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Monday Night Finance- Volume 40

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Monday, 16 November 2020 / Published in Monday Night Finance

Monday Night Finance- Volume 40

Best App for Tracking Expenses and Receipts

Are you an organized person? Or does your desk look like a Tasmanian devil has spun across it. Likewise- how good at you are finding things. Are your keys always on a hook by the door or do you have to run around the house like a cheetah with its hair on fire to find them as you scurry off the door on your way to work. Receipts are ubiquitous. You get one with small purchases, like a cup of coffee, but also big “purchases” like an MRI. Typically receipts don’t feel important. In fact, you’ve already paid for the thing and you’re ready to move on with your life. However, receipts can be important if you run your own business or have a health savings account.

When you’re tracking your expenses, you know exactly how much you spend each month. You can then build up a portfolio that supports your actual lifestyle. You’re in control and don’t have to chase an arbitrary number chosen for you by someone who may make a percentage of the money they help you invest.

The IRS allows you to deduct certain types of spending from your taxes. Let’s say you are a solopreneur with a small side hustle. Your business may bring in $10,000 a year total, but maybe you spent $4,000 buying supplies and promoting your business. The IRS allows you to deduct those $4,000 of business expenses. However, if you’re ever audited, you need to show Uncle Sam that you had legitimate business expenses totaling $4,000 (i.e. you need receipts). How your organize your receipts is your own business. You could shove them in a shoe box or hide them under the mattress. Or, you could use CountAbout to safely store each receipt online as soon as your expenses show up. Gov Worker walks you through how to store receipts in CountAbout.

TradingView: A 2020 Review

Stocks are a great vehicle for building wealth. Historically, the growth of the total stock market has greatly outpaced inflation. The government encourages people to invest in stocks by creating tax-incentivized accounts for people to invest for retirement (like 401(k)s and IRAs). Given that stocks are a great wealth creation tool, many people have exposure to the stock market in one form or another. While most people are pretty hands-off on their investments (many people never change their 401(k) allocation from the default), others like to do a deep dive and try to maximize their gains in the market.

TradingView is a powerful charting system for traders and investors of all experience levels. On top of that, it has a social network where people share ideas, scripts, and set up topic-based chats to discuss their views.

If you’re a hands-on investor, this article by Compounding.Works is for you. In it, they do a deep dive into TradingView, a powerful technical analysis tool. Technical analysis of stocks involves looking at the chart of the stock price and trying to base where it will go next based off of patterns. Technical analysis of stocks is a complicated area and there is a lot to learn. TradingView helps breaks this information down for novices while providing useful tools for experts as well. If you’re interested, the article by Compounding.Works provides a great background on charting with examples of the S&P 500. Beyond charts, TradingView provides a community and buy/sell/hold ratings on stocks as well. Check out the article for a full explanation of the software.

United States Income Tax Brackets, Explained

Are you an accountant? If so, you can breeze through the next few paragraphs. If you’re not an accountant, how well do you think you understand US Tax law? People talk about 32% vs 35% tax brackets, but what does that actually mean? Does the IRS take 35% of your money if you are a high income individual? In this post, Darcy of WeWantGuac breaks down how to understand the tax system in the US actually works vs. how it is often portrayed by politicians.

But understanding tax brackets is easier said than done. There’s a lot of misunderstanding around how tax brackets work and how much money someone really has to give to Uncle Sam.

Darcy points out that one of the major confusions with the US tax system is that we have a marginal tax system. When we talk about tax brackets, we are talking about the amount that the last dollar you earned is taxed. However, if you’re in the 32% tax bracket, you still are only paying 10% tax on the first $9,700 you earn, (19,400 if married filed jointly). Another common misconception is that if you get a raise that puts you into a higher tax bracket, you’ll end up losing money. That is not the case. Let’s say you make $80,000 (24% tax bracket) and get a raise to $85,000 (32% tax bracket, the cutoff is $84,200 if single). If you didn’t understand tax brackets, you might think that you might end up losing money. (i.e. 80,000*(1-.24) is bigger than 85,000*(1-.32)). But you only end up paying 32% tax on the difference between $85,000 and $84,200. So you still come out ahead even though you move to a different tax bracket. Check out the article for an even deeper dive into understanding how taxes work.

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What you can read next

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Monday Night Finance- Volume 35
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Monday Night Finance- Volume 23
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Monday Night Finance- Volume 38

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Reviews

Barbara Ann Feeney
16-05-2016

I switched from pencil and paper on grid accounting paper, then to a Google spreadsheet, then to CountAbout. Really happy with how this app makes it easy to track how I doing, staying (or not) on budget.

 
‏@davepurcell
15-11-2016

I rarely tweet endorsements, but -- after years of using/hating Quicken, Countabout is awesome for tracking home budget/finances. Thx!

 
David M.
16-07-2016

CountAbout is as easy to use on my mobile as it is on the desktop and it provides me with the same or better information than Quicken.

 
Nate E.
05-02-2016

Fantastic! I finally found a great replacement for Quicken! CountAbout is entirely cloud-based, so you can access it from whatever OS you happen to be using. And the mobile app isn't hamstrung like Quicken's. No looking back for me, this is a great app and a great service!

 
My Bank Tracker
24-11-2016

...you won’t be bombarded with ads when you log in. Mint, for example, uses targeted ads to help keep the platform free. All in all, CountAbout could be a good choice for Quicken and Mint users who want to start fresh with their finances without losing their past transaction history.

 
Mark Goldfarb
20-01-2017

I love the software – nice and clean – the categories was a must have that your competitors are lacking.

 
Widgets to Compare Monthly Spending in Active Categories
17-02-2017

Huzzah! I can add widgets now and already made one to compare my monthly spending in my active categories to my budget. Excellent. That tool is one of my favorite features in a personal finance product.

 
Shirley Hou
CountAbout was Perfect
15-03-2017

I was looking for finance software to use as treasurer of the parent-teacher association at my child's school. CountAbout was perfect - it had all the register features and download capabilities that I was familiar with from desktop Quicken, but it has the advantage of being in the cloud so I can use it from any computer.

 
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Steve P.
22-09-2017

My search for a cloud-based alternative to Quicken is over! Very easy to transfer my Quicken data and customize my account. Thank you CountAbout!

 
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Jim Powell
17-03-2018

Vastly superior to the execrable Quicken, which caused me to have to choose a new bank password every time I used it. CA is fast, simple, and all you need unless you have a complicated investment portfolio. Its almost fun!

 
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Jeffrey Wilk
02-04-2018

Great product and great customer service. Thanks!

 
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Nancy
10-08-2018

I love CountAbout! I have hated Quicken for years, but didn't have an alternative. Now I do! I love that the cost is only $9.99 per year for the basic service (which is all I need). You can upgrade for more features, if you need them. But for personal use, the basic plan is just fine. When I found CountAbout, I gleefully gave Quicken the boot and I haven't looked back or missed it at all. Bye bye Quicken!!!

 
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Dana Linder
29-03-2019

This is an incredibly well thought out program.

It imports QIF files perfectly. I tried a number that failed miserably.

It has a function that emails reminders about scheduled transactions. That is an extremely useful function that I hadn't seen anywhere.

Tech support is second to none. All my questions were answered in detail within hours (sometimes minutes).

The companion phone app is very simple. You can browse, search, enter transactions and see scheduled transaction. That's really all you need on the phone.

It's one failing for me is that I have a transaction that I have a transaction that occurs on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, and it's not possible to set that up. It's easy enough for me to change the date of next transaction when I enter the current one.

I am extremely impressed with the company. The trial is free for 15 days. You have nothing to lose.

 
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Keith Hurst
22-05-2020

I've been trying to ditch Quicken for years, finally a worthy replacement, but it's so much more, so clean and intuitively designed. I was really surprised and delighted to find a full featured iphone app that meets all my needs.

 
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Amanda Sherlock
25-08-2020

I started using Quicken in 1987, before I had my own PC. I continued using it for years, frustrated by the frequent breaks in the synchronization. Finally I took the leap and used Mint for a year or two. Free software is worth as much as I pay for. Finally, in 2019 I found Countabout. The synchronization is great and I am happy to have a product that's easy to use and reliable. The customer support is excellent and very responsive to my questions.
There aren't as many bells and whistles as Quicken but the simplicity outweighs the complications.

 

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CountAbout® is an easy-to-use online personal finance application that imports data from Quicken and Mint and automatically downloads data from banking, credit card, and retirement accounts. With no software to install, we’re anywhere you have an Internet connection. Our platform is stable, secure, and totally private. Our dedicated customer service team is friendly, knowledgeable, and quick to respond.

Never lose track of your finances, or the big picture, with CountAbout. Sign up for a free 15-day trial today.

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