Ellen Rinaldi has held a variety of leadership positions since joining Vanguard in 1997. At present, she serves in our Planning and Development division, where she is responsible for protecting client information, among other key responsibilities.
Do you have a tax refund coming? Some would say it means you over-withheld and should have paid less last year. Others look at it as a non-interest-bearing savings account. I’d look at it as an opportunity to improve your financial picture and prepare for the next inevitable downturn—whether it happens next week, next month, or five years from now.
Another tax filing season has come to an end. You might have used an online service like TurboTax, enlisted the aid of a tax professional, or, as some of us still do, used paper and pencil and good old-fashioned arithmetic.
So, where is your 2009 tax information right now? Has it made its way to the basement to reside with returns from previous years? Did you store it on a secure data server? While keeping your old tax records organized is admirable, learning from them is even better. That’s why I encourage you to take another look at your 2009 return to see what might be gleaned from it—and maybe start making decisions that could benefit you in 2010.
Now that Roth IRA conversions are available to people who previously hadn’t been eligible, there’s been quite a spike in coverage. However, the spotlight should probably be focused more on those who can have a Roth, but as yet do not. Read more »
I had the chance to listen to Dan Heath recently. He’s the coauthor, with his brother Chip, of Switch, a new book about making changes. I’d read their last book, Made to Stick, and thought their conclusions were valuable, so I was looking forward to Dan’s talk.
I’ve been watching the U.S. consumer savings rate climb. It’s been heartening to witness the ascent past 5% on its way to perhaps 7%. Any way you look at it, this is a welcome—if not critical—change in our financial/economic behavior.
I started digging into how this rate is computed and asked a few of our resident economists for some explanation. As a result, I don’t feel quite as good about the savings rate as I did, but I understand the basis for it much better.
