Author Archives: Megan Russell

Stay the course. Rebalance. Don’t peek.

Juggling domestic responsibilities is a second shift adults are burdened with. I find this analogy helps me to set my expectations and focus more properly.

Walking away from tempting purchases is particularly difficult, especially for those who regularly shop, but by training yourself to slow down in your spending, you can concentrate your dollars towards the purchases that create the most joy.

Inflation is like the rain. You must prepare in advance in order to stay dry.

In this podcast, we discuss the hazard of advertising for your budget and how to not fall prey to marketing tactics.

The S&P 500 saw an intraday bear market today, dipping over 20% down from a prior high and then correcting back before the day’s close.

One obscure way we bring value to clients is how we bill them.

While you may think that the account owner needs to stay the same, you can easily change the account owner.

In this podcast, we discuss why spending is the core of your financial plan, how to align your spending with your goals, and how to use Core Values Budgeting to identify budgeting changes.

We continued to hire her for several of the same tasks as last year, but also added a few new ones.

Whenever the IRS challenges you, the burden of producing evidence that your claims are true rests entirely with you.

Singapore is approximately 37.6% in the Financial sector and has yet to increase its domestic interest rates.

This quarter, we saw that in 1-year returns ending March 31, 2022, Developed Freedom Investing had a +1.44% advantage, Emerging Market Freedom Investing had a +2.07% advantage, and Overall Freedom Investing had a +1.28% advantage.

We are constantly reviewing our portfolios’ asset allocations in order to bring them more in line with our Investment Committee’s best practices. Here is a summary of our recent changes.

This year, we decided to analyze the predictive power of these sub-scores on overall future investment returns.

Three generations explain this family saying which teaches one method of mitigating risk.

Roth conversions pay off. Repeat it to yourself now. Repeat it to yourself at tax time. Roth conversions pay off.

At the start of the year, purchases of all of these securities had no transaction fee at Charles Schwab. However in December 2021, Schwab added a transaction fee to some of the holdings.

Luckily, reporting and using your tax credits on your state tax return is very straightforward.

A gone-fishing portfolio is a portfolio of just a few stocks which should weather the ups and downs of the market fairly well while only rebalancing twice a year.

Don’t let stress about tax filing requirements keep you or your child from a powerful opportunity to provide for their future.

Now that the Franklin Templeton funds have been added to the Institutional Intelligent Portfolios platform, we are updating our allocations to use the cheaper funds as their primary targets.

The strangest fluke of the tax return is that the actual calculation of how much base tax you owe does not have a form; it has this worksheet.

The 25 lines are so simplified, they end up being difficult to follow what exactly they do. So, for those of you who are curious, here’s what they do.

Luckily for Roth lovers like us, you don’t have to choose between Roth conversions or Roth contributions.

While navigating the rules may be trickier, your child can still enjoy easy domestic employment even when someone else is the employer.

The given numbers on a 1099-R are insufficient to be able to fill out your tax return correctly. Knowledge of what was actually done is required in order to file your taxes accurately.

Any of these ETFs or mutual funds seem like they could be a good one-fund pick for the long haul.

You can easily update your contact information online through Schwab Alliance.

A Technology correction may not happen, but moving more into Mid and Small Cap Value may help allocations even if it doesn’t.

We anticipated Consumer Staples to have a lower expected return but a larger risk-adjusted return and we expected Biotechnology to have very volatile returns with lower correlations to the other sectors. Both of those things happened in 2021.

The class will be held virtually on Zoom each Thursday from noon to 1:00 PM EST between March 10 and March 31, 2022.

A SEP-IRA can be opened any time before you file your tax return and you can make prior-year contributions at that time. In contrast, a solo-401(k) must be opened and contributed to before the year end to count for that tax year.

It is better to begin somewhere than not start at all.

This 2020 article is for tax preparers of the world. If you did a backdoor Roth this year, send it to yours.

Most people are able to do direct rollovers from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. In this way, most people can do any number of Roth conversions in one twelve-month period.

Be sure to remember to tell your tax preparer that you did a QCD.

The class will be held March 10 through March 31, 2022 each Thursday from noon to 1:30 PM on Zoom.

Why do people do Roth conversions? Should I? This timeless article and video answers all your questions.

This 2020 article reminds us that if you ever sad about the size of your IRA balance, it might be a good time to convert to Roth.

An initial equal weight strategy of these 26 companies implemented on January 1, 2021 and held without further buys or sells through December 31, 2021 had a +8.64% advantage over the foreign healthcare benchmark.

Many people think that Roth IRA contributions can only be from earned income. Those people are only half right.

In this podcast, I discuss my recent article “Account Funding Priorities for 2022” and describe a savings waterfall for 2022. The idea is when new money flows your way, which one of these buckets is it going to land in?

On the podcast, I share my experiences from my own parenting and how we can set ourselves and our children up for financial success.

This quarter, we saw that in 1-year returns ending December 31, 2021, Developed Freedom Investing had a -0.12% disadvantage, Emerging Market Freedom Investing had a +1.27% advantage, and Overall Freedom Investing had a +0.21% advantage.

The tax code is confusing. Are inherited IRAs taxed at estate rates? As income? At all? This article answers.

There are different tables and formulas used to calculate your RMD divisor based on your particular circumstances. Here is a calculator for the three most common.

Look at new items with a side eye and think, “Do I really want you here?”

On Friday, November 5, 2021, Megan Russell was interviewed by Michael Morton of Financial Planning for Entrepreneurs podcast to discuss Freedom Investing.

To avoid getting issued an IRMAA, you can proactively tell the SSA of any changes your income has seen in the past two years using a “Medicare Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount – Life-Changing Event” form.