Despite the fact that I literally wrote the book on dividends, I find it sad that the then-richest man in the world only received pleasure from businesses distributing excess cash to shareholders.

That being said, I do love me some dividends – and all forms of passive income, really.

When I open my brokerage statement, the first thing I look at is not the account balance – it’s the income that has been earned and the projected income for the rest of the year.

I like a growth stock that goes to the moon as much as the next guy. But with those kinds of stocks, you have to do some babysitting: placing trailing stops, making sure you don’t give up too much of your gains, and worrying about them in bear markets. There’s a lot of hope involved.

Passive income strategies tend to have much lower risk and generate immediate income (rather than making you wait to cash in after the stock hopefully rises in the future), and the income can help offset downward moves during volatile markets like we’ve been experiencing lately.

Below are some of my favorite ways to pocket passive income:

Dividend Growth Stocks

Owning dividend growth stocks is an important strategy for not only generating income today, but also maintaining or increasing your buying power tomorrow. Whether inflation is high or low, prices rise over the years, and your income better keep up. Otherwise, your standard of living will suffer.

Stocks that have histories of raising their dividends every year will help you boost your buying power year after year.

Bonds

Bonds have become an increasingly important part of my portfolio.

When the market tanks, I don’t worry at all about my bond portfolio. That’s because I know that no matter what stocks are doing, my bonds are going to be just fine. They’re going to continue to pay me interest, and then at maturity, they will pay me $1,000 per bond, regardless of what I paid for them. If I paid $1,000, I get my money back. If I paid $950 or $900, then I make a profit on them in addition to the interest I’ve been paid.

The only way that doesn’t happen is if the company goes bankrupt. Otherwise, I get paid $1,000.

No stock can guarantee what its price will be on a specific date in the future.

I love the stability, predictability, and profitability of bonds.

Options

Many people think trading options is risky. And it can be – if you’re speculating with them.

But professional options traders make consistent money by selling options rather than buying them. Smart regular investors do the same.

There are various types of option trades that are considered conservative strategies because they minimize your risk and generate income, such as selling covered calls, selling naked puts, trading credit spreads, and others.

These strategies are easier than you think and can produce hundreds or even thousands of dollars in income in a few weeks or months, depending on your timeline and how much you invest.

Rental Real Estate

Renting out your properties certainly can come with headaches, but it’s often worth it. Not only do you generate income, but you also get tax write-offs, and someone else essentially pays down your mortgage.

If you are handy, it can be especially lucrative, as you won’t have to pay a handyman or plumber every time there’s a leaky pipe.

Turn That Frown Upside-Down

I am currently using dividend stocks, bonds, and options to generate income. I have owned rental real estate in the past, and I am looking to do so again if real estate prices drop.

I’m fortunate that I love my job and don’t mind working hard for my paycheck. But seeing that passive income come in every month definitely puts a smile on my face – maybe as big as John D. Rockefeller’s.

The post These Income Investments Will Make You Smile appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

After sharing the typical platitudes – “keep your head in the game,” “stay focused,” etc. – he finished by saying, “The mark of a young man is how he responds to adversity.”

I wish I could tell you that his pep talk spurred me on to a historic performance, culminating in my teammates carrying me off the golf course on their shoulders while chanting my name… but the rest of my round actually ended up being quite forgettable.

And yet, my coach’s words have still stuck with me more than a decade later.

Even though they were meant to encourage an emotionally fragile high schooler with a deeply flawed golf swing, I think they apply just as much to the current market environment.

Being able to stand tall and keep a level head in a turbulent market is never easy… but it’s essential to building wealth.

Luckily, that’s exactly what Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld – along with the rest of our strategists and experts here at The Oxford Club – is helping our Members do.

Beyond his insights in Wealthy Retirement, The Oxford Income Letter, and his VIP services, Marc has also held numerous live sessions with Members in The Oxford Clubroom (our interactive video chat room) over the past few months, easing their nerves with his calm and rational response to the chaos in the market.

Today, I’d like to do something I’ve never done before in Wealthy Retirement: share not one… not two… but THREE of Marc’s recent Clubroom sessions with you.

After the first, DavidLK posted in the Clubroom chat, “Exceptional Clubroom information – Thank you Marc for making me great returns with bonds! I used to trade mostly stocks – now I mostly trade bonds using Marc’s recommendations!”

After the second, AlfredoNV wrote, “Thanks for revisiting why to build a balanced portfolio!”

And after the third, Teelo said, “Thank you Marc and Alex for giving us confidence to stay in the market!”

I hope these videos are helpful, and remember…

The mark of a successful investor is how they respond to adversity.

Marc’s Near-Perfect Investing Strategy

 

Anyone who has a 99.1% success rate in anything ought to be taken very seriously…

And that’s exactly what Marc has accomplished in his Oxford Bond Advantage service. (That’s 113 wins out of 114 recommendations. Not too shabby!)

Recently, Marc and Oxford Club CEO Todd Skousen sat down to discuss Marc’s specific bond criteria, why everyone – yes, everyone – should own bonds, and The Oxford Club’s overall asset allocation model.

The Best Alternatives to Stocks

 

With the market suffering from a seemingly constant barrage of “news grenades,” it’s prudent to consider alternatives to stocks.

In this session, Marc, Todd, and Rich Checkan, the Club’s go-to gold expert, met to chat about bonds, gold, and more.

For anyone wondering whether they should buy bonds or gold right now, Marc says the answer is… both!

Tariff-Driven Opportunities With Alex and Marc

 

Last week, Marc joined Chief Investment Strategist Alexander Green to discuss what’s likely been the biggest topic in America so far in 2025: tariffs.

The two discussed the Trump administration’s approach to tariffs, its effect on the market, and whether stocks are near the bottom or still have more room to fall.

But most importantly, they answered viewers’ questions and explained what investors can do to protect themselves in volatile markets.

The post Respond to Market Chaos Like a Champion appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution.

Bonds.

You may have never invested in a bond, but they’re actually easier to understand than you might think.

When you buy stock, you own a piece of the business. But when you buy a bond, you are a creditor to the business. As anyone who’s ever owned a business knows, creditors get paid before owners. Otherwise, the creditors take your business.

A bond is a contract between a borrower (the company) and a lender (the bondholder). The company must pay bondholders a predetermined amount of interest on specific dates and then pay the loan off in full on the maturity date. No ifs, ands, or buts. There is no wiggle room. If the company does not live up to those obligations, it is in default, and bankruptcy proceedings start.

If a stock falls in price, you have to pray to the investing gods that it will come back up and make you whole.

If a bond falls in price, it doesn’t matter, because the company will pay $1,000 per bond on the bond’s maturity date, no matter what. If it doesn’t, it’s in default.

Bonds are incredibly safe. Investment-grade bonds default at a minuscule rate – way less than 1%. Non-investment-grade bonds, also known as high-yield or junk bonds, default around 4% of the time. However, the overwhelming majority of those defaults are from the lowest-graded bonds, rated CCC or lower. A bond with a grade of B- or higher has a very low chance of default.

Lastly, my favorite feature about bonds is that you know exactly how much you are going to make over a specified period of time. You’ll never have that kind of certainty with a stock.

Here’s what I mean.

Let’s say you buy a bond at a discount for $950. The bond matures in two years and pays a coupon of 5%. The coupon is based on the $1,000 par value, so the bond will pay $50 per year in two installments of $25 each.

Because you bought the bond at $950 instead of $1,000, your yield is 5.3%. Additionally, you’ll earn a $50 capital gain because you bought the bond for $950 and it will mature at $1,000.

In total, you’ll have made $100 in interest and $50 in capital gains for a total return of 15.8%, or 7.9% per year. Even better, you’ll know what that expected gain is before you ever hit the buy button on your broker’s website.

Bonds provide both income and security, with no exposure to the stock market’s volatility.

If the wild swings of the stock market are causing you stress, consider moving some money into individual bonds.

The post How to Earn 8% or More Outside the Stock Market appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

I’m talking about investments, of course. What did you think I was referring to?

I bought my first stock in 1990. It was Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG). I bought 50 shares at $12. Three months later, I sold it at $18. Stock trading commissions were $49 per trade, so I made a cool $202.

A few years later, my wife worked at a household-name consumer goods company. The company was doing okay, but it had some upcoming initiatives I thought would work well.

The company was privately owned, so there were no shares to buy, but then I discovered that it had bonds. I knew very little about bonds at the time, but I wanted in on this company.

As I dug into the financials and learned more about bonds, I remember thinking, “You’re telling me that I can buy this bond for $820 and in three years, I’ll receive $1,000 – all while being paid 7.25% per year? I am definitely in.”

You see, bonds are very different from stocks. When you own a stock, you have an ownership stake in the company, and your fortunes are tied to those of the company.

When you own a bond, you do not own a piece of the company. You are a creditor of the company. A bond is a loan – and loans must be paid back.

Pretty much the only time those loans are not paid back is if a company goes bankrupt.

I bought the bonds. And right on time, at maturity, I received $1,000.

Now, here’s the thing about bonds. Those initiatives the company had that I was excited about didn’t work out as well as I thought they would. If I had owned the stock, it probably would not have gone anywhere. The price might have even gone down.

But with a bond, it doesn’t matter if earnings are down, if the company disappoints Wall Street, or if it is embroiled in a scandal. If the company is going to remain solvent, it pays back its loans. The bond is backed by a contract that is enforced by law.

This company was still profitable, just not as highly profitable as many expected it to be. So paying off the loans was absolutely no problem, and I made a nice return – all while receiving a decent yield.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still a stock guy. I love collecting dividends, seeing the dividends increase every year, and watching the stock prices go higher. But as I get older, income and capital protection become more important each year.

And bonds are how I achieve that. I collect solid streams of income, knowing I’ll receive $1,000 back per bond at maturity no matter what I paid.

If I paid $1,000, I get my money back while being paid a decent interest rate. If I paid less than $1,000, I have a profit at maturity, also with interest.

If I can find a solid company whose bonds pay a good yield and are trading at a discount – say, in the $900s or even $800s – I jump on them, confident I’ll be paid $1,000 at maturity.

One thing many people don’t realize about bonds is you can make big profits on certain speculative bonds.

For example, let’s say a bond pays a 4% coupon, but the company has run into trouble and the bond is trading at only $500 instead of $1,000. This is known as a distressed bond. The market is telling you that it does not have confidence in the company’s ability to meet its obligations.

But if you believe the company will be able to fulfill its legal requirement to pay back bondholders, you could buy the bond for $500, collect an 8% yield (if the bond is half-price, the yield is twice the stated coupon) and double your money when the bond matures at $1,000.

Keep in mind, that last example is for investors who can handle high risk. Most bond investors are perfectly content buying a safer bond in the $900s, collecting a solid yield, and pocketing a profit at maturity.

Owning bonds is a great way to ensure you collect income, stabilize your portfolio during volatile markets, and make some profits along the way.

I was a bit lucky that the first time I picked a stock, it ended up working out. With bonds, you don’t have to be so lucky. They’re built to work out – that’s the whole point.

The post The Ultimate Way to Stabilize Your Portfolio appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, and you should fire them,” I said emphatically.

My friend was caught off-guard. “Why?” he asked.

“How do they know there’s going to be a bear market?” I retorted.

I elaborated that even the smartest and most successful economists, bankers, investors, and traders in the world can’t time the market. But this guy who cold calls people for a bank in Akron knows there’s going to be a bear market?

Then I asked my friend the most important question all investors should be asking themselves.

“How would a bear market affect you?”

Since 1900, the U.S. stock market has returned an average of 9.7% per year. That includes corrections, run-of-the-mill bear markets, and market crashes like the Great Depression, the dot-com crash, and the global financial crisis.

In order to capture that nearly double-digit annual gain, it’s important to stay in the market.

However, if you’ll need the money soon, that’s a different story.

I always recommend that any money you’ll need within three years not be invested in the market. That’s not because I think there’s a bear market coming – I make the same suggestion in the middle of raging bull markets. It’s because you never know what’s going to happen, and if you need cash in the short to intermediate term to pay bills, it shouldn’t be exposed to that much risk.

My friend is in his 40s, so he’s presumably 20 years from retirement. If the market crashed and stayed down for the next three years, he might not feel great when he checked his account statements, but it would have no effect on his ability to pay his mortgage or put food on the table.

Sure, it’s not fun to see your net worth go down. When that happens, people feel pessimistic and they may cut back their spending. But if the decline won’t impact your ability to do the things you need and want to do, making any moves simply because the market is falling is a terrible mistake.

You’ll never – and I mean NEVER – get back in near the bottom. That’s when things feel the worst. Don’t kid yourself by saying you’ll get out now and get back in when the market is lower. You won’t.

The only way you’ll buy near the bottom is if you have a system in place and stick to it. For example, you might invest every month or every quarter regardless of how the market’s looking.

If you sell because you’re worried about stocks going down, you’ll certainly miss the next move up – and probably for a while, because you’ll be gun-shy about getting back in. That’s just human nature.

If a bear market would not affect your ability to live the life you want within the next few years, ignore the news – including what’s going on in the market – and don’t do anything (other than perhaps putting more money to work).

If, on the other hand, a down market would negatively affect your lifestyle, then whatever amount of money you’ll need to live your life on your terms should be in safer investments, such as cash or individual bonds (not bond funds). These will help you generate income and ensure you get your capital back no matter what’s happening in the markets.

Answering the question “How would a bear market affect me?” and taking the appropriate action – even if it’s doing nothing – should alleviate a lot of the stress associated with falling markets.

The post The #1 Question Every Investor Should Be Asking appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

This weekend, someone I know was very worried about the recent market volatility. She has exposure to stocks, but she also has a large amount of her capital in Treasurys.

I told her, “If a 5% drop has you so stressed out that you can’t sleep, you shouldn’t be in the market.” She countered that she needs the growth that the market offers.

So she wants all the growth that the market can provide… with none of the risk.

That’s the problem that many people face. There’s pretty much no other place to put your money that offers the 8% to 10% average annual growth of the stock market. But that 8% to 10% average annual growth is over the long term. It is not a steady and straight line. We’ll have years like we had in 2023 and 2024 – when the market was up more than 20% each year – and years like 2022, when it was down nearly 20%. Some years will be much worse.

I suggested to my friend that she’s fine, considering the large amount of Treasurys that she has. Based on her fixed income alone, she’ll be able to meet all of her financial obligations for years to come.

In last week’s column, my first point was to think about your timeline. I believe this is one of the most important yet overlooked things an investor should do.

If you have several years until you’ll need the money you’ve invested in the stock market, you shouldn’t pay attention to the market’s day-to-day moves. Even a nasty bear market will have almost no effect on a portfolio that won’t be cashed out for another decade or longer (unless you invest more during the bear market, in which case it will have a very positive effect).

On the other hand, an investor who plans to tap some of the funds within a few years shouldn’t have that money exposed to potential volatility. I always recommend taking any cash out of the market that you’ll need within three years.

Anything can happen in a three-year period. If your timeline is longer, you should be OK, as bear markets typically last less than a year.

Here’s a practical example of how I handled a situation with a definitive timeline.

We invested in 529 accounts for our kids’ college education.

Starting around their junior years of high school, I started getting more conservative in their portfolios, moving about 25% out of stocks and putting it into fixed income and cash. Each year, I moved another 25% or so to mostly cash. I knew that if the market continued higher like it did in 2023 and 2024, those funds would not grow. But I also knew that if the market crashed, we’d still have enough cash to pay tuition.

I was able to use the market’s strength to my advantage. Because the market was so strong the past two years, I was selling high and could sell fewer shares than I would’ve had to previously. We had the cash for school, but there was also some left over that we could allow to grow along with the market.

However, I take a much more hands-off approach with my retirement accounts. I am hopefully years away from hanging up my laptop, so when the market tanks like it did in 2022 (or like it’s doing now on a smaller scale), I don’t even think about it in regard to my personal finances.

The market goes up over the long term, and even if there’s an extended period of time that it doesn’t perform well, its trend over more than a century is unlikely to change.

So think about your timelines. Put money in buckets if you need to – short, intermediate, and long term – and adjust those buckets based on your needs, not what the market is doing.

You’ll feel more in control, and that will help you sleep at night. Plus, you’ll have the cash you need while still maintaining some exposure to the long-term growth that the market provides.

The post Investing Tips to Help You Sleep at Night appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Renowned U.S. federal judge Learned Hand is famous for saying, “Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.”

But I believe another quote of his is just as important…

“There are two systems of taxation in our country: one for the informed and one for the uninformed.”

That’s why we want to make sure you’re as informed as possible: so you can keep every dollar you’re entitled to by maximizing your portfolio for tax-efficiency.

Below are the steps you can take to ensure you’re not paying more than you have to.

As I always strongly recommend, talk to a tax professional if you have any questions.

1. Put Domestic Dividend Payers in Tax-Deferred Accounts

If you are regularly collecting ordinary or qualified dividends from certain investments, put those investments in tax-deferred accounts if possible.

If you have other stocks that don’t pay dividends, you’re better off keeping those in taxable accounts.

The exception to this rule is if you are an active trader and have a lot of capital gains each year.

You’re better off having short-term positions in tax-deferred accounts since short-term gains are taxed at your ordinary income tax rate, which is higher than the 15% to 23.8% rate on your dividends. But for most investors, it’s better to preserve space in tax-deferred accounts for dividend payers.

And remember, if you’re reinvesting the dividends from stocks held in a taxable account, you’ll still have to pay taxes on the dividends even though you didn’t collect any cash during the year. So make sure you have the funds to pay the taxes on the dividends.

That brings up another reason to use a tax-deferred account for your dividend stocks: When you reinvest the dividends, you don’t pay taxes on them until they’re withdrawn, allowing you to compound that money for years without paying taxes on it.

2. MLPs Go in Taxable Accounts

It’s important that you keep master limited partnerships, or MLPs, in taxable accounts.

The income from MLPs is mostly considered “return of capital,” which is not taxable and lowers your cost basis.

Here’s how that works…

If you buy a stock at $20 and receive a $1 distribution that is all return of capital (MLPs pay distributions, not dividends), you will not pay any tax on the $1 that you earned. Instead, your cost basis will become $19. If you later sell the stock at $25, you will pay taxes on $6 in capital gains rather than $5.

There is generally no need to keep MLPs in a tax-deferred account (unless, as I explained above, you’re actively trading them and consistently capturing capital gains). If you keep them in a tax-deferred account, they’re taking up valuable space that would be more useful for a less tax-efficient investment.

Furthermore, the distributions paid by MLPs sometimes contain unrelated business taxable income, or UBTI. If you earn $1,000 or more in UBTI in a tax-deferred account, you will be on the hook for taxes and possibly fees or penalties.

3. Foreign Stocks That Withhold Taxes Should Be in Taxable Accounts

When you own stock of a U.S.-based company, you receive your dividend in total and then figure out later how much you owe the IRS. Foreign stocks are different. Many foreign governments dip their sticky hands into your dividends before you get them.

For example, if you own a German stock, the German government will take 26.375% of your dividend before it hits your account.

If you hold the stock in a taxable account, you will also owe U.S. taxes on the dividend, but the IRS will issue you a foreign tax credit equal to the foreign tax you paid, so you will essentially pay only one tax.

Here’s where it gets tricky, though: If you own the stock in a tax-deferred account, the foreign government will still take its share, but the IRS will not allow you a tax credit. So the money you paid to the foreign country is gone forever.

Each country has its own withholding rate and rules. For example, Canada is unique in that it will take 25% of your dividend unless the dividend is in a tax-deferred account. Most other countries will still collect from the tax-deferred holding.

Australia and New Zealand have among the highest withholding rates, at 30%. Chile, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland have the highest, at 35%. In China, the rate is 10%. The U.K. doesn’t withhold any tax unless the investment is a real estate investment trust, in which case it’s 20%.

4. Hold Bonds and Fixed Income in Tax-Deferred Accounts

If you own bonds, CDs, or other taxable fixed income investments, they should be held in a tax-deferred account if possible. Interest income is taxed at your ordinary income tax rate, which is typically higher than the rate for dividends.

Qualified dividends are taxed at 15% for most Americans. Those in the highest tax brackets will pay as much as 23.8%.

In 2025, the 15% rate is applied to single earners whose income is between $48,351 and $533,400 and married couples making between $96,701 and $600,050.

Let’s say you and your spouse bring in $200,000 in income. Your dividend tax rate would be 15%, while your income tax rate would be 22%.

If you earned $10,000 in dividends in your taxable account, you’d owe $1,500. If you earned $10,000 in bond interest, you’d owe $2,200. So if you could only hold one of those investments in a tax-deferred account, you’d be better off holding the bonds in the tax-deferred account so you could save $700 in taxes.

Keep More of What’s Yours

Your dollars are better off in your hands than Uncle Sam’s. I encourage you to use these four strategies to maximize the amount that you get to keep, rather than shipping it off to the government so they can spend it on a study to determine whether lonely rats seek cocaine more than happy rats (yes, that really happened).

Don’t let your hard-earned money pay for rat cocaine. Make your investments tax-efficient.

The post 4 Smart Tax Moves Every Investor Should Make appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

As we say all the time, it’s never too early or too late to start thinking about and saving for your retirement.

Luckily, our Chief Investment Strategist here at The Oxford Club, Alexander Green, recently joined our friends at MarketBeat to discuss his best retirement tips and strategies.

Here’s what Alex covered in the wide-ranging video interview (click each link to jump to that portion of the video):

• The six things that determine the value of your portfolio
• The best-performing type of portfolio in the history of the markets
• The Oxford Club’s suggested asset allocation model
• Which markets and sectors he’s bullish on moving forward
• How social media distorts reality by ignoring the positives and focusing on the negatives
• Two companies that he says would be “excellent” long-term investments
• And more!

To watch the full interview, simply click the image at the top of this article.

Enjoy!

The post The 6 Factors That Will Shape Your Retirement appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Why?

Because even if you received a refund, you know your tax dollars are going to pay for things like a $2.7 million bike park in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia (which has just over 2,000 residents), a new $5 million trail at Coastal Carolina University and a $500,000 restoration of a traffic signal in Falls Church, Virginia.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for bike parks, trails and working traffic lights. I just happen to believe that the people who use them should be the ones who pay for them.

When it comes to filling out my tax returns, I’m not particularly aggressive. But I do try to take every deduction I can and avoid paying any more than I’m legally obligated to pay.

The money is better off in my pocket than under Speaker Mike Johnson’s and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s control. I guarantee my spending choices will be smarter.

Here are a few things I do to save money on my taxes that you may be able to employ as well.

1. Use Your Side Hustle to Your Advantage

Do you generate income from a hobby or side hustle? If so, as long as you report it on your tax returns, you may be eligible for a wide range of deductions, from mileage on your car to education, meals and more.

Keeping careful records is easy to do. Just create a spreadsheet and enter your mileage and other costs every time you do something related to your hobby or side hustle.

For example, if you’re a musician who gets paid for occasional gigs, your travel to and from your shows and rehearsals counts against your taxable income, as do expenses related to your instrument (i.e., a new guitar), meals on the road, etc.

You may also be eligible to contribute to a SEP (Simplified Employee Pension) IRA.

Business owners can contribute up to 25% of their earned income or up to $69,000 (whichever is less) to a SEP-IRA – even if the business is just a side hustle and they’re already contributing to a retirement account sponsored by their full-time employer. I highly recommend doing so if you are able, as it will lower your taxable income and you’ll be able to invest the funds tax-deferred until you withdraw them.

2. Capitalize on Your Employee Benefits

Many employers offer flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs). Both accounts allow you to contribute pretax money to spend on regular expenses like day care or healthcare.

For example, if you make $80,000 per year, have a child in day care and contribute $5,000 to an FSA or HSA, your taxable income drops to $75,000, and the other $5,000 is used to pay for day care, which you would’ve had to do anyway. The difference is you would then be taxed on income of $75,000 instead of $80,000, which would save you a significant amount.

Typically, FSAs are “use it or lose it.” If you don’t spend all the money that you contribute to the FSA by the end of the year, it’s gone. So be sure to contribute only what you will use in that year.

HSAs are different. The effect on your taxable income is the same, but you don’t have to spend the money by the end of the year. It rolls over and accumulates in your account. In fact, you don’t have to spend it for years if you don’t want to, and you can invest it just as you would with another retirement account, knowing that it’s there for you in case you need it to cover health expenses.

Most people who have HSAs use them for all kinds of health-related costs, such as doctor’s visits, medication and many over-the-counter items.

To be eligible for an HSA, you must be enrolled in a high-deductible insurance plan.

Talk to your employer’s benefits manager to see whether your company offers FSAs or HSAs (or both). I’ve used them for years, and they’ve saved me thousands on my taxes.

3. Be Strategic With Your Accounts

If you’re retired and you either have already dropped into a lower tax bracket or you may by the time you need to withdraw funds from your retirement account, it may make sense to transfer assets that are held in a 401(k) or IRA into a Roth IRA.

When you make the transfer, you’ll pay tax on the money immediately, but it will be tax-free after that, including when you withdraw it.

Another strategy is to make sure you’re paying the lowest rate possible on your investments. If you own both bonds and dividend stocks, keep in mind that dividends are taxed at a much lower rate than bond interest, which is taxed at your ordinary income tax rate.

For that reason, try to hold your bonds in your retirement accounts so you’re not paying that higher tax rate on the interest.

Be sure to talk to a tax advisor about these and any other strategies to ensure that you’re using them correctly and that you aren’t paying Uncle Sam a penny more than you owe.

What are some of your favorite tax-savings strategies? Leave them in the comments section below.

The post Turn Tax Day Into Your Favorite Holiday appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld puts a ton of hard work into every issue of The Oxford Income Letter… but he’s especially excited about this month’s edition.

The March issue was just published on Tuesday, and in the video above, Marc gives you a sneak peek of why he’s so proud of this issue.

Obviously, I can’t give too much away here… but here are just some of the topics that are covered in the issue:

• Marc’s top recommendation for this month, a 6.5% yielder that you might be overlooking… even though it’s a household name
• How the market has performed over the past century under Democratic control, Republican control and divided governments (I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what Marc discovered!)
• Why Marc is doubling down on his unpopular prediction that rates will be relatively stable throughout 2024… AND why he says The Oxford Income Letter‘s portfolios are “built to withstand interim volatility” no matter what happens to interest rates
• An incoming trillion-dollar debt threat that Director of Trading Anthony Summers says is sure to affect a certain class of investors (hint: it’s not the U.S. national debt).

If you’re already an Oxford Income Letter subscriber, I hope you enjoy this issue as much as I did.

And if you aren’t, it’s easy to join! Just watch Marc’s video above until the end and click on “Click here to get access to the March issue!” to claim a special discount.

The post How the Presidential Election Could Affect Your Portfolio appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.