Category: 401k and Personal Finance

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Say bye to Robinhood Gold, for now

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Today I decided to pull the plug on Robonhood Gold. I joined the Gold last year to take advantage of the 3% match of Roth IRA, which is $240 for $8,000 worth of IRA. But in last few years, I am increasingly tired of their gimmicky, including but not limited to the expansion to Cryptos (remember they did the countdown around the new year, and give away Dogecoin and bitcoin), and now I started to appreciate what Charlie Munger said about them (a casino).

Full disclosure: I participated in one of the countdown and received 18.67 units of Dogecoin, worth $3.40 today, down $2.55 from the day I received it (I think it was 12/31/2024). Personally I am with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger re: cryptos, and I think they are poos.

I will probably pull out my money when there is no fees associated with the withdrawal. Also note I am a very early customer of Robinhood back in year 2015 when they were brand new, and I do appreciate their zero transaction fee revolution to the brokerage industry. But it seems now they are the bad guys: which is not uncommon – somewhat reminds me of this blog post, and this video: I recall Mearsheimer commented the youth will be corrupted when they rose to the power.

Tariff impact in the USA

(The Guardian) From peppercorns to plastic forks: US businesses that rely on Chinese products reel from Trump tariffs

Categories
401k and Personal Finance uber-and-side-hustle

Turbo Tax Desktop and doing tax for eBay and Uber

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Chinese version (translated by Google) is here: 谷歌翻译的中文版在这里。

Turbo Tax web vs Desktop

I switched from Turbo Tax Web version to Desktop version in last 4 years. The main reason is the latter is cheaper (if we consider both the state and tax). It’s probably $40 to $50 cheaper. Before the switch I used the web version for 20 years. I was happy with the web version for the most part: had one or two minor glitches during 20 years journey. One glitch was on me: it was quite a few years ago, 15 to 20 years ago, when I was working for my 1st employer then. That year I purchased the Turbo Tax state (online version) too, and I also purchased the audit defense. But the stupid program allowed me to put in a negative number for the income in the state tax form, and state rejected the tax filing out of box. It was not too difficult to fix that – zero out the number did the trick if my memory is correct. But after that I decided for the state filing I would just use the online PDF form (with calculation capability), and mail in the tax form to the Jeff City instead.

Also, once I made a bad mistake. I installed the desktop version on my personal laptop MacBook Pro 16 inch Intel. And it crashed on me, and I didn’t have backup copy for the Turbo Tax filing file after filing. I recall from my past experience, Turbo Tax usually started from last year’s return, and at one time I was quite worried. Later luckily I was able to find out the actual e-filing from Uncle Sam’s website. Nowadays I store the Turbo Tax filing file on the cloud – feel a bit safer than my local desktop or laptop 🙂

Last tip for Turbo Tax Web: one can always use it for free (without filing), so for example, if you do it manually (say on paper, or via Excel), you can still use Turbo Tax Web, solely for calculation, comparison or verification purpose.

Retailer (where I buy the Turbo Tax software)

I think I paid about $82 for premier at Amazon.com this year. Today (02-02-2025) I saw Costco U city has $15 instant rebate on the top of that ($82). So next year I may buy from Costco instead of Amazon. For Amazon I download the software from their website: used to be Amazon, this year it’s Intuit the company behind Turbo Tax. I expect buying from Costco will be similar.

Do we want Audit Defense?

I got it last year – and I plan to continue to get it this year.

Some notes for me this year

eBay sent me a 1099-K. New for me this year. I am in the process of itemize the cost. This is more tedious than I thought initially. Here is some guidelines from Turbo Tax, btw. I may end up doing it as business too (see Uber below).

(Update 02-24-2025) I did more reading, mainly from

A Tax Filing Factsheet for eBay Sellers (Turbo Tax) and What to do with Form 1099-K (IRS). I decided to go with the Schedule C route (Below Uber is similar).

In my personal opinion, this approach is better than the other Form 8949 approach as implicitly suggested by the Turbo Tax.

Uber driving is also new to me. didn’t send me 1099-K as I didn’t meet their income threshold of $5,000. I mainly followed this Turbo Tax knowledge article as well the Turbo Tax Desktop Premier for this. I took the mileage standard deduction: used the online miles. And I used the tax summary from Uber (available in the Uber Driver App go to Account => Tax Doc) for the online mileages. Overall I am quite happy with the milage deduction (business expense, schedule C).

Summary for reporting taxes for eBay and Uber: again this is new to me. I learned two things: 1) Schedule C for business expense, reporting etc; 2) Refer to IRS website and their document as needed. In the past I mostly rely on Turbo Tax, or google. This time around I still use google, but Google pointed me to the IRS website. It’s good.

Keep things in perspective on Uber driving: the number one priority is always your (driver) safety, passenger safety and overall happiness. Money or tax saving for that matter, should not be a priority compared to the things I just mentioned. It’s more like icing on the cake. The cake itself better to be good – otherwise say if there are too many lemons among passengers, I will quit. This should be applicable to many things in life too, your day job, your other side gigs, and so on. I know I probably say it from somewhat privileged view point – as I do have some savings that allow to me “don’t have to work” for a while, if needed. Again keep things in perspective, I have worked in the USA for almost 25 years. I am at a stage of winding down my day job (career for some more career minded people, no judgement from yours truly here). At the same time, I am thinking about what I want to do after my retirement from my day job. Hint: I posted some plan here. But again, this is subject to change without any notice – the main stakeholders I need to notify is my wife and kids. I want to make sure they are comfortable, and can still splurge as they choose so.

Stocks: one of my favorite topics :-). For my 2 small regular brokerage accounts anyway: one again I traded too much and don’t have much gain to show for. So that’s my main lesson – I need to stick to the winners and hopefully stay away from the losers all together 🙂 Majority of my money (401k, HSA and 529 plans) are in S&P 500 index funds or equivalent. I do have two IRA accounts too: and I trade stocks there, and I am very pleased to announce that my luck there is better than the “2 small regular brokerage accounts” 🙂

State filing is included in the Turbo Tax desktop. One thing I noticed is 529 plan can save some state income taxes. (02-25-2025) Just realized the e-filing for the state is $25 or $40 extra. I decided to file via paper to save that money. (Update 03-04-2025) I sent the state filing tax via USPS mail. The postage is about $3.43 + printing cost which is about 8 cents x 42 pages = $3.36. Total is about $6.79 which is a bit cheaper than about $20 e-filing via Turbo Tax ($25 plus $5 off offer from couple of my Chase CC).

Some Odds and Ends

Probably more than 20 years ago, I recall my big boss has an Excel spreadsheet for tax filing, and he offered to co-workers. I didn’t take the offer. I think it may be a cheaper and better option, but I already fell into the Turbo Tax rabbit hole.

There is a common American saying: only death and taxes are certain 🙂

Other Choices

FreeTaxUSA.com

HR Block

TaxSlayer

Full Disclosure:

Not tax advice. Please consult a professorial tax advisor (an accountant, or a CPA) as needed.

I don’t receive any compensation from Turbo Tax. And I don’t have Inuit $INTU individual stock right now (02-26-2025). The reason I say individual stock is I do have S&P 500 index fund, and I assume $INTU is in the S&P 500.

(Update 03-04-2025) YT: Mass IRS Layoffs — How It Affects Your Tax Refund & Audits! by ClearValue Tax

(Update 03-05-2025) The Tennessean: 2025 tax season off to slow start amid federal layoffs, hiring freeze. Will refunds be affected? What to know

(Update 03-11-2025) Filed and accepted on Tue, Feb 25 – I just saw refund money hit the bank via DD 🙂 Total is about 2 weeks.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Edu-and-Ladue-School

College financial aid seminar

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Learned Net Price Calculator (DoE, bigFuture.collegeBoard; local fav wustl is on the 2nd list).

Learned FAFSA (always try to fill it out), and CSS Profile.

Learned Student Aid Index (SAI).

Learned Missouri A+ Scholarship program.

Btw, I wrote about 529 plan (college savings account) here.

Steve Jobs on education (shorter version, longer version). Enlightening 🙂

PS: learned Horatio Alger Association National & State Scholarship by chance, via Paul Anthony Novelly obituary.

(Update 03-29-2025) Noticed wustl released a new Instant Net Price Estimator.

(Update 05-01-2025, Pay Walled, NY Times)

Colleges Know How Much You’re Willing to Pay. Here’s How.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Politics

America poverty issue – series I

Reading Time: 2 minutes

My 1st impression on America

In summer 1997 when I 1st came to the USA, I noticed the street at Rolla (middle of Missouri) was quite clean. It’s just I was in a honeymoon period with America and I didn’t notice.

In recent years I saw more panhandlers at intersections (also seeing panhandlers playing fake violin too); this is not entirely new. But it’s getting worse nowadays.

At Louisiana, people got crazy at Walmart, old story (I wrote this a while ago):

The food stamp program, we all learned a few months ago, the madness at Louisiana Walmart store, basically when the food stamp recipients got opportunity to shop “unlimited”, they don’t have much self control.

Recent I had opportunity to have a new neighbor: sometimes things made me to think “Is poverty is a habit or a mindset”. Some of the things I think they can potentially improve on – less eat out or door dash delivery; in addition to cook more, be more self-sufficient overall, for example clean up their own snow on driveway, walk to the grocery store or gas station and so on.

I recall when I was new to the US, I shop at Aldi and discount store near Rolla. I also lived in dirt cheap or government subsidized apartment and drove old car. I recall the rent for the 1st apartment was about $70 a month back in 1997. It doesn’t have air conditioning for summer.

At my 1st real job in St. Louis: I noticed cleaning lady always brought a brown bag when came in the pm cleaning duty. But I cannot say for sure that she brought that brown bag, or she bought food from nearby Burger King every time. If it’s the latter, it would probably cost her at least one hour of the custodian work for that fast food. Adding up bus fees, I don’t think she has much left for her 2 to 3 hours office cleaning part time work.

Things we can do or have some control

Be kind to others.

Also, trust but verify. Refer to my old car accident: 最倒霉的一次, 过绿灯时车被一个黑人撞了(估计是急着去上班). 跟她说好大家把车都停到加油站, 结果她趁机跑掉. 第二天自己当了一回侦探把她抓到, 她又没有买保险.

Resiliency

Teach our kids right: to be expanded

YouTube Videos

Or those problems may have existed 27 years ago? Look at the PBS documentary by Bill Moyer Two American Families: 1991-2024 (full documentary) | FRONTLINE below.

Also another one The Working Poor | The Price of the American Dream | ENDEVR Documentary made by ENDEVRDocs. This reminds me of the Movie The_Florida_Project that I watched a while ago.

To be watched for me: PBS Left Behind

What’s Being Hidden: Questions persist in deadly Amazon warehouse tornado investigation

Why I am living in my car/suv

Last but not least: today’s YT video I took when I was doing morning walk at the Stacy Park

Odds and Ends

A while back, I do some travel for work. And also, it was post 9-11, airlines were trying to charge people for checking in luggage. So, what happens is people check in the luggage at the gate, because for smaller airplanes, we cannot carry on large carry on or luggage anyway, note that doesn’t cost money. For a while, especially in cold winter, when we got off the airplane, and waited there for the luggage. I would think: are we at a developing country? Somehow that left me impression.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance advice and tips Edu-and-Ladue-School kids

More on 529 plans

Reading Time: 2 minutes

About 14 or 15 years ago when my old daughter was new born, I saved some money and put it into her 529 plan. About a year later, I wrote this blog post Some questions about 529 plan.

I haven’t put in much new money into her 529 plan since the early days, and for our younger daughter I did open an account for her, but I only put in couple hundreds dollars. I know I know: but it’s not because we favorite one daughter over another. It’s mostly because the money is tight, and I think 529 plan had one downside: the money can only be used for higher education (college etc.). For me flexibility is important as I was also thinking about retirement – I mean quitting my 9 to 5 job, and potentially do something else I would enjoy more: and potentially with a smaller paycheck too.

529 plan had some change to the rules recently. This is a big one: You can now transfer some 529 amounts to a Roth IRA.

Note I am late to the Roth IRA party too. Actually I opened a Roth IRA (my first) at Robinhood App last year (after the tax day). So my one year anniversary will come up this April 🙂

College cost, along with healthcare cost and housing are top three most expensive things Americans pay in last 20+ years. If there is anything we can alleviate or do, we should.

Traditionally I am under impression as in America 18 year old is considered adult (or beginning of adulthood), American parents share some college cost with the kids, in general or on average. I have seen two extremes: parents pay all; parents pay nothing. I also saw two kinds of students too: those who work hard and do their best; those who quit and had to drop their classes or get an “F”.

There is no one size fit all for the college cost (sharing cost, or not) among all the families. For me personally, I would try my best to pay off my kids (I have two) college cost (tuition plus living cost). Anything they earn: scholarship, part time job are icing on the cake.

That’s the main motivation factor behind my investing and uber driving (or other side gigs, ideally $500 an hour consulting will work out better 🙂

FAQs

Do I have to open 529 plan in my state (the state I live in)?

No. See this Answers to Questions about 529 Plans in Different States for longer answer.

What state plan do you recommend?

Ohio 529 collegeadvantage plan. Sorry show me state 🙂 Also you may want to look at the answer to the next question.

What are the best 529 plans in 2025?

Forbes thinks those are the best.

What if my kid is already in high school?

Better late than never in terms of saving. However, you do need to think about the investment options, your tolerance for risk and market volatility, etc. I know for my better half (my wife), she is pretty much risk averse, and hates volatility. So in those cases, you may consider the bond investment options vs. stock mutual fund.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance advice and tips gadgets

Cheaper iPhone deals

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I’m talking about the unlocked iPhones. Because I don’t think the carrier promotions are “cheap” in the sense they usually make the money back from the monthly fees, and then more.

I can think of a few places, some are probably cheaper, but I am not 100% sure about the quality (especially the battery life for the refurbished iPhones). Below are the two places that I trust.

New iPhones at Apple, SE and 14 are two cheaper choices. Personally I think 15 or 16 are probably the better deals.

If one has the Chase sapphire or freedom credit cards and has some Ultimate Rewards (UR) points to spare, from time to time they have promotions for Apple products in the redemption center. It’s another way to get brand new iPhone. Note this may not be the most cost effective way to burn the UR points. But if they do promotion: it means 1 point is worth 1.25 cent during the redemption. If you travel, and could use the UR points, try to use the points there as 1 point is usually worth 2 cents or more there.

Personally I have used UR points for a few iPhones in last few years.

Refurbished

In the order of quality guarantee (top to bottom).

Refurbished iPhone at Apple: it seems they don’t have a lot of iPhones in stock now. Most are the larger or pro models (which are usually more expensive).

Other two places I am aware of refurbished iPhone: eBay and Amazon.

This somewhat reminds me of the preowned certified Toyotas I bought in year 2013 and year 2022.

Insurance

Do we need insurance? I usually insure it by myself (you may read this post if you have some time). Personally if I need insurance: I would buy from Apple instead of the carrier.

But this again reminds me of the one time I bought the “extended warranty” for my 2012 Toyota Sienna (preowned certified) from the dealer. Most of those are not necessary. In the case of iPhone, no pun intended, buy a good case from Amazon is probably the only insurance you need.

Comparing iPad Air and regular iPad – Update 01-04-2025

deals (dealsea iPad) – I end up bought the 11-inch iPad Air from Amazon. It should come in about 10 days and I plan to use it for Kindle, Apple Intelligence etc.

Reddit – iPad Air vs iPad

Google – iPad Air vs iPad

Apple – Compare iPad Models

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Fun

I have 526 shares of Coca-Cola stocks now

Reading Time: < 1 minute

And my goal is to have 40,000 shares eventually (before I fully retire).

I realized I have 400 shares recently as I noticed my IRA account recently received $194 quarterly dividend （48.5 cents per share). 我有四百股 $KO: 因为我注意到前两天发了$194 的红利. 伯克希尔有四亿股：巴菲特代表股东拿了$194 m 的红利。

So, if I need to retire on the dividends from Coca-Cola stocks. I need to have more shares: ideally 40,000 shares. That way, I would have $19,400 in dividends each quarter: or about $6,467 a month

Also refer to my Substack post today for dividend-based investing.

(Update 12-21-2024) Added 20 more shares yesterday 12-20-2024

(Update 01-06-2025) I have 630 shares of $KO now.

(Update 01-16-2025) 660 shares as of today.

(Update 02-10-2025) 680 shares as of today. Separately today I just learned Coca Cola owns Fair life milk: and my kids only drink this milk. I believe $KO will announce earning tomorrow morning.

(Update 02-11-2025) Coca-Cola beat earnings expectations as it battles for market share with PepsiCo

Categories
401k and Personal Finance advice and tips

Avoid the traps aka the financial fraud

Reading Time: 3 minutes

(Update 02-16-2026) Scam on rye: The inside story of a $100 million deli fraud – I recall this saga.

(Update 12-30-2025) Reuters – Trump’s funding cuts put America’s consumer watchdog on the brink of collapse. Quote a bit here (below):

Warren said that as a law professor studying bankruptcy she saw that consumer protections were weak and fragmented, and that America needed a single federal agency dedicated to protecting consumers from unfair, deceptive and abusive practices.
“I was stunned by the number of people in financial trouble who had lost a job or got sick but who had also been cheated by one or more of their creditors,” she told Reuters. “For no agency was consumer protection a first priority, it was somewhere between fifth and tenth, which meant there was just no cop on the beat. If the CFPB is not there, people have nowhere to turn when they get cheated.”

Personally, I feel the lack of personal finance knowledge, as well as bad math, are contributing factors for people getting into financial trouble.

(Update 11-08-2025) Couple loses $180,000 from retirement savings after accounts hacked. I suggest avoiding the TastyTrade company mentioned in the article. That’s also one reason I am a bit skeptical of upstart like Robinhood App. It appears though Robinhood has decent security measures in their app.

(Update Dec-16-2024) The fintech company that collapsed and took $90 million of people’s life savings with it: The collapse and bankruptcy of fintech middleman Synapse in May has left more than 100,000 Americans locked out of a collective $90 million of their own money, prompting a class action lawsuit. (I don’t know how much money can be recovered for the victims though).

(Original) One downside of the free speech in this country, is one can hear or see all kinds of shenanigans or “God damned lies” on TV (both network and cables), on radio, and the latest and greatest the social medias.

Examples of financial frauds in America I read today 11-22-2024 Friday:

CNBC: ‘I have no money’: Thousands of Americans see their savings vanish in Synapse fintech crisis : this one has impact to thousands of people. Here is a YouTube video that explains the situation – Yotta Bank & The Problem with Fintech! It’s somewhat to see Joe Rogan and Marc Andreessen talking about this. Note the Synapse was backed by the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. This is confirmed at their website too. Fat cats usually get away in this country, btw. Talk about Marc Andreessen, personally I felt he is full fledge MAGA now (google is marc andreessen maga).

Synapse is a Andreeseen Horowitz company

Google search “treasury department warning on yotta”.

WSJ: ‘I Don’t Know Where to Turn or What to Do.’ His $763,094 Retirement Fund Is in Limbo. subtitle: Richard Whitacre transferred his entire 401(k) into an account offering a ‘guaranteed’ 15.25% return. Will he ever see his money again?

(This probably is rare, but I suggest to avoid it) An investor says he put 98% of his retirement funds in Trump Media stock and won’t bail because Trump has a ‘secret’ plan. Since the Enron and WorldCom debacle, many companies started to remove company stock as an investment choice in 401k plans. Personally I think it’s a wise choice. In fact, I noticed the company I used to work for, Siemens, did divest my Siemens stocks (not a lot), and put it in a target date portfolio. Not all companies are doing that though: e.g., I know Arch Coal (now Arch Resources after the emergence post bankruptcy), used to offer the company stock in its 401k plan – note that stock became useless when it went through bankruptcy about 10 years ago. GE had similar issues: it didn’t go through bankruptcy, but at one time its stock went down a lot before its eventually company split (the original company was split into 3 companies).

中国企业家3千万美元搭上川普 获邀任顾问 : don’t just walk, run away from this guy and World Liberty Financial if you could. I remember Warren Buffett famously said he won’t pay $25 for all of the bitcoins. But he was duped by this 孙宇晨（Justin Sun）guy – when Warren was just trying to raise money for charity.

Major’s Rule Number 1

If something is too good to be true: IT IS A LIE e.g.: ‘guaranteed’ 15.25% return (annually?) – Run not just walk, when you hear this kind of guaranteed return.

Major’s Rule Number 2

Refer to rule number 1

PS: my YT podcast on the same topic, in Mandarin Chinese.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Life Tips

Goby Toothbrush

Reading Time: 2 minutes

My 14 year old (when she was almost 14) decided to switch to this electric toothbrush given by the Orthodontist office and after a while she wanted to order the replacement toothbrush heads. This is not the most common electric toothbrush and I had to order the replacement heads at the their official website.

But they didn’t ship after taking my money (via Paypal and CC).

Finally I recalled that they did’t ship, but I cannot get money back because it’s past 6 month or 180 days. I did disputed via Paypal. Below is the reply from Paypal:

We have reviewed this transaction(s) and are denying your case(s). Cases must be filed within 180 days from the date of the transaction. The decision to deny was made because the case was submitted after the 180-day deadline. Therefore, we are unable to offer a resolution toward this matter at this time.

It seems for credit card; the protection is only 2 months or 60 days. Here’s how long you have to dispute a credit card charge via CNBC:

Federal law only protects cardholders for a limited time — 60 days to be exact — after a fraudulent or incorrect charge has been made. Thankfully I noticed the billing error within a few days of it posting to my account and started the dispute process right away.

This probably explains why I don’t see a “dispute” option in my CC website.

I haven’t been to situation like this for a while. I don’t see a “contact us” on the merchant website either. I am not too upset about it due to the relatively small amount: $22.50. Thought something to keep in mind if we shop online and didn’t receive the item.

Also, just saw this thread at Reddit. Copied/pasted one comment here:

Related to this thread, it looks like they are going under. I have not received a replacement head since July of last year but I continue to be billed for it. The website features that allow you to cancel or modify your subscription or delete your payment information are disabled. I contacted them and received an auto response that they are not responding to messages “due to unforseen operational issues”. I reported the charges to my credit card and also reported them to the BBB, where you can see a ton of others have reported similar issues.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance finance Investing

Robinhood

Reading Time: 2 minutes
Source: TrungTPhan on X (I think there are some valuable lessons that’s applicable to trading / investing here)

I used Robinhood App since year 2015, when they just got started. To be honest, I was drawn to them initially by the zero commission feature.

My experience with Robinhood over the years

I think Robinhood has some features I like, in addition to the zero comission feature that it pioneered in the industry. It also helped me to gain more confidence on trading stocks, especially between 2015 and 2019. Note in the early days Robinhood is probably the only brokerage firm to offer zero commission. Over the time, other brokerage forms followed suit too.

Other features I like:

  1. They try to make the app fun to use, so in a way lighten things a bit such as doing some sort of confetti when a trade is submitted or executed, because trading stock actually has some pressure comes with it, believe it or not;
  2. Once a stock is sold, the money is available to trade on the same day, as long as one does not sold it again on the same day. Day trading is somewhat complex and confusing in the US stock market. They do have a 3 strike rule: basically one cannot do more than 3 day trades over a week (5 days period). I got myself into this small trouble a few times, and I wait patiently until all 3 blocks expire.
  3. Their app’s stability improved significantly over the years. For example, in today’s morning session, many bigger traditional brokerages had encountered issues on either website or apps, but Robinhood App did fine.

Referral

Sign up for Robinhood with my link and we’ll both pick our own gift stock 🎁

Update (01-20-2025) Amid recent Robinhood’s push into the Crypto etc., and also their gimmicks to sign up people or stir the interest (the new year promotion for example), I plan to gradually getting away from them. As some of my readers may know, I am not a believer of Crypto.

I understand business is for profit, but at the same time I do believe higher standards especially on ethics side. I believe in 君子爱财，取之有道.