It's almost annual health care benefit enrollment time and I've been mulling an HSA (Health Savings Account) post for just this occasion. I'll lead with my heavily reworked HSA spreadsheet and graph. Story follows. My first HSA experiment began in 2011 and lasted all of 2.33 years. This experiment was doomed from the start but … Continue reading A Tale of Two HSAs

Lately I've been mourning the loss of Locast - my favorite legally questionable TV streaming service. Locast wasn't even available in our DMA (Designated Market Area) but thanks to some stupid VPN tricks I was able to cherry pick which broadcast NFL games to watch. Location spoofing allowed us to root for Mrs. Dress Pockets' … Continue reading The Power of Small Wins

I was scrolling by cnbc.com earlier this week when the following article caught my eye: House Democrats propose new retirement plan rules for the rich, including contribution limits and a repeal of Roth conversions. An end to backdoor Roth IRA and mega backdoor Roth 401k conversions? Panic? Nah. Turn off the lights the party's over? … Continue reading Death and Taxes

[talking on the phone]  And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this … Continue reading Office Space

Like clockwork, The Finance Buff has crunched the inflation numbers and has predicted the 2022 401k 403b 457 TSP IRA FSA HSA Contribution Limits before the IRS publishes the official limits in October/November. 401k/403b/457 employee contribution limits will go from $19,500 to $20,500 +1k. In our household, we have one of each so that's +3k … Continue reading Start your 2022 savings engines

When I was a kid I used to get pretty excited to watch both the winter and summer Olympic Games. While my enthusiasm for all competitive athletics has waned as I got older, I'm sure I'll glance at a medal count, news article or perhaps an event or two on the TV. Having read The … Continue reading Investing Olympics

Over the last few years I've dabbled in using spreadsheets to track some historical account data. I have separate sheets for my Roth IRA, 401k and HSA accounts and they have slowly evolved from tracking nothing but my annual contributions and year end balances to employer match, dividends, and after tax contribution to Roth conversion … Continue reading Quarter Century Club

I always liked Jim Collins's what we own and why we own it blog posts. So in that vein, here is the Mr. & Mrs. Dress Pockets breakdown excluding cash and 529 college savings. Overall our Simple Path to Wealth portfolio has two primary components: VTSAX and VBTLX (or their many equivalents). Keep it simple … Continue reading What we own? Asset Allocation

I ran into a friend this week that I hadn't seen in many moons and he asked how the FIRE thing was going? At first I thought he was asking about our local FIRE club and I said it's sort of on ice at the moment. But then he clarified his question, "No, how is … Continue reading Moving Goalposts

May 1st brought along a 2.71% cost of living salary increase. I decided to round up and increase my 401k before tax deferral from 20% to 25%. Yay for less take home pay. This means I'll be cash flow negative for a few months but the upside is that I'll hit the $19,500 401k deferral … Continue reading 2021 Savings Goals