I decided 10 days ago to make a small (0.2% of my portfolio) in Ethereum through the Fidelity ETF. I decided on Ethereum over Bitcoin only because Ethereum had fallen in price quite a bit at the end of January.
Just curious how many of you have any crypto investments and if so how much of your portfolio and which crypto currencies (all Bitcoin?)
I must say that I’m a little more exposed to this industry as my son is with a cryptocurrency brokerage and digital asset organization.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/beware-of-e-filing-your-tax-return-legal-trouble-for-error-privacy-risk-cyberattack-96d31111?mod=e2tw
I am not advocating for either method of filing your taxes but everyone who files their own taxes should be aware of the information contained in the above referenced article.

I just looked at my account. During my entire working life from 1959 to 2010 I paid $132,817 in FICA taxes. Add my employers portion and the total is $266,314 (for some reason the employers paid a little more).
During the years I have been retired that equals an average benefit of about $1,387 per month. That is less than my monthly benefit alone was in 2008 and does not count Connie’s benefit on my earnings record or all the COLAs since I retired.

I don’t utilize a Robo Advisor, but here is Morningstar’s assessment of the best providers. This may be of value to some Humble Dollar participants.

TWO THINGS HEAVILY influenced my financial life. The first was my short stint after college as an internal revenue agent with the IRS. The second was getting married and having five children.
Result: I’ve spent most of my adult life as a tax-averse junky using retirement accounts to get my high, so much so that there’s a risk our retirement-account withdrawals will put us in a much higher tax bracket than when we made our contributions.

Hi Jonathan,
I found you by reading an article you wrote for AARP, which led me to your HumbleDollar site and everyone’s articles. Very informative and useful!
I too got a surprise diagnosis of metasticized cancer a few years ago and fortunately have been successfully treated, so far. It has indeed illuminated my perspective on life. I expect to have more than a few months but am more cognizant of what is truly important in life.

Recently the IRS has begun offering everyone the opportunity to sign up for an account. It let’s you make payments, including payment plans to cover those taxes you expect to pay in the future not covered by with-holding.
 
I signed up right away to prevent a scammer from creating an account using my SS# and potentially filing a fake return.  I’m certain my # is available on the Dark Web (like the other 95% of Americans) so the easiest protection I could think of was opening the account and locking it down with 2-factor.

The United States is 26 thousand billion dollars in debt. The United States spends two thousand billion dollars a year more than its revenue. 
If we generate any real, sustainable, savings many people are calling for them to be spent … on seniors and veterans. Congress is trying to cut taxes and limit the increase in the deficit to only a few more trillion dollars over the next ten years. 
The Social Security Trust is heading for insolvency as is the Medicare Part A Trust.

Following is a link to an article that I saw on CNN this evening. I don’t want to get political but it raises some interesting concerns.
I filed our taxes a couple of weeks ago and found out today that our refund has been approved by the IRS. I’ll be happy to see it in our account.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/18/economy/doge-irs-data-tax-filers-risk

Have you ever known someone who has succeeded in something quite remarkable? This could be starting a highly successful business, writing a blockbuster selling book or similar achievement.  Did you ever wonder how they pulled it off?  They may not appear to have as much talent as you, be as smart as you, or be as attractive as you.
If you have abilities that come at least as close to those of the average person, you are undoubtedly right about the accomplished person not having more talent,

ONE OF MY FIRST employers allowed me to buy savings bonds through withholding from my weekly salary. It seemed like magic. Ever since, automatic payroll deductions have been an important part of my financial life.
My payroll deductions expanded to include my health insurance and my 401(k) contributions. It just felt good to me, kind of like the practice of regularly giving 10% of your income to the church.
On the other hand, payroll deductions are also how we pay taxes,

Went out to dinner the other night with another couple. Connie an I ordered and then the others. “We’re going to split a meal,” the wife said.
Okay, won’t be dining with them again.  I think that is rude and unfair to the sever and the restaurant. Just about as rude as the people who finish their meal, pay their check and then sit and talk at the table while a score of folks stand about waiting for their turn. 

As we ponder retirement and moving from savers to spenders i was considering what recent discretionary purchases really added extra value to our lives.
Here is my short list:
1) A home milk frother – we love coffee at frugal prices so we DYI most of the time.
2) a good quality sound bar – we love music.
3) my carbon frame touring (upright) bike – mental/physical health and fun. This wasn’t frugal but so worth it in terms of comfort and road confidence due to it’s wider tires.

THERE’S A CHANGE coming in the way many of us invest. But for background, it’s important first to look at a related—though seemingly mundane—investment concept known as tax-loss harvesting.
To understand how tax-loss harvesting works, consider a simple example. Suppose you purchased a stock in your taxable account for $10, and it subsequently dropped to $8. That would be unfortunate, but there’d be a silver lining: You could sell the stock to capture the $2 loss for tax purposes and then reinvest the proceeds in another stock.

My husband and I are considering working with a firm that will develop a strategic financial masterplan that will include tax strategies, Roth IRA conversions, estate planning, charitable giving and gifting among other things . We are also talking with an advisor who invests in Dimensional Funds. This is a big change for us currently investing in individual stocks, bonds and mutual/ETF funds. We have worked with individual CFPs who claim they offer these services but rarely do they provide comprehensive financial strategies and the main focus is on the portfolio performance.