JoeTaxpayer

In another guest post on Good Financial Cents, today I offer the first of a two part article on Estate Planning. In today’s installment, I discuss Wills, Beneficiaries, and Probate. Whatever your age, good estate planning is something you shouldn’t avoid, it’s the right thing to do to protect your family as well as the assets you’ve worked so hard to accumulate over your lifetime.

Joe

Some great posts to choose from, another tough week to narrow it down to a brief list to share.

Money Energy would like to tell you Why You’re Wrong If You Think Gold at $2000/oz Is Unlikely… or Worse, Just a Bubble. This is one example of me offering a post for the fact that it’s insightful and well written, not necessarily because I agree with its conclusion. On the other hand, if gold were still on the rise, my post Will Gold Break $1250 by 2011? offers some thought as to how to use options to maximize your return on a crazy upside in gold.

Redeeming Riches asks Does Your Money Define You? This kind of post falls into the group that get you thinking. Nothing wrong with some introspection every now and then. I think that of late, money is infront of our thoughts so often that “How does Money Define You” may be an even more accurate question. My 11 year old tells us that kids in school talk about money all the time, who has a cell phone, a laptop, the latest video game console. She’s still trying to understand where we fit in. “Dad, do you make more or less than a teacher, doctor, lawyer? Do policemen make more than plumbers? Does mom make more than you?” This is what kids are thinking about?

As December snuck up on me, I started to think about a “year end tax advice” post. Money Answer Tree offers 6 things you should do before 2010 and it’s a great start for your year end planning. Me, I’ve always felt the April visit to your tax man is always too late for certain things you need to do by year end.

Dr. Thomas Stanley is the author of a number of books in The Millionaire Next Door series, the latest of which is titled Stop Acting Rich. It’s on my own list for a read and book review in the next month or so, but meanwhile I continue to find one blogger after the next referring to Dr. Stanley’s work. Free Money Finance wrote this week on The Greatest Detriment to Building Wealth. I don’t wish to ruin the punchline, you should read the full post yourself.

If you haven’t figured it our by now, my motivation for blogging is a mix for my desire to help others, sharing my knowledge, as well as my own insatiable curiosity. Toward this end I find the posts of Dragos Roua to be among the most thought provoking. His latest, 100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life, is one that I’ve been reading and re-reading. When I get around to posting on the top motivational bloggers. Dragos will certainly make the short list.

Another post I enjoyed this past week is Jeff Rose’ 7 Things that Make Good Financial Cents for Managing Your Finances. (disclosure – I am officially a staff writer for Jeff’s blog, but I am still objective)  In this brief post Jeff shares a number of cliches which contain enough wisdom to still be worthwhile. The ones I ignored over the years cost me dearly.

Man vs Debt offers his Top 10 Money Movies of the Decade. And just when I scan it and ask “where’s Wall Street?,” I see he limited his list to 2000-2009. Me, I thought the decade ran from 2001 to 2010 as the first decade was 1-10, but let’s not go there. I now hads a few movies to watch, as I’d not seen his entire list.

To wrap up this week, I’ve been thinking, if it’s possible to have a ‘tax crush’ on someone, mine would be Kay Bell, who writes Don’t Mess with Taxes. This week she broke the news that the First step toward permanent estate tax was passed by the House. The current law exempting the first $3.5M of one’s estate will be extended indefinitely, superseding the 2010 law doing away with the estate tax, and the 2011 return to a $1M exemption. Good news actually.

Joe

And given the topics that were popular this week (Afghanistan, Tiger Woods, etc) I decided to get into the season.

Joe

I’ve been thinking of a year-long project for 2010.

Planning to track my savings from coupons, rebates (I don’t do too many of these), and CVS. Any cash back on credit cards will also count.
Shortly after I got married, I did this to prove to my wife that it wasn’t just a few dollars. Over the course of a year the savings exceeded $2000.

So, I’m going to start tracking after the New Year, and report on the first Friday of each month how I did the month prior. Let’s see what I can learn from this exercise and what ideas I can share with you.

Joe