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Roth 401(k) for People Who Contribute the Max

cayman — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:01:04 +0000

Roth 401(k) for People Who Contribute the Max

Back in March I wrote The Case Against Roth 401(k) in which I said I think for most people the majority, if not 100%, of the contribution should go to a Traditional 401(k). I gave these reasons:

Fill in lower tax brackets in retirement
Avoid high state income tax
Leave the option open for Roth conversion in the future
Avoid triggering phase-outs and AMT

I still believe these are valid reasons in favor of contributing to a Traditional 401k instead of a Roth 401k. A few comments to that post said Roth is better because a Roth 401k lets you effectively shelter more from taxes than a Traditional 401k. That is true. My response was that the higher effective maximum comes into play only if someone actually contributes the maximum allowed, currently at $15,500 per person per year. According to a study by Vanguard, only 10% of people contribute the maximum. It’s not surprising because in order to contribute the maximum, you need either a high income, a high savings rate, or both. Consider a married couple. The combined 401k and IRA maximum contributions are $41,000 per year. At 25% savings rate, this couple needs $160,000 of income. At 15% savings rate, this couple has to earn $270,000.

What if you are one of the 10%? People who read finance blogs probably earn more and save more. What is the value of the higher effective contribution limit in a Roth 401k?

It turns out that for the marginal dollar, a Roth 401k is worth about 5-10 percentage points in marginal tax rate. That is if you contribute the marginal dollar to a Roth 401k and your marginal tax rate drops 5-10 percentage points between now and retirement, you are still better off than contributing that same marginal dollar to a Traditional 401k and put the tax savings in a taxable account. Say you are down to the last $100 which you can either contribute to a Roth 401k or a Traditional 401k. If you contribute to a Traditional 401k, you also get a tax deduction. But because you already hit the max, you cannot put the tax savings into the Traditional 401k. Your only choice is a taxable account. The Roth is compared to Traditional + Taxable because the assumption is that you maxed out the contribution limit. If you are not maxing out, you can always gross up the contribution to the Traditional account.

How much exactly is a higher effective contribution limit in a Roth 401k worth depends on a number of assumptions. I made this spreadsheet on Zoho. You can plug in your own assumptions and see the result for yourself. Plug in some different assumptions and see how the results change. That’s what a spreadsheet is for. Zoho is nice because it’s all online. You don’t need Excel or any other spreadsheet program. You don’t have to register for Zoho either if you just want to use the spreadsheet.

For example, here’s one set of assumptions I used.

For tax rates, I’m assuming the Bush tax cuts will expire after 2011. Dividends will be taxed as ordinary income and long term capital gains will be taxed at 20%. I also put in a factor for the cost advantage in a taxable account because 401k plans often have higher cost funds and higher admin costs. And here are the results.

Roth 401k and "Traditional 401k + Taxable" break even if the marginal tax rate at retirement is about 28%, versus the current marginal tax rate of 35%. That means the higher effective contribution limit is worth about 7 percentage points.

Here’s the link to the spreadsheet again if you want to play with your own assumptions.

Traditional Or Roth 401k

Finally, please note we are still talking about the marginal dollar here. The reasons for favoring the Traditional 401k are still valid for the majority of one’s retirement dollars. If you max out all your tax favored contributions, you still have to decide how much should go to traditional. Those dollars in traditional will fill in the lower brackets after you retire. They will also be converted to Roth along the way if you have a window of opportunity.

Lies, money and marriage - what can you do?

cayman — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:01:04 +0000

Lies, money and marriage - what can you do?

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He’s been buying those sunflower seeds again and not telling her*

What would you do if you suddenly found out your spouse was $20,000 dollars in credit card debt and didn’t tell you? Turns out this situation of husbands and wives lying about debt isn’t so unusual. People around the country are accidentally finding out that their spouses have debt they weren’t aware. In many cases, the debt is small. In other’s, the amounts are high…real high.

Lies like these can bring a seemingly healthy relationship to a dead stop, devastating the marriage and frequently leading to divorce. Most of us realize that big lies like this are a huge problem, but how about small ones? Ever lie about how much something cost? How about telling your husband something was on sale when it really wasn’t? Or maybe, buying something costly and just plain on not telling your wife at all (ahem, those golf clubs in your trunk)?

Harris Interactive was commissioned to do a survey by Redbook magazine lawyers.com that provides some very interesting insights:

29% of U.S. adults ages 25 to 55 who are in a committed relationship say they have been dishonest with their partner about spending habits
24% of all those currently in a relationship say honesty about finances is more important than honesty about fidelity, and 72% say trust is essential to a successful romance.
96% said it was both partners’ responsibility to be completely honest about financial issues.

According to the survey, here are the things we lie about:

21% Spending on ourselves
6% How much we make
12% Spending on children
4% Our investments
9% Household finances
2% Our retirement accounts 2%

Going back to the original question, “What would you do?”. Here are just a few suggestions about what you should do if you find out your spouse is lying about debt and/or money:

Confront the Issue

The first thing you must do is confront the situation. There really isn’t any way around this as it has to be dealt with. I’d suggest reading through a book called Difficult Conversations. It deals with how to have conversations like this, but in a positive and productive manner. Excellent read.

Also important in this process is the 5th habit from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and that’s “Seek first to understand, then be understood”. I say this because there is a reason your spouse is lying, and it’s your responsibility to determine why. Dive into the reasons why they felt they had to hide the debt from you and/or lie about it.? Make sure you first understand their reasoning before you work to make your feelings understood.

Something I want to mention here: One of the key aspects in this conversation is going to be forgiveness. You need to forgive your spouse for the mistake they’ve made. This doesn’t mean you need to forget it, but it means you need to forgive them. What has been done is done, and that can’t be changed. In order to move forward from a clean slate though requires forgiveness. Don’t continue to bring it up, don’t continue to zing them. Focus on the future and not on the past.

Begin working together

The next step is to begin working together on your finances and communicating on your finances. Be warned though, if one of you is a saver, and the other a spender, this process will require some level of compromise. Develop your financial goals, your financial plan, and budget together!? Don’t just do this one time, but work together constantly.? My wife and I review our budget weekly.

Keep some things separate

Sometimes in a marriage it becomes easy to forget that each partner is also an individual. My wife and I have found it critical to our financial success and marriage to have separate spending categories just for us, for whatever we want. There is a line item in our budgets for this monthly. We can do whatever we want with this money, blow it, save it, invest it…whatever.

Counseling

The above items work on small issues, but on large issues or repetitive problems, the problem isn’t a money problem, but a marriage problem. If your marriage has issues with large amounts of debt, continuous issues with lying and hiding money, or constant fighting than it’s time for marriage counseling. Marriage counseling will engage a third party that will help your marriage.? Being Christian, I would highly recommend a Christian marriage counselor.? Your church pastor should be able to recommend someone.

*Photo by: dalvenjah

Have you been (or maybe you currently are) in a situation like this? What did you do? What suggestions do you have for someone in a situation like this? How would you handle your spouse lying about money? Add a comment!

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Ask the Readers: Giving Money as a Gift, How Much?

cayman — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:01:04 +0000

Ask the Readers: Giving Money as a Gift, How Much?

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If you've ever given money as a gift, how much did you give? ; This is a tricky question and probably something that not a lot of people talk about. ; How much money is appropriate as a gift for various occasions? ;

For weddings, we typically give enough to cover the cost of our meal in addition to a monetary gift for the bride and groom. ; For example, if the meal costs around $50 each, and two of us attended, then we would give $200 or so. Does that sound about right? Or what if you were invited to a wedding/reception, but didn't attend? ; How much do you give then if at all?

Birthdays/Christmas, it really depends on the person and how they are related to me. ; Immediate family members get the most, then come good friends, then regular acquaintances. ; I find though as we make more money, the gifts seem to get bigger. ;

New Babies, $40-$50 seems to be a pretty standard gift that we received. ; I'm not sure if this is normal. ; What do you give to new parents?

What rule of thumb do you use for monetary gifts?

Photo credit: Bill in Ash Vegas

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Now up to 6 ING accounts…

cayman — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:01:14 +0000

Now up to 6 ING accounts…

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I am a huge fan of ING Direct and have been for a long time - I joined in June 2001, the summer before I left for college, and my first account was named the “oh shit fund”. (It is still called that.)

Well, I am now up to six accounts with them, having opened an Electric Orange account a week or so ago, and yesterday opened yet another savings account in order to hold my credit card payoff money. I have about $5700 on a 0% balance transfer and decided to just save it up and hang onto the money until it expires next December to earn a little more interest. Once it’s paid off, I may start doing some 0% balance transfer arbitrage stuff to earn more, but we will see. But to keep that money separate, I opened another account. You can open as many savings accounts as you want under one customer number, and give them all different names, and they will have different account numbers so you can direct deposit into specific accounts. So right now I have my “oh shit fund”, a house fund, a credit card holding account, an Electric Orange checking account, and two accounts for CashDuck which hold tax money and business savings. This should be enough accounts for me in a while.. I just do so love to have every dollar in its place!

Deliver Us From Human Resources

cayman — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:01:04 +0000

Deliver Us From Human Resources

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Somebody over at Tower Perrin doesn’t have enough to do as evidenced by this ’study.’ I struggled through it but not sure I can draw any conclusions except that Mexican companies have the greatest percentage of ‘engaged’ employees. From what I saw in Mexico they are engaged because they just feel damn lucky just to have a job.

Interesting remarks about Japan as well. Well, interesting if you are in Human Resources.

On the ‘road to engagement?’ What is that?

Read on and figure out your own conclusion. Please share any insight because I’m not sure I get this. Or even want to.

Few workers are ‘engaged’ at work and most want more from execs
Sunday October 21, 10:28 am ET
By Andrea Coombes

Just 1 in 5 workers are ‘engaged’ — and most want more from executives

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Only 21% of workers worldwide are "engaged" — that’s human-resource-speak for ready to expend some extra effort at work — while 38% are either disenchanted or disengaged, according to a new survey.

Engagement is not satisfaction or happiness, but the degree to which workers connect to the company emotionally, are aware of what they need to do to add value and are willing to take that action, said Julie Gebauer, a managing director with consulting firm Towers Perrin, which surveyed almost 90,000 workers in 19 countries.

"Happy employees don’t necessarily create better financial results, but there is a definite link between engagement and a company’s financial performance," Gebauer said.

The survey found 21% of workers worldwide are engaged, and another 41% are "enrolled," which means they’re on the road to engagement, Gebauer said.

More than 80% of the engaged employees say they contribute to the quality of company products, services and customer satisfaction, while only 40% of disengaged workers agree.

Engagement helps retention too: About 50% of engaged employees say they have no plans to leave their company versus 15% of the disengaged.

‘Dollars-and-cents issue’

The fact that almost 80% of workers are less-than-engaged is likely costing companies money, Gebauer said.

"The notion of engagement is really a dollars-and-cents issue. Organizations that have employees that are highly engaged deliver better financial results than those that don’t," Gebauer said.

In a separate study, Towers Perrin assessed data on 40 global companies over a three-year period, measuring employee engagement at a certain point and then looking at the companies’ financial results over the ensuing three years.

Companies with highly motivated workers enjoyed a 3.7% increase in operating margins and a 2% rise in net profits, while companies with a lower level of worker commitment saw both measures decrease slightly.

Countries vary widely

The portion of engaged workers varies widely by country, according to the survey.

In the U.S., 29% of workers are engaged and 28% are disenchanted or disengaged, while in Mexico, 54% of workers are engaged — the highest among the 19 countries surveyed — while 16% are disenchanted or disengaged.

The lowest portion of engaged workers on the list is Japan, where 3% of workers are engaged and 72% are disenchanted or disengaged.

Still, other reports find higher levels of worker commitment among U.S. workers, at least. A separate survey finds that 72% of workers would recommend their company as a good place to work, up from 62% two years ago, and 64% say their company values them as employees, according to a survey of 2,000 U.S. workers in September by Rasmussen Reports LLC, a research firm, for Hudson, a staffing and recruitment firm.

From the Towers Perrin report, here’s the full list of engagement levels by country:

Region	Engaged	Enrolled	Disenchanted	Disengaged
Global	21%	41%	30%	8%
Mexico	54%	30%	13%	3%
Brazil	37%	38%	22%	3%
India	36%	46%	15%	3%
U.S.	29%	43%	22%	6%
Switzerland	23%	50%	23%	4%
Canada	23%	44%	25%	7%
Spain	19%	35%	31%	15%
Russia	18%	46%	30%	7%
Germany	17%	47%	28%	8%
China	16%	51%	27%	6%
U.K.	14%	42%	33%	11%
Belgium	13%	47%	31%	9%
Netherlands	13%	47%	32%	7%
France	12%	41%	35%	12%
Italy	11%	40%	36%	13%
Poland	9%	37%	39%	15%
Korea	8%	45%	40%	7%
Hong Kong	5%	36%	46%	13%
Japan	3%	25%	56%	16%

Engage me

So, what makes for an engaged employee? It’s not necessarily pay. While the level of pay is important, it’s not among the top 10 drivers of engagement, Gebauer said.

Rather than using "the blunt instrument of pay," Gebauer said, companies should survey their work force, much as they might study their customers, to assess what employees are seeking.

The top 10 drivers of employee engagement across all 19 countries are a mixed bag that includes both the behavior and actions of senior management and individuals’ own actions and abilities:

Senior management sincerely interested in employee well-being
Improved my skills and capabilities over the last year
Organization’s reputation for social responsibility
Input into decision-making in my department
Organization quickly resolves customer concerns
Set high personal standards
Have excellent career advancement opportunities
Enjoy challenging work assignments that broaden skills
Good relationship with supervisor
Organization encourages innovative thinking

Many employees "are looking for a greater demonstration of senior management’s interest in their day-to-day work," Gebauer said.

"What employees are looking for is open communication, communication that reflects the fact that senior management really understands how the work gets done, and recognizes and appreciates that," she said.

Senior management’s interest in employees can be expressed in a number of ways, Gebauer said, "including organizations’ willingness to help employees balance work and activities outside of work, to sponsor competitive benefit programs, to focus on career development and training," she said.

"Those are things that will translate to employees as senior management being interested in my well-being," she said.

Communication helps, too, even the electronic kind. "CEOs who will provide a monthly Web cast or a voicemail just letting people know about key developments in the industry and in the company — those are some of the things that help employees put at least a voice and a face to senior management," she said.

The study’s findings refute other studies that find workers’ immediate supervisors are most important to employees’ sense of well-being.

"It’s not to say the manager isn’t important, but imagine the best manager in the world working in an organization that doesn’t have a good performance-management system, doesn’t have good advancement opportunities," Gebauer said.

"How is that manger going to help the employee navigate through an organization that is actually not working so well?"

Beats the hell out of me.

When gas prices cut into your bottom line

cayman — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:00:08 +0000

When gas prices cut into your bottom line

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Rising gas prices affect us all, but they affect some people’s jobs (and therefore bottom lines) more directly than others.

We passed a taxi the other day that had been painted green. It was a Prius with a banner on it that proclaimed it a “green taxi”. I’m pretty sure that one reason for using a Prius as a taxi instead of the more standard Crown Victoria is to save money on gas. It makes sense.

With diesel at $4-something a gallon, I’d hate to be a truck driver right about now. It’s got to be difficult to watch your net income decrease with each passing month, even though you’re doing the same amount of work. (Or more.)

Then there are the pizza delivery drivers. I know someone who quit a part-time pizza delivery job because it was no longer worth it when taking the price of gas into account.

Oil and gas affect our lives in so many more ways than most of us realize. It’s scary. We’ll probably become more and more aware of just how big an effect they have as the years go on.

How are rising prices affecting you?

Sequoia Fund Reopens to New Investors - Further Analysis of Why Investors Should Avoid

cayman — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:00:08 +0000

Sequoia Fund Reopens to New Investors - Further Analysis of Why Investors Should Avoid

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Following a recent post on the fabled Sequoia Fund’s acceptance of fund inflows from new investors, my post was met with some ire, presumably from Fund employees or long time holders that have some emotional attachment to the investment. In order to address the most common themes, I have performed a deeper, more thorough analysis on the Sequoia Fund’s recent performance and why its emergence as an open fund should be met with a yawn.

Timber!

In order to maintain a baseline comparison horizon, I will maintain the same 5-year timeframe I utilized in my initial post. The Fund and its proponents oft refer to the returns since 1970 trouncing the indices, but let’s face it: The genius behind the fund is now deceased and the prior 5 year period is much more relevant than our parents’ generation return period (anyone remember the Magellan Fund?).

So, right from the Prospectus, the Fund was trounced miserably by the S&P500 in 3 of the past 5 years and only marginally exceeded the S&P500 returns in 2 of the past 5 years. On average, the Sequoia Fund returned 9.26% vs. 13.15% for the S&P500. This is an average net deficit of close to 4% per year.

Source: http://www.sequoiafund.com/investment_return_table.htm

But wait…it gets better.

One of the naysayers out there highlighted that my analysis was flawed in that it did not account for the dividend payments from the Sequoia Fund. Well, the S&P500 stocks have dividends too, right? To put to rest any further quarrels, I compared the returns of the two funds starting with the NAV exactly 5 years ago tonight, added back in the dividends paid over that period (if I were a real stickler, I would assume the dividends were reinvested at the then current NAV and adjust the NAV for each subsequent period post-div, but the exercise would take me an extra hour of effort to arrive at the same conclusion since the same method would be followed for the S&P500 Fund and in the end, the dividend issue is comparable for both funds. Well, actually, since the largest dividend payment from the Sequoia Fund was made in 2007, the present value of the dividends is actually loaded to the recent year 2007, as opposed to an even spread in the S&P500, so this further diminishes the argument in favor of the Sequoia Fund) and showed that even factoring in dividend payments, the Sequoia Fund still performs miserably compared to the benchmark index.

Note that the Holding Period Return over the prior 5 year period is 16.48% for the Sequoia Fund vs. 63.24% for the S&P500. Would you pay an additional 1% in fees annually for this kind of performance? You tell me.

For a look at the post that started it all, plus a recommended top fund, click here.

Financial Questions to Avoid Before Investing

cayman — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:00:28 +0000

Financial Questions to Avoid Before Investing

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What is it that gets you excited about investing? Is it the opportunity to make a quick buck, the thought of taking advantage of compound interest in order to retire rich, or maybe the feeling of owning part of a great American company?

Unfortunately, often people get excited about investing their money by the dreaming big. They see companies like Hansen and Google that have created millionaires and their friends talk about amazing profits during cocktail parties. The next day the dreamer jumps in, only to find the party is over and the investment was a poor decision.

I know I’m guilty of getting excited about the potential of huge profits. It’s fun to stop and think, “what if . . .” But it is important to control that emotion and make sure you are not making money decisions based on hope. Investment decisions should be based on the likelihood of winning.

How do you avoid losing and chasing hope? Instead of asking yourself, “how much can I make off this investment?” take the time to consider how much is at stake. What is the potential that could actually be lost in the investment? What is the probability that the stock could go down, the real estate investment not sell or the company go bankrupt? These are the magic questions.

The key to investing is not how much you make, it’s how much you can minimize your loses. In a diversified portfolio you will have some big gainers, some that are slow and steady winners, and a few losers. In a diversified portfolio it is a given that your winners will perform better than your losers over time, so the focus should be on reducing your downside. By doing so, you will be making investment decisions with lots of upside potential, which will naturally accelerate your profits.

When you ask yourself “how much can I lose,” it forces you to really analyze what you are getting into. If you do your homework and answer correctly, you’ll find the opportunities with little downside risk and great profit potential.

Millionaire Money Habit: Don’t let hope cloud your investment decisions. Take the time to remove the emotion by asking what you could lose before diving into something that only makes you see the profit potential. -RT

Are you making one of the biggest financial mistakes? Find out by subscribing to the Millionaire Money Habits Newsletter.

Fight The Man: Share Your Salary

cayman — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:00:05 +0000

Fight The Man: Share Your Salary

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First off, if you are not allowed to share your salary. DON’T. It’s usually grounds for getting fired so check your employee handbook before you do it.

After reading Jim’s story on salary sharing, and the accompanying NY Times article, I’ll give you a Marxist economic analysis of why you should share your salary. (I’m joking about the Marxist part. I read Das Kapital in college with a prominent Marxist scholar and it cracks me up that he makes a ton of money as a socialist.)

The main thing in a free market economy is the value of information. It’s possible to have any kind of arbitrage simply because of a gap in information where the buyer has no knowledge of the seller’s cost.

In the case of salary, it’s a little different, but still the same. You are the seller of labor (a Marxist view of the world) and the buyer of labor is your employer. However, you are in a marketplace of labor providers (other job candidates) and you need to differentiate your labor on the basis of quality to command a better price. But you also have to price yourself within a reasonable range. Tools like Salary.com, salary surveys, published annual ranges, etc will help you set the range, the best way is honestly to talk to your peers in the field about what they make.

Like Jim, I work in IT consulting with the Federal government. (Of course I do. I live in DC!) I nearly kicked myself when I found out I should have asked my company for $100K. But honestly, I don’t think I can command that price. My friend who was advocating that kind of money could justify his asking price with the kind of skills he possesses. I don’t have that same skill set so I lowballed myself slightly, but not embarrassingly. It would have helped me set a better price had I known my friend was applying to the same company I was and discussed our strategies for our starting salary figures. I might have squeezed out another $5K from it, but I think I did just fine.

More than anything, knowing your current market value is the key. Sure, it’s good to know what the company is willing to pay. But you really have to know what you are worth as an individual provider of labor. If you are worth $50K and the company is only willing to pay $45K, then find another employer because there is someone out there who is willing to value you appropriately. I learned this the hard way while working technical support. Support jobs are bottom of the barrel and full of stress. But some companies pay better than others and are willing to promote people out of support work. I had to have a client toss a reality brickbat at my head and tell me that my skills were worth $20K-35K more than I was earning in support. And he was willing to pay me that!!!

The Man keeps us down by obscuring salary information. We’re usually not allowed to know what our peers make in the same job function. They hide things with unpublished pay grades. (Private companies around DC love ‘pay grades’. The government uses them and it seems like it’s fair to have grades till you find out that you don’t know what ranges they represent in the private sector because they are in no way correlated to the government’s published GSA pay grade schedules.) You have to guess if your grade is a managerial one and if you’re going to get a manager’s bonus or a regular employee bonus. (In my case, 10% vs $1500. Uh, that’s a huge difference at a $50K salary.) Shop job postings to see what places are willing to pay for jobs like yours or the jobs you want to have. Frequently there are ranges added to ads to entice candidates or give them a realistic view of what the employer will pay. Use it to your advantage.

I’m not a big advocate of having poor manners. Obviously be judicious in your sharing of a salary and whom you ask. Make sure you trust your friends when you share this information. I usually don’t discuss this sort of thing in-house with fellow employees. The one time I did, the guy had moved out of my department and received a promotion. I didn’t think it hurt to tell him because we were both pretty unhappy with our company. I also tend to discuss salary with my manager because I expect him/her to go to bat for me or help me get to my salary aspiration.

Transparency is key though. If you want to stick it to The Man, then share your salary. Find out what others make in your field and make sure you get yours!

Avoiding Life’s Worst Debt Traps

cayman — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:59:05 +0000

Avoiding Life’s Worst Debt Traps

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Building personal wealth is not hard if you understand math. All you have to do is take in more money than you spend. Yet, life isn’t as simple as a math equation and there are various personal factors that can uproot even the best-laid plans. Cash, for instance, may be plentiful when we are single and working, and become scarcer when we are married with several children as dependents. Life also can have a way of throwing unexpected curves like layoffs, disease, divorce, and more. For those occasions, we have to turn to savings or loans to help us through the rough patches. So, how can we make the road a little smoother if we’re not blessed with stunning good luck? Good financial planning can help you stay ahead of the game.

Financial Planning

The time to plan for your future is now. You may be in college, just graduated, or just divorced - it doesn’t matter! There are certain milestones everyone wants to achieve and can plan ahead of time to finance. Things like a wedding, the birth of a child, or retirement are all events that can be planned ahead. Begin to learn how financial products work and how you can make your money grow. The earlier you start, the more it will grow through the power of interest. Find a financial counselor and get a financial check-up yearly.

You should review your insurance needs with them to see if you are covered enough in case of an accident, a health emergency, or the death of a spouse. Insurance is one area that many people fail to investigate until it is too late. Look ahead, and find out what insurance you should be carrying and make sure it covers you in case something unfortunate happens. This is the best way to help you smooth out the path ahead, when the future is murky and you don’t know how good your luck might be.

Bad Credit Loans

Roth 401(k) for People Who Contribute the Max

Lies, money and marriage - what can you do?

Confront the Issue

Begin working together

Keep some things separate

Counseling

Other articles you might enjoy reading:

Ask the Readers: Giving Money as a Gift, How Much?

Now up to 6 ING accounts…

Deliver Us From Human Resources

‘Dollars-and-cents issue’

Countries vary widely

Engage me

When gas prices cut into your bottom line

Sequoia Fund Reopens to New Investors - Further Analysis of Why Investors Should Avoid

Financial Questions to Avoid Before Investing

You May Also Like:

Fight The Man: Share Your Salary

Avoiding Life’s Worst Debt Traps