Financial Planning Truths

I often write about the need to pay yourself first and the benefits of long term, saving, planning and investing. I don’t want anyone to think I was the first one to coin this phrase or to preach the need to plan and invest in order to have a secure future. Most of this knowledge is pretty well known. You can find several articles out there to help remind you what you need to do, and I continue to write about this to remind and educate people. Once is a while I like to share some of these articles written by others, with my readers, so that you are not only hearing from me. Today I am sharing two articles that I think go hand in hand. The first is about what it takes to become a 401 (k) millionaire . You will see a very common theme in this article, my writing, and those of other financial planners. Start early, and contribute consistently and the math and the markets will do most of the work for you. The good news is, it is really quite easy to become a millionaire . The bad ne...

The deadline for filing your 2017 tax return is April 17, 2018. That’s right all you procrastinators you get two extra days this year because the 15 th falls on a Sunday and the 16 th is a Holiday in Washington D.C. Putting things off to the last moment is rarely rewarded in personal finances and can often cost you. When it comes to tax returns this is certainly true. Information is powerful and helps you with your planning so the sooner you know how much of refund you will get or how much money you owe the better. You can plan what to do with the money or how to pay the bill. You can also use the information to help you plan for next year’s taxes. If you have a refund coming putting off your taxes just means you have let Uncle Sam collect interest on your money for that much longer . If you owe money you should still do your taxes early, but can wait to actually file them until the deadline. Some electronic filing systems actually let you file now but designate the date yo...