Just finished my annual investing phone call with my daughter. We hold this meeting annually before she files her taxes to make tweaks to her portfolio for the upcoming year. With Vanguard she has a brokerage account, traditional IRA , and a Roth IRA. She also has a 401K, and HSA through her work. These I am all familiar with.
The one component of her portfolio I am not familiar with is Acorns. I hadn’t paid much attention to this component as it was just rounding of purchases from her credit card.

As one saying goes, there are three things that should not be talked about in polite company: money, politics, and religion.  Here at HumbleDollar, we are given license to discuss (politely) the first topic. And have we ever discussed money here! Pretty much any aspect of personal finance you can think of has been addressed thoroughly and intelligently somewhere on this website.
When the conversation has veered into the second topic, politics, the discourse can get a bit chippy.

THIS MONTH MARKS the five-year anniversary of the start of the pandemic. That makes this a good time to look back and ask what lessons we might learn.
In early 2020, when COVID-19 was first identified in the U.S., the stock market dropped 34% in the space of just five weeks. But later in the year—after the Federal Reserve stepped in with its bazooka—the market rebounded, ending the year in positive territory. For full-year 2020,

DOGE is considering sending all Americans $5,000 as a dividend on all the savings that have been achieved by firing, slashing and burning various government agencies.  My question is what will you do with your $5,000?
If it sounds too good to be true, see:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-mulls-giving-americans-165329483.html

Hello, first time user, been reading posts for awhile. I’m looking to fully retire in July from farming and go see our county’s sites & visit friends down south during the winters. I still want to manage our money,  My question is: Is there reliable and very secure software (our info is on the dark web through no fault of our own & had to freeze all) out there that can give me options on how,

Just starting to look as we are 81 and I’m nearly 75.  As we struggle with fire insurance in California and hassle with Comcast – they took away our local sports and baseball season is imminent, and other house and neighborhood activities are time consuming and complex.  We are Firewise neighborhood leaders and the responsibility is a challenge.
Our health is excellent for our age but cancer treatment and a chance of Alzheimer’s for me,  lots of experience taking care of our elders,

A recent Wall Street Journal article presented the stories of a number of professional and volunteer tax preparers who are still going strong well into their 80s, 90s, and beyond. In my seven years supporting AARP’s TaxAide program I’ve worked with dozens of volunteer preparers in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who are extremely knowledgeable and quite sharp. I would trust them with my tax return.
The article could have been greatly improved by interviewing some HumbleDollar’s tax experts,

WE’RE ALWAYS STRIVING—the next pay raise, the next consumer purchase, the next self-improvement goal. But to what end?
Our time on this earth is fleeting, our impact minimal and our legacy quickly forgotten. A decade after we’re gone, we might be remembered by family and close friends, but not by many others. And yet we keep pushing forward.
Does death’s approach shed any light on this curious behavior? Far from it. If anything,

I was recently reading a bit on the iShares offering iBonds, essentially laddered bond ETFs.
https://www.ishares.com/us/strategies/bond-etfs/build-better-bond-ladders
The advantage I see is that these are not perpetual bonds like an ETF (as in the ETF will cease to exist as of the maturity date and return the money) and, unlike an individual bond offering, are slightly more diversified. They also come in silos of flavors (U.S. government, corporate, municipals and TIPS).
I think (am not sure) that at maturity the number of shares multiplied by the final NAV will be returned (happy to hear if anyone has more insights into how this works).

Thank you Jonathan for as always, for your willingness to tell your story, the good and the bad.
I have one big mistake to get out there.
About 10 years before my wife and I retired, I started getting interested in money. I educated myself about index versus managed funds, fees, etc. While both of us had sizable 403b accounts that were tied up at work, I put all our after tax money in Vanguard. When we retired,

My challenge to you: List your top financial mistakes. Not sure you want to invite the ridicule of others? To make everybody a little more comfortable, I’ll go first. Here are my top six:

When I started investing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I bought individual stocks and actively managed mutual funds. Admittedly, I went this route because it allowed this cash-strapped investor to get started in the financial markets with a few hundred dollars,

Over the last year or so, I have been on the lookout for an ETF that is by itself dedicated to the beleaguered but recently resuscitated 60/40 portfolio. Surprisingly, it’s been a long and tedious slog.
At 80 and beset by assorted health challenges, I am realistic in supposing that I will pass before my younger and healthier wife. I know Vanguard’s Wellington (VWELX) would fit the bill, but Alberta will have enough responsibilities to shoulder without having to worry about any mutual fund restrictions or redemption fees that might someday be imposed.

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.