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.

MANY FINANCIAL IDEAS are tough to embrace. But perhaps the toughest can be summed up in one simple word: enough.
Will we ever feel like we have enough and that we’ve accomplished enough? Accepting that we have enough and done enough might seem like worthy goals, a serene acceptance that’s possible for those at peace with themselves and the world around them. Indeed, for many, “retirement” and “enough” seem to be pretty much synonymous,

Yesterday we drove by Mar-a-Lago.  The flag was flying, but nobody was home. I had been there before. Actually, several years ago I had dinner there. The owner wasn’t home then either. 
The houses in the neighborhood made me think. How poor am I? Wealth is quite relative for sure. I doubt I could afford the gardening bill let alone the property taxes on those homes.
Never fear, if you can’t afford one of the homes listed for $22,000,000,

Early in my career, I was critical of those who failed to save, tut-tutting over their short-sightedness and lack of discipline. Today, I’m more willing to cut the world’s spendthrifts a little slack.
Why? Over the past four decades, I’ve often been asked for financial advice not just by readers, but also by those I’ve known well. Some of the advice was followed, some wasn’t. But in every case, there was no change in the person’s basic spending and savings habits.

I’M A HOUSEHOLD of one—in theory. True, one adult child lives rent-free in our family home in California. Her first full-time job’s wages are too low for her to afford an apartment in our expensive urban area.
I’m also paying college expenses for another daughter living on campus 80 miles away. She’s working part-time and will graduate this coming spring semester. With a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) degree, I hope she’ll find gainful full-time employment soon after.

I get frustrated sometimes. Okay pretty often, even oftener these days. 
The root cause of much of my frustration is reading the nonsense posted on social media and readily passed along as 100% fact and apparently driving a great deal of public opinion. Today’s political climate is making things much worse.
Social Security is a favorite target. 
What people claim, for example – Congress stole the trust money, actuaries didn’t consider some people die before collecting,

I’VE BEEN THINKING a lot about my mortality. I’m sure it has to do with Jonathan’s battle with cancer, along with losing some close friends over the past few years. Maybe that’s one reason I’ve been thinking about contacting some long-lost friends.
Roger was a college friend who I’ve considered getting in touch with. I believe I’ve found his current address, and I was going to reach out to him by sending him a Neil Young album with my phone number attached.