Category Archives: John Kvale

SLOA mailed in May – What’s a SLOA? Standard Letter of Authorization (Clients) … Friday

As a regular practice for almost every client we have instructions on file to move money back and forth between other linked accounts a.k.a. SLOA – Standard Letter of Authorization –

Side note: We can remember when every request needed a signature and then was faxed AND THEN a day or two later is was processed… Eeeekkkk – ok, digressing!

From our back office:

“Dear Valued Advisor, 

In May 2023 we will mail the annual Standing Letter of Authorization (SLOA) confirmation notices to your clients, if applicable, listing all active SLOAs that we have on record for their accounts as of December 31, 2022. …

 

…Your clients will receive a confirmation notice for each account that maintains an active SLOA with TD Ameritrade Institutional. As required, we will continue to notify your clients whenever new SLOA instructions are established for an account. “

Here is what one looks like from prior years:

Take a peek and let us know if something is incorrect… we actually do not get a copy!

Happy Friday, and Happy May aka Schools out month, Weekend – 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

How Much to Tip? Restaurant, Transportation, Hotel … Personal funny notes …

Break In – Jogging season has arrived in full force … tend to be chatty after a long jog, especially in the cool weather… funny personal stories … warned!

With the “Tax Month” aka April, almost over, a monthly video review coming your way, and travel season nearing….

Our friends at Visual Capitalist came through with a three part graph that we just could not pass up…

Enjoy!

World Restaurants – How much to tip?

Funny personal story – while on a trip in one of the much lesser foreign tipping countries below….

Could not figure out why the great service at the bar …

Then bar tenders began fighting over our service as we rounded up, not only in a lesser tipping country, but a foreign misunderstood currency that was WAY too much… But … GREAT service for sure! ooops

Transportation – Taxi aka Lyft Uber

Another personal insight – The earlier or more unusual the time, the better the tip –

Running late and made it for sure a good tip (rare late arrival, but has happened)

Always a good tip, as any lost or left behind items seem to find its way back quickly – very frequent when the kids were younger!

Hotel Tips Protocol

As a family we try to always leave things nicer than the way we found them… especially in the individual owner world of Airbnb or VRBO —

Always leave a nice tip for everyone…again similar to transportation, the large numbers of power cords, video game accessories and “Unique” personal items that have made their way back more than compensate!

Told ya that jog makes for chatty! ha

Have a Great “Know Your Tip amount” 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

Nine Hours of Analysts – Family Announcement, College Bound.. Denver it is – Friday

While taking a bit of a breather this week… nine hours (three days of three one hour) comments from stately analysts were consumed…

Not to worry, we will not throw it all at you…but lots of notes, data points, economic information and really no big forecasts…. just observations and data… which makes it all the more interesting…

More to come for sure as we digest the fire hydrant of information!

Family Update – Denver it is!

While always respectful of the main line social media outlets (Facebook, Instagram etc…) and not wanting to get too close in similarity to them… We do like to share personal information occasionally and appreciate your comments and feedback…

The Eighteen year old (Sophia) committed to University of Denver (also known as DU- maybe I will figure that out eventually – as there were several others similar names that was of great interest- confused) this week…

With a nagging back injury, no tennis at this time… but maybe eventually, likely much less competitive…

Have a Happy Friday, Great 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

Q2 2023 J.K. Financial, Inc. Newsletter … Tax Reminders – Still time for 2022 Savings … M2 Pilot Advanced Analysis Series Review … By John Kvale CFA, CFP …

Welcome to our Video and Audio Podcast Review of our Q2 2023 Newsletter. For those on the road or just unable to grab the time to read, our podcast type review gives you the behind the scenes insight to our thoughts, observations and deep views of the entire Newsletter.

Click the Download button below, for a direct link to an electronic version (an early peek-good ole fashion paper versions are on their way to you shortly) and here for our Newsletter page

BREAK IN : From Parting Thoughts in the Newsletter

If you are not receiving our street-cents.com blog posts weekly Monday, Wednesday and Fri-day, please reach out and let us know. We have entered the late cycle portion of this economic slowdown and items are moving much quicker than our quarterly newsletter so we are posting frequent and very important items amongst our sometimes-humorous articles for your review and knowledge.

Let’s get going! We hope you enjoy!

Q2 2023 Newsletter

(YouTube)

Last Minute Tax Planning and Reminders

After a small top of the mind reminder that it is ok to pay taxes, we do not want to pay zero today and then pay at a much higher rate in the future, we certainly do not want to pay ANY more than we have to, we go into several reminders….

The SEP and the Spousal IRA – two things we can do now that will help last years taxes….

Important Reminder about reporting :

Just because we did not receive a tax form personally, does not mean that the IRS did not receive some type of notification of that taxable event! If you had a transaction, usually of some out of the ordinary type, that you did not receive a tax form for, we are not out of the woods and you should report it.

Lastly, comments about the possible rolling of 529 into Roth… the answer is still up in the air with additional legal clarity on this… but it cannot start until 2024 anyway!

Happy Anniversary Rate Increases

While hard to believe, the monumental rate increases (fastest of a life time in %) just started about a year ago

M2 Broad Liquidity Measure Tightens

In another – not kidding here – never seen before, M2 one of the broadest measures of liquidity, turns negative and makes our Pilot Advanced Analysis Series…

First spoken about in January, the effects are being felt through the financial system.. but not where we had expected so far….

Have a Great Finally Here Spring! Talk in the Summer!

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

Updated Blog Site – Zoom Zoom – Nice – Had to anyway … Friday – Newsletter Complete ….

College Trips Begin

With a turn around College viewing trip exactly mid week – the lack of sleep, fatigue from an early out late back, six hours of college program listening and walking will be nice to extinguish this weekend… thankfully…

Fun Fact – “Dad, are you tired. because I sure am? So is this what your business meeting trips are like?” Yes, tired for sure! A bit of reality? haha – College Viewing List may be shorter…all good!

Blog Update – Zoom Zoom

Here at street-cents.com our blog has been updated to a “Business” platform … faster, more features (need to figure them out) and more viewing and character formats…. Ok… sounds all cool BUT, we had to as we were pushing the boundaries of our space from the videos and large content….

Would have never believed there were over 2000 – yep – TWO THOUSAND posts to send to you guys…. All are not serious, but all are original… spelling and grammatical mistakes inclusive…haha Thanks for your continued readership and especially the comment!

Who Let the Newsletter Out!

Speaking of writing, articles, posts and grammar…. Our editor did see the post last week of no verbiage on the Newsletter, and sent an email as such…. Prompting a quick continuance of the afore mentioned missing verbiage …. ITS DONE!

Never know how much you guys will like the Newsletter, always a happy surprise — but we can say we have gone to a much avoided subject matter that we will speak very little about in this public venue – you guys can read in the comforts of your home in paper novelty format…. hope you enjoy!

Have a Great Friday and Weekend – 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

Important One Year Anniversary? … Technology Tethered Modern Day Spring Break Concludes… Newsletter Subjects and Neat Graphs but very little content YET … Friday On the Way Back Home soon!

Happy Anniversary Yesterday – Of What?

Long time followers will find this hard to believe ….. but it is true..

What was an important 1 year anniversary as of yesterday?

You’ve got this… but it is not easy…??

The FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) commenced their FIRST rate increase one year ago, yesterday!

The important part of this is the lag affect … the US Economy is like an aircraft carrier, not a ski boat in that it changes directions SLOWLY! More on this soon… hey it is a Friday… let’s carry on! But worth thinking about …

Modern Day Spring Break

Tomorrow we head back… it was a super fun Spring Break, and in some ways work “Stuff” was even more productive…

Always glad to be available …. heck it’s never “Work” anyway!

Thanks to technology (note battery charger for cell in pic, no plug in this courtyard), the events of the last week were digested or maybe consumed is a better word… and as mentioned in the Mid-Week Wednesday post, were not completely surprising…

More to come as needed in this area!

Newsletter in Motion

The goal was to have the Newsletter complete, but the afore mentioned events took over and while much of the diagnostic graphs have been completed … the verbiage is not … hope my editor, who likes to get a head start does not see this…. oh well…

Have a Great Friday … Super Weekend and talk next week from the regular Saddle!

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

Sudden Increase in Spam both email and text…. Reminder to complete those patches! 18 examples recorded in less than two weeks for your viewing! Do not Bite on a Spam Email/Text Could Be Hazardous!

The following is another reason to make sure your patches are being installed, both from the hardware, such as the maker of your phone, or other device, and software standpoint. Not doing your updates may subject you to more continued spam, and one slip up could cause much greater problems…

Have you experienced a sudden increase in email or text spams? If not consider yourself lucky, but not necessarily out of the woods yet!

About two weeks ago an email spam increase seem to occur. Luckily and just by chance a decision to start taking snapshots of the email spams was made as multiple emails occurred from a regular go to flight provider located here in Dallas, Southwest!

Counter Action Problems Better than the Alternative

With an electronic fax delivery system and email delivery of this post being blocked, the largest providers, most notably, Microsoft have taken note and attempted to raise the gates. This increase in their spam filters, garners unintended consequences such as a loss of the route delivery of the aforementioned items. In our case, our IT department re-issued safe acceptance of our key items, and we were back in business.

Think to yourself if you are missing a regular contact from something, your provider may have blocked while trying to attempt coverage of this new Spam attack!

Examples of the last two weeks record keeping! Do not bite!

The Golf Cart is my favorite and most clever… Not sure where the Ace Hardware came from!

Have a Great Spam Update 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

Friday Office Hours, Out but Tethered …Time Change Weekend … Spring Break … Punxsutawney Phil Spring Tree Update … Spam/Cyber Preview – Look Out they are Back!

As mentioned last Friday … with the kids completely out today, for the betterment and the safety of the streets, we are out today as well … officially starting our spring break a bit early as next week IS spring break, and we will be out of the office all week next week …. but tethered electronically as always!

Time Change Weekend!

One of our favorite days of the year occurs this weekend, the time change. Don’t forget to change whatever few clocks you may have that do not automatically change Saturday night as that leads to an irregular time read and unnecessary stress usually occurring when we’re in a hurry of course….at least in my experience!

Snapped less than 24 Hours Ago – Spring Tree

Thank you for the Spring Tree Comments…. you have personally spurred us to continue the tracking… although we are likely nearing the end of our journey… Hence the bigger picture!

The following Punxsutawney Phil Spring Tree update was snapped (used same camera and same location for better reference) less than 24 hours ago …

Now we are cooking… Hello Spring … at least in Texas!

Closing Break Reflections and Personal Thoughts

For some reason being out of the office brings clarity….

Maybe it is the slow Wifi or maybe just different location/surrounding….

No matter… we are happily “Lightly” Tethered… the keyboard is tapping with residual to do’s/Newsletter/Blog posts… speaking of which, a great Cyber related post coming Monday… worth your time… and yes, really enjoy doing this over time off…. never work!

Have a Great Friday/Weekend and if Your Spring Break… that too… 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

Spring Break Coming, Timely Travel Tips … Rental Car Trick/Tip … Getting a Bigger Ride Cheaper? Making sure your Fast Pass Car is there! Yikes

One of the most frustrating things for traveling, at least on this end … is the dreaded Car Rental check in line…

In late 2019, a nice lady at the nationally known Car rental place in an airport that I had frequented literally three times in four weeks looked at me with recognition and a smile as said the following

“Sir, take the 5-10 minutes to pre-check electronically by creating an account and if you have a corporate account all the better, add your information, Credit Card and desired parameters and while I will miss seeing you, your car keys will be in the car and you can just walk to the car and be on your way!”

Like many of you, the funny “Fast Check In” commercials had resonated through my head, but given an employee telling me to do this, the sign up was on…. Not only was the sign up on, but two major companies were added (not all national car companies are available in all locations, but with the two I have yet to not be able to find a car) AND, both companies were added via a corporate account, which took some time to validate and prove, but has definitely saved additional cost, not to mention the time…

Literally, the next trip to the repeated airport, a waive to the nice lady at the check in garnered a smile, a thumbs up from my perch and a nice “Told You So” wave from her as the line was at least an hour long with some type of huge group all checking in at the same time…. NICE!

Important Note: Doing Fast Check sets an expected time of arrival, if your flight is late, let the company know… if you are too late, your car will be gone… personal experience on this one!

Savings Tip: Don’t just take the first suggested “Match Box” car when reserving … frequently larger, full size or even luxury cars may be cheaper if there is an abundance of inventory.. BUT you must scroll down to the bottom of the page and even to a second or third page… yes you will pass some very expensive rentals, but there may be a gold nugget in there somewhere too!

Had planned on also repeating the favorite travel organizer app…but this post, like some may say of my video’s or in person meetings … ran long.. ha

Have a Great “Rental Car Pro” 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

DALL – E – 2 from Open AI (Artificial Intelligence) – Copyright Free Art/Pictures/Images Created by You or Me! … Examples …

We have spoken about this before, but in brevity….and the popularity of this is rising so fast, we can hardly keep up ….

ChatGPT is all the rage at the moment, and we spoke of it here, again in brevity….

This is making its’ way into our coming Newsletter in greater detail…. But let’s start from the beginnings of our experience and show you just a few of our creations…

Dall-E-2 – the Image portion from Open AI

With Copyright issues abounding, we happily stumbled into DALL-E-2 named somewhat from the Pixar Movie WALL-E and Salvador Dali the artist… The whole family has accounts and all enjoy creating images… in fact, here are just a few images we have been using here…. once again all created by us ….

Oh, and those unfamiliar with the process … you type a literal sentence or phrase of what you want it to create and BOOM you get an AI created picture…

“Uncle Sam Beach Bum” created this and was used in a post where we spoke of Tax time not here yet….

Here are a few more…again all used here in our blog…VERY HAPPILY

We will dive deeper into CHATGPT next…but hope this helps give you a 10000 foot overview and will let you know what people are talking about when this terminology is mentioned!

Have a Great “DALL-E-2” Informed 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