tax time they'll be able to give you a hand no problem. For accepting payments I highly suggest asking for checks. If you do accept credit cards keep in mind most  payment processors charge a percent (1.5-3%) depending on transaction amounts and quantities of transactions. So you'll want to mark up your products by at least that amount.   Another area is sales tax. Since you are not the end user you should be able to avoid sales tax on the items you will be selling to customers. You then charge the customer this sales tax. Not sure about NJ but in Texas we are 8.25%. I then pay the state of Texas the taxes collected quarterly.   Edit: also make sure you have separate finances for the LLC. Separate checking, separate credit card, separate everything! If you end up using an account that is tied to you personally then you run into the risk of losing the protective nature of an LLC from a legal standpoint.   Edit2: by separate I mean using your IRS issued EIN number to open accounts with the LLC name. When you sign anything on behalf of the company make sure to add the name of the company next to it to show the company is making the signature not you. For instance   u/sexlessnights Company name, LLC


There's no best strategy. Options are just pieces of paper, and if the stock price goes below the strike price - they're worthless. Stocks are actual ownership share, whatever the price is - that's what they're worth. So unless you expect the company stock prices to sky-rocket soon, RSU will probably provide better value. You need to do some math and decide whether in your opinion the stock growth in the next few years justifies betting on ESOP. You didn't say what country you're from, but keep in mind that stock options and RSUs are taxed differently and that can affect your end result as well.


The website likely has no differentiation. I am hoping, however, the service does.   I'm not looking to break down a fledgling business plan, I am just looking for information on how and where to build or buy a website that performs thusly:  Company creates account and posts the service they can provide, Consumer applies for said service, I deal with some required middle-man work which is at the cost of the consumer.


In my mind, when looking at a five year period you have a number of options. You didn't specify where you are based, which admittedly makes it harder, to give you good advice. If you are looking for an investment that can achieve large gains, equities are impossible to ignore. By investing in an index fund or other diverse asset forms (such as mutual funds), your risk is relatively minimal. However there has historically been five year periods where you would lose/flatline your money. If this was to be the case you would likely be better off waiting more than five years to buy a house, which would be frustrating. When markets rebound, they often do it hard. If you are in a major economy, taking something like the top 100 of your stock market is a safe bet, although admittedly you would have made terrible returns if you invested in the Polish markets. While they often achieve lower returns than equity investments, they are generally considered safer - especially government issued bonds. If you were willing to sacrifice returns for safety, you must always consider them.  This is an interesting new addition, and I can't comment on the state of it in the United States, however in Europe we have a number of platforms which do this. In the UK, for example you can achieve ~7.3% returns YoY using sites like Funding Circle. If you invest in a diverse range of businesses, you have minimal risk from and individual company not paying. Elsewhere in Europe (although not appropriate for me as everything I do is denominated in Sterling), you can secure 12% in places like Georgia, Poland, and Estonia. This is a very good rate and the platforms seem reputable, and 'guarantee' their loans. However unlike funding circle, they are for consumer loans. The risk profile in my mind is similar to that of equities, but it is hard to say. Whatever you do, you need to do your homework, and ensure that you can handle the level of risk offered by the investments you make. I haven't included things like Savings accounts in here, as the rates aren't worth bothering with.


I guess most banks will not have an issue with that arrangement. The bank take collateral in the house for the amount your girlfriend needs to borrow, from her part of the house. Most likely the bank will accept the house' value as what you pay for it, assuming you pay fair market value - otherwise they will contact a valuation company to put a value of your new house. If they feel that her share of the house (50%) can cover her loan, they will definitely agree with the deal. You being a foreigner will, probably, have little to say in the matter, as long as you do not need to borrow money for your share of the house.


This fortune article is referenced in his either 2003 or 2004 annual report in which he does say that the market will not likely return much in the future and generally talks numbers. I am also a value investor, such that I can be in this environment and believe there is a bit of value in knowing where you think the market is headed but the real value is in underwriting each deal. In long, I agree with you


"Assuming you are paying into and eligible to collect regular Employment Insurance benefits for the job in question, I don't see how owning a side business would, by itself, affect your ability to participate in the workshare program.  Many people own dormant businesses ($0 revenue / $0 income), or businesses with insignificant net income (e.g. a small table at the flea market, or a fledgling web-site with up-front costs and no ad revenue, yet ;-) I think what matters is if your side business generated income substantial enough to put you over a certain threshold. Then you may be required to repay a portion of the EI benefits received through the workshare program.  On this issue, I found the following article informative: How to make work-sharing work for you, from the Globe & Mail's Report on Business site.  Here's a relevant quote: ""[...] If you work elsewhere during   the agreement, and earn more than an   amount equal to 40% of your weekly   benefit rate, that amount shall be   deducted from your work sharing   benefits payable that week. [...]"" The definitive source for information on the workshare program is the Service Canada web site.  In particular, see the Work-Sharing Applicant Guide, which discusses eligibility criteria.  Section IV confirms the Globe article's statement above: ""[...] Earnings received in any week   by a Work-Sharing participant, from   sources other than Work-Sharing   employment, that are in excess of an   amount equal to 40% or $75 (whichever   is greater) of the participant's   weekly benefit rate, shall be deducted   from the Work-Sharing benefits payable   in that week. [...]"" Finally, here's one more interesting article that discusses the workshare program: Canada: Employment Law @ Gowlings - March 30, 2009."


"Google ""forex broker"" and find one of the thousands that allows you to trade on Gold futures.  Then use one of them to short Gold... just watch your leverage. I would certainly wait before you're shorting gold.  Why tie up capital in a bubble that you think will burst in the next few years.  Wait for the price to increase and monitor for actual signs of the bubble bursting.  Right now with the Euro possibly collapsing shorting gold probably isn't your best bet."


Why shouldn't I just keep my money in the savings account and earn the same amount (both accounts have the same APY in this case)? I will assume that you are transferring money from your savings account into a Traditional IRA and deducting the contribution from your income.  While you may think that the money that is being transferred is yours already -- it is sitting in your savings account, for Pete's sake! -- you are deducting that amount in getting to your taxable income, and so you are effectively contributing it from current income and not paying taxes on the amount contributed. So, consider the same amount of money sitting in your savings account versus the same amount of money sitting in your Traditional IRA account. While you will earn the same amount of interest in both accounts, you will have  to pay taxes each year on the interest earned in the savings account. You might  choose, as most people do, to not take money out of the savings account to pay theses taxes but just pay them from ready cash/checking account/current income etc., or these taxes might just reduce the refund that you will getting from the IRS and your State income tax authority, but in either case, you have paid taxes on the interest earned in your non-IRA savings account, and of course, long ago, you also paid taxes on the original amount in the non-IRA savings account.  So, if you take any money out of the non-IRA savings account, you don't pay any taxes on the amount withdrawn except possibly for the interest earned from January 1 till the date of withdrawal (which you are paying from ready cash). On the other hand, consider the Traditional IRA. The original deposit was not taxed in the sense that you got a deduction (reduced tax or increased refund) when you made the contribution. The annual interest earned was not taxed each year either.  So when you make a qualified withdrawal (after age 59.5 or by meeting one of the other exceptions allowing withdrawal before age 59.5), you are taking money on which you have not paid any taxes at all, and the IRS wants its cut.  The money withdrawn is taxable income to you. Furthermore, the money withdrawn is not eligible for any kind of favorable treatment such as having it count as qualified dividends or as long-term capital gains even if your IRA was invested in stocks and the money in the account is all qualified dividends or long-term capital gains.  If you make an unqualified withdrawal, you owe a penalty (technically named an excise tax) in addition to income tax on the amount withdrawn. If you are investing in a Roth IRA, you will not be getting a deduction when you make the contribution, and qualified withdrawals are  completely tax-free, and so the answer is completely different from the above.


S&P/TSX 60 VIX (CAD) is an equation and as the implied volatility of two close to the money TSX 60 options change, the output changes. This is why the intra-day price fluctuates on a graph like a traded product.  Although VIXC can't be traded, it can still be used as an important signal for traders. The excerpt is from slide 12, more information can be found here. https://www.m-x.ca/f_publications_en/vixc_presentation_en.pdf Futures (stage 2) Options, ETFs, OTC Products (stage 3) have not been implemented.


I had a pretty good experience with Lending Tree, although they are a mortgage broker, not a lender themselves.


"I think the answer to this question depends on how much you trust yourself. Most people are wonderful at deceiving themselves. I'd personally not trust myself; I'll use Liam's points for the pitfalls some people get into. You can pay off your loans with summer internships and retain the initial cash you had for additional activities that make college enjoyable, i.e - Fraternity/ Sorority, clubs, dinners, and social nights.  This is actually the risk I've seen many people do. They'll blow their money in one semester under the assumption that 'they'll just earn more in Summer and keep it for expenses or the future."" Another benefit to taking these loans would assist in building credit, No Credit (in the USA) is actually a good standing. Many sensible banks or credit unions will happily give people with No Credit a loan. This makes intuitive sense if you think about it. Imagine two people with the same income. One owes money regularly to multiple sources and the other has no debt obligations. Which one are you loaning money to? Simplifying things a lot: Great Credit is best, followed by No Credit, then Good Credit, and then Bad Credit. The advantage of Great Credit over No Credit is simply that some institutions in some sectors don't have the policies in place to process No Credit people (No Credit people plan to not apply for credit often, for self-explanatory reasons, so this is a mote point)."


I tried direct indexing the S&P500 myself and it was a lot of work. Lots of buys and sells to rebalance, tons of time in spreadsheets running calculations/monitoring etc, dealing with stocks being added or removed from the index, adding money (inflows). Etc. All of the work is the main reason I stopped. I came to realize the 0.05% I pay Vanguard is a great deal.


It might be clearer to think of it as price going up when a dividend is expected, since that's money you'll get right back. As the delay before the next dividend payment increases, that becomes less of a factor,


"My sister had a similar problem and went to an actual lawyer, not a  ""credit repair agency"".  The lawyers settled her debt for a lot less than she owed, and she  also got a bonus: one of the creditors called her repeatedly, even  after her lawyers had told them not to.  The lawyers ended up getting her an extra $40,000. Combined with the  debt settlement, she actually came out ahead.  Of course, her credit score went down, but it recovered in a couple of  years."


Haha seemed like it was a big step in agriculture for me! Not that I'm in the industry, but cool to see the development of tech in various fields.   Title seemed intriguing to me haha maybe I'm not too familiar with PR etiquette! Cool company though


"What disconnect? And I'm not even kidding here - where is it? Do you really think that arbitrage that is a pittance compared to long term trading somehow distorts the process that some people claim is actually socially beneficial? Given that there's really no evidence of it causing misallocation or mispricing, what is the problem? That some dumbass day trader (who is, by the way, trying to make money in exactly the same way as the HFT people - he's just worse at it) got screwed over by some not-quite-as-dumbass people working at Goldman Sachs?  And why would you think that HFT (or any other advancement) is somehow related to such a thing; we've had ""speculation"" and foul play of various types for hundreds of years. What is it that is fundamentally different this time that wasn't there in, for example, the 80s?"


The product descriptions for FFA swaps and options can be found here:  http://www.lchclearnet.com/freight/ffas/products.asp The index (e.g. the BFA) is based on the settlement prices of the P2, P2A, and C4 contracts and the panamax TC routes.  As such it's just a performance index and replicates the returns you'd get from holding a portfolio of the constituents. I think from the clearing descriptions everything should be clear.  The wording in the link on the Baltic Exchange website is a bit nebulous.  I think they mean standardised instead of specified.  Because that's what sets the FFABA apart from OTC agreements or OTC spot markets. Edit: For more information on financial instruments in general see the Handbook of Financial Instuments.  I haven't got the latest edition but I doubt he will mention FFAs, CFSAs, or anything that's specific to maritime markets but after all they're just plain forward agreements over a not-so-common underlying.


IMO almost any sensible decision is better than parking money in a retirement account, when you are young. Some better choices: 1) Invest in yourself, your skills, your education. Grad school is one option within that. 2) Start a small business, build a customer base. 3) Travel, adventure, see the world. Meet and talk to lots of different people. Note that all my advice revolves around investing in YOURSELF, growing your skills and/or your experiences. This is worth FAR more to you than a few percent a year. Take big risks when you are young. You will need maybe $1m+ (valued at today's money) to retire comfortably. How will you get there? Most people can only achieve that by taking bigger risks, and investing in themselves.


"Also here's a source for the $3.7 trillion number.      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-08/u-s-municipal-bond-market-28-larger-than-estimated-federal-reserve-says.html    It's not 'incorrect data'.        EDIT:  Furthermore, in order to know the ""extent"" of the crime (your own admission) we NEED to know the size of the entire market otherwise you can't have any perspective or determine extent.  So there's no reason it shouldn't be mentioned in the article."


Using a different cost basis than your broker's reporting is NOT a problem. You need to keep your own records to account for this difference. Among the other many legitimate reasons to adjust your cost basis, the most popular is when you have two brokerage accounts and sell an asset in one then buy in another. This is called a Wash Sale and is not a taxable event for you. However from the perspective of each broker with their limited information you are making a transaction with tax implications and their reported 1099 will show as such. Links:  https://www.firstinvestors.com/docs/pdf/news/tax-qa-2012.pdf


Questions regarding loans, refinancing, mortgages, credit cards, investing and anything else that may be related to personal finance should be directed towards the subreddit r/personalfinance. We have provided the link to that subreddit below.   [---->  Over there on the sidebar.](http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/) Jus' say'in.


No. Busts are very infrequent, and if an equity were illiquid enough to be affected, the bust cost would be enormous. For a liquid equity, the amount of busted volume is insignificant except during a flash crash or flash spike.  Then it would be reasonable to redownload.


I can't think of any more negatives apart from what you mentioned, but the positives might include higher cost base for when you sell the place (this only applies in Australia if it is an investment property) thus having to pay less tax on the capital gains, and being able to borrowing extra funds which may help with your cashflow (especially if you keep the extra funds in an 100% offset account so your interest payable is not increased until you really need the extra funds).


First off, I would question why do you need a LI policy?  While you may be single are you supporting anyone?  If not, and you have some money saved to cover a funeral; or, your next of kin would be able to pay for final expenses then you probably don't have a need.   In, general, LI is a bad investment vehicle.  I do not know hardly anything about the Indian personal finance picture, but here in the US, agents tout LI as a wonderful investment.  This can be translated as they make large commissions on such products. Here in the US one is far better off buying a term product, and investing money elsewhere.  I image it is similar in India. Next time if you want to help a friend, listen to his sales presentation, give some feedback, and hand him some cash.  It is a lot cheaper in the long run.


"I'll add 2 observations regarding current answers.  Jack nailed it - a 401(k) match beats all. But choose the right flavor account.  You are currently in the 15% bracket (i.e. your marginal tax rate, the rate paid on the last taxed $100, and next taxed $100.) You should focus on Roth. Roth 401(k) (and if any company match, that goes into a traditional pretax 401(k). But if they permit conversions to the Roth side, do it) You have a long time before retirement to earn your way into the next tax bracket, 25%. As your income rises, use the deductible IRA/ 401(k) to take out money pretax that would otherwise be taxed at 25%.  One day, you'll be so far into the 25% bracket, you'll benefit by 100%   traditional. But why waste the opportunity to deposit to Roth money   that's taxed at just 15%? To clarify the above, this is the single rate table for 2015:  For this discussion, I am talking taxable income, the line on the tax return designating this number. If that line is $37,450 or less, you are in the 15% bracket and I recommend Roth. Say it's $40,000. In hindsight on should put $2,550 in a pretax account (Traditional 401(k) or IRA) to bring it down to the $37,450. In other words, try to keep the 15% bracket full, but not push into 25%.  Last, after enough raises, say you at $60,000 taxable. That, to me is ""far into the 25% bracket."" $20,000 or 1/3 of income into the 401(k) and IRA and you're still in the 25% bracket. One can plan to a point, and then use the IRA flavors to get it dead on in April of the following year.  To Ben's point regarding paying off the Student Loan faster - A $33K income for a single person, about to have the new expense of rent, is not a huge income. I'll concede that there's a sleep factor, the long tern benefit of being debt free, and won't argue the long term market return vs the rate on the loan. But here we have the probability that OP is not investing at all. It may take $2000/yr to his 401(k) capture the match (my 401 had a dollar for dollar match up to first 6% of income). This $45K, after killing the card, may be his only source for the extra money to replace what he deposits to his 401(k). And also serve as his emergency fund along the way."


You don't say what kinds of mutual funds, or what bonds. You don't say how old you are. You seem to have enough cushion to strike out on your own comfortably.  This is good. Compared with Vanguard's management fees, the fees you're paying are pretty high. The bottom line of what to invest in rests with you.  If you outsource it, it's still your money.  The managers get paid whether you make money or not. You have lots of other options: real estate from a distressed seller, commodities, currencies, websites, or other things where you have a knowledge advantage. For the time being, though, if you're concerned about your main income stream, I wouldn't get terribly risky with your money.  Cash is just peachy in that case.


"As taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number, ""The original purpose of this number was to track individuals' accounts within the Social Security program."" It later became a requirement for claimed dependants for federal taxes and you are required to have one before the age of one."


Regardless, it doesn't indicate any financial stress or credit-related issues.   Just because you are pissed off about the way the financial industry works, doesn't mean the banks are in poor shape. If France and Germany come crashing down, then you may have some evidence to back your point.


I don't know about keeping different rollover IRAs separate. But I know that there is a reason to keep rollover IRAs separate from other traditional IRAs -- if you want to roll them back into a 401(k) in the future, some 401(k)s only allow funds that were rolled over from a 401(k) originally.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ten-years-after-subprime-mortgage-crisis-us-credit-card-walden-siew) reduced by 84%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Things have come a really long way since the dark days of the credit crisis, and it&#039;s really flipped completely the other way where now it doesn&#039;t really take great credit to get a credit card.  > MS: This is definitely a case of history repeating itself, but the thing is we don&#039;t know what the tip of the mountain is when it comes to credit card debt, because when credit card debt started to fall in 2008 in the credit crisis, credit card debt wasn&#039;t the central problem that sent us over the edge.  > MS: We really have seen all levels, from folks with less than perfect credit to folks with 800 credit scores spending more, and that has been part of what&#039;s driven up America&#039;s credit card balances to these record levels.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6txd7q/ten_years_after_the_subprime_mortgage_crisis_a_us/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~191596 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **credit**^#1 **card**^#2 **debt**^#3 **really**^#4 **crisis**^#5"


Wow, so many idiots. Everyone has a nice fancy car that costs $300/month and cable and fancy clothes, and half of them are in debt. Pathetic. No sympathy whatsoever. I live frugally, which is precisely why I have a large surplus.


Nobody is going to stop you if you want to try that. But you should keep in mind that you have to invest a lot in getting the best hardware you can lay your hands on, best fail-safe connectivity to the exchanges, best trading algorithms and software that money can buy and loads of other stuff. This all needs quite a big amount of upfront investment without guaranteeing returns. That is why you see institutions with deep pockets i.e. banks and trading firms only involve themselves in HFT.


You should ask a customer service rep how much you'll net if you close the account. There will probably be a hefty surrender fee. What you get back shouldn't be taxable as its a return of your own money, not a gain.


I'm not meaning to be condescending and I apologize if it came off that way.  I'm offering my perspective.  I see these relationships and have the perspective to see how the traders move about and where they move to as part of my role.  The most common way I see non-tier 1 grads moving into top tier HF trading roles is via stepping into BB's, moving into market making roles, and then using the position of being at the center of the market to network into roles.  Renaissance tech being the exception... most of the traders sustain research roles as well and are most came in with PhD's and academia backgrounds.


"Does your spouse work? That's one factor that can put your income into a higher bracket. The one difference to note is you will pay 2x the social security portion, so even though not ""federal"" tax, its right off the top nearly 13%. I'm not familiar with your states tax. It's really worth dropping the $75 on a copy of the software and running your own exact numbers."


"Given that the 6 answers all advocate similar information, let me offer you the alternate scenario - You earn $60K and have an employer offering a 50% match on all deposits. All deposits. (Note, I recently read a Q&A here describing such an offer. If I see it again, I'll link).  Let the thought of the above settle in. You think about the fact that $42K isn't a bad salary, and decide to deposit 30%, to gain the full match on your $18K deposit. Now, you budget to live your life, pay your bills, etc, but it's tight. When you accumulate $2000, and a strong want comes up (a toy, a trip, anything, no judgement) you have a tough decision. You think to yourself, ""after the match, I am literally saving 45% of my income. I'm on a pace to have the ability to retire in 20 years. Why do I need to save even more?""  Your budget has enough discretionary spending that if you have a $2000 'emergency', you charge it and pay it off over the next 6-8 months. Much larger, and you know that your super-funded 401(k) has the ability to tap a loan. Your choice to turn away from the common wisdom has the recommended $20K (about 6 months of your spending) sitting in your 401(k), pretax deposited as $26K, and matched to nearly $40K, growing long term.  Note: This is a devil's advocate answer. Had I been the first to answer, it would reflect the above.  In my own experience, when I got married, we built up the proper emergency fund. As interest rates fell, we looked at our mortgage balance, and agreed that paying down the loan would enable us to refinance and save enough in mortgage interest that the net effect was as if we were getting 8% on the money. At the same time as we got that new mortgage, the bank offered a HELOC, which I never needed to use. Did we somehow create high risk? Perhaps. Given that my wife and I were both still working, and had similar incomes, it seemed reasonable."


ELI5 - you sell something that you don't own with the expectation that it will go down, and then you buy it back when it goes down in order to lock in profit.  You are charged fees to borrow the stock from someone else who currently owns it, and you also run the risk of the market going against you by going up.


"Let me start by giving you a snippet of a report that will floor you. Beat the market? Investors lag the market by so much that many call the industry a scam.   This is the 2015 year end data from a report titled Quantitive Analysis of Investor Behavior by a firm, Dalbar. It boggles the mind that the disparity could be this bad. A mix of stocks and bonds over 30 years should average 8.5% or so. Take out fees, and even 7.5% would be the result I expect. The average investor return was less than half of this. Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, and considered the father of the index fund, was ridiculed. A pamphlet I got from Vanguard decades ago quoted fund managers as saying that ""indexing is a path to mediocrity."" Fortunately, I was a numbers guy, read all I could that Jack wrote and got most of that 10.35%, less .05, down to .02% over the years. To answer the question: psychology. People are easily scammed as they want to believe they can beat the market. Or that they'll somehow find a fund that does it for them. I'm tempted to say ignorance or some other hint at lack of intelligence, but that would be unfair to the professionals, all of which were scammed by Madoff. Individual funds may not be scams, but investors are partly to blame, buy high, sell low, and you get the results above, I dare say, an investor claiming to use index funds might not fare much better than the 3.66% 30 year return above, if they follow that path, buying high, selling low. Edit - I am adding this line to be clear - My conclusion, if any, is that the huge disparity cannot be attributed to management, a 6.7% lag from the S&P return to what the average investor sees likely comes from bad trading. To the comments by Dave, we have a manager that consistently beats the market over any 2-3 year period. You have been with him 30 years and are clearly smiling about your relationship and investing decision. Yet, he still has flows in and out. People buy at the top when reading how good he is, and selling right after a 30% drop even when he actually beat by dropping just 22%. By getting in and out, he has a set of clients with a 30 year record of 6% returns, while you have just over 11%. This paragraph speaks to the behavior of the investor, not managed vs indexed."


I was just thinking ahead, can I apply for Limited company now, while fully time employed, and not take any business until I get a contract. Yes. You can open as many companies you want(assuming you are sane). There is no legal provisions regarding who can open a company.   What happens if I create a company and it has no turnover at all? Does this complicate things later? After you open a company, you have to submit your yearly statements to Companies House, whether you have a billion pounds turnover or 0. If you claim VAT that has also to be paid after you register for VAT. VAT registration is another registration different from opening a limited company. Is it the same if I decided to take a 1,2 or x month holiday and the company again will not incur any turnover? Turnover is year end, so at the year end you have to submit your yearly results, whether you took a 12 month holiday or a week's holiday. Is it a OK to do this in foresight or should I wait weeks before actually deciding to search for contracts. No need to open a limited company now, if you are so paranoid. Opening a company in UK takes 5 minutes. So you can open a company after landing a contract.


In software sales. 90% of the time the purchaser bids out the sale to 4-8 vendors who then have to compete to win the business. One team eats, the rest go hungry. On large enterprise sales, the process can last over a year. It really hurts when you lose those.


"The mutual fund is legally its own company that you're investing in, with its own expenses. Mutual fund expense ratios are a calculated value, not a promise that you'll pay a certain percentage on a particular day. That is to say, at the end of their fiscal year, a fund will total up how much it spent on administration and divide it by the total assets under management to calculate what the expense ratio is for that year, and publish it in the annual report. But you can't just ""pay the fee"" for any given year. In a ""regular"" account, you certainly could look at what expenses were paid for each fund by multiplying the expense ratio by your investment, and use it in some way to figure out how much additional you want to contribute to ""make it whole"" again. But it makes about as much sense as trying to pay the commission for buying a single stock out of one checking account while paying for the share price out of another. It may help you in some sort of mental accounting of expenses, but since it's all your money, and the expenses are all part of what you're paying to be able to invest, it's not really doing much good since money is fungible. In a retirement account with contribution limits, it still doesn't really make sense, since any contribution from outside funds to try to pay for expense ratios would be counted as contributions like any other. Again, I guess it could somehow help you account for how much money you wanted to contribute in a year, but I'm not really sure it would help you much. Some funds or brokerages do have non-expense-ratio-based fees, and in some cases you can pay for those from outside the account. And there are a couple cases where for a retirement account this lets you keep your contributions invested while paying for fees from outside funds. This may be the kind of thing that your coworker was referring to, though it's hard to tell exactly from your description. Usually it's best just to have investments with as low fees as possible regardless, since they're one of the biggest drags on returns, and I'd be very wary of any brokerage-based fees when there are very cheap and free mutual fund brokerages out there."


In general, liquidity is a good thing, because it means it is easy for you to buy or sell a stock.   Since high liquidity stocks have a lot of trading, the bid-ask spreads tend to be pretty low.  That means you can go into the market and trade easily and cheaply at just about any time.  For low liquidity stocks, the bid-ask spreads can get pretty high, so it can make it hard or expensive to get into or out of your trades. On the flip side, everyone pays attention to high liquidity stocks, so it's harder to get an edge in your trading.  For a company like Microsoft there are 30-50 full time analysts that cover them, thousands of professional traders and millions of investors in general all reading the same new articles and looking through the same financials as you.  But in low liquidity stocks, there probably aren't any analysts, a few professional traders and maybe a few thousand total investors, so it can be easier to find a good buy (or sell). In general, high liquidity doesn't mean that everyone is selling or everyone is buy, it just means everyone is trading.


"After more searching for how the US might treat such an attempt to ""rollover"" the funds, I found this:   https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/am2008009.pdf So, it seems it is impossible to do without US tax consequences."


"I believe the banks are protecting themselves when they ""require"" your endorsement. Years ago. they used to ask for your endorsement, and not require it. If you endorse the check, it legally authorizes them to debit your account, if the check is later returned for non-sufficient funds (NSF). It mostly protects the bank, and not the customer."


Yes, sorry, I should have tried to be clearer. I mean the development appraisal related to construction. Such as residential developments, mixed-use developments etc - what makes these profitable, costs, residual valuation etc.. if this is in the right ballpark


Even after the real estate crash, there are banks that lend money outside of the rules I'll share.  A fully qualified mortgage is typically run at debt to income ratios of 28/36, where 28% of your gross monthly income can apply to the mortgage, property tax, and insurance, and the 36% is the total monthly debt (including the mortgage, etc) plus car loan student loan, etc. It's less about the total loan on the potential than about these ratios. The bank may allow for 75% of monthly rent so until rentals are running at a profit, they may seem a loss, even while just breaking even.  This is just an overview, each bank may vary a bit.


What did you sign when the account was opened? What did you sign when you left the company, to transfer those responsibilities? Unless the bank has a record of someone else being responsible, they are correct in billing the one who signed their paperwork.  Of course this also probably means you still have access to the account, so your ex-partners should be Highly Motivated to help you fix this. If you want a legal opinion, try over in the Law area, or (better) ask a real lawyer in your jurisdiction. That's out of scope here.


Even if you can get a credit card with a $0 limit, that doesn't necessarily mean that the charges won't succeed. Some of my credit cards have gone over limit by a significant amount (e.g. 140% of limit) without any transactions being declined. The limit just means that the bank is allowed to decline the transaction, but they are also allowed to approve it anyway. So basically what you would have is a credit card where any transaction can always be declined or approved.


I don't know answers that would be specific to Canada but one of the main ETF funds that tracks gold prices is GLD (SPDR Gold Trust) another is IAU (iShares Gold Trust). Also, there are several ETF's that combine different precious metals together and can be traded. You can find a fairly decent list here on the Stock Encylopedia site.


"You file taxes as usual. W2 is a form given to you, you don't need to fill it. Similarly, 1099. Both report moneys paid to you by your employers. W2 is for actual employer (the one where you're on the payroll), 1099 is for contractors (where you invoice the entity you provide services to and get paid per contract). You need to look at form 1040 and its instructions as to how exactly to fill it. That would be the annual tax return. It has various schedules (A, B, C, D, E, F, H, etc) which you should familiarize yourself with, and various additional forms that you attach to it. If you're self employed, you're expected  to make quarterly estimate payments, but if you're a salaried employee you can instruct your employer to withhold the amounts you expect to owe for taxes from your salary, instead. If you're using a tax preparation software (like TurboTax or TaxAct), it will ""interview"" you to get all the needed information and provide you with the forms filled accordingly. Alternatively you can pay someone to prepare the tax return for you."


At first, that seems right. However, can you run 20 CNC mills while prospecting for new customers?  IF you're getting all that work from just a few customers then you still need to be prospecting simply because you're relying too much on  a few customers.  Sure, there are exceptions, to a degree. But they're few, and aren't much of exceptions once you dig in.


Why not just roll over part of your IRA to a bank?  I don't know about Capital One, but Bank of America seems to offer a bank-based IRA.   In broker-based IRAs, the closest that I've seen to a savings account is a money market fund.  They often set those as the default investment until money is allocated to more specific funds.  It is conceivably possible that a money market could lose money, but it has never happened.