About Me

jIM

I am a 35yo married and father of twins. I will update the photos once in a while. They were born 3 months early in March of 2008 and went through a tough first 4 months. They are now doing well.

Retirement checkpoints
( ) $1.5 M needed age 53 2026
( ) $750k needed age 45 2018
( ) $375k needed age 37 2010
( ) $180k needed age 29 2002

I had 200k before the drop in 2008. I need to set aside around 200k in next 2.5 years to get early retirement.

[ ] max 401k for me
[ ] max 401k for wife
[x] max Roth for me
[x] max Roth for wife
[x] start taxable portfolio
[ ] 3 months expenses in EF
[ ] 9 months expenses in taxable account
[ ] open college savings account for kids
[ ] dividend income equals half of annual expenses
[ ] pay off 2nd mortgage by 2013
[ ] pay off 1st mortgage by 2026
[ ] finance next car for 3 years or less
[ ] pay cash for my next car around 2016
[ ] start a TIPs 10 year bond ladder by 2016.

Tax course day 1

September 13th, 2008 at 02:28 pm

I took my first 6 hour tax course today at a popular tax preperation company.

The instructor knew his tax return. I must say his investment advice went against the pet peeves I see all the time on the internet.

The advice was a person in the 33 or 28% bracket to contribute to a Roth and the person in the 15% bracket to not contribute to an IRA at all.

I got both federal returns correct in the workbook and screwed up the same line on both Ohio state returns.

Course also shed some light on saving some money on Ohio return. Anxious to see if that tip helps us. Stay tuned.

Posted in retirement | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Tax course day 1”

gamecock43 Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 03:12 pm

I took a tax course to be a preparer! I took it because it was free and at the time I was learning it confused me really badly- but now when I do my taxes every year things are a bit clearer. I remember all the deductions for driving miles/school credits and such. It's the "if you made more than $30,000 but less than $34,000 last year place a 1 in the box. Now add up lines 14-19 plus line 21 and place the total in line 31." that stuff confuses me.
fruitbowlk Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 03:56 pm

I was thinking about doing a tax course class myself.
sillyoleme Says:
September 14th, 2008 at 05:18 pm

I took half a course when I was in college. It was free except for the workbooks that you had to purchase, and I actually learned alot. That was back when I thought I was going to be a tax attorney!

jIM_Ohio is Investing to retire early

Instead of making retirement a question, make it a sport- can I do it and how fast?

Tax course day 1

3 Responses to “Tax course day 1”

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