State-sponsored 529 savings plans are tax-advantaged estate planning tools that can also be used to save for "higher education" expenses, a category which was recently expanded to include private and religious K-12 tuition. I've had an account with the Utah Educational Savings Plan, which was recently rebranded as My529, for years and have been very satisfied with their … [Read more...] about Should you use the Vanguard 529 Plan?
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You got your tax cut. Now what?
I had an interesting exchange in the comments of this post with reader sh on the subject of portfolio protection. I won't relitigate the question here since you can go read our exchange, but sh got me thinking about public markets and what they are, and aren't, for. I take for granted that the price level of public market equities, that is to say without dividends … [Read more...] about You got your tax cut. Now what?
Thinking about portfolio protection
Downside risk protection is one of the more interesting things to think about in investing. After all, if you ask me, "should I own US stocks or international stocks?" my answer will be "yes." We can quibble or even fight about what proportion of your equities should be large cap, small cap, growth, value, etc., but those are all ultimately battles around the margin. The fact … [Read more...] about Thinking about portfolio protection
What did you “miss” in the bitcoin bubble?
I take almost no interest in bitcoin or any other cryptoasset as a store of value or investment (although there's no reason the technology couldn't be useful in other ways), but there's one specific mistake I often see people make that I want to offer a friendly correction to. Bitcoin are not discrete units When people talk about stocks they frequently say things like, "if … [Read more...] about What did you “miss” in the bitcoin bubble?
Is this the next high interest savings opportunity?
My go-to resource for high-interest savings and checking accounts has long been depositaccounts.com, which has a pretty good list of accounts offering unusually high interest rates on deposits when you meet certain requirements, usually connected to either debit or credit card spending activity, or both. Such accounts are great; what's not to love about high-interest, FDIC- and … [Read more...] about Is this the next high interest savings opportunity?