Laundry before:

Laundry after:

It's a tough room to photograph because it's so narrow.

So this one is not a seminar but a free training course. It’s called ‘The Changing World of Retirement Planning’ and it’s taught on a local college campus. The course is two sessions, each one 3 hours (!). I received the invitation in the mail and I assume that I was targeted because of my age. The course is provided by two organizations: The National Society of Financial Educators and The Society for Financial Awareness. Is anyone familiar with these? The course is described at nsfe.org.

I’m hoping to get information that is useful to me and to evaluate my personal money management plans for the next few decades, tweaking them if it would be advantageous. The course includes a workbook.

These are the topics that the course outline includes:

1-Retiring in the 21st Century

2-Tax Rate Risk

3-Retirement Distribution Planning

4-Estate Planning

5-Maximizing Social Security

6-Mitigating Market Loss

7-Retirement Distribution Pitfalls

8-Long-term Care Planning

I am most interested in 3, 5, & 7.

I’m curious to see if anyone here has feedback or has taken this course. If not, I’ll share with you how it goes after I’ve done it!

As you may recall, I opened an IRA account with Fidelity and rolled my 401k into it a few months ago. I have to say, I’ve been impressed with Fidelity in the short time I’ve had the account. The website has been intuitive for investing and for making withdrawals.

This month I received an invitation from them to attend a free tax strategies webinar. It was informative and they didn’t push their advisory services hard, which was my only fear going in. [I’ve gotten so skeptical given my past experience with other financial institutions.] I took notes about information that could apply to me. It was eye-opening to see how many tax strategies did not apply to me. Things like establishing trusts to avoid estate taxes for estates above $15 million for example. What a nice problem to have!

In case it’s useful information for someone else, here are some notes I took down (US-based):

37% is still the top bracket

There is no change on taxes on SS (despite the proposal)

$2k deduction for charitable giving, itemization will not be required to take it

No tax on tips to $25k. No tax on car interest to $10k. SALT increased to $40k. None of these impacts me.

Exemption for gift tax is now set to $19k. $15m is the lifetime limit on gifts.

Standard deduction will be over $30k. (married filing jointly)

Consider impact of Roth conversions on IRMAA if age 63+

After age 70 ½ QCD to charities (must be public) count as part of RMD. This could reduce the AGI.

Reference to establishing primary residence for state taxes if more than one home during the year: days spent there, driver’s license, memberships. Show evidence of putting down roots.

A couple of days after that seminar, I helped DS5 set up a Roth IRA with Vanguard. It was a disaster. Because he’d had a brokerage account there as a child, they required that we call in to do it because he had to use his same profile. He couldn’t remember his login info. The number to call routed us to what I assume was a call center in India. The girl was difficult to understand and just read scripted statements. She put us on hold several times and during one of those times we were disconnected. In the end she told us that a form would be sent snail-mail for DS5 to complete and mail in. We each lost 1 ½ hours of our lives. It was maddening. After the call, we opened a Fidelity Roth for him online. It took 5 minutes.

That experience changed my plans for future retirement income. I have a small Vanguard Roth and I’d planned to do conversions from the Fidelity IRA to that account over the next 10 years. I liked (and still do) the idea of having more than one financial institution just in case of some future instability. Also, one rule for withdrawing earnings from a Roth is that the account must have been opened for at least 5 years. The Vanguard account was opened long ago. But I imagined myself with a significant amount of money in the Roth, having an account issue, and being forced to deal with an inexperienced call center in India. I know I would be livid. I’ve begun the process of creating a Roth IRA account (alongside the traditional IRA) at Fidelity. Perhaps conversions would be easier too?

Just when I think I have my finances closer to auto-pilot, I move the goal post! Ah well.

Kitchen done, laundry room to complete next week.

BEFORE

AFTER

The big change this week: the countertop was installed! The space seems bigger to me with the countertop in, which doesn’t make sense. I think it’s because the room feels so open.

The countertop company spent a couple of hours here for the installation. They had equipment to get the heavy thing(s) off the truck and into the kitchen, then they placed it, and then there was a smelly process to joining the two countertop slabs. The cut line is visible only if you look for it. I was worried that it’d bother me but it doesn’t at all.

Once the countertop was in, tasks that were dependent upon it were completed. The backsplash was finished, the sink was installed along with the garbage disposal though the contractor didn’t have the brushed nickel-colored button for the switch so that remains, and the stovetop was installed.

We are now using the kitchen!

And in the laundry room: The triangle closet in the laundry room behind the stove cabinet was finished. The lower trim was done on the cabinets. The walls were painted.

I made what think was the last design decision for me – the color for the laundry butcherblock counters. They will be stained. I chose a darker stain that I envisioned because it looked nice next to the light teal glass tile for the backsplash.

The contractor needed to leave early for family issues but I felt like plenty of big things were accomplished.

New stovetop described as "sick" by the younger generation

An assortment of tasks was completed this week.

++ The flooring transitions were installed between the kitchen ceramic tile and the dining room, foyer, and basement openings.

++ The laundry closet door – a pocket door – was installed.

++ The cabinet toe-kicks (lower trim) were finished.

++ Beadboard was installed on the two walls in the laundry room. I wish I’d had this when the boys were young – it’s so much easier to keep clean than sheetrock.

++ The dishwasher was installed and we used/tested it! But without a sink the prework still had to be done outside.

++ All cabinet shelves in both rooms were installed.

++ The mudding & sanding in the laundry room in preparation for painting walls was done.

++ The wall cleats in the corner behind stove were installed to support the countertop to come.

++ The washer and dryer connections were lowered so they won’t be visible once the appliances and the counter above them are in.

++ The spice cabinet inserts and the pull-out shelf for a lower cabinet were installed. I am so thankful that the contractor offered to do this for me. The pull-out shelf instructions looked complicated and some of the spice shelves required cutting to fit. I’m proud of the spice cabinet – I wanted one set up so that I can see all the spices at once without rifling through layers of containers.

I received a bit of bad financial news on the project this week. The countertop company mistakenly based their pricing on the stove being a freestanding appliance rather than built-in. Because it is built-in, the countertop needs to go around it. As (bad) luck would have it, this change was enough to require a second slab of the quartz and that has an additional cost of nearly $3000. Ouch. There was no point in getting upset – it’s the reality of the situation. From sewing I’ve done in the past, I understand the concept of arranging the pieces to cut out on the fabric and knowing when more material is required. I know they weren’t trying to snooker me and I surely wasn’t trying to be sneaky with them. Just a miscommunication. The woman at the countertop company thanked me multiple times for taking the news so well and that made me wonder what reaction she’s accustomed to receiving.

This was the week of the floors. All the tiling was done for both the kitchen and laundry room. The tiling continued from the family room that was done last year so now the flooring is the same throughout the three rooms.

When making decisions on tiling, there is more to consider than just the color & pattern of the tile itself. Fortunately, I already made these decisions a year ago so I didn’t need to add them to the list for this remodel.

There’s the size of the tile – I chose 1’x2’, a relatively large tile, so there would be less grout which in my experience is the toughest part to keep clean. Then there’s the pattern for laying the tile. I chose a herringbone pattern but laid at a right angle instead of a diagonal This was to break up the grout lines so there wasn’t a linear focus from one side of the room to the other. Then there’s the grout color. I chose a color similar to the tile color to minimize the contrast since I was going for an all-over stone look. It’s all personal preference depending upon the look you want to achieve and it’s amazing how one variable can affect the overall impact.