Recent posts tagged ‘credit cards’

For those of you who watch or have heard of the hit series “Mad Men,” you’ll know that the show provides an interesting story line, some fascinating characters, and great commentary on the social mores and gender differences of the late ’50s and early ’60s.

I’ve been watching lately with an eye toward the financial side of life in that era. There are no credit cards to speak of—Don Draper, the main character, peels off cold cash when he asks his secretary to buy Christmas presents for his children. This is pre-401(k)s and IRAs, and Don and his band of not-so-merry marketers left behind whatever pensions they had coming to them when they broke with their old advertising agency to go out on their own. There is little if any dialogue concerning personal investing at all.

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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.

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