Archives for January 2020

Bank of America Free Museum Tickets 2020 Dates

Posted on January 31, 2020 // 3 Comments

Bank of America is running their Museums on Us program again for 2020, which offers cardholders free admissions to 200+ museums, science centers, and botanical gardens nationwide on the first full weekend of every month (Saturday and Sunday). Each person just needs to show their valid Bank of America or Merrill Lynch credit/debit card and photo ID for free admission.

Each cardholder gets one free general admission for themselves only, so be sure everyone with their own cards brings them. If you have a BofA credit card, you may consider adding family members (of any age) as a free authorized user. Another option is to open a Kids Savings Account with no monthly fee and also comes with a debit card. You may need to open this in a physical branch.

2020 Calendar Dates (Check specific museum for hours)

  • January 4th & 5th
  • February 1st & 2nd
  • March 7th & 8th
  • April 4th & 5th
  • May 2nd & 3rd
  • June 6th & 7th
  • July 4th & 5th
  • August 1st & 2nd
  • September 5th & 6th
  • October 3rd & 4th
  • November 7th & 8th
  • December 5th & 6th

Here is the full list of participating locations. For example, one of the available museums is the Thinkery in Austin, Texas. We found it to be a fun and interactive children’s science center. The admission was $12 per person including kids (23 months and under free), which means this could have saved our family of five a total of $60 for that one day. I’ve seen other museums on their list with $20 admission prices.

Sign up for reminders! I admit that I’ve probably missed more free dates than I’ve actually gone. I recommend signing up for their free e-mail reminder before each free weekend. I signed up and didn’t notice any horrible spam from BofA, just the reminders.

Bottom line. While I wouldn’t open a new bank or credit card account for this feature, free museum admission on the first full weekend of every month is a nice perk if you already have accounts with Bank of America.

Filed Under: Banking, Credit Cards //

Sam’s Club: Buy 1 Year Membership for $45, Get $45 Cash Back Credit

Posted on January 29, 2020 // 3 Comments

Sam’s Club has a special membership offer where if you first register your e-mail at this promotional website and then pay $45 for a new 1-year membership, you will get $45 off $45 or more of qualifying purchases at Sam’s Club within the first 60 days. Offer expires March 8th, 2020.

The $45 off $45 offer is not valid on items purchased with individual Instant Savings offers (i.e. stuff that is already on sale). Also excluded are alcoholic beverages, tobacco, milk, fuel, pharmacy, gift cards, memberships or shipping costs. Note that you must also agree to sign up for annual auto-renewal, so you will need to set a reminder to cancel that manually later on if you don’t want that.

*Join now as a new Club member for $45 (plus tax in some places) and receive an offer for $45 off $45 or more of qualifying purchases within the first 60 days. […] Primary memberships are valid for one year from date of issue. By accepting this offer, you authorize annual recurring charges to any card on file for your Sam’s Club membership fee(s) plus any applicable taxes at then-current rate every year until you cancel. Current rates, which may change, are $45 for Club level and $100 for Plus level. Visit samsclub.com or a club or call 1-888-746-7726 to see full terms or cancel autorenewal.

This ends up being similar to those Groupon offers where you buy a membership and get some coupons, but at least here you get $45 of credit towards a much wider selections of Sam’s Club merchandise to hopefully effectively get close to a free membership.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Credit Karma Tax Review: $0 Federal, $0 State Tax Filing w/ No Last-Minute Charges

Posted on January 29, 2020 // 10 Comments

cktax0Tax season is officially here as the IRS has started accepting E-files. For you early birds, Credit Karma Tax is now on its 4th year of offering 100% free Federal AND State tax preparation software with free e-File and no income restrictions. You can have itemized deductions, business income, self-employment tax, and/or capital gains and losses. They now also have a Max Refund Guarantee and Audit Defense if you get audited.

My favorite feature of this product is that there is no “upgrade” version, so there are no upsells and no last-minute fees. Your bill will always be $0 Federal, $0 State. I hate the feeling when you have spent hours (days?!) typing in all that data and you expect a certain price, but at the very end they charge you more. You are just too tired to do it all over again, so you accept, but it leaves a bad aftertaste.

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Is this legit? What’s the catch? Yes, they are legit. Credit Karma purchased AFJC Corporation, which was a private-label software provider and previously supplied the online tax software for Jackson Hewitt. They’ve been running this offer since 2016.

The “catch” is that you must also sign up for the main CreditKarma.com site, which takes your personal information and provides you access to your credit scores and reports from two of the three major consumer credit bureaus. They make money by also using that personal information to show you customized advertisements for things like credit cards, auto/home lending, and insurance products.

What’s included?

  • Free Federal filing with free e-File for 90%+ of filers with no income restrictions.
  • Free State filing with free e-File for 40 states + Washington DC. (Not all states require you to file state income taxes.)
  • Max Refund Guarantee
  • Free Audit Defense
  • Option to print and snail mail if you choose not to e-File.

Here are some popular forms included by Credit Karma Tax that other “Free” options often don’t cover:

  • Schedule C – Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship)
  • Schedule D – Capital Gains and Losses (Stock Sales)
  • Schedule E – Supplemental Income and Loss (Rental property)
  • Schedule SE – Self-employment tax

What’s NOT included? Credit Karma will NOT support the following this year:

  • Multiple state filings
  • Part-year state filing
  • Foreign earned income
  • State returns for married filing separately in community property states*
  • State filing without a federal filing

While Credit Karma Tax supports Sole Proprietorships and income reported on Schedule C/E/SE, they do NOT yet support business tax returns for an S corporation, C corporation, partnership or multi-member LLC.

Tell me more about how Credit Karma makes money. Quoted from their site:

When you visit Credit Karma, we show you offers and recommendations (like credit cards or loans) that could save you money. If you take one of these offers, the bank or lender usually pays us. We never charge you a dime. And we never sell your info to marketers.

For example, if they know you have a 4% rate mortgage, they could sell you a 3.5% refinance mortgage. If they know you are older and have a paid-off home (i.e. you pay property taxes but no claim no mortgage interest), they could sell you a reverse mortgage. If they know your income, they can estimate the amount of life insurance you need. You could actually like this customization, be creeped out completely, or simply plan to ignore the ads.

Try before you commit. Nearly all online tax prep software only bills you when you are ready to file. If you’re not sold on a single product, why not sign up and fill out this and a competitor side-by-side in two different browser tabs. It’s a bit more work, but not a lot if you’re doing it simultaneously. That way, you can double-check the calculations. Ideally, you should get the same refund/due amount for both and then you can be confident that you are maximizing your filing (and still file for free).

Bottom line. Credit Karma Tax will give you free Federal and State tax returns. There is no other version, so you will never be hit with a last-minute upcharge. In exchange, you let them show you ads based on your financial data. In terms of technical accuracy, I expect that they are roughly equal to the other major providers. However, you may value the convenience factors offered by competitors (easily import last year’s data, better and/or unlimited phone support, automatic import of 1099-B tax lot data). I like the idea of using two side-by-side.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Taxes //

20% of Gift Cards Are Left Unused After 1 Year. How About Yours?

Posted on January 28, 2020 // 5 Comments

It’s now been a month since Christmas. Have you spent your gift cards yet? The odds are that you haven’t, as only 38% of all gift cards overall have been redeemed after a month. This is from a neat collection of gift card statistics from Zachary Crockett and The Hustle.

Here’s a chart of gift card redemption rates over time. Initially, it surprised me that less than 80% of gift card are used up after 12 months. That means 1 out of 5 are sitting there collecting dust after an entire year. Then I looked over at my own stack of unused gift cards, and realized that I am part of the problem!

This also explains why many gift cards can be discounted 10% to 20% in stores. In addition to the embedded profit margins of each specific business, around 6% of gift cards are never used. On top of their normal profits, Starbucks makes over $100 million a year from gift cards bought and never used! They literally get paid for doing nothing.

This means ~30% of gift cards that are unused after a year will never be used. Perhaps the best move is to give yourself a year and sell whatever hasn’t been used within a year. (I apply this same rule by throwing out clothes that aren’t worn after four seasons have passed.) Here are a bunch of sample quotes from card-buying site CardCash using nice round $100 numbers:

Look for extra value by exchanging for gift cards that you always use up. CardCash offered 3.5% extra over the cash offer if I exchanged into an Amazon gift card, 5% extra for Home Depot, and 7% extra for Lowe’s gift card. I have a 100% usage rate for Amazon gift cards, so that works well for my spending habits.

We all know that the solution is to give cash, but for whatever reason, giving cash in American culture is not standard practice. (Maybe some red envelopes would make it feel more classy?) In the end, I think gift cards are here to stay. I would still much rather have a gift card than a sweater that doesn’t fit. We just have to accept that there is going to be some waste in the process, like all that wrapping paper and ribbon.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Funny, Simple Living //

Do NOT Buy List: Equity Indexed Universal Life Insurance

Posted on January 27, 2020 // 20 Comments

Financial noise is everywhere. I try to be selective and only write about a limited amount of unique, profitable, and actionable information. If I see a bad product, I usually just ignore it and move on. Angry rants are not my thing.

However, I do worry that if something happens to me, my surviving loved ones may not know what to avoid. Therefore, I am adding a DO NOT BUY list as part of my estate planning documents. Simply avoiding the worst things is often a better (and easier) strategy than searching for the absolute best thing.

This WSJ article (paywall?) profiles one of the items on my DNB list: It’s the Hottest Thing in Life Insurance. Are Buyers Aware of the Risks?. I was unaware that indexed universal life (IUL) had grown so much in popularity, now making up 25% of new individual life insurance policies as measured by premium:

A universal life insurance policy combines a death benefit with the ability to build up a policy cash value. An indexed universal life policy is a universal life policy that increases the cash value at a rate tied to the performance of an index, often the S&P 500.

Briefly, here are reasons why I avoid Indexed Universal life insurance products:

  • High fees. In fact, probably multiple layers of fees. They might sound simple, but are actually amazingly complex. Per the WSJ – “We joke that it takes an actuary, an attorney and sometimes an engineer to understand the calculations,” said Billie Resnick, co-author of an American Bar Association book on life insurance.
  • No guaranteed return. You are unlikely to get near the long-term S&P 500 returns. Most IULs have floors which protect you from losses in down years, but return caps which cuts off your return on big up years. Stock market returns are lumpy, but with more big up years than big down years. Historically, protecting against the downside does not help enough to offset missing out on the upside. In addition, they almost always exclude dividends, which means you are guaranteed to miss a significant part of total return. So even if you did magically track the S&P 500 perfectly, you’d still be behind by ~2% due to losing the dividend. You’ll get a smoother ride, but at what cost?
  • Life insurance is better when it is simple and transparent. Ideally, the payout should be a guaranteed amount in exchange (i.e. $1 million cash) for a clearly defined event (i.e. death). When something is simple and transparent, you can easily comparison shop and let market competition create a fair price. IUL policies are again highly complex and nearly impossible to compare side-by-side. Maybe one day this will change, but for now it’s buyer beware.
  • More fine print: Insurers can change the rules after purchase?! Per the WSJ: “Insurers generally retain the contractual right to change these percentages, subject to regulator-approved limits. They also typically can raise the cost of the death benefit, per contractual provisions.” What? Even the floors and cap percentages are subject to change and not guaranteed?
  • In my experience, the loudest supporters of this product tend to be the people who sell them. Why are some things pressured upon you initially as the best thing since sliced bread, but immediately after purchase they become nearly impossible to sell again? The second you buy it, it has lost a huge part of its value. Reminds me of timeshares. Look out for big surrender charges for 10+ years because they have to recover the big upfront commission paid to the salesperson.

I can see how the idea of “stock market-linked returns with less risk” can be attractive, and I would be intrigued if there became some sort of commodity product where multiple companies sold essentially the same thing and competed to drive down prices. However, the current way of selling IULs is too vague and hard to understand for the average customer.

I’m a relatively conservative investor myself, but UILs have all sorts of risks. Side-by-comparisons are hard, so you risk buying a bad version of the product. There is no fixed return, like a fixed annuity. If the stock market tanks, you still risk getting a lousy return. There is a risk the issuer will change the growth rules on you. As with all insurance, the issuer could become insolvent somewhere in there. I prefer my term life insurance policy, as it gives my family a guaranteed fixed payout at a low fixed price after comparing prices side-by-side with several issuers that all offered the exact same product.

My recommendation is simply to steer clear of them all. If you are my loved one and are reading this, my advice is not to buy an indexed universal life policy. Definitely don’t use my hard-earned money to buy one!

Filed Under: Insurance //

Marcus Bank $100 Bonus on $10,000 Deposit (New for 2020)

Posted on January 22, 2020 // 12 Comments

Marcus by Goldman Sachs is offering a $100 bonus if you deposit $10,000+ in new funds into their online savings account within 10 days of enrollment at this special offer page. You must enroll by 11:59pm EST on 2/11/20 and maintain the new $10,000+ deposit for 60 days.

Both new and existing customers are eligible. Marcus had a very similar offer last year, but having done it in 2019 does not exclude you from doing it again in 2020 (looking at you, CIT Bank, ha). This offer is actually a bit better because their 2019 offer had a 90-day minimum holding period and this is only 60 days.

After enrollment, you must deposit $10,000 or more in new funds (internal transfers won’t count) into a Marcus Online Savings Account within 10 days of enrollment and maintain at least $10,000 of those new funds in your account in addition to your account balance at the time of enrollment for 60 consecutive days from the date of reaching the required dollar amount. Multiple deposits are allowed to reach the required dollar amount and can be made by joint owners for a joint account.

Offer available to new and existing customers. Each customer is limited to one bonus offer, which can only be applied to a single account. For eligibility purposes, each joint owner will be treated as a separate customer. For example, if you apply the bonus offer to a joint account, the remaining joint owner(s) may apply this offer to another account they own if they have not done so already. […] The bonus will be treated as interest for tax reporting purposes.

Basically a 1% bonus on $10,000 if you keep it there for 60 days, which makes the bonus itself the equivalent of ~6% APY annualized. They will deposit $100 into your account within 14 days after that 60-day period. (I usually like to wait until the bonus shows up before taking out any money.) The bonus is on top of the standard interest rate, currently 1.70% APY as of 1/22/20. This combination makes it a great short-term rate at that balance size when compared to my last monthly update of best interest rates.

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

How Your Portfolio Accumulation and Withdrawal Years Are Different

Posted on January 21, 2020 // 15 Comments

The last 10 years of stock market returns have been pretty remarkable. If you invested $100,000 in the S&P 500 in the year 2000 and held it though the dot-com crash and financial crisis, you would be closing in on $300,000 today. However, if you retired in 2000 with a portfolio invested in the S&P 500 and used a 4% withdrawal rate (increasing each year by 3% for inflation), your nest egg would less than $50,000 and on a path to zero!

This stark difference between accumulation and withdrawal modes is illustrated by the chart above, taken from the Blackrock Blog post How to avoid “dollar cost ravaging” in retirement. “Dollar-cost ravaging” is also known as “sequence of return risk”, as explained in the this quote:

Investors have probably heard the term “dollar-cost-averaging,” where you make regularly timed investments to smooth out the risk of “buying high.” Retirees tend to do the opposite. Instead of putting money into their portfolio, they take it out with a regular cadence in the form of income. “Dollar-cost-ravaging” occurs when the market loses value while you’re taking withdrawals, especially in the early years of retirement. Because money is coming out rather than going in, it’s harder for the retiree to recover their losses when markets rebound. We even saw this during one of the most successful bull markets in our history over the past decade. The sequence of returns matters, and the biggest challenge is a bear market early in your retirement.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this problem. This is what the article offers: “Striking the right balance to limit your losses in a declining market is just as important as capturing growth when the market is strong.” In other words, don’t hold too much in stocks, but also not too little. You can more easily weather a recession when you are still working and saving then when you are spending it down. I think more important advice is that you should be ready to withdraw less money out of your portfolio if the market tanks early on in your retirement withdrawal phase. Don’t follow a rigid withdrawal rule from some academic study into oblivion!

Filed Under: Investing, Retirement //

H&R Block / TurboTax Desktop 2019 Sales

Posted on January 17, 2020 // 11 Comments

The benefit of “old-school” desktop tax software is that it doesn’t require your Social Security Number and financial details to be stored in the “cloud”, a fancy word for a third-party server where it can be copied or hacked. Amazon and Newegg.com often have limited-time sales (often just 24 hours) on these desktop versions, but you have to catch them in time. Apologies if you missed it!

  • H&R Block Desktop Deluxe + State 2019 is currently $19.99 at Amazon. This is a good price as the all-time low price all last year was $18. Other versions are not on sale this time. Thanks to reader Bill P for the tip.
  • TurboTax Desktop Deluxe + State 2019 is $39.88 at Amazon for the physical disc/PC download/Mac download versions. This is not a special price, although it is rarely discounted (and will go higher as the deadline nears). There may be another deal later on that shaves off another $10 or so.

Keep in mind that for both H&R Block and TurboTax desktop Fed+State products, Federal e-Files are included but State e-File is extra (about $20 each). You can print the (usually shorter) state return for free and snail mail it in if you don’t have a free State e-File option.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Best Interest Rates on Cash – January 2020

Posted on January 9, 2020 // 4 Comments

Here’s my monthly roundup of the best interest rates on cash for January 2020, roughly sorted from shortest to longest maturities. I track these rates because I keep 12 months of expenses as a cash cushion and also invest in longer-term CDs (often at lesser-known credit unions) when they yield more than bonds. Check out my Ultimate Rate-Chaser Calculator to see how much extra interest you’d earn by moving money between accounts. Rates listed are available to everyone nationwide. Rates checked as of 1/9/2020.

High-yield savings accounts
While the huge megabanks like to get away with 0.01% APY, it’s easy to open a new “piggy-back” savings account and simply move some funds over from your existing checking account. The interest rates on savings accounts can drop at any time, so I list the top rates as well as competitive rates from banks with a history of competitive rates. Some banks will bait you with a temporary top rate and then lower the rates in the hopes that you are too lazy to leave.

Short-term guaranteed rates (1 year and under)
A common question is what to do with a big pile of cash that you’re waiting to deploy shortly (just sold your house, just sold your business, legal settlement, inheritance). My usual advice is to keep things simple and take your time. If not a savings account, then put it in a flexible short-term CD under the FDIC limits until you have a plan.

  • No Penalty CDs offer a fixed interest rate that can never go down, but you can still take out your money (once) without any fees if you want to use it elsewhere. Marcus Bank has a 11-month No Penalty CD at 2.00% APY with a $500 minimum deposit. My eBanc has a 11-month No Penalty CD at 2.00% APY with a $100,000 minimum deposit. Ally Bank has a 11-month No Penalty CD at 1.85% APY with a $25,000 minimum deposit. CIT Bank has a 11-month No Penalty CD at 1.75% APY with a $1,000 minimum deposit. You may wish to open multiple CDs in smaller increments for more flexibility.
  • Quontic Bank has a 12-month CD at 2.20% APY ($1,000 minimum).

Money market mutual funds + Ultra-short bond ETFs
If you like to keep cash in a brokerage account, beware that many brokers pay out very little interest on their default cash sweep funds (and keep the difference for themselves). The following money market and ultra-short bond funds are not FDIC-insured, but may be a good option if you have idle cash and cheap/free commissions.

  • Vanguard Prime Money Market Fund currently pays an 1.69% SEC yield. The default sweep option is the Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund which has an SEC yield of 1.54%. You can manually move the money over to Prime if you meet the $3,000 minimum investment.
  • Vanguard Ultra-Short-Term Bond Fund currently pays 2.00% SEC yield ($3,000 min) and 2.16% SEC Yield ($50,000 min). The average duration is ~1 year, so there is more interest rate risk.
  • The PIMCO Enhanced Short Maturity Active Bond ETF (MINT) has a 1.97% SEC yield and the iShares Short Maturity Bond ETF (NEAR) has a 2.25% SEC yield while holding a portfolio of investment-grade bonds with an average duration of ~6 months.

Treasury Bills and Ultra-short Treasury ETFs
Another option is to buy individual Treasury bills which come in a variety of maturities from 4-weeks to 52-weeks. You can also invest in ETFs that hold a rotating basket of short-term Treasury Bills for you, while charging a small management fee for doing so. T-bill interest is exempt from state and local income taxes.

  • You can build your own T-Bill ladder at TreasuryDirect.gov or via a brokerage account with a bond desk like Vanguard and Fidelity. Here are the current Treasury Bill rates. As of 1/9/2020, a 4-week T-Bill had the equivalent of 1.53% annualized interest and a 52-week T-Bill had the equivalent of 1.54% annualized interest.
  • The Goldman Sachs Access Treasury 0-1 Year ETF (GBIL) has a 1.83% SEC yield and the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF (BIL) has a 1.38% SEC yield. GBIL appears to have a slightly longer average maturity than BIL.

US Savings Bonds
Series I Savings Bonds offer rates that are linked to inflation and backed by the US government. You must hold them for at least a year. There are annual purchase limits. If you redeem them within 5 years there is a penalty of the last 3 months of interest.

  • “I Bonds” bought between November 2019 and April 2020 will earn a 2.22% rate for the first six months. The rate of the subsequent 6-month period will be based on inflation again. More info here.
  • In mid-April 2020, the CPI will be announced and you will have a short period where you will have a very close estimate of the rate for the next 12 months. I will have another post up at that time.

Prepaid Cards with Attached Savings Accounts
A small subset of prepaid debit cards have an “attached” FDIC-insured savings account with exceptionally high interest rates. The negatives are that balances are capped, and there are many fees that you must be careful to avoid (lest they eat up your interest). Some folks don’t mind the extra work and attention required, while others do. There is a long list of previous offers that have already disappeared with little notice. I don’t personally recommend nor use any of these anymore.

  • The only notable card left in this category is Mango Money at 6% APY on up to $2,500, but there are many hoops to jump through. Requirements include $1,500+ in “signature” purchases and a minimum balance of $25.00 at the end of the month.

Rewards checking accounts
These unique checking accounts pay above-average interest rates, but with unique risks. You have to jump through certain hoops, and if you make a mistake you won’t earn any interest for that month. Some folks don’t mind the extra work and attention required, while others do. Rates can also drop to near-zero quickly, leaving a “bait-and-switch” feeling. I don’t use any of these anymore.

  • Consumers Credit Union Free Rewards Checking (my review) has up to 5.09% APY on balances up to $10,000 if you make $500+ in ACH deposits, 12 debit card “signature” purchases, and spend $1,000 on their credit card each month. TAB Bank Kasasa Cash Checking has 4.00% APY on balances up to $50,000 if you make 1 ACH transfer and 15+ debit card purchases of $5+ each month, but read their vague fine print first. Find a locally-restricted rewards checking account at DepositAccounts.
  • If you’re looking for a high-interest checking account without debit card transaction requirements, the rate won’t be nearly as high, but take a look at MemoryBank at 0.90% APY.

Certificates of deposit (greater than 1 year)
CDs offer higher rates, but come with an early withdrawal penalty. By finding a bank CD with a reasonable early withdrawal penalty, you can enjoy higher rates but maintain access in a true emergency. Alternatively, consider building a CD ladder of different maturity lengths (ex. 1/2/3/4/5-years) such that you have access to part of the ladder each year, but your blended interest rate is higher than a savings account. When one CD matures, use that money to buy another 5-year CD to keep the ladder going. Some CDs also offer “add-ons” where you can deposit more funds if rates drop.

  • Financial Partners Credit Union (LFCU) has a 5-year Jumbo certificate at 3.00% APY ($100k minimum) and 2.85% APY with a $1,000 minimum. As with many credit union specials, this likely won’t last long. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization American Consumer Council ($8 one-time fee).
  • Navy Federal Credit Union has a special 37-month IRA CD at 3.00% APY ($50 minimum + add-on feature), but you must have a military affiliation to join (includes being a relative of a veteran).
  • Andrews FCU still has their special 84-month certificate at 3.05% APY. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization.
  • You can buy certificates of deposit via the bond desks of Vanguard and Fidelity. You may need an account to see the rates. These “brokered CDs” offer FDIC insurance and easy laddering, but they don’t come with predictable early withdrawal penalties. The rates are not competitive right now. Watch out for higher rates from callable CDs listed by Fidelity.

Longer-term Instruments
I’d use these with caution due to increased interest rate risk, but I still track them to see the rest of the current yield curve.

  • Willing to lock up your money for 10+ years? You can buy long-term certificates of deposit via the bond desks of Vanguard and Fidelity. These “brokered CDs” offer FDIC insurance, but they don’t come with predictable early withdrawal penalties. I don’t see anything noteworthy. Watch out for higher rates from callable CDs from Fidelity.
  • How about two decades? Series EE Savings Bonds are not indexed to inflation, but they have a unique guarantee that the value will double in value in 20 years, which equals a guaranteed return of 3.5% a year. However, if you don’t hold for that long, you’ll be stuck with the normal rate which is quite low (currently a sad 0.10% rate). I view this as a huge early withdrawal penalty. You could also view it as a hedge against prolonged deflation, but only if you can hold on for 20 years. As of 1/9/2020, the 20-year Treasury Bond rate was 2.17%.

All rates were checked as of 1/9/2020.

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers, Investing //

Low Stock Market Return Expectations For The Next Decade (2020-2030)

Posted on January 8, 2020 // 1 Comment

We’ve seen that stock market investors have been rewarded for investing regularly during the last decade. $10,000 invested in the Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 fund in January 2010 would have grown to $25,000 in January 2020. $10,000 invested in the Vanguard S&P 500 Index fund would have grown to $35,000 from 2010-2020!

However, the FactorResearch article Global Pension Funds: The Coming Storm summarizes why we should have more reasonable expectations for the next decade. First up, we have low interest rates. If you have low interest rates now, then your future bond returns are highly likely to be similarly low.

For stocks, we have a historically low earnings yield (or historically high P/E ratio). While the correlation is not as high, a low earnings yield usually leads to low future equity returns:

Based on this combination of low starting interest rates and low starting earnings yield, the author’s model predicts an annualized average return of 3.1% nominal for a traditional 60% stocks/40% bonds portfolio over the next 10 years.

(Time to set a reminder for 1/1/2030!)

These predictions can be dangerous in terms of market timing. Low interest rates and relatively high valuations were also true a year ago, but then the US stock market went up another 30%! If you avoided stocks, you would have missed a huge gain only to find yourself with even lower forward return expectations. Returns are lumpy – there might be only a few big positive years and many negative years to average out to a 5% return. What if you just missed one of the huge positive years?

My only takeaway is to maintain both stock market exposure and reasonable expectations. Various factors combined to make 2019 a big year for stocks (and most other major asset classes) and I’ll certainly take it, but also remember that it won’t be like that every year. There is a quote that happiness = reality minus expectations. For investing, maybe it changes to: likeliness of panic selling = reality minus expectations.

Filed Under: Investing //

What If You Invested $10,000 Every Year For the Last 10 Years? 2010-2019

Posted on January 6, 2020 // 2 Comments

Now that you’re done reading articles about what happened in 2019, how about stepping back and taking in the longer view? Most successful savers invest money each year over a long period of time, these days often into a target-date fund (TDF). It may not get you doing silly things on a super-yacht, but this slow-and-steady behavior is a perfectly legitimate way to build wealth. Not everyone gets rich with IPOs or Bitcoin.

Investment benchmark. I chose the Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 Fund as this all-in-one fund is low-cost, highly diversified, and available both inside many employer retirement plans and anyone with an IRA. During the early accumulation phase, this fund holds 90% stocks (both US and international) and 10% bonds (investment-grade domestic and international). I think it’s a solid default choice in a world of mediocre, overpriced options.

Investment amount. For the last decade, the maximum allowable annual contribution to a Traditional or Roth IRA has been roughly $5,000 per person. The maximum allowable annual contribution for a 401k, 403b, or TSP plan has been over $10,000 per person. If you have a household income of $67,000, then $10,000 is right at the 15% savings rate mark. Therefore, I’m going to use $10,000 as a benchmark amount. This round number also makes it easy to multiply the results as needed to match your own situation.

A decade of real-world savings. What would have happened if you put $10,000 a year into the Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 Fund, every year, for the past 10 years? You’d have put in $100,000 over time, but in more manageable increments. With the interactive tools at Morningstar and a Google spreadsheet, we get this:

Investing $10,000 every year for the last decade would have resulted in a total balance of $174,000. That breaks down to $100k in contributions + $74k investment growth.

Are you a dual-income household that can put away more? If you were a couple that both maxed out their 401k and IRAs at roughly $20k each or $40k total per year, you would have a total balance of $700,000! That breaks down to $400k in contributions + $300k investment growth.

Bonus: 15 years of real-world savings. What would have happened if you put $10,000 a year into the Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 Fund, every year, for the past 15 years instead? (Now $150,000 total.) This is a self-centered inclusion as it has now been 20 years since I graduated college and 15 years since starting this blog. Here are the extended return numbers:

Investing $10,000 every year for the last decade and a half would have resulted in a total balance of $307,000. That breaks down to $150k in contributions + $157k investment growth. Your gains are now officially more than what you initially invested!

Are you a dual-income household that can put away more? If you were a couple that both maxed out their 401k and IRAs at roughly $20k each or $40k total per year, you would have a total balance of over $1,200,000! That breaks down to $600k in contributions + $620k investment growth.

Timing still matters, but not as much as you might think due to the dollar-cost averaging and longer time horizon. Yes, the last decade has been a great run for US stock markets. But Vanguard Target funds also own a lot of international stocks, which haven’t been nearly as hot and have maintained lower valuations. More importantly, you can’t control that part. You have much more control over how much you save. Here are my previous “saving for a decade” posts:

Work on improving your career skills (or start your own business), save a big chunk of your income, and then invest it in productive assets. Keep calm and repeat. Our path to financial freedom can be mostly explained by such behavior. The only “secret” here is consistency. We have maxed out both IRA and the 401k salary deferral limits nearly every year since 2004. No inheritances, no special access to a hedge fund. You can build serious wealth with something as accessible and boring as the Vanguard Target Retirement fund.

Filed Under: Investing, Retirement //

SECURE Act Highlights: Summary of Retirement Plan Changes

Posted on January 5, 2020 // 8 Comments

I try to ignore talk about pending legislation, but the SECURE Act (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act) has now been passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump. Portions are effective as of January 1st, 2020. Instead of going into fine detail, I think this Practical Law article provides a concise summary of all the major points. This way, you can skim it and only dig further if it applies to your specific situation. Many of the points deal with employers, but here are the highlights that apply to workers:

Increased 401k eligibility for part-time employees.

The Act requires that 401(k) plans permit participation by long-term employees working more than 500 but less than 1,000 hours per year in three consecutive years. This provision is effective for plan years beginning after December 31, 2020.

Penalty-free withdrawals for birth of child or adoption.

A new distribution rule will allow participants to take a penalty-free withdrawal of up to $5,000 from a plan following the birth or legal adoption of a child. The distribution option applies to 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, governmental 457(b) plans, and Individual Retirement Account (IRA). It does not apply to defined benefit plans.

Required minimum distributions now start at age 72.

Currently, required minimum distributions from a retirement plan or IRA must start once an individual turns age 70.5. Under the Act, this age is increased to age 72. The change is effective for distributions required to be made after December 31, 2019, with respect to individuals who turn 70.5 after December 31, 2019.

“Stretch” inherited IRAs eliminated, replaced with 10-year time limit.

For defined contribution plans and IRAs, where a participant dies before the distribution of their entire interest, the distributions must now be made by the end of the tenth calendar year following the participant’s death. The new requirement does not apply if the beneficiary is an eligible beneficiary (for example, a surviving spouse or minor child).

Added lifetime income (annuity) options to your 401k/403b/457b.

The Act permits participants in defined contribution plans, 403(b) plans, and governmental 457(b) plans to take a distribution of lifetime income investment in the form of an annuity if: The lifetime income investment is no longer authorized to be held as an investment option, OR The distribution is made as a direct rollover to a retirement plan, IRA, or annuity contract.

No longer a maximum age for contributions to a traditional IRA.

Previously, you could no longer make contributions to a traditional IRA for the year during which you reached age 70 1/2 or any later year. There is (still) no age restriction for Roth IRA contributions.

Filed Under: Retirement //
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