Topic
9 articles.
How to start investing with $100 a month: how the account, the automatic transfer and fractional shares actually work, plus worked examples of where the money could land over 10, 20 and 30 years.
The 4% rule was built around a 30-year retirement. Here's what changes in the math — and what actually breaks — when the horizon is 45 to 50 years instead.
How to build a bond ladder for retirement income: how rungs, maturities, and reinvestment turn a stack of bonds into a paycheck, plus a worked example with the math shown.
How to stop lifestyle creep the moment a raise lands: the automation mechanism that redirects new income before it ever touches your checking account.
Is it worth overpaying a 3 percent mortgage instead of investing? Here's the mechanism behind the comparison, with worked examples you can rerun with your own numbers.
The mechanism that keeps a 401(k)-to-IRA rollover tax-free: direct transfers, the 20% withholding trap on indirect rollovers, and the pro-rata rule explained with worked examples.
How long it takes to break even on a Roth conversion depends almost entirely on where the tax money comes from — and in one very common case, there is no break-even year at all. The formula and two worked examples.
If you quit mid-year, the unvested part of your 401(k) match is forfeited back to the plan — but how much is unvested depends on hours worked, the vesting schedule and a few plan rules most people never read.
A raise arrives as one number and gets spent as another. The arithmetic of splitting it: what a $20,000 raise is worth after tax, what half of it becomes over 33 years, and the five ways the rule fails.