The lines for returns start Dec. 26. Often you’ll get a gift card to use at that retailer to shop. The week between Christmas and New Year’s has become one of the busiest shopping weeks of the year, and an expensive one as well. Lines, crowds and higher prices. Better idea: January 6th or later is when to return items, unless that retailer has a tighter window on returns. By January 6th and later, shoppers have evaporated and excess merchandise and previous returns all get marked down. No crowds, no lines, lower prices. Amazon gifts can come with return vouchers. Make sure when you open a gift delivered by Amazon, you find the gift receipt in order to do a return if need be.

Yes it’s hard to consider switching banks but Wells Fargo continues to prove it’s a criminal enterprise posing as a bank, unworthy of being trusted with you money. Follow up on a previous story – $2.5M of a widow’s inheritance was stolen by her Wells Fargo broker trading at Wells Fargo. The broker is alleged to have forged documents to generate massive fees. The only recourse: arbitration. Concurrently, the Office of the Controller of the Currency has sanctioned WF for ignoring employee grievances. They’re doing nothing to investigate employee complaints. You are at risk if you do business with this company that REFUSES to do right by people.

About 1 in 8 of us are self-employed or have some kind of side gig. Tax is not being withheld with this type of work and you could get hit hard at tax time. You’re expected to pay 15.3% to social security and make estimated tax payments 4 times a year. If you don’t, you’ve under withheld and are penalized. If you also have a regular job, do maximum withholding, averaged out over the year by the IRS, to reduce penalties for not having paid through the course of the year. If solely self-employed, pay the IRS the sooner the better to stop the interest and penalty clock. You’re expected to make estimated payments 4 times a year, state and federal. For the solo self-employed, you can do a solo or self-employed 401K with generous limits to reduce your tax bill. For high earners, a SEP has a limit around $57K per year you can set aside for retirement, fee free – all to reduce the tax you’d owe otherwise.
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