Protecting Your Valuable Articles
It is beginning to look a lot like…
Diamonds, art, and shiny new golf clubs! We hope you had a safe and happy holiday season. Post-holiday season is a great time to consider coverage for your shiny new ring, a beautiful new piece of artwork, your new DSLR camera, Callaway golf clubs, or Steinway grand piano. Whatever your loved one gifted you this season, what would you do if an item was lost, stolen, or broken? Look to your homeowner’s insurance, right?
Yes! BUT you might not get what you expect. Most standard home policies have a special limit of $1,500 on valuable personal property and do not include coverage if lost or broken. When a stone falls out of your significant other’s ring, or when your new DSLR camera gets broken you may not have adequate coverage.
No need to fear, Cleary is here!
We suggest insuring these items separately to avoid unexpected replacement expenses and a whole bunch of headaches. Scheduling your valuable items provides coverage for mysterious disappearance and breakage that you cannot find on a standard home insurance policy. The value of your items will be settled on a pre-determined limit so you will know what to expect which helps to ensure a hassle-free claims experience! Not to mention you will also save your deductible! Let us help you purchase peace of mind today and give us a call!
Taking Care of Your Mental Health
Your mental well-being includes how you think, act and feel. It also helps you cope with stress, relate to others and make decisions. Mental well-being includes mental health, but goes far beyond treating mental illness. For example, you could go through a period of poor mental health but not necessarily have a diagnosable mental illness. And your mental health can change over time, depending on factors such as your workload, stress and work-life balance.
Mental illness refers to a variety of conditions that affect your mood or behavior, feelings or thinking. Mental illnesses can occur occasionally, while others are chronic and long-lasting. Common mental illnesses include anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. 1 in 5 U.S. adults will experience a mental illness in any given year, and more than 50% will experience mental illness at some point in their life.
Mental health is extremely important and doesn’t just affect the mind, but can also have affects on your physical well being causing weight gain, heart attack or stroke. Because it’s such a crucial component of your health, it’s important to focus on maintaining or improving your mental health. While it’s not always easy, there are ways to help improve your mental health. Here are three simple ways to do so every day:
- Express gratitude. Taking five minutes a day to write down the things that you are grateful for has been proven to lower stress levels and can help you change your mindset from negative to positive.
- Get exercise. You probably hear all the time how beneficial exercise is to your overall health, but it’s true. Exercising can improve brain function, reduce anxiety and improve your self-image.
- Get a good night’s sleep. Strive for seven to eight hours of sleep a night to improve your mental health.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255
website: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org
Want to lower your tax bill?
There are a number of opportunities to offset prior-year income and capture credits.
Areas to look at include:
- Retirement plan contributions
- Deductions
- Penalties
- Credits
Retirement plans: Retroactive contributions
Your traditional Individual Retirement Account, or IRA, offers the biggest potential bang for the buck.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allows taxpayers to make deductible prior-year contributions all the way up to the tax-filing deadline.
For tax year 2020, total contributions to all of your traditional and Roth IRAs for taxpayers under age 50 cannot be more than either $6,000, or your total compensation for the year if you earned less than that amount. Those 50 and older can make an additional $1,000 catch-up contribution, for a total of $7,000.1
Your actual tax deduction, however, may be limited if you or your spouse are covered by a retirement plan at work and your income exceeds certain levels.
Eligible taxpayers can also make retroactive contributions to their Roth IRA until April 15. Different phaseout limits apply for Roth contributions.
Because Roth IRAs are funded with after-tax dollars, your contribution will not yield a current-year tax deduction, but it could potentially produce a better investment return since earnings upon retirement can be distributed tax free.
Tax deductions: Roll up your sleeves
Most taxpayers take the standard deduction, a fixed dollar amount set forth by the IRS that reduces the amount of income on which they are taxed.
Why? Because it’s a lot less work. You don’t have to keep track of your expenses, or individually deduct them on IRS Schedule
As a result, many taxpayers who previously itemized deductions may find it more beneficial to claim the standard deduction this year.
Tax penalties
The only thing worse than giving Uncle Sam his due is leaving him a tip.
To avoid a potentially hefty late-filing penalty, you must submit your income tax return on time, regardless of whether or not you can afford to pay.
Indeed, the failure-to-file penalty can be as much as 5 percent of your unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month that your tax return is late, up to 25 percent of your unpaid taxes.
Submitting your tax return electronically ensures greater accuracy than mailing it in since the IRS e-file system flags common errors and kicks back returns for correction.
Tax credits
When it comes to lowering your taxable income, you are your best advocate.
Tax deductions, which reduce the amount of your income subject to tax, are great, but tax credits, which reduce your tax bill dollar for dollar, are even better. So don’t leave any tax credits or deductions for which you are eligible on the table.
Families with dependent children may be eligible to claim a credit of up to $2,000 per qualifying child under the Child Tax Credit.
If you paid for someone to care for your child, spouse, or dependent so you could work or look for a job, you may be able to claim the Child and Dependent Care Credit.
Similarly, those paying for higher education expenses may be able to claim one of two tax credits: the American Opportunity Tax Credit, or the Lifetime Learning Credit. You cannot claim both credits for the same student in the same year.
If you haven’t yet filed your tax return, there’s still much you can potentially do to minimize the amount you may owe.
By taking advantage of tax-favored retirement tools, filing an accurate return, and educating yourself on available deductions and credits, you might just save enough to pay off your credit card debt or catch a flight somewhere warm