Staying Out of Debt Once You Get Out of Debt

Debt Free
As you reduce your liabilities, embrace the behaviors that may improve your balance sheet. Paying off a major debt produces a sense of relief. You can celebrate a financial milestone; you can “pay yourself first” to greater degree and direct more money toward your dreams and your financial future rather than your creditors. Once you
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Are Financial Advisory Fees Tax-Deductible? (Updated for TCJA)

Financial Advisory Fee
    Before 2018, you could partly or fully deduct investment advisory fees on your federal income tax return. When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed, however, the miscellaneous itemized deduction for investment fees and expenses vanished.1 This deduction seldom mattered for taxpayers in the highest brackets, as they could only deduct miscellaneous
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Retirees, Check Your Withholding

Tax withholding
    The Internal Revenue Service has a message for you. You may need to adjust the amount withheld from your paycheck or the size of your estimated tax payments because the agency is using new withholding tables this year. Should you underpay your taxes for 2018, you could be hit with a tax penalty
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Getting Your Personal Finances in Shape for 2019

Getting Finances in Shape
  You need not wait for 2019 to plan improvements to your finances. You can begin now. The last few months of 2018 give you a prime time to examine critical areas of your budget, your credit, and your investments. You could work on your emergency fund (or your rainy day fund). To clarify, an
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When Is Social Security Income Taxable?

Social Security Income Taxable
    Your Social Security income could be taxed. That may seem unfair or unfathomable. Regardless of how you feel about it, it is a possibility. Seniors have had to contend with this possibility since 1984. Social Security benefits became taxable above a certain yearly income level in that year. A second, higher yearly income
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Little-Known Homeowners Insurance Facts

Homeowners insurance
  If you have a homeowners insurance policy, you should be aware of what the insurance does and does not cover. These policies have their limitations as well as their underrecognized perks. Some policies insure actual cash value (ACV). ACV factors depreciation into an item’s worth. If someone makes off with your expensive camera that
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