Financial Solutions

Thinking of Itemizing your Tax Deductions? Here’s a Teaser

January 27th, 2010

Itemizing your Taxes Made Easier

If you’re like me, you’re probably still waiting around for all your income statements to trickle in from banks, discount brokers, your employer, and anyone else whom you might have some sort of financial interest with.

The part that is more in your control is the organization of your deductions. If you’re not sure whether or not itemizing your taxes is right for you, you may want to visit IRS Form 1040 (Schedules A&B). What follows will be a teaser on what you could potentially itemize and how to organize your tax deductible expenses throughout the year.

Passing on the Standard Tax Deduction

I’m one of those 35-40% of Americans who doesn’t take the standard deduction, and it has paid off the last 3 years. I get dis

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Tags: Tax, Tax Deductions

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Jackson National Life in Aggressive Hiring Mode

January 27th, 2010

This morning a highly valued colleague called to say he was leaving our organization for a job opportunity that will present new challenges and higher compensation. My colleague’s good fortune may be a sign of general economic recovery but it’s just as likely that it simply shows that there will always be some job opportunities, even in trying economic times.

The news reminded me of a recent conversation with Mark Clark and Laura Prieskorn of Jackson National Life. While other life insurance companies were tanking and laying people off, Jackson was holding course and hiring. In fact, hiring will be a high priority for Jackson’s IT and operations organizations in the coming year.

Clark and Prieskorn were recently promoted to their senior vice president officer positions, and the company announced a raft of other senior promotions in their organizations last week.

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The Problem Of “Shadow Inventory”

January 27th, 2010

American Banker has posted an article, written by Kate Berry, about two possible outcomes of the current mortgage crisis. Several hundred homes thousand homes have been repossessed and are n the process of foreclosure, and several million homes that have already been foreclosed. Such staggering numbers bring up a difficult question: “How long can lenders put off dumping these properties?”

There are two ideas of what will happen:

One group says a breaking point will come in the second or third quarter: The supply of these distressed homes will get so big that banks and mortgage servicers will have no choice but to begin moving more borrowers into foreclosure and working through their stockpiles of seized collateral…First American CoreLogic, an analytics unit of the Santa Ana, Calif., title insurer First American Corp., has estimated that 1.7 million homes make up the shadow inventory — properties that have been repossessed, are in foreclosure, or are seriously delinquent. T

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How To Save 30% on Almost Anything

January 25th, 2010

Perhaps the easiest step you can take in your journey to debt freedom is to cut your spending.

In our house, we’ve found ways to save on practically everything we buy. I’ll list a bunch of items here and ways to save 30% or more—and I invite you to post questions of items you’d like to save money on, and I’ll reply with my best cost-cutting idea and encourage others to do the same!

1. Baby diapers (disposables) or overnight trainers: Costco is pretty good, Toys R Us is also good. At any costs, don’t buy these at the grocery store. The very best place however, is a liquidator’s shop. They’ll sell bags that were damaged in shipping, have misprinted labels or are odd lots. A pack of pull-u

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