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I have written many posts about Roth IRAs and all the advantages of having a Roth. I have not updated these posts as the Roth IRA facts haven’t changed that much in the last 2 years. I felt it was time to talk about some of the changes for 2010 in the US tax code, and how some of these changes relate to the Roth IRA.
Our government spent a ton of money in 2009 and you know they are thinking about raising taxes as the liberals always think that they can take more of our money when they need it. With this in mind, I think it is likely that taxes are going to go up in the next few years, whether that is what they are saying or not.
1. The major change for 2010 is the lifting of the income restrictions allowing more people to convert other retirement accounts to a Roth IRA. This is great news for many people who made too much money to have a Roth IRA. You have to consider whether you can “afford” to do this, as you have to pay taxes on the conversions. Many people who want to do this are thinking that taxes will go up in the future, so it’s better to pay them now. That is a choice that is up to you. This becomes effective January 1, 2010.
Of course, how soon you need the funds is a big consideration also. Funds that you roll over to a Roth IRA must remain in the account for five years.
2. Anyone with earned income can contribute to a Roth IRA. Eligibility begins to get phased out for single taxpayers with an adjusted gross income above $105,000 and married taxpayers above $166,000. This is something to keep in mind. You can put in $5,000 in 2009. (plus an extra $1,000 if you’re age 50 or older).
3. Contributions are not tax-deductible. Withdrawals are tax free! That is the key for Roth IRAs. As long as you are 59.5 years old and have had the money in there for 5 years. You don’t have to take the money out by 70.5 either. You can will the Roth to your kids.
4. Finally , why is it called a Roth? It is named after Senator William Roth who was instrumental in getting the legislation approved.
Okay, so you are tired of paying the dentists so much money for your family, but you know how important it is to take care of your teeth. I was in the same place as you. My teeth have always been a problem. I think I was born with teeth that were prone to cavities, so I spent a lot of my youth having a dental drill in my mouth. Now that I am older, many of those fillings now need more attention, such as crowns, root canals, etc. This is so expensive! I have Aetna as my primary insurance and they have a “fee schedule” for dental work, but it is still expensive. That is when I found Dentalplans.com. I have used them many times since. I confess I sometimes allow my plan to lapse, but I recently signed up with them again. I needed a root canal, and I knew it was going to be expensive. I also remembered that Dentalplans.com had saved me money in the past, so I checked them out again. They came through again. I can’t remember the specifics, but I saved about 100.00 ( after I had paid for the years plan)!! I like that kind of savings. Now I have the plan for a year and if I need any more work done it will be cheaper. You really cannot go wrong.
Here are some things to be aware of.
1. Dentalplans.com won’t give you the actual fee schedule until you sign up. Then you may have to ask your dentist for it, or ask your dentist to look it up. They usually save you significant money, but for some reason, they don’t want to publish the schedules. This annoyed me but I got over it. I found that I did save money and they have a money back guarantee, so what the heck.
2. Check to be sure your dentist has the plan you sign up for. This is important unless you don’t mind going to a new dentist. You may want to call your dentist office to make certain.
3.  It is not an insurance plan, it is a discounted fee plan. You will receive most dental services at a discount. They have more than 30 national and regional plans with more than 100,000 participating dentist listings in combined networks.
4. You can join most plans and go to the dentist 2-3 days later! It’s that quick! I found that to be a very big benefit, and pre-existing conditions are covered.
I forgot to mention that I got a plan from them when my son needed braces and I saved about 2000 $ that year! You can really save on orthodontics with these plans.
The advantages of discount dental plans include:
* Savings of 10% to 60% on most dental procedures
* Join online instantly and enjoy quick plan activation
* Easy-to-use search tools and plan comparison charts
* Qualified Customer Service Representatives to assist you
* No unnecessary paperwork hassles
* Discounts on dental specialties available with most plans
* No health restrictions
So that is my review of Dentalplans.com. I wholeheartedly recommend it to my friends and family, and I use them. You will save money. Enjoy.
In today’s economy people are looking for any way possible to save a few bucks. One way to save a lot of money is to shop for the cheapest auto insurance online. The best place I have found to get cheap full coverage car insurance is cheap-autoinsurance.com.
To get the best price on auto insurance you need to search around and compare the quotes of multiple auto insurance companies. Not only do most online insurance sites provide their competitors average prices but, shopping online saves you the gas money and the wasted time of driving to your local insurance broker. It also relieves a lot of the pressure of a face-to-face meeting. For example, if I went to my local broker to look for a cheap auto insurance policy, he would likely try to sell me a house insurance policy as well. Before I know it, I’m stuck with million dollar car and house insurance policy that I don’t need.
Shopping online for cheap full coverage car insurance will help you avoid being pressured into a certain car insurance company by relatives, friends, or coworkers. Many times these well meaning people in your lives think they are doing you a favor by “insisting” that you use their company. This is where cheap-autoinsurance.com can really help. When you go to their site, you just enter your zipcode and it anonymously lists the top four car insurance companies in your area. It even provides the best things each choice has to offer in an easy to read list format. A link is provided to quickly get quotes from each of the four auto insurance companies. You can use these quotes to pick cheap auto liability insurance that works for YOU! It really streamlines the process of searching for multiple car insurance companies to make it as quick and painless as possible.
So save some time and a bunch of money by comparing cheap auto insurance online.
Glenn Beck had this video illustrating the real truth behind the printing of all this money. If you don’t understand it, when we “print money” and dump it into the system, it devalues the money already in the system. What our government is doing now is so overboard it’s scary. Get involved, and let’s stop Congress from selling us out!
Watch this video and you will understand better what is happening.
It is time I did another review of a great product that I found and use. I have 2 boys, (who have now grown to young men) and I have always been concerned about the porn and all the other bad stuff they could get into with an unfiltered connection to the internet.
I tried many stand alone products that I had to load onto their computers and nothing was very satisfactory. Finally, I have found something that works, and while it’s a little late for me, maybe you can get a lot of benefit from it. I don’t know how long it will be FREE, but for now it is.
So take advantage of Opendns.com. They are free, and I don’t get paid to tell you about them,( just a disclaimer for the suspicious). There is one key thing you need to know about this service and this is what makes them so good for me. This is a router based service. If you don’t know what a router is, you have some homework to do. Most families these days will have a router, heck most everyone with an internet connection in the US probably has a router. If you have more than one computer in your house, and especially if you have ‘wireless’ internet, you have a router. The router takes all of the internet traffic and funnels the requests for webpages to your internet provider. This is where Opendns does the magic. They give you some numbers to insert into your router that cause all the internet traffic to go their site, where they filter it, then send it on. (I am intentionally trying to keep this simple, the numbers are Domain nameservers but you don’t need to worry about that.)
It happens very quick and seamlessly for you. I was so impressed with the speed. You won’t see any difference in your web surfing, it can actually be faster with their service. You have to create a free account on their site, then you can decide the ‘amount’ of filtering you want. You can choose to filter only a couple of types of sites, or you can really lock it down and aggressively filter. It is up to you.
You must try this service if you are looking for a way to protect your children from the incredibly bad side of the internet.
It works so well, that is the word gets out on this, I suppose many of the current suppliers of software you have to pay for will be out of business. And why pay for something when these people are offering such a great free service?
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About Mack
Sometimes counting your change is a great money maker. A play on words - how YOU change is what counts. Helping you make wise financial decisions and helping you keep more of the money you make is what this site is about.
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