Category Archives: Money

The Most Common Tax Questions in Your Thirties- Part 1

February 17, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Oh man, it’s getting to be tax time soon. Has anyone already filed their taxes? If so, good for you! Kudos!

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I’m still working in Chicago right now and won’t be able to get all my 1099s together and ready for filing until I get back to New York. I have things moderately organized, and I even have an accountant, but my tax preparation still requires quite a bit of effort- especially since I sometimes end up with over a dozen 1099s per year (!)

In honor of the advent of tax season, and taxes starting to be on the forefront of everyone’s mind, I’ve compiled a list of common tax questions that are relevant to those of us in our thirties. The first few are pretty basic ones which you may have already figured out, and then they get slightly more detailed. Of course, tax answers are rarely simple, so you should make sure to triple check everything for your own personal situation. And I’m splitting this into sections, so you’ll get more tax question and tip articles as April 15th approaches.

1. Should I use tax software this year? Which program?

I used to use H&R Block’s tax software, which I think is pretty good. It’s about $20 for a basic program, and $65 for self-employed software.Turbotax is also quite popular- and it’s base cost is free. Once my self-employment taxes started to get really complex, I hired an accountant.

2. Should I get an accountant?

Only you know whether you need an accountant based on your personal situation. However, I think you can almost definitely make do with simple tax software if you are an employee with only one job and all you need to file is your w2. If you have side income from anything (rental income, side jobs, etc), you may want to consider an accountant- however, I think you still may be able to use tax software successfully. If you’re self-employed, I recommend considering an accountant, if only to protect yourself from accidental audit triggers. You can even find accountants on Yelp now. My goodness, I love Yelp.

3. How much do accountants cost?

CPA’s (Certified Public Accounts) charge anywhere from $150-$400 or more. But you can definitely get a great accountant for less than $400…read those Yelp reviews. A funny bonus of having an accountant is that your tax prep fee is actually tax deductible!

4. Does last year’s tax refund count as income this year?

The answer to this is almost always no if you took the standard deduction. If you itemized your deductions, it may count as income- look into it.

5. What documents do I need to do my taxes?

You need all your w2s (if you work only one job, you’ll have only one w2).

You’ll need all your 1099s if you’re self-employed or have side income.

Also, it’s important to have documentation of any interest you made on any of your savings or investments (you get taxed on this).

Additionally, you’ll need documentation of any interest you paid so you can deduct that from your taxable income (the interest paid on student loans, etc, is tax deductible). Also, if you’re itemizing deductions, you’ll need your receipts, or a spreadsheet of your receipts if you made one. (You won’t actually need to show anyone the actual receipts (except your accountant) unless you’re audited.)

6. If I made very little money this year, do I still have to file taxes?

Officially, for 2014, if you’re under 65 and filing as single and independent, you don’t actually have to file your taxes if you made under $10,500. If you’re married and filing jointly and under 65, the number is $20,300. Here’s a chart with more details. However, you may still want to file taxes for several reasons- one of which is that if you had taxes withheld, you can’t get your tax refund without filing. Here are a few other reasons.

7. What are some deductions I can take to help reduce what I’m paying on my taxes?

Have you deducted the interest you’re paying on your mortgage or student loan debt? Have you deducted your health care costs? Did you spend lots money to move for your job? There are some great deductions you may not be using to your advantage. Mashable goes into fantastic detail on this here.

Hope this has helped you with some of your questions- feel free to comment below with additional ones- I’d love to hear from you! Look out for more tax info here soon, and good luck filing!

Help! I Have No Money In My Thirties And Am Not Able To Follow Any of Your Money Advice

February 5, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Somewhere around the second month or so of this blog, I’d written a few posts on finances-saving money and putting money into retirement accounts and wasn’t sure what people wanted to hear about next financially. I asked Jane, my co-blogger, what financial advice she might want to hear next.

Jane said to me, “I’m wondering what advice we can give to people who feel like they can’t follow any of the retirement account advice or the savings account advice. What about the people who are barely making ends meet? What about people who are just like ‘I’m broke and can’t do any of this?”

She told me about this teacher of hers who didn’t really want to save money and didn’t want to start a retirement account. He basically wanted to “live in the now” and said he didn’t have enough money to put away for any retirement account or savings account anyway. “All this money advice is BS for people who don’t have enough money,” he said.

At the time I was completely stumped. The topic filled me with fear. I was pretty new at following this financial growth advice myself and I told myself I’d simply get back to the ‘not enough money’ topic.

Then a few days ago I was talking to a coworker about how I put 10 percent of my money into savings, 10 percent into retirement, and 10 percent into additional student loan payoff.

In turn, he told me how he divided his money. He  had a pretty sophisticated system. He put aside 20 percent right off the bat for taxes (he’s self employed like me.) He had a separate account to hold that tax money. He also had multiple accounts reserved for different things- one for investments, one for savings, a special account just for spending money, another for classes (investment in learning.) It was a quite complicated and well laid out system and I felt mildly overwhelmed for a bit. He asked me what I might be investing in, and I was stumped. I wasn’t investing in anything in particular- not in a separate account anyway. I was ‘only’ investing in my Roth IRA…I hadn’t ‘gotten to the investment step yet.’ I’m still killing off my student loan that was originally over $100,000 but is now finally less than half of that.

I started to feel like I might not be as well-prepared financially as I thought I was, and I felt intimidated by how far ahead of me some people seemed to be. There was still so much  investment research I wanted to do- so much more money I still wanted to make and save. But then I started to feel proud of myself once again for all that I financially accomplished so far in just the last two of my thirty years. I was perhaps not as financially ahead of the game as I’d like to be at thirty, but I had made a major dent.

And I flashed back to a time when I felt absolutely overwhelmed by the killer student loan in my life. A time where I cried at the thought of  just getting by monetarily from month to month. Where I would have laughed at the thought of retirement or savings accounts, and could barely pay for a dinner out. Where just paying rent every month put true fear in my heart.

They say that money doesn’t buy happiness, but I’ll say very honestly that it can take away a huge amount of fear.

So if you’re feeling afraid and maybe even embarrassed that you don’t have enough money in your thirties to follow the retirement plan or savings account steps laid out for you by certain financial sites or advisors, let’s start with a simple first step:

1. You’re not alone. And it’s okay.

It’s really okay. The fear is real, but so is the truth. And the truth is that everyone moves at their own pace. Not everyone starts at the same point. Perhaps you have multiple student loans or have gotten yourself into some bad credit card debt. Or you’re making no money or are in school or have just declared bankruptcy. The most important thing is that you will change and want to change and grow your wealth.

2. You recognize that you want to change your finances and are ready to take small steps.

Dave Ramsey says this best with his talk of Baby Steps. Take things little by little. If you’re not making enough money to follow any financial advice, then your focus should be on hustling to make more money. It’s that simple. Dave Ramsey will sometimes tell people to ‘deliver pizzas for extra money’ when they call into his show and tell him they’re broke. That may seem below your sense of dignity, but sometimes you may truly have to hustle.

I’ve worked outside in the snow in the dead of winter, taught SAT prep in my spare time, sold insurance, traveled two hours to Staten Island to work gigs and much more in the past in order to meet the quota for money I needed to make that month. Hustling for money can be hard and grueling, but it can be done.

3. Do what you can. It does get better. Really.

I recently paid off a student loan that I wasn’t supposed to pay off until 2022. It was quite a feat, and I’m very proud of myself. Did I get it paid off early because I’m rich? Not at all- I got it paid off 7 years early because I got angry at the loan and I set my mind to getting it out of my life. My other big loan is still ahead, but you better believe I plan to attack it with all I’ve got. I don’t make a ton of money, but I try my best to take baby steps to get rid of my student loan debt and save as much money as I can. Right now I have a mini retirement account started and a small savings account. It can be done. It’s just little by little.

Times can be hard and finances can be scary. Please know that I understand and I’ve been there. Im still there sometimes. But I believe that I things can get better and they’ve been slowly getting there. And I know you can do it too. I believe in you.

 

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Can You Monetize It?

January 27, 2015 By in Career, Money Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

My background is in theater. I was a drama major in college who started out as an actor and quickly discovered that I also loved to direct.

After I graduated, I went in search of lots of theater to work on. I quickly found myself directing friends’ plays and also acting in plays for theater festivals and readings all over the city. I was proud of my efforts, even when they took up all my time and didn’t pay anything. Sometimes I would get what’s called a ‘stipend,’ which is a small amount of honorary money for my time and effort. Usually, no money would be involved at all- other than the money I spent out of my own pocket on the production.  I balanced my paying job (working tradeshows) with working on as much theater as I could fit into the crevices of my time off.

Sometimes I would turn down paid tradeshow work because I was in the middle of rehearsals for a production I was directing. The irony of this is that I could sometimes make the equivalent of my entire directors stipend in one day of work at my ‘real job.’

But I found it hard to prioritize tradeshows because theater was my ‘true passion’ and what I ‘really did’…tradeshow work was just a filler job. Theater became this magical universe where being paid a decent rate for your time became something of a joke, and everyone just moaned ‘there’s no money in theater, we need donations’ and continued on.

n the dressing room before a show..I'm not exactly sure what we were doing here.

In the dressing room before a show..I’m not exactly sure what we’re doing here, but bananas were definitely involved.

Then there came a time a few years ago where I reached my breaking point. I needed to put more money towards my student loans and stop turning down paid work. I couldn’t work for free anymore. So I took a hiatus from theater. The hiatus has been going on for about 2 years now…in fact, I’m still on that hiatus.

Amazingly, I’ve been pretty happy during this time off. I still co-run a theater company, so I keep a bit of theater in my life, and I’ve been able to work as much as I can and not double book paid jobs with unpaid rehearsals. I really enjoy my career in tradeshows, so I’m happily going through my days. Things are good, but I sometimes wonder about my real passion.

Now that I’m thirty, I’ve been thinking a lot about paid ‘filler’ work versus unpaid passions. There are so many options here. I kind of turned my ‘filler’ work into my main work, but I could have attempted to monetize my passion. Contrary to what I might have you believe from this post, there are people making some money from theater or theatrical work. And there are lots of people who work on all sorts of passion projects that can be monetized, but haven’t been monetarily figured out yet.

Then there are other friends of mine who know there’s very little money in their passion projects, but are okay with that. When I asked my friend how he replies to people who question his choice to be a playwright even though there’s just about no money in it, he inspired me. He said, “I tell them that I’ve worked lots of jobs that paid me tons of money and none of them made me as happy as I am writing plays. Not everything is about money.”

There’s a lot to think about here.

Throw Money at the Problem

January 22, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Right now I’m working an auto show in Detroit.

The day I left to fly to Detroit, I woke up later than I’d wanted to. I’d packed the night before and was mildly exhausted.  After I’d already walked 3 blocks away from my apartment towards the bus to the airport, dragging two heavy suitcases behind me, I realized I’d forgotten my Global Entry card and had to drag the suitcases all the way back home. I live a 15 minute bus ride away from LaGuardia airport, but because of all my delays, I ended up just getting an Uber (these are cabs called from an app, in case you’re unfamiliar with Uber in your city).

I felt sort of guilty about spending $17 on an Uber cab instead of $2.50 on a bus, but the cost of being late and missing the flight would have been much much more. The time, stress, and possibly money spent on a new flight would have been much costlier than just throwing money at the lateness problem.

A much as I love saving money, I’m a big fan of picking your battles and using money when you need to. We have money in order to make our lives easier. Sometimes you need to take that hard earned money and throw it at problems that’ll quickly go away when hit.

Don’t get me wrong- I’m not at all rich…not yet 🙂 If you read some of my other articles you’d know I’m still paying off my student loan debt and definitely am not swimming in money. But a little bit of saving goes a long way toward solving some small problems. Now that I’m thirty, I’ve had a few good years of not desperately eating ramen noodles every day…and I have a slight bit more money to put into my ‘throw money at the problem’ account…which is basically my normal checking account.

Jane touched upon this in her post How Much of Your Life Do You Outsource? She was mentioning how much she hated doing laundry at a laundromat when she had to carry heavy bags. Before I lived in a building that had washers and dryers, I used to pay extra for drop off service at the laundromat a few blocks away. I’d just have the people who worked there clean and fold it. I hated having to go back and forth multiple times to the laundromat…I just wanted to drop my laundry off and pick it up all finished. I used this laundry drop off solution for years- it was worth it to me. I saved money elsewhere…like on taking buses to and from airports mostly. I spent my extra money on laundry problems. And I had no regrets.

Recently, I used another paid service Jane mentioned in her same post– this service is a food delivery program called Blue Apron. Blue Apron basically delivers 3 meals a week to your doorstep- only it doesn’t deliver them cooked and put together. The meals are in the form of ingredients and recipes and you cook the meals yourself. Blue Apron is pretty brilliant in a lot of ways. For one, it basically teaches you how to cook. Secondly, the time consuming act of buying ingredients is out of the picture. Thirdly, you know exactly what’s going into your (fancy) meals.

photo 2 (4)I actually managed to finagle a week of Blue Apron for free. A friend of mine ordered it for herself and loved it. She invited me to try a week of it as a free trial (a special promotion Blue Apron offers which I recommend you look around for 🙂 ). Everyone I know who’s tried Blue Apron loves it. In fact, all the married and engaged couples I met at a BBQ I mentioned in my How To Be A Third Wheel  post were buzzing about using it to cook for their significant others instead of ordering out all the time.

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I enjoyed the 3 meals I received from Blue Apron, and was super impressed with their beautiful delivery and presentation. I learned how to cook three new dishes, and the ingredients were delicious and fresh. However, the cost of 3 meals a week (with 2 servings each) would be $60 a week, which was a bit steep for my tastes. So I canceled the service before I had to pay for it. For me, cooking dinner every night is a problem I’d rather solve with time than money. I know I can cook 3 dinners a week for way less money than $60 and didn’t need to pay for Blue Apron’s services. Still, I think Blue Apron is a great and worthwhile service for certain types of people, the same way laundromat drop off was a great and worthwhile service for me.

Sometimes you just need to throw money at a problem….and sometimes you don’t. Know yourself and your budget. Then choose wisely which one it’ll be.

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What To Do With A 401K From Your Old Job

January 20, 2015 By in Career, Money Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Since you’re in your thirties, or almost there, I’m going to take a guess and say that you’ve probably changed jobs at least once.

In fact, it’s likely that  you’ve changed jobs multiple times.

So what did you do with the 401ks from your old jobs? Did you even have one then?

When I was looking into this (because I’ve gotten this 401k question a lot), I noticed that not only did many people not know what to do with their old 401ks, many of them didn’t know how to FIND them..or they didn’t know whether they had a 401k with their former job in the first place. 

So first things first: let’s start with what to do with a 401k at an old job when you know where it is and that it exists. Basically, there are 4 options:

1. Leave the 401k where it is (with the old job.)

2. Roll the money into your current job’s 401k

3. Roll the money into an IRA

4. Take the money and run.

I’m going to start with a warning: please don’t do the last one! DO NOT take the money and run!!! It’s a really bad idea, and will cost you a ton of money to do so! If you pull the money out of an old 401k before age 55 (retirement age for 401ks), two things will happen: 1. You’ll be hit with a 10% penalty!! 2. You’ll have to pay taxes on all the money as if it was regular income (which it is)! Just don’t do it! My research found that 25% of people choose this option…don’t be one of them! Anyway, that’s my two cents on that choice.

So now you have three choices left. All of these choices are pretty good- it really depends on what you want.

Two of the choices may not be an option:

1. You may not even be able to roll your money into your current employer’s 401k plan. You’ll have to check with them and see.

2. If you have less than $5000 in an old 401k, your old employer may not let you keep the money there anyway.

So, if you’re looking to have all your accounts in one place and less hassle with paperwork, I’d recommend either rolling your old 401k account into your new 401k account (if your new job allows you to do that), or consolidating everything into a rollover IRA.

But if you’re looking for the best possible investment options and don’t care about the hassle of paperwork from multiple accounts, you’ll have to do a little research. Here’s what you should be thinking about: 

a)Sometimes the 401k at your old job has some special investment options (like company stock) that you can’t get in an IRA.

b) A 401k offers slightly more protection from creditors in certain states.

c) You can withdraw from a 401k penalty free at age 55, but you can’t withdraw from an IRA until age 59.5 without a fee.

So if you have great old company stock or are really worried about creditors or really want to retire by 55, you may want to leave your money alone in the old 401k or roll into the new one (if possible).

But generally, rolling your old 401k into a Rollover IRA is the simplest and most cost-effective way to go. 

Here’s how to set up and roll your old 401k into a Rollover IRA and get started at Vanguard. 

Here’s how to set up and roll your old 401k into a Rollover IRA and get started at Fidelity.

Now, if your 401k is lost or you aren’t sure whether you even have old 401ks lying around from old jobs, see the awesome 401k helpcenter I found!

Hope this helps! I know that’s a lot of info if you’re unfamiliar with IRAs and 401Ks so, as always, let me know if you have any questions or anything to add! Thanks!

Do not take the money and run. You won't be able to hide...the IRS will find you and tax you on it...and take away 10% of it...

Do not take the money and run. You won’t be able to hide…the IRS will find you. And tax you…

When I’m Married, Does My Spouse Get My Assets?

January 13, 2015 By in Money, Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

My head is spinning right now after researching this question. It’s quite a doozy. And I don’t use the word ‘doozy’ very often.

Writing the opposite article about whether you’re liable for your spouse’s debt was a much easier undertaking. The answers were wayyy simpler. I had no idea what I was getting into with this one. But I feel like it’s very important for those of us in our thirties, since many people I know are getting married or about to get married around this time.

So here goes: I’m going to use my very best simplification skills in order to make this as understandable as possible.

First, I want to preface strongly that I’m not a Financial Advisor, so this is a vast simplification. If you are truly worried about your assets being shared with your spouse, please contact a Certified Financial Planner. Here’s a website that will help you find one.

Second, Okay, so let’s repeat the question in its simplest state:

If I have an inheritance, a savings account, monetary gifts from my dear Aunt Myrna (all of these things are known as ASSETS) does my spouse automatically get half (or any of it) when I get married?

When I started researching this, almost every article I came across was actually about divorce. I couldn’t figure it out at first, and then it hit me: none of this asset stuff is really relevant legally unless you get divorced.

This actually means: Other than if you get divorced (and hopefully you will not), you won’t ever legally be forced to share your savings, retirement accounts and inheritance with your spouse. Not really. You will probably want to share some (or most) of it, but that’s between the two of you. 

Think about it: If you don’t want to share your savings or inheritance with your husband or wife, there’s no lawyer/judge/policeman/masked villain who’s going to suddenly barge into your house and FORCE you to share your savings with your spouse…I mean, unless your spouse sues you or something (and honestly, that’s the road to divorce right there), sharing money within a marriage is kind of a private matter…a verbal agreement between two spouses. I mean, you guys can fight it out amongst yourselves (a civil conversation is also an option), but no one from the legal system will get involved. Of course, you two are building a life together so you may want to commingle (share) money (The word ‘commingling’ is actually an important one. I will come back to the whole commingling money issue in just a bit, as it will soon take centerstage in answering our question).

Once you get divorced (again, fingers crossed against this), all the legal issues/headaches/major problems come into play. 

I mentioned in my last article about debt in a marriage that there are two types of states: Common Law states and Community Property States. I’ll review the Community Property states, since there are fewer of them. They are: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, the territory of Puerto Rico….and Alaska allows married couples to opt in to community-property status.

Basically, if you’re in a Community Property State (see above),AND YOU GET DIVORCED, almost all of your assets that you accumulated DURING THE MARRIAGE are divided completely in half. Even your own 401k, private savings account, or pension from YOUR job becomes half your spouse’s! Of course, there are exceptions, such as if you have a prenup where you’ve written down that you will NOT divide your assets equally, or you two agree to amicably divide the assets unequally (in which case, you’ll have to talk to your divorce attorneys and there will be a lot of writing to do.)

Two major exceptions to this rule are INHERITANCES and GIFTS. If you received a personal inheritance or personal gift, your spouse doesn’t necessarily get any of it in a divorce, unless you COMMINGLED THE FUNDS. Commingling means you used some of the funds to pay for a marital expense- this can get super tricky and involves lots of record-keeping and paperwork, so I’m not going to go into it here. My advice is: if you have an inheritance or personal gifts, try NOT to commingle those funds…yep, that might be hard. Once inheritance or gift funds that were specifically yours get commingled with marriage funds, you’ve made them fair game to be seized by your spouse during divorce proceedings. Eek.

If you’re in a COMMON LAW STATE (all the ones NOT listed above) and you get divorced, your assets won’t be divided strictly 50/50, but they will be divided in a “fair” way (read: complex). This will involve a lot of “if I take this, then you can have that” type of discussions. If discussions don’t happen, the courts will step in. It can get quite messy, especially if the whole ‘commingling of funds’ mentioned above has taken place.

Unfortunately, the main fact I came across in my research is: don’t trust your ex to tell you what you’re entitled to. They will possibly lie to your face…or they’ll honestly have no idea and make things up. If you’re getting divorced, DO YOUR RESEARCH. I know, it sounds harsh. I love to believe that people are good at heart too. But…the divorce experts who wrote the articles I read recently seem to believe more in greed than goodness. Sad face.

So that’s a lot. And not the happiest stuff I’ve ever written. If you’re still game for more, I’m attaching links to my research below for further reading. If your head is spinning, let’s review the absolute basics:

  • When you get married, you won’t be FORCED BY LAW to share your assets. You will probably want to share some or all of them.

  • When you get divorced, THEN you will likely be forced to share your assets.

  • After a divorce, Community Property states will divide most of your assets 50/50, with the possible exception of inheritance and gifts, unless the inheritance and gifts were commingled with marital money.

  • After a divorce, Common Law states wont divide everything 50/50, but they will divide things in what is deemed a ‘fair’ manner…and this can be very complex.

  • It is this very complex division of assets issue that solidifies the possible extreme importance of prenups. 

Oh man. That was a lot for a blog about the thirties. I swear, my next post will be about ice cream or something. Or maybe I’m just thinking about pints of Haagen Daaz because this was depressing.

Please let me know any questions or comments this brings up…or if you have more insight into this. Thanks for reading to the end!

References:

Managing Marital Property DO’s and Don’ts

401K division after divorce (this is complicated so I didn’t go into it here- these guys do it better.)

More retirement plan division after divorce

People hiding assets during divorce proceedings– eek!

Some good info on commingling

Sheltering inheritance

More sheltering inheritance

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Am I Liable if I Marry Into Debt?

January 5, 2015 By in Money, Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 20 Comments

The other day a friend of mine and I were having dinner and she was discussing buying a house with her boyfriend. They’d been together for some time and were hoping to get married within the next few years.

“I’m wondering though,” she said, “if I’ll take on his debt when I marry him. ”

For the last two or three years, the number of people I know who are engaged, about to be engaged, or married has skyrocketed. This definitely corresponds with the thirties- many people hitting their thirties are (possibly) beginning to settle down and find others they want to be with for the rest of their lives. Not everyone, of course, but it’s definitely been a trend.

Which is why I was surprised that I didn’t know the answer- I felt like I’d researched this before, and the answer was no, but I couldn’t be positive. I actually forgot to look up the answer that night and then today Suze Orman just happened to bring it up on her podcast.

For anyone about to be married and wondering about it, the answer is:  NO, YOU WILL NOT LEGALLY INCUR ANY OF YOUR SPOUSE’S DEBT FROM BEFORE YOU WERE MARRIED. (Big sigh of relief!!) If your spouse incurred debt BEFORE you got married, it’s his or her debt ALONE. Of course, you can help with the debt, and some would say that once you’re married you share everything, including debt. But LEGALLY, debt incurred by one spouse before a marriage doesn’t touch the other one. No one is going to come after you for your spouse’s debt, and if they do they are JUST TRYING TO SCARE YOU. 

To avoid all the clarification questions Suze Orman (and all the finance websites I’ve been to) get all the time, I will clarify up front: the debt you’re NOT liable for includes EVERYTHING before marriage. It includes student loan debt, credit card debt, auto loan debt, tax debt, bank loans, EVERYTHING. You’re legally liable for NONE OF IT.

HOWEVER, debt incurred AFTER you get married is totally different. If you get married and your spouse suddenly gets into a lot of debt, that debt will be legally yours too IF you live in what are known as “Community Property States.”

Community-property states include Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and the territory of Puerto Rico. Alaska also allows married couples to opt in to community-property status. Most people do not :p

If you’re NOT in any of these states, you’re in what’s known as a Common Law state. This means that in general if your spouse gets into debt, you’re not legally responsible. There are exceptions here such as if you open a joint account together and that account goes into collections (obviously, because now BOTH your names are on the account.)

Hope this solves things for any of you newly marrieds or almost-newlyweds! If any of our Canadian, UK, and other international readers would like to weigh in on the policy in your country, I’d love to learn about that (and I’m sure others would too!)

Sorry if this wasn’t the most fun topic ever, but it’s an important one as we head through the thirties. Here’s some funny photos of a flash mob I did once to lighten the mood, haha:

There were 50 of us dressed as brides and we stormed Times Square and took a lot of people by surprise.

There were 50 of us dressed as brides and we stormed Times Square and took a lot of people by surprise.

We were promoting a pretty terrible movie called "The Big Wedding." ;)

We were promoting a pretty terrible movie called “The Big Wedding.” 😉

 

Below are some links for even more details about marriage and debt:

The Simple Dollar: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/financial-infidelity-4-steps-for-healing-marriages-torn-by-finances/

Bankrate- http://www.bankrate.com/finance/debt/wife-not-married-to-spouse-s-old-debts-1.aspx#ixzz3Nzez1PNj

Nolo- http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/debt-marriage-owe-spouse-debts-29572.html

Lifehacker- http://twocents.lifehacker.com/how-to-protect-your-credit-when-you-marry-into-debt-1576458795

 

 

 

How to Set Goals for Finances- New Years Resolutions Series

December 29, 2014 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

The countdown to 2015 continues…though hopefully no one’s standing outside in Times Square yet waiting for the ball to drop. You never know, though. I wouldn’t put it past people.

Anyway, I thought I’d kick off some New Years resolution money talk for thirty-somethings.

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Last year, I made a resolution to put 30 percent of every paycheck I received towards savings, student loan debt and retirement. I actually started doing this slightly before New Years so I cheated a bit.

I split up the 30 percent this way- 10 percent went into my Roth IRA, 10 percent towards my savings, and 10 percent towards my smallest student loan. (My largest student loan already had a crazy amount of money going towards it because its minimum was so high. But I digress.)

And I followed my financial resolutions through thick and thin for the whole year and am continuing with them. There was a moment where I even tried to up my payout percentage to 40%, but that was way too much. Other than that- the 30% resolution was actually quite simple: whenever I received a paycheck I’d log onto Chase.com and make my transfers. There was something extremely satisfying about the whole thing.

If you’re making financial resolutions for the New Year, my advice is much like Jane’s in her last post: break down the goal into easy steps. My financial resolutions last year were simply:

1. Put money into savings

2. Pay down student loan

3. Put money into Roth IRA

A lot less would have gotten done if I’d stopped there instead of making the simple breakdown of 10% from every paycheck towards each category.

So, if you have savings goals, save yourself a headache and break them down into steps that seem so easy as to be almost automatic. In fact, you can even automate the savings process by having your bank automatically put a certain amount of money into your Roth IRA and savings account every month. Just about all banks will do this for you.

Since I’m self-employed and am paid a different amount every month, I kept my process manual. Also, I get a gleeful joy out of manually saving money, but I’m weird like that.

Anyway, this year my financial goals are:

1) Pay extra $$ towards my BIG student loan

-This is broken down into the easy steps of

a) Finish paying down the little student loan the same way I was before. Just about done!

b) Put the 10% (plus the monthly minimum) I was putting into the small loan towards the big loan instead.

Tada!

2) Find a savings account that pays way more interest than my bank. 

– Done! I guess once more I cheated on this one…I did it last week before New Years. But don’t worry if you hate your savings account, I’ll talk about better ones in another post soon and help you set that up too if you like. For now, if you’re interested in how much you should be saving, I wrote about it here.

3) Switch my Retirement Plan from a Vanguard Target Date fund to a different Vanguard account now that I have more money in my Roth IRA. 

– This involves a couple of breakdown steps including investigating Vanguard’s other options and figuring out more about how to manually choose funds. I’ll explain why I’m doing this in another post as well. And if you’re interested in retirement plans in general (or if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about), I talk all about why retirement accounts are important here and here and here.

Of course, there’s my fourth financial resolution which I haven’t yet broken down, and that’s:

4) Discover additional sources of income. 

I lied about not having this goal last year. I have this goal every year, and I’m always messing with the breakdown. There’s quite a bit of work ahead. Sometimes breaking down resolutions can be as tough as keeping them 😉

What are some of your financial resolutions for the new year?

Giving Advice In Your Thirties

December 26, 2014 By in Family, Friendships, Money Tags: , , , , , , 5 Comments

Hope you’ve all had a restful Boxing day! Boxing Day doesn’t exist in the US, but is officially a day after Christmas bank holiday in the UK, Hong Kong, Canada, South Africa, and many other places around the world- and I know we have some awesome readers from these places who know all about this 🙂 Random trivia- the name ‘boxing day’ comes from when servants and tradesman would get their boxed Christmas gifts from their employers and managers the day after Christmas.

Anyway, this post started out as a short note about socks.

I was remembering when I was a child and would get upset about getting socks as a gift. Then adults would say to me: “when you’re older, you’ll appreciate getting socks!

Of course, I was positive they were wrong. But on my 30th Christmas, I received not one, but 6 pairs of socks. And I was overjoyed! I needed them! And I appreciated the pajamas I got too! And the scarf! Which I definitely could have cared less about earlier in life.

Which I guess means I’m a real adult now. 😉

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But anyway, as you may know, sometimes even though you’re officially an adult, you may not feel like an adult- especially when it comes to giving advice.

In the past, I’ve shied away from giving advice about money, even while I’ve been in the thick of paying off my student loans. I’m quite good at paying down debt (as evidenced by my major decline in student loan money owed, thank god) and I’ve spent hours and hours researching best ways to pay them down. However I’ve felt like there were people better qualified than me to give financial assistance.

And there are. But that doesn’t mean that people are going to find them. And that doesn’t mean I’m not at all qualified to give any advice- after all, I’m an adult. So I’ve tried my best to help people when they ask.

During Christmas, my younger brother Scott and my little cousin Justin were sitting together at one point, both playing on their phones and Nintendo 3DS’. My cousin (a junior in high school) suddenly started opening up about how he felt slightly pressured into choosing a certain major and how he wasn’t sure where he really wanted to go to college.

My brother, who’s 26, put down his game and gave Justin some advice. First, he asked Justin a bunch of questions. He inquired where Justin really wanted to go to school and what he was actually interested in studying. Then he told Justin to follow his heart but also to research everything. He said to be conscious of the money involved (my brother also knows all about student loans), but not to base the decision solely on money. It was a sweet moment.

I have no idea if my brother’s advice will have any influence on my cousin’s decision. But it made me think about how advice in general doesn’t have to come from an expert. And it doesn’t have to come at special scheduled times. Sometimes you’ll be asked for advice during holidays or at totally random moments. Feel confident that you’re adult enough to share whatever you’ve learned so far in life. You never know how much you’ll help someone.

Best Things About Being In Your 30s- The Lists

December 11, 2014 By in Career, Friendships, Money, Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Ah, the ubiquity of Buzzfeed lists…love ’em or hate ’em, they’re all over Facebook and Twitter, and links to them seem to pop up everywhere. But are Buzzfeed lists (or lists along those lines) just click bait, or can they actually tell us something about our lives?

Jane and I are always looking for lists of descriptive thirties traits, findings and meanings- anything thirties related really- and when we do searches for the thirties, invariably there’s a Buzzfeed list or two right on Google’s front page. So today I read through a Buzzfeed article titled “27 Underrated Things About Being In Your Thirties.”

As I read through a list of statements and memes capturing those statements, I started to feel more and more confused and anxious..mainly because everything seemed so perfectly tied with a big red bow, and my life didn’t seem to be where it should be compared to the list. My god, it’s Buzzfeed! BUZZFEED! Buzzfeed shouldn’t make you upset!  But yet, dammit, it did.

And it wasn’t just me! The comments below were achingly funny and painful..starting with someone saying, “This made me feel a whole lot worse about my life.” Which was followed up by 186 likes and a whole lot of agreement, including “You are not alone, friend. I’m really depressed now about everything every other 30-something is having/doing that I’m not” and “I’m 40, and most of this just made me want to crawl into a hole and die.”

So below are some of the statements that stuck out at me. Try not to want to crawl into a hole and die. You’re not alone, friend 🙂

3. Chances are that you’re making more money now.

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I’m making more money now, yes, but I know a lot of people who aren’t, and this statement still made me nail-bitingly nervous.

4. Which means you can afford actual furniture that’s not from Ikea.

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What? ALL my furniture is from Ikea! Ikea is AWESOME! (Ok, IKEA isn’t awesome, but it is frigging CHEAP!) And what is that Soho loft pictured above with the vintage-chic walls and exposed brick? I mean, come on now!

8. You give zero fucks, so you dance however you want!

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Umm…not yet at that ZERO fucks stage…maybe LESS fucks? And me dancing however I want wouldn’t be good for anyone..

10. At work, you’re not some assistant bitch anymore, you’re a BOSS.

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Though I know people who’ve climbed the career ladder and match this description..I also know lots of people who are assistants, or who still aren’t sure about their career yet.. I am not necessarily a BOSS, though I am self-employed, so maybe this fits me more than I believe..I can play around with it..

12. Any dating you do is less messy, because you know what you want and you demand it.

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Umm, no?

13. And you wind up in much healthier relationships.

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Hmm…this one just feels presumptuous. Also, this is such a random photo! You think it’s the author? Are these people two random celebrities I don’t recognize?

17. You’ve found a group of friends who are the most amazing people you’ve ever met.

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Also a random photo. And I think the author got this idea from a Sex and the City binge…in fact, this photo should’ve been Samantha and Charlotte and Carrie and Miranda. The thirties are where I hear the most gripes about LACK of friendship. People are all like ‘where have my friends gone??’ Umm, babies, marriage, moving, high-stress jobs, people giving ZERO fucks…these things steal friends…

24. You’re no longer afraid of change…

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Damn it, change is STILL the the boogeyman in the closet for me! The people who aren’t scared of change don’t know the horrors of when it jumps out and grabs you! It’s so big and bad and mean sometimes…

I’m only sort of kidding here… but change still = mucho scary.

But all jokes aside, when it comes to figuring out what the thirties are to you, I want to just say: Beware of Buzzfeed lists! And stereotypes! And bragging disguised as positivity! And funny memes that are actually bragging disguised as positivity hidden in sadness wrapped in stereotype! (As fun as they may sometimes be.)

Salary Calculator- Are You Getting Paid Your Worth? (And the Recent Tech Internship Salary Explosion)

November 24, 2014 By in Career, Money Tags: , , , , Leave a comment
Salary Calculator- Are You Getting Paid Your Worth? (And the Recent Tech Internship Salary Explosion)

Have you researched your salary compared with others in your industry?

If you haven’t, perhaps it’s time to make sure you’re getting paid what you deserve.

I’m self-employed, and I work in an industry (event and promotional marketing) where payment can fluctuate. I’ve been in this industry for a long time (more than 10 years) and I’m extremely experienced and good at what I do. I know the standard payment for events and the minimum payment that I will accept. However, everyone working in the industry has to demand to be paid what they’re worth, or the whole industry’s base payments can go down.

For example, let’s say that I usually work an event that pays $45 an hour. If next year that event suddenly starts paying $17 an dollar, I know my bottom line, and I will refuse to work it.

Now, since I refuse to work that event, a few scenarios can unfold:

1. The booking agency can call me and ask why I won’t work the event again this year, in which case I will explain why I’m not working, and we can potentially negotiate the pay close to or back to what it was.

2. The booking agency can hire someone else who will work for $17 an hour who is inexperienced and bad at the job.

3. The booking agency can hire someone else who will work for $17 an hour who is experienced and good at the job.

The first scenario is good- I have helped maintain what has been the industry standard (or even helped increase it!), and I have negotiated for what I’m worth instead of lowering my standards.

The second scenario is mediocre- if the booking agency hires someone who is bad at the job, the client will probably get upset. The agency will then potentially up the payment next time in order to hire the best workers in the industry. Sometimes the agency still won’t pay, and will just lower standards altogether, even if the client isn’t happy…this will eventually lead to the agency getting fired.

The third scenario is what causes problems- if someone experienced and good at their job accepts payment below industry standard, they will LOWER industry standard for the everyone involved! After all, if Amazon pays great computer programmers 250K a year, but start finding loads of just as great programmers who happily accept 30K a year, the salaries for all Amazon programmers will begin to decrease.

I have an accountant friend who recently figured out that the salary of her colleague DOING THE EXACT SAME JOB with WAY LESS EXPERIENCE was making 30K more than her a year! My friend only figured it out after accidentally seeing her colleague’s paystub. She didn’t realize how much money she could’ve been making, and therefore didn’t negotiate a pay raise.

I’ve known lots of interns who are working their butts off for various companies and making ZERO dollars. The other day, a woman named Jessica Shu posted a list of tech intern salaries in a group called Hackathon Hackers. The list promptly went viral. I’ve included it below:

intern salaries

Dear god!!! That’s some crazy money!

But- it’s great that interns are getting paid! They should be!!! I mean, this kind of internship money blows my mind- but it’s especially insane compared to those interns getting paid $0. ESPECIALLY if you’re an intern in the tech industry getting paid $0 – imagine seeing these numbers and realizing you’re likely getting screwed!

Know your worth…and don’t accept less! (And perhaps consider going into tech…) 😉

If you want to learn more about these numbers, lots of articles from major news sources have been written on the tech internship salaries in the last few days. See here and here and here. And don’t get down about it- just keep working to elevate yourself in your industry, know your industry salary standard, and demand the pay you deserve! You’re worth it!

Charity Fundraising Ideas in your Thirties

November 16, 2014 By in Money Tags: , , Leave a comment

Tonight I’m directing a charity concert called Broadway Can that features Broadway actors singing as part of a benefit to raise money for City Harvest. I direct this concert just about every year if I’m not out of town working. In the summer, I also usually direct another charity concert called Broadway Meows to raise money for the Humane Society. I’m really happy to be a part of both of these events- they’re for two great causes, and are also really fun to work on. In fact, even if the concerts weren’t to raise money for charity, I’d still enjoy being part of them. I like the people I’m working with and also like theater.

Me and the awesome cast and crew of Broadway Meows this past summer!

Me and the awesome cast and crew of Broadway Meows this past summer!

It’s great to find causes that fit your personality- things you care about. When I used to think about giving money to charity, I’d feel guilty. I’d think, ‘I’ve never served meals to the homeless on Thanksgiving…I probably should’ and ‘I probably need to make time to work in a soup kitchen one day in order to give back.’ But those thoughts just fleetingly crossed my mind and I didn’t do either of them.

For most of my life, I never really focused on charity…I guess because I felt like I didn’t know exactly where to donate, or felt like I had no money or that every spare dollar I had needed to go toward my student loan, or I didn’t know which cause I should focus on or whether charities were really putting the money to good use.

But lately, I’ve started to see causes all around me where I can easily, happily give back- and in some cases, such as directing the concerts, have already been giving back.

I have dozens of friends putting up theater all over the city. There’s always a fundraising campaign and various fundraising ideas underway for these projects. I usually try to donate what I can- supporting the arts is important to me, especially when I know the people creating the art. Also, I have lots of friends who run or walk to raise money for a cause, and I donate what I can to their fundraising campaigns. It all adds up- even small amounts.

So I don’t need to necessarily be at a soup kitchen serving meals to help others. There are so many different ways to give back that I hadn’t thought of before, even if I have no time, or no money to spare.

Here are some ideas for giving back when you have more time than money:

Some ideas for when you have more money than time, but aren’t sure what organizations to choose, or are suspicious of where your money is actually going:

  • Donate to a friend’s fundraising page for their theater or artistic project, or their charity walk or run for a cause. There are many fundraising ideas- check out their Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaigns!
  • Charity Navigator – Tracks charitable Organizations’ performance and effectiveness, so you can find the most effective charities.
  • Guidestar.org – Similar to Charity Navigator above.
  • GreatNonprofits.org – This is like the Yelp of nonprofits! Read lots of charity reviews.
  • Philanthropedia– Charity ratings by a group of experts in over 35 different fields.

I hope these lists help you help others…and I strongly believe you’ll end up helping yourself along the way!