A good one for Thanksgiving from the Archives of TGIF 2 Minutes….
Bottom line: being Thankful and Grateful are both positive things.
Simply saying “Thank you” out loud is hard to do without smiling either inwardly or outwardly. Try it! But say, “I am grateful for X” whether it is for a person, place, or thing, and it likely brings a deeper feeling. Perhaps that is why in the science of happiness – yes, there is a whole branch of science around happiness – the concept of gratitude is central.
Thankfulness to includes being simply “conscious of benefits received” versus gratefulness which involves a deeper “[appreciation] for benefits received”. Photo by August de Richelieu on Pexels.com
These are trying times. Despite the strains of pandemic, home schooling, work furloughs, and entire families sitting at dining room tables on laptops… there are still BIG decisions and “leaps of faith” to be made. Namely,
Annual Healthcare Enrollment (deadlines looming)
401k contributions by year-end amidst a year of zany cash flows
Kids’ high school enrollments (these have changed for lots of people)
College semester enrollment and tuition payments
Home improvements like, “Do I add a home office?”… and more.
Don’t even get me started on – “Do I know who my beneficiaries are?” or “When do I start taking Social Security?”
This is nuts!
Take the time to become informed in order to make proper leaps of faith where needed or to stay put where necessary.
Halloween can be pretty scary – but not as scary as Open Enrollment for health coverage! Dates for open enrollment typically go from November 1st to December 15th for coverage starting January 1st of the coming year. Enrolling for healthcare (Flexible Spending, Dental, Health Savings Accounts or Medicare, among others) can scare the living daylights out of even the smartest, strongest people. We are presently in or near the “Open Enrollment for Healthcare” season.
Hitting the “Enroll” button is an action that people put off, sometimes even missing the deadline. Don’t miss the deadline.
As we approach the end of the weirdest year ever, nearly everyone wants 2020 to be O-V-E-R (unless you love birthdays, and your birthday is between now and December 31st).
The year-end countdown has begun, and soon it will be too late to make certain positive changes to your 2020 tax situation. Several of these items, if addressed now, could make a big or small difference to your 2020 tax filing, AND add to your savings.
Several of these items, if addressed now, could make a big or small difference to your 2020 tax filing, AND add to your savings. Photo by Thirdman on Pexels.com
It is only fair that if there was an edition two weeks ago titled “Biggest Losers” there be an accompanying edition, “Biggest Winners.” Because there are A LOT of winners out there. But the financial and news media do not sell advertising talking about winners.
Here are the most obvious Winners, especially financially speaking:
Several of my clients and I painfully combed through their spending as part of the financial planning process. In most cases, these people came out with a greater awareness of who and what is most important to them.
Is it just me or has the election season and political climate made it feel like someone died? In fact, in the case that someone actually has died in the past 8-12 months we have not even been able to grieve in a healthy way.
What a topic for a Friday! And why am I bringing it up? This topic could take far more than 2 minutes to cover (don’t worry, I’ll keep it short).
Unfortunately, people do pass away. I have experienced both tragic and sudden death in my family. Death is a terrible and sad topic, but certain aspects of death need to be addressed within the concept of money – as harsh as that sounds. Grief is part of the topic too.
Find someone to trust to walk alongside you in times of grief so that your money and financial life are the crutch you can lean on to get you through to the other side of grief and hard times.
Upon recently personally experiencing the multiple shocks of:
Minimal amounts of people at rush hour in one of the typically busiest cities and train stations in the world,
Open parking spaces and empty parking lots at one of the busiest train lines in the world,
No lines at Starbucks in the typically busiest city in the world…
… I started thinking bigger-picture about who will be most deeply affected in the intermediate-term by the virus pandemic and the resulting slow-downs, shut-downs, cuts, and service eliminations. Near the top of the list of business types and job types negatively affected are (obviously),
Restaurants and their owners
Airlines
Commercial real estate property owners
Business conference managers
…the list goes on.
New York Penn Station at the morning “rush hour”, October 2, 2020.ation at “rush hour”
Talking taxes on a Friday is a lot easier than talking taxes on a Monday! Believe it or not, at this time of year it is smart to be talking taxes no matter what. Preparation and planning are the name of the game.*
The issue of higher FUTURE taxes is critical to clients of all income levels – especially those in higher tax brackets – and all ages. You will hear me repeatedly hammering home this “tax trap” issue – with the research and collaboration from my sources to back it up.
Here is some “good” news when it comes to taxes and tax strategies: the Roth IRA, Roth IRA conversion and Roth 401k are alive and well for now. The “good” part is that for nearly ALL reading this, you ARE eligible for both the Roth IRA conversion and the Roth 401k (if your company offers a Roth 401k) even if you are in the higher/highest income brackets or own a business! And these strategies can be employed NOW for 2020 and 2021.
The issue of higher FUTURE taxes is critical to clients of all income levels, especially those in higher tax brackets Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com
By now, most investors know that in late February of this year through mid-March the stock markets kind of crashed. It was a matter of 31 days from February 20th to March 23rd….not that I had to look that up or anything.
It was swift and ugly. And then, the stock markets both suddenly and slowly recovered, hitting it big in April and then gradually reaching new all-time records by September. Hmmmm… how does that work? Is it “free markets”? More buyers than sellers? Individuals throwing money at stocks?
SoftBank reported $4 billion of options trades representing $50 billion of underlying value in the same handful of technology stocks in the US.
From an edition of TGIF 2 Minutes in early March 2020….
As we continue to watch both from the sidelines and the interior of the Coronavirus tragedy, there exist lessons learned and lessons yet to be learned. Mistakes made past and present. In looking at history and researching the aftermath of past global tragedies there is evidence of subsequent innovations along with lucky breaks that surpass the imagination.
Photo by ELEVATE on Pexels.comLogistics may be an under-rated career – perhaps never as valuable as today. And certainly, fairly recession-proof. Photo by ELEVATE on Pexels.com
