You know, it’s actually pretty simple. Avoid buying large trucks with over-engineered tailgates to get you to and from the office. Take a pass on the $500,000 cookie-cutter house in the suburb that looks exactly like your neighbors’. Say no to the $150 monthly CrossFit membership fees. Dodge the $5,000 emergency room bills (with the help of Max OOP). The byproduct of several reasonable decisions over time is usually an obnoxious amount of money left...
Max Out of Pocket has a question for you. Do you have any clue how much you pay into the Medicare program out of every paycheck? I mean come on, what else do you have to worry about on a Saturday afternoon? Well, a big piece of the answer is in your FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) payroll taxes. It is an important concept to understand before we get too far into your domination...
I got one of those “just a friendly reminder” emails at work the other day from corporate. These usually quickly make their way to my trash bin, but this one caught my eye. It said, “don’t miss out on your $$$$”. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Max likes dollar signs. I guess working for a living does have its perks from time to time. Many employers, and especially hospitals, offer benefits outside of...
Okay, the title technically doesn’t make much sense, but you get the idea. I write this from a beautiful resort in northern New England overlooking the mountains. I just took a nice dip in the hot tub and plan to relax for the rest of the evening. One of the perks of working in Healthcare finance is you sometimes get to go to fancy conferences and listen to people talk about insurance premiums, deductibles, and...
There is no telling what my Human Resource department thinks of me. They finally stopped asking questions about my erratic 403(b) retirement contribution requests and just process them now as is. I changed my contribution from 85% of my salary to my upper limit of 87% for several pay periods while I was front-loading. Then down to 19%. For yesterday’s check, I went all the way down to a 3% retirement contribution. It will likely...