by Leif Jensen | Oct 15, 2025 | General |
How many Americans have $10,000 in savings? Would you believe 4%? Last year, GoBankingRates surveyed more than 5,000 Americans only to uncover that 62% of them had less than $1,000 in savings. Last month GoBankingRates again posed the question to Americans of how...
by Leif Jensen | Oct 13, 2025 | Rant |
We all know that building solid retirement savings takes years, even decades, for good reason. You can easily spend twenty or more years without a paycheck in retirement. That’s why financial advisers strongly encourage everybody to save early and often (just like...
by Leif Jensen | Oct 8, 2025 | Rant |
Scaccarium – A chequered cloth resembling a chess-board which covered the table in the exchequer, and on which, when certain of the king’s accounts were made up, the sums were marked and scored with counters The Medieval counting table was covered in a checkered...
by Leif Jensen | Oct 6, 2025 | Rant |
The abacus, originated in ancient Babylon, is a calculating tool with beads that slide on rods or wires, was in use in the ancient Near East, including regions where Arabic mathematics flourished, says UCDA Design Conference. Structure: An abacus typically features a...
by Leif Jensen | Oct 1, 2025 | Rant |
Excluding counting on the fingers, counting boards are the earliest known counting device, and a precursor of the abacus. Dust boards were used as counting tools: Dust boards, which were essentially tablets covered with a thin layer of dust or sand, served a similar...
by Leif Jensen | Sep 29, 2025 | Taxes |
S corporation shareholders encounter particular restrictions on the amount of losses and deductions they are permitted to claim on their individual income tax returns. These constraints are primarily governed by the concept of basis, which represents a shareholder’s...
by Leif Jensen | Sep 24, 2025 | Running a Business |
For S corporation (S corp) owners who are actively involved in their business operations, paying themselves a “reasonable salary” for the work performed is a requirement. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) defines this reasonable compensation as an amount...
by Leif Jensen | Sep 22, 2025 | Rant |
While in college a thousand years ago, I had a professor, who stated that if you could successfully get product distribution setup in Chicago, you could get your product distributed nationwide. I am uncertain if he was correct all those years ago, yet I was willing to...
by Leif Jensen | Sep 17, 2025 | Rant |
According to verbal reports given to me by my children Private Equity is removing single family homes, condo and apartment building from the purchase market to create a new class of forever renters. Apparently, they follow the teaching of Lex Luthor’s father in...
by Leif Jensen | Sep 15, 2025 | Running a Business |
Businesses save money primarily to ensure financial stability, manage unexpected costs, and support growth opportunities. Here are the key reasons why businesses save: Financial Cushion for Emergencies and Unexpected Costs Businesses face various uncertainties such as...
by Leif Jensen | Sep 10, 2025 | Retirement |
We have a situation that may sound like bad luck, but it’s a reality for many older Americans. About 1 in 5 people over 50 have no retirement savings at all, according to the AARP. This decline underscores a widening retirement savings gap between high- and low-income...
by Leif Jensen | Sep 8, 2025 | Rant |
As a student of history I think of what it must have been like to see the effects of the Industrial Revolution, the onset of the railroads, cars, airplanes. I have seen the information revolution up front, from calculators, to PC, to laptops, to cell phones, to smart...
by Leif Jensen | Sep 3, 2025 | Rant |
Car insurance premiums have been notably increasing. This trend is supported by data: Lexis-Nexis Risk Solutions’ annual report found average insurance costs rose 10% in 2024, following a 15% surge in 2023. Bankrate reports that full-coverage policies now...
by Leif Jensen | Sep 1, 2025 | Rant |
Have you been hearing all of the yelling is about money? According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it may be because the total cost to own and operate an automobile averaged a frightening $12,296 in 2024, roughly 30% higher than a decade ago. Driving has almost...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 25, 2025 | Rant |
More and more we have companies that insist that you need to keep paying for what you have purchased. Monsanto’s business model for its genetically modified seeds typically requires farmers to purchase new seeds annually rather than saving and replanting seeds...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 18, 2025 | Taxes |
I have a client whose return I just completed has a tremendous tax bill because of the huge amount of capital gains, interest and dividends. They had a couple of good things happening, first off, lots of capital gains, usually means a winning investment strategy. ...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 11, 2025 | Retirement |
On August 9, 1935, The Social Security Bill (H.R. 7260) was sent to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for his signature. An important part of the New Deal was the first national social insurance policy. It would help ensure that older Americans would have a stable...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 4, 2025 | Rant |
Hackers are getting better and better. Typically, I have been able to easily recognize the mistakes and just delete the e-mails. This week I received one that looked legit and forced me to make some calls all because I believed it to be an real e-mail. Luckily, I...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 28, 2025 | Rant |
I am far from surprised. Illinois concealed carry licenses are not currently trending downwards. While there was a recent ruling deeming the state’s ban on concealed carry on public transit unconstitutional, this decision is limited to the specific plaintiffs...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 21, 2025 | Taxes |
Tax prep software firms are celebrating the proposal in the House-passed bill: The end of IRS’s Direct File. This program, which IRS first piloted in 2024 and expanded this year, which allows eligible individuals to opt in, and with IRS’s help, to prepare and e-file...
