Category Archives: General Financial Planning

Big Data … Searching our Blog, Street-Cents, for Information, Two fast and easy ways

Posted on July 24, 2017 by | Leave a comment

This post will make the 1304, yes,  THIRTEEN HUNDRED AND FOURTH post. Never thought it would be so much fun to inform, define views, hold folks accountable, and just speak our minds occasionally.

Big Data on our Blog, Searching for Informationcropped-d930ef057d0bc16336f1561c33ad98dba5725d9f6c77e7d905pimgpsh_thumbnail_win_distr

Constantly we look back at our posts for information, not only our views, but in almost every post we have a link to sources, the initial data, and peripheral information making a review of the deep dive we did to present you the post easily accessible.

How to search http://www.street-cents.com for information, two easy ways:

Both search methods are simple and near the same area of the page on our street-cents home page.

Broad Search by Topic

A Broad Topic Search can be completed by scrolling to the “Category” tab on the right side of the main page of our blog and clicking the topic of your choice. The results will be all posts related to the topic.

Specific Search by Word

A more specific search can be accomplished by again scrolling to the right side of our blog site and entering a key word in the “Search Our Posts” section.

Example 1. By searching in Category > “Estate Planning” you will get our most recent posts which are :

  1. Just How Complicated is the Probate Process?
  2. Job Change or Retirement? Here is a great reminder checklist
  3. Coming Soon ANOTHER Sizzling New Vault Feature – Estate Planning Flow Chart (Clients)

And if you continue scrolling, the auto update feature of our blog site will continue to bring up tons of historical posts, all about Estate Planning.

Example 2. By entering “401k” in our “Search Our Posts” section, you will get the following:

  1. What to do if you overfund your 401k/Retirement Plan and how to prevent it from happening!
  2. 401k Reminder – Friday – Travels Abound
  3. Time to confirm you are maxing your retirement plans — 401k, 403(b), 457 type plans!

And once again by scrolling down, you will see literally dozens of articles, sources, data and links to the details we researched when presenting the post originally.

We utilize these search features constantly ourselves, and thought it would be handy to share our secret with you! Hope you enjoy … Happy easily research/reviewing!

Have a great “Searchable Information” Monday!

John A. Kvale, CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
www.jkfinancialinc.com
www.street-cents.com

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Posted in Education, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning

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Why not to add AFTER tax funds to your IRA!

Posted on July 17, 2017 by | Leave a comment

Every penny we save is great. On a daily basis we are bombarded with buy now pay later, so while it may sound contradicting, there are less complicated ways to save and more difficult ways in the end to save.

Perils of After Tax Dollars in an IRA

After tax dollars as opposed to PRE-TAX (deductible from your income taxes) funds in and IRA are not your friend.

  • Upon eventual distribution you must calculate a distribution basis which will be different from your actual distribution – Easy for the IRS to confuse
  • You must carry the basis on your tax return- forever- IRS Form 8606 must be filed to keep up with your basis
  • Your heirs may also have to deal with this basis upon your death
  • From a really high level, it is confusing

How Do After Tax Funds get into an IRA?

There are two basis ways after tax funds enter or get added to an IRA:

  • After-Tax – Non-Deductible IRA contribution: (Very popular about 15 years ago)- Please save the money, but look for a better way to save it and avoid this method
  • 401k or other Corporate Pre-Tax retirement plan is rolled into an IRA along with the after tax funds- Easy fix- Look to take the after tax distribution directly thereby separating the PRE and AFTER tax funds-
  • Watch rollovers that contain a Roth contributions as these are after tax and may be directed to their own separate account, once again simplifying the process

It’s not the end of the world if you have after tax funds in your IRA, great work for saving the funds … But if you have the choice, avoiding comingling after and pre-tax funds in your IRA or other similar retirement account may save complications later!

Have a Great “KISS- keep it simple” day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
www.jkfinancialinc.com
www.street-cents.com

 

 

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

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How we spend our Money, a 75 year comparison….

Posted on July 12, 2017 by | Leave a comment

A while back I wrote an article for credit.com which included a section on spending habits and the amount of funds we spend on different items in this country. (Here is the full article.)

From our friends at Howmuch.net and Visual Capitalist

This updated and more neatly compiled chart shows our spending trends over the past 75 years.

how-americans-spent-their-money-in-the-last-75-years__f_-f285

Scanning the chart from left to right, can you tell which has risen the most?

Of course, far right… Would that be Healthcare? … With all the banter, surely .. Nope!

How about Food? It certainly costs more to feed a family these days … Nope!

Housing, you got it, Housing costs have soared … this fits into our mantra of the latest Newsletter main theme …

Be careful out there!

Have a Great Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
www.jkfinancialinc.com
www.street-cents.com

 

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Posted in General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning

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June 2017 Podcast Video, Financial Planning Tax Review and Earnings Update- By John Kvale

Posted on June 28, 2017 by | Leave a comment

Here is our June 2017 Monthly review.

Hard to believe we are ALREADY at the half way point of 2017 … A little early due to the Holiday schedule.

Here we go!

June 2017 Video

 

Financial Planning Tip-

Safely Hand Off VERY Important Documents

Vault Add View W Arrows for private and Full View

With a few services still showing too much confidential information such as social, bank and date of birth, in our post here we reminded everyone of how to easily hand-off that VERY confidential document.

Also as a reminder, one of our projects over the latter part of the summer will be a set of 1 minute videos on how to use the New Total Vault and feature such as this one … Looking forward to completing them !

Capital Market Comments

Rates are Rising

Libor 1 month 6-27-17

This chart shows does a great job of showing the rate increases as they have occurred. So far, market participants are taking the rate increases in stride.

We continue to believe higher/more normal rates are a good thing!

Happy Mid-Year point!

Let the 100 degree days begin !

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
www.jkfinancialinc.com
www.street-cents.com,

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Posted in General Financial Planning, Interest Rates, Investing/Financial Planning, Monthly Review, Video

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May 2017 Podcast Video, Financial Planning Tax Review and Earnings Update- By John Kvale

Posted on June 2, 2017 by | Leave a comment

The School years are finally finishing up…

Summer is beginning across the country…

While moving slower, business is still going on…. let’s review!

But First our 22cnd Annual Holiday Party Announcement!

November 18, 2017 at The Dallas Texas Arboretum from 1-3 PM – Food and Fun – Enjoy the park until 5 pm!

12Nights1

 

Here is the review!

May 2017 Video

 

Financial Planning Tip(s)-

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With today’s technology, it’s no surprise more data is being used by everyone from our Mortgage companies to our Insurance carriers to set rates charged to us.

Given the comprehensive use of our data it has become even more important to guard our credit reports.

In our post here, we discuss the importance of watching our credit and how to check your credit report as well as getting a copy of your report, along with ways to dispute difficiences as well.

Sharing your financial life without giving up control

In this post, one of the most popular of the month, we discussed the ability to give access to your financial life, but not control, to someone.

Our job is of course to always know where everything is located and help carry the spirit of your wishes, but the sharing option of our New Total Vault may be an easier introduction to the subject matter, should you desire to bring it up on your own.

You may even want to have a subtle suggestion for the access to a special person in your life …. we have you covered with our New Total Vault.

Capital Market Comments

Employment Update

With over two thirds of our GDP (Gross Domestic Production) aka broad measure of our economic growth, being consumer related consumption, an employed and happy consumer may likely lead to better growth prospects for the US Economy. Here is the full review!

The consumer is certainly employed, as shown by this chart of the falling unemployment rate!

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Hello Swimming Pool, 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.
www.jkfinancialinc.com
www.street-cents.com,

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Posted in Economy, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Monthly Review, Video

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How to share your Financial life with a loved one WITHOUT giving up ANY control!

Posted on May 15, 2017 by | Leave a comment
  • Think the Car keys talk is tough? What about the financial life talk?
  • Do you have a loved one that needs you looking over their shoulder?
  • Are YOU taking and extended trip overseas and need someone to monitor your financial world?
  • You are great with the financial ‘Stuff” but your spouse cares nothing of it and has NO IDEA where everything is?
  • You want your kids to have an idea where everything is located in case something happens to you but did not know how to tell them?

No problem, we have you covered!

Our Solution to all of these problemsFamily Sharing puzzle-210786_1920

First of all, our job is to carry the spirit of your wishes and by knowing everything about our situation, we can help achieve this goal. However, our in-house technology helps with easy, up to date access of all of your financial life as well.

Our New Total Vault allows others to access your financial information, but make no transactions.

If you want, we can even allow access to your Wills, Tax information or other specific items you may be storing in your vault.

We do not have to allow access to everything, only what you want them to see.

Pretty neat stuff… Just let us know if you want someone to have access and we will have you sign a simple form to give them their own log in information.

Have a Great “We’ve got your Financial Life Covered” day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
www.jkfinancialinc.com
www.street-cents.com

 

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Posted in General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Vault

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April 2017 Podcast Video, Financial Planning Tax Review and Earnings Update- By John Kvale

Posted on May 1, 2017 by | Leave a comment

Whew, that was easy…. tax season is finally mostly over ….

We wanted to look back one last time on our personal taxes before we sunset those tax strategies for the high point of the season….

As a reminder,  we started with an Audio Podcast format for those that are unable to SEE the video or just prefer to listen to the audio… this makes the review slightly longer, but more descriptive.

Enjoy!

April 2017 Video

 

Financial Planning Tip(s)-

AMT Tax Reminder

We ran across a lot of AMT or Alternative Minimum Taxes this season

Here are the key thoughts from our detailed post on AMT earlier this month-

  • Incomes between $170k and $313k joint and singles over $100k – you are in the cross hairs of AMT
  • Deferring income may be useful
  • Accelerate income

There is not a lot of planning changes with AMT, but in this case knowledge may be power!

Possible MAJOR tax reform

Late in the month an overview of major tax reform was released.

Here is a link from the White House

Here is a link from Barron’s that does a pretty good analysis

Here is our article on the possibilities earlier this month

What to do if you overfund your 401k/retirement plan

In our overfunding 401k post here, we discuss how your 401k/retirement plan can get overfunded….. here are the main points

  • Refund the extra amount ASAP
  • Apply the extra to the new year
  • If its a super small amount, its not the end of the world

Capital Market Comments

First Double Digit Earnings growth since 2011 expected

From our friends at Factset, who do a terrific job of outlining historic and future earnings.

Earnings are the ultimate driver of capital markets!

4-27-17 SP earnings estimates - Factset

What is nice about these estimates are that historically companies have been beating the street estimates … if this continues, the actual earnings may be even better double digit growth…. time will tell and we will be watching!

Hello May!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
www.jkfinancialinc.com
www.street-cents.com,

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Posted in Economy, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Monthly Review, Tax Related, Video

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