Using your 2023 benefit funds before they time out
Many of the benefits you have through your employer have time constraints on them. Before your new benefits begin January 1, 2024, if you have any limited use funds, they will disappear after December 31st. Now is the time to spend them! What are limited use funds, that need to…
Test to Treat: COVID-19 treatment in Minnesota
I already published about the newly expanded federal program that rolled out nation-wide last week, to a limited set of recipients, providing testing and treatment for COVID-19 and the flu. But that program’s limited set of recipients didn’t include your average working American. Fortunately for those of us in Minnesota,…
Test to Treat – Nationwide and free to Medicare recipients
An average American couple at age 65 in 2023 may need approximately $315k saved and earmarked to grow just for health care expenses in retirement. With the onset of COVID-19 and a summer of Canadian wildfire smoke that plagued Minnesota and many other northern parts of the country, masks, testing,…
Community Build – reviewing scholarship applications
There are so many ways to build your community. Measure Twice Planners memberships provide the funding for full ride scholarship for the CFP classes. Two to three times a year a Scholarship Board works with Cody to select recipients out of the applicant pool for these needs-based scholarships. As a…
Just because it’s small, doesn’t mean it’s not worth preserving
It can be hard to get started with investing. It doesn’t feel like much, it grows so slowly, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to add up to anything worth while. And you may feel like the only one trying to do anything. But we can draw analogies to nature,…
Do you know the 2024 tax-related contribution limits?
More and more of the 2024 tax related numbers have been released by the IRS throughout 2023. Here are those thresholds. Still need the 2023 thresholds? You can find those here. These numbers were released earlier this year Self HSA contribution – $4150 (up from $3850) Family coverage HSA contribution…
January is the new December – FAFSA deadlines for 2023 aka 2024
It wasn’t all that long ago that I posted this: However, instead of December 1st, the new timeline for the “2023” opening of the FAFSA form for those who will be college next fall is now December 31st; effectively January 2024. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more…
Student loan administrative forbearance – the student loan pause continues for some
If you have federal student loans, your required loan payments may not have resumed in October as originally scheduled. Instead, your loan servicer may have set your payment to $0, and put you in administrative forebearance. What is administrative forbearance? Administrative forbearance is a status a servicer may put you…
Jumping on a moving train – a metaphor
As a data scientist, I’m often brought into a research study after it’s been in motion for months or years. Similarly, financial planners don’t start life with you, they join you when you are already well along in life. These two situations have a lot in common – the situations…