Recession is Over? Beef Up Your 401(k)

It sure has been easy to get financially unhinged over the last year. With doomsayers predicting financial Armageddon, you may have been inclined to stuff every extra buck in your mattress. Or, if you are managing to add to your bottom line, maybe you’ve been buying gold and hiding it in your mother’s basement, along with flashlights, bottled water, and cans of tuna. Read More »

Can Quicken Keep Up With These Salaries?

I’m usually pretty stoked as the baseball season gets into full swing right about now. (Disclaimer: On Opening Day, I wear a full Boston Red Sox uniform to work. It’s a long-time tradition, so watch out, Yankees fans.) Read More »

Find a Penny, Save a Million

In a sign of the times, educators in Florida are trying to collect 2.6 million pennies – one for each student in the state – to make a point about the plight of education on the steps of the Florida state Capitol. The plan has had some kinks, namely, the heft of 2.6 million pennies – about 15,000 pounds. Oh, and also, the “lint and household goo” that comes along with that many pennies being out of circulation for that long. Read More »

Stimulus Trilogy: Buying the Big Stuff

Welcome in my house

For the last part of our Stimulus Package Trilogy (see How Stimulated Will You Be? and Top 5 Ways I’m Spending My Stimulus Package to get caught up if you haven’t been following), I’m going to let you in on some tips about how The government’s stimulus package is offering some nifty tax incentives for big purchases—like homes. Here’s a quick breakdown: Read More »

Stimulus Trilogy: Top 5 Ways I'm Spending My Stimulus Package

Yesterday, I talked a little about the Stimulus Act in my first post of three in this week’s Stimulus Trilogy. Starting this spring, many Americans are going to get an extra $30-$40 in their paychecks due to the $787 billion government stimulus package. Here’s how I’d like to spend the extra dough:

1. Three large pizzas. I may eat them all myself, or may share them. It depends how hungry I am.
2. One ticket to see the Red Sox play the Angels in Anaheim. That’s right, I’ll go alone. I’m socially aloof enough to do that.
3. Forty downloads from iTunes. I’m hopelessly out of touch with hip urbanite music, so give me your suggestions here.
4. Four trips to four different museums. I think most of the museums here in San Diego where I’m based cost about that, but I’m not sure. I need some cultural revitalization.
5. Forty bucks worth of my favorite chocolate from the Wilbur Chocolate factory in Lititz, PA. This I will share with my co-workers (particularly if I eat all those pizzas).

Can you top this? What will you do with the money? Or is it too little too late?

Stimulus Trilogy: How Stimulated Will You Be?

This is the first of a Stimulus Trilogy, a series of three guest posts by Intuit’s own Bob Bobala, personal finance guru and former Motley Fool editor-in-chief. When Bob isn’t busy doing his real job – trying to help small businesses save all they can on taxes – he enjoys a rousing game of Ping-Pong, his guitar, and chiming in on the Quicken blog.

Grass roots economic stimulus

CC Image Source: Kristal Kraft

One of the provisions of the government’s $787 billion stimulus package is cash back directly into your pocket in the form of a 6.2% tax credit for 2009 and 2010. That sounds great, but don’t book your flight to Tahiti just yet. The max single taxpayers will get will each year be $400 ($800 for married couples), and if you make over $95,000 ($190,000 for joint filers) you’ll get zilch. Put another way, it looks like the stimulus will give most Americans an extra $8 a week. Need a little cheer? Here are some additional ways you might save on your 2009 tax return because of the stimulus.

The rest of us will start getting about $30 to $40 a month in extra take-home pay this spring. The nice thing is you don’t have to do anything. Your employer will change its tax withholding from your paycheck automatically. That makes it easy, but if you’re not paying attention you might not notice the extra cash is even there. So let’s think about what we’re going to do with this money.

The government wants us to spend it, of course. This is “stimulus” cash after all. But you can be just as good an American by putting it in one of the many high-yield savings accounts available online (easy to open) or use it to pay down your credit card debt, especially if you’re carrying a card with a high interest rate.

Of course, with the way things are going out there, you may need that extra money just to put food on the table. We’d like to know what you’ll use the extra scratch for. Necessities, savings or a little fun? Just how stimulating do you think $40 per month is? Let us know in the comments and stay tuned for more on the stimulus from Bob.