Category Archives: Investing/Financial Planning

ES Tax Payment 2 for 2023 Due Next Week! Wow that was fast! … Cyber Reminder, The Summer Brings them out … Friday …

Posted on June 9, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Every year this is the ES Payment that can easily slip by….

The reason is obvious in hindsight, but never as we cross the due date threshold…

It was only 60 days ago that we made our last payment….. Ahhhhhh

Electronic Payment of ES Taxes

Here is the IRS tax website link, which is very easy to make electronic estimated taxes. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully as there are a lot of different options for making payments to taxes, and be sure to carefully enter your personal information so the IRS knows it’s you.

We recommend you do this electronically if at all possible…. the mail is still having issues!

If you really need to pay via paper…

Here are the IRS ES Payment instructions pdf – the following Coupon is included in the instructions.

Cyber Reminder

Something about “Idle Minds….” Well, summer is in full force and so are the Cyber issues….

BE CAREFUL – Coming in the Newsletter – almost all Cyber problems come from a bad click…

Don’t Accidentally Clock on a bad link … Just Don’t Do it!

Have a Great Friday, Weekend and Talk Next Week!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Investing/Financial Planning, Tax Related

Tagged , ,

College/Student Loan Update – Forgiveness at Supreme Court ? … Payment Commencement Clock Ticking (60 days) …

Posted on June 7, 2023 by | Leave a comment

With the passage of the debt ceiling, the lines have been drawn on a very controversial subject:

Student Loans and Forgiveness!

As a quick refresher, we pulled this from a prior post just to give everyone an idea of just how big of a balance (and growing) this is… Here is the post from before

Student Loan Forgiveness

Literally, any day now we could hear more on this (or not of course) ….but here are the important parts as we know them:

  • The Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of this
  • Most likely amount, seems to be a $20k forgiveness total per student

Commencement of Payments

Payments look to commence (if nothing changes) in late August/Early September…

Looking at our chart above, it would not surprise many to learn, a full on commencement of payments would mean $300 to $400 per month for some 35-40 million young Americans. These payments have been waived for almost two years.

Lots of moving parts. Lots of possible changes. Lots of implications.

Have a Great “Student Loan Update” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Debt - Debt Management, Investing/Financial Planning

Tagged , , ,

Last Friday Employment Report Review – Payroll Employment Vs Unemployment Rate Vs Oil Prices … Very Mixed Signals …

Posted on June 5, 2023 by | Leave a comment

On Last Friday 6-2-23 (Always the first Friday of the new month) – the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) released their regular monthly report of the employment situation…

The Good – Well Maybe?

While the actual “New Jobs” portion of the report… blew the numbers away… so much so that it gives many pause …. including ourselves …

Hat tip Mike Green –

Recall our last Advance Analysis about good ole Standard Deviations…. dang we knew this would come in handy…. this far from the expectations would be VERY unusual….maybe even unbelievable??

The Bad –

The Unemployment rate actually ticked UP…. What ? hmmmmm

Payroll employment increases by 339,000 in May; unemployment rate rises to 3.7%

The Bad Again –

Was going with the Ugly, but it was not really Ugly, just bad or not good again… stay with us here

On Sunday afternoon US time, the OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia announced additional oil production CUTS…. in order to prop up oil prices which are, in part falling due to demand and demand expectations….

With a fair amount of “Is it over?” Questions over the weekend from various contacts…thought it worth sharing …. Very Doubtful… And we are glass half full folks….

Have a Great “The Good (maybe), the bad and the bad” Monday!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Investing/Financial Planning

Tagged , , ,

Modern Day “Saw Sharpened” … Newsletter Research Findings … Summer Friday …

Posted on June 2, 2023 by | Leave a comment

With a few days out of the office …. that saying of “Sharpening the Saw” comes to mind… Think it speaks more to a solitude down time than we have in this day of technology and need to stay connected… but we get the point, and feel the saw has been sharpened, maybe in a more modern day sense….

Enjoyed catching fish, extra jogs and work outs… and even some movie nights with most of the gang….

The 15 year old even learned to drive a manual “Stick shift” – ouch to the back on the lack of smoothness … fortunately not hitting the roads ANYTIME soon.. not kidding here!

Newsletter Research Findings

While the exact data that was being searched for the next Newsletter (Business Tax Refunds resulting from ERC – Employee Retention Credits – causing a slow motion economic slowing due to remaining stimulus being burned off- wow- what a mouthful) WAS NOT FOUND YET -grrr… we did stumble onto some great IRS feeds via the bird site (Twitter) that we will keep in our pocket for future use… Even AI could not help us, go figure (You mean it doesn’t know EVERYTHING- digressing with a full caffeine intake this am)

Ahhhhh….but TODAY is still a Friday, heading into a drive back home weekend and early summer “Pools are open” weekend!

Enjoy and talk next week!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Tax Related

Tagged ,

May 2023 Audio Video Review – Buffet/Munger Words of Wisdom, Debt Ceiling, – Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale CFA, CFP

Posted on May 31, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Hello and Welcome to our May 2023 Financial Planning and Capital Market Update!

If you are too busy to read, feel free to listen as we describe our post and thoughts in friendly podcast audio format as well as Video!

Newbies –

We like to articulate our thoughts and review on a Monthly basis our Financial Planning Tips, Capital Markets thoughts and current events!

Hope you enjoy!

May 2023 Video –


YouTube

Financial Planning Tip(s)

Berkshire Hathaway – Buffett Munger Words to Live By

In this post Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet are discussed in great details… along with a secret to speeding the time to listen (1.75x speed)…..

Main thoughts to live by from Charlie and Warren:

  • The world is full of foolish gamblers, and they will not do as well as the patient investor.
  • If you don’t see the world the way it is, it’s like judging something through a distorted lens.
  • All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there. And a related thought:
    Early on, write your desired obituary – and then behave accordingly.
  • If you don’t care whether you are rational or not, you won’t work on it. Then you will stay
    irrational and get lousy results.
  • Patience can be learned. Having a long attention span and the ability to concentrate on one
    thing for a long time is a huge advantage.
  • There is no such thing as a 100% sure thing when investing. Thus, the use of leverage is dangerous. A string of wonderful numbers times zero will always equal zero.

Particularly added this as just last week, saw a review of the meeting that completely missed several of these points in my opinion.

Capital Market Comments –

Debt Ceiling Fizzle- All done until after next elections

With several comments from the field, we spoke multiple times, here and here about the Debt Ceiling, the history and the most likely outcome…

Much of our confidence on the matter comes from our contacts that we have developed over the years that try to give us a 100% straight scoop as much as possible…. They could always be wrong, but being numbers folks, we go with the odds…

They were right, once again!

Have a Great Day, Talk to You at the End of June !

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Audio, Economy, Education, General Financial Planning, Interest Rates, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Podcast, Video

Tagged , , , ,

Memorial Day Weekend … Debt Ceiling Fizzle (So Far, Fingers Crossed) … School’s Out … Extended Weekend Week …

Posted on May 26, 2023 by | Leave a comment

With family, friends and a lot of contacts involved in the US Armed Services…. This time of the year have become more special as the year notches have occurred in the belt…

For all those in the Armed Services, fallen, retired from the forces, and any family of … or in any way near the US Armed Services…

Thank you for your service, we could not have what we do without you!

Debt Ceiling Fizzle

With worries front and center and lots of back in forth, for the most part the Debt Ceiling talks seem to have been handled orderly…. a lot going on behind the scenes (we listen every morning to contacts in Washington), but lots of contacts just wanting finality… without drama…

Hopefully that is what we will eventually get!

School is out – Well Almost!

The 15 year old is finishing two toughies (finals) as you receive this and hits the streets at the half way point today with the rest of the crew … the 18 year old DU headed Senior took several last night and only has two/three more for finality…so almost there…

Not sure about the rest of you….but time officially hits “Warp Speed Captain” (Star Trek) as soon as the gates of school close… Hang on!

Extending the Long Weekend

With a totally awkward summer schedule…. afore mentioned getting off to College … we are extending next week with the family…. Actually … two kids, two dogs and a cat for a bit...

Beverly Hillbillies anyone?

Oh…Watch out…with the time out of the office … the thinking cap usually gets going with the Newsletter in sight… Let’s go!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend and Schools Out Friday!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Investing/Financial Planning

Tagged ,

Rates… Fastest Increase Review … Looking Forward for Effects … Newsletter Precursor …

Posted on May 24, 2023 by | Leave a comment

This is an updated chart from our favorite buds Visual Capitalist…

Last year we spoke of the speed of interest rate increases a lot… given the unique pace at which rates increased AND the super low level of (zero is about as low as you can go) starting point … it became a shock to the financial system….

So in all likelihood, rates are near their top for the foreseeable future….what lies ahead?

We will have more on this in the coming Newsletter but rates 500 times higher than they were just a few quarters ago AND looking to stay higher… there are major implications..

Debt/Financing costs higher =

Better safe investment returns aka Fixed Income/Bonds

More costs to debtors (lower returns for those using debt because of higher costs)

End of companies requiring very low costs to make profits

Have a Great “Fastest Rate Increase Effect” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Debt - Debt Management, FOMC, General Financial Planning, Interest Rates, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments

Tagged , , , , ,

Form 5498 … Sneaky late arriving tax form can cause confusion … Reminder of purpose of said sneaky 5498 …

Posted on May 22, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Had a great Post about rates garnered from an updated Graphic from our friends at Visual Capitalist ready… it even is the starting point for a group of articles in our next Newsletter… BUT…this sneaky tax form causes lots of confusion and a late week email reminded….so watch for the Rate Post Wednesday – and a shortened Memorial Day Weekend post Friday with family travels next week! So lets go!

With a reminder email hitting our in box late last week from our back office team….

We wanted to share as this late arriving tax form can be confusing…

Late Arriving Form 5498 About to hit !

Form 5498 is the settlement of contributions to Qualified assets like Rollovers, SEP’s and also an ending balance …. most all of this is for the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) recordkeeping….

Here is why:

The contributions allows the IRS to know we in fact did make the contribution i.e. Did not spend the funds – so no taxes or in other cases a tax write off is A ok on our tax return

IRS needs to know the IRA balance for RMD (Required Minimum Distributions) – Recall mandatory draws are based on age and prior year end balances…

Ohh…one other confusing but important point… contributions to SEP or the like made for the prior year (2022) will show a current year (2023) contribution… no worries the IRS matches it to our tax return!

Have a Great “Sneaky Tax Form Reminder” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Annual Reviewed, Investing/Financial Planning, Reminder, Tax Related

Tagged , ,

Debt Ceiling History/Thoughts … Pools Ready to Open in our Neighborhoods … Memorial Day on the Horizon …

Posted on May 19, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Would you believe or be surprised to know the US had raised the debt ceiling aka Increased their Credit line some 90 times since the 20th Century? Probably not….

Most including ourselves believe this will get resolved… but there may be drama…. seems more the norm …

By Wikideas1 – Own work https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=131990039

We know the history very well and will not bore you with the things that have happened in the last three or so decades…. just know headlines may be …. ahhhh… dramatic next week!

Speaking of dramatic …. but on a more fun note… Who let the pools out ? Next week!

Memorial Day Weekend Beckons

Next weekend marks the opening of pools, the very wonderful remembrance of those that allow us to safely ponder things like debt ceilings and a long weekend to boot…

Ahhh…that is all next week …. today is a Fun Friday, near the end of the school year for our clan… Enjoy and talk next week!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Debt - Debt Management, Economy, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments

Tagged ,

Crypto Coins Annual Demise from you guessed it, our buds at Visual Capitalist …

Posted on May 17, 2023 by | Leave a comment

With a somewhat heavy post Monday… the weekend garners extra time for longer posts, especially when it rains enough for an Ark on Sunday….digressing…

Saw this last week and thought it may be interesting…. to us the most interesting thing is just how many Coins there are/were…

Crypto Coin Annual Demise

From our buddies at Visual Capitlist

Here is a non chart look for those interested!

Thought this was a repeat chart, but this actually shows on a percentage basis…

Have a Great “Watch out for Crypto Coin Demise” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Investing/Financial Planning

Tagged , ,