Fireproof Your Money

The safest-looking money you own might be the riskiest money you own. The account that never drops. The one that never scares you. You know the one. It can be quietly, permanently, and (this is the part that really stings) taxably making you poorer year after year while you sleep like a baby. In a prior episode, fee-only fiduciary Wayne Firebaugh covered the perils of performance: the hidden dangers that show up when your portfolio does too well. This episode flips the coin: the perils of pla...

The most dangerous words in investing aren't always "this time it's different." Often they're two quieter words: "I'm winning." When your statement is fat and green and every line points straight up, that's the exact moment most people stop looking under the hood. Why check the engine when the car is flying along without a hitch? Pride goeth before a fall. In this episode, fee-only fiduciary Wayne Firebaugh walks through three ways a great market run, or a string of great years, can quietly s...

You can overpay your taxes just as easily by doing nothing as you can by making a mistake. The tip jar fills up either way. We're four episodes deep into what was supposed to be a single show, which tells you something about how many ways there are to overpay in these United States of America. So far this mini-series has been a list of things to stop doing. Today is the mirror image. In part four of the How to Pay More Than Your Fair Share mini-series, fee-only fiduciary and CPA Wayne Firebau...

The first two episodes in this series cost you money. This one can cost you a decade of it. Buried in the fine print of your IRA and 401(k) is a handful of rules that, stepped on the wrong way, can vaporize years — sometimes decades — of careful tax-deferred savings in a single afternoon. The cruel irony: the people who step on them are almost always the ones trying hardest to do the right thing. In part three of the How to Pay More Than Your Fair Share mini-series, fee-only fiduciary and CPA...

Last episode's taxes at least showed their faces. There was a capital gains line — a number you could point at and get angry about. The four in this episode do not do you that courtesy. They hide inside your Medicare premium. They hide inside how much of your Social Security gets taxed. They switch on silently the moment your income crosses a line you didn't even know was painted on the floor. And because no line item anywhere says stealth surcharge, most people never connect the dots — they ...