Michael Perry

AS I TYPE THIS, I’m less than a week from walking out the door of my workplace for the last time, bringing my second career to a close. I’m looking forward to the rest of my life.
We’ve been anticipating this day and we’re more than ready. My wife is already retired. My work for a large corporation is fine, but I’m not passionate about it. While there are some positive aspects to where we currently live,

AT THE START OF THE pandemic, we picked up a nice chunk of capital losses. I say “nice” because these were intentional. When the market dropped significantly, we realized losses and immediately reinvested the proceeds in other fallen stocks.
What about capital gains? In 2020, some of our mutual funds distributed capital gains, but we didn’t intentionally realize any other gains. Some of our realized losses offset the distributed fund gains. Another $3,000 was applied against ordinary income.

MY NEPHEW GRADUATED from high school this past spring and starts college in the fall. Alex is fortunate to have received a full scholarship from his college of choice.
Wait, scratch that.
Alex isn’t fortunate. Rather, his diligence and academic success in high school have been rewarded.
While Alex needs no help paying for college, his notable accomplishment should still be recognized. We’d write him a check, but where’s the fun in that? How about a financial gift that’ll allow some one-on-one time that might spark an interest in sensible investing?