Is there still a stigma against “synthetic,” or man-made, diamonds?

Nearly a year ago I wrote about an ethically-sensitive fiance-to-be’s dilemma: should he buy a larger synthethic diamond engagement ring or go with a smaller but “real” diamond engagement ring? The experts naturally advised him to be honest but the question remains whether there still is a stigma over having a man-made diamond versus a Mother Earth-made diamond.

I think the movie Blood Diamond awakened many to the atrocities surrounding the mining of diamonds but I don’t think it has or can overcome the years of powerful marketing and “tradition.” (Many still drive SUVs, fail to recycle, and do other Earth-unfriendly things in the wake of An Inconvenient Truth) I bought a Mother Earth-made diamond (I was aware of the atrocities surrounding the mining of diamonds in certain areas of the world; for me, I wasn’t aware of man-made diamonds and so I never made a choice) for my man-made lovely wife to be, but given a choice I’m not sure what I’d do.

However ultimately (and sadly), it’s all about comparisons. When people with engagement rings get together, both men and women, the question of size, color, clarity, and cut always comes up. People say they aren’t comparing, but they are. Ladies want to know who has the biggest, sparkliest, etc. and men want to know who bought it. So which is better, a larger synthetic or a smaller natural? The ones with the larger synthetic can sleep knowing they have the larger one, the ones with the smaller natural can sleep knowing they have a real stone. (of course the real bottom line is that it doesn’t really matter, you can’t eat, live in, or drive a diamond)

What’s your take on diamond engagement rings, be it naturally occurring or man-made? Natural is best? Synthetic is best? Everyone is crazy about these sparkly stones and we should be focusing on other things? And when you get a chance, check out this Smithsonian article about how synthetic diamonds are now as good as real ones.

(And what’s up with diamonds anyway? If I was a woman, I’d prefer another gemstone with a little more color, life, vibrancy, character, I don’t know… but then again my opportunity to be different, my wedding ring, is a solid gold band so what do I know)

(Photo by fensterbme)

It’s been over a year since my last Monthly Review and I believe it’s time to bring them back. While other bloggers have continued their monthly income statements and balance sheets, I stopped a year ago because I felt it had become counter-productive. The reality is that the numbers themselves are irrelevant because they don’t apply to anyone else and they don’t help people make better decisions or learn from my mistakes. In fact, I felt that the numbers may be a distraction from the ultimate purpose of my monthly reviews, which was the explain both the good choices I’ve made as well as the bad choices.

So, in this return of monthly reviews, I’m going to simply outline the good, the bad, and the ugly of the decisions thus far. From here we’ll see how the month to months go.

Good

• Marriage: Since my wife and I got married this year, our tax situation for 2007 was unchanged. We are, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, are one of the many couples affected by the “marriage penalty” created by uneven tax brackets (married filing jointly brackets are not double the single brackets). Additionally, since the house and mortgage are both in my name, I was itemizing while she was claiming the standard deduction. Next year, we will be hit with the marriage penalty plus the loss of a standard deduction… considering its something we didn’t have much of a choice about it (hush those anti-marriage folks in the crowd!) we’ll just roll with it.
• Going with Accounting Pro: I’m now working with an accountant to handle some of my business taxes and help me become legit with the online enterprises. There comes a time when you just have to pay a professional and it’s now time for me to pay (rather than to be the professional/consultant!). It’s not cheap but it forces a rigor that is far superior than the record-keeping I had been doing before.

Bad

• Capital Gains: I made a mistake last year in selling some funds for capital gains but then not offsetting them with some capital losses that we should’ve taken, that was a big mistake. We took on about $5,000 in short term capital gains without offsetting it, whoops. That was entirely my fault.
• Stupid Fees: In all the marriage madness and my own ignorance, we took five months of $3 fees for having less than $300 in our savings account at Bank of America, despite having more than enough in our checking account. Dumb dumb dumb. We got $15 back, for three months, but they said they couldn’t go back farther. I was going to push for the other $6 but they wouldn’t budge and, honestly, I don’t blame them. One month I can understand, five? Hmmm… I screwed up.

Ugly

• Stock Market Suckage: This is ugly not because we made any bad decisions but only because it’s happened. In our taxable brokerage account, we’ve had about an 11% in loss on the holdings stretching back into Q4 of last year. That’s pretty gnarly, but nothing we can do, and we’re just going to set it in forget it.
• Honeymoon: Honeymoon is expensive and one of my vices is splurging on vacations. You only get married once right?

The Future

• Rolling Over 401(k)s: We need to investigate the rolling over of all of our legacy 401(k)s to our Vanguard, each of us has one legacy 401(k) to move. It’s not a difficult process, we just need to hammer out the specifics of doing the trustee-to-trustee rollover process for each account. Don’t want to take a disbursement… that’d be ugly (and foolish).
• Consolidating Accounts: We also need to start consolidating all those excess accounts so we can simplify our finances. The process is made much more difficult as my wife is changing her name so we’ll have to wait for those to shake out before we can finalize all of these. I personally have too many accounts to keep track of so it would be good to start cleaning these up.

I hope this satisfies the voyeurs out there, at least for now, but look for more updates starting in May.

One of the tricky things about being “recently married” is that the missus was in name limbo. “Technically,” she’s my wife with my last name (that’s right!). “Legally,” she still retains her maiden name until she goes to the Social Security Administration to change her SS card name and the DMV or MVA to change her license name. So what happens when we get a check written out to her new name? Trickiness! Headaches! But not to fret, I’ll try to capture everything we’ve done so that it can be as painless as possible for all you newlyweds out there.

First, just to cover the check situation, she just needed to sign her new name (what the check was made out to) followed by her former name (the name on the account), to deposit the check. In reality, unless the issuer contests it, chances are anything reasonable would’ve worked.

Now, onto the name changes…

Marriage License

This is the linchpin of the whole name changing operation. Everything requires this and no names can be changed without the signed marriage license or certificate. The fact that it’s been issued is proof enough that the state recognizes the marriage and the signature is proof that the marriage went through, the document was never notarized, as is required of many legal documents, but having a notary there probably would’ve killed the mood.

Driver’s License

You’ll need to go to the DMV/MVA (whatever the place is called in your state) to make this name change request. In Maryland, you’ll need to go to a full service location with your marriage certificate and current license. Like every other trip to the DMV/MVA, I’d budget a healthy few hours and a few dollars to take care of this but somehow my wife was able to get in and out on a Tuesday morning in about half an hour (they run two different queues and the driver’s license queue was ridiculously short that day). The great thing about this step is that you are immediately issued a new license, there’s no need to wait around for one to be mailed to you.

Social Security Card

Changing your name on a Social Security Card is a bit trickier and the Social Security Administration provides this guidance, which is essentially you need to fill out a new application. You can mail in the application with the original or certified copies support documentation (proof of citizenship, legal name change, and proof of identity), but I would just go into an office rather than risking the mail. One gotcha here is that you need to bring proof of your old name too, so an expired Passport will do nicely.

Your Company HR

This step is crucial after you change your name with Social Security because your employer will be reporting Social Security payments. Depending on your company, this could be a pain or this could be a cinch. Either way, contact HR about changing your name and you will need, at most, the same documents you used for Social Security.

Passport

If your passport was issued within a year of the marriage, you’ll need to fill out a Name Change, Data Correction, and Limited Passport Book Replacement Form: DS-5504 and send it in with two Passport photos, a certified copy of your marriage certificate, and your old passport (and $60 if you want expedited service). If it was more than a year, you’ll unfortunately need to apply for a totally new Passport with Form DS-82 (and pay $60).

Online Accounts

Strangely enough, changing your name on online accounts turns out to be a bigger PITA than anything. For example, we are both members of Southwest’s Rapid Rewards Frequent Flyer program and for her to change her name, she needs to send the request in writing along with a photocopy of the marriage certificate and her driver’s license. At first I thought, “why the hassle?” until I realized it was all in the name of security, and rightfully so. I recommend starting this process as soon as you get the driver’s license because the processing time could be a few weeks.

That’s right, we recently received a $1,075.98 check from Citi to go with our $532.45 check last month, all part of the greatest cashback plan in the world. Okay okay, I’m only kidding, it’s probably not the greatest cashback plan in the world but the Citi CashReturns card but it certainly softened the blow of paying for a wedding and honeymoon.

For those of you keeping score at home, and motivated enough to divide 1608.43 by .05, the cash back rebate included not only our wedding and honeymoon but almost all the spending of the last three months as well… but weddings are pricey.

So, how do you leverage a 3 month 5% cashback program as best as possible? Don’t apply for it unless you know you have a large capital expenditure in the next three months! This is perfect for big family vacations, weddings, home improvement projects, or anything else that’s expensive. I think that if you’re thinking about spending $10,000 or more ($500 cashback), then applying for this card is a smart move. If you don’t have anything on that scale, don’t apply! You want to save it for when you will have a big expenditure.

One other great thing about this card is that they automatically send you the rebate check, you don’t have to request it. I think it’s ridiculous that all cards don’t do this.

A few months ago I discussed the idea of combining finances when a couple gets married and this guest post by Pinyo of Moolanomy is very appropriate since my wife and I are currently on our honeymoon!

One of the last things that most couples think about before getting married is money. Unfortunately, one of the most common reasons why couples go through a divorce is also money. I have to admit that when I got married, money wasn’t the first thing on my mind — it was love. Although we each have our own financial quirks, I have to say that we are lucky to be about 99% financially compatible.

Combined Finances Is Best

For the most part our money is combined; except for our IRAs and my 401k, all of our accounts are joint. However, I don’t meddle much in our Citibank account, which was originally hers, and she still considers it hers (that’s where she deposits her paychecks). And for the most part she doesn’t meddle in our brokerage account, which was originally mine (that’s where I deposit my paychecks).

We operate semi-independently — i.e., we each pay our own bills, more or less. But the nice thing is that I can always ask her for money if I am short, or vise versa. In general, I tend to be the one who’s short on cash because I pay most of our household expenses — i.e., mortgage, property taxes, utilities, etc. (that how it was before we got married). Basically, we each have our own little financial domain, but in truth we give to each other without hesitation and without keeping track. Well it probably doesn’t matter for her, since she told me more than once that what’s hers is hers, and what’s mine is hers.

Separate Finances Is Best

As much as I want to say that the way my wife and I handle our finances is the best, I couldn’t. My parents have been married for over 30 years and they kept their finances separate. They each have their own accounts and don’t meddle in each other financial affairs. Actually, my mom doesn’t let my dad mess with her money, because she thinks he’s irresponsible. For me, his only quirk is his kindness and generosity.

So, there’s evidence to suggest that this method works too.

Which Is The Right Answer?

The answer is, I don’t know. But here are a few things that seem to help — whether you combine or separate your finances:

• Share financial information openly.
• Create and work toward common financial goals.
• Agree on basic ground rules — i.e., what each spouse can spend without consulting with each other.
• Be supportive (both financially and emotionally) when your spouse is in need.
• Don’t keep a tally, especially for little things. In fact, don’t fret the small stuff.

In the end, I don’t think there’s a single right answer, and each couple has to make it works for them. Although I do believe that the worst thing any couple can do is not talking to each other about money.

This is a guest post from Pinyo. He can be found at Moolanomy where he writes about investing, wealth building, and other personal finance topics. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to his RSS feed!

This is a guest post by Lynnae of Being Frugal.net, a blog about frugal living and paying off debt. If you like this post (and I trust you will), subscribe to Lynnae’s blog via RSS or email, you will not be disappointed.

Since Jim is newly married and off on his honeymoon, I thought I’d take the time to focus on marriage and money. I’ve been married almost 13 years, and though my husband and I don’t argue about money much these days, there are a few things I wish I would have realized at the beginning of my marriage. It would have made the first few years a lot easier.

Your Priorities Will Be Different

This one seems obvious, but it’s often not to newly married couples. Too often couples get married and expect to agree on most things. Sometimes the difference is dramatic. The wife wants to buy a whole new wardrobe every season, while the husband wants to sock away lots of money for retirement. Or it might be more subtle. The husband might have a Star Wars collection that the wife just doesn’t understand.

Whatever the difference, it’s important to discuss things calmly and compromise. Putting away money for retirement is obviously very important, but if your wife is feeling strangled, because you complain every time she buys a new skirt, you’re headed for trouble. Realize your spouse’s priorities and compromise on those things.

A good example of this is Gibble, who recently bought his wife a new engagement ring after the original ring was lost. Yes, the money could have been used for debt repayment, but this was very important to his wife, and I think he made a wise choice.

Good Communication is Key

Talk and talk often. As the years go on, individuals change and grow. Priorities change. It’s important to keep the lines of communication open, so you are always on the same page with the finances. By talking about little issues as they come up, you can avoid the big all out fights that seem to happen when an issue festers and isn’t dealt with right away.

My husband loves sports. If it were up to him, we’d have every seasonal sports package on our satellite subscription, he’d subscribe to all the big sports magazines, and we’d have satellite radio, so he could listen to every game he wanted to in the car. That’s not going to happen.

Still, there are plenty of times when my husband comes home with a Fantasy Football magazine, or a NASCAR publication. I don’t understand the need to buy the magazines, because you can get all the information online. However, since I’m constantly in communication with my husband, I realize that this is how he relaxes. Knowing that, it’s much easier to just let the spending slide as long as it’s not out of control.

Be Honest

There will be a time when one of you does something financially stupid that you don’t want to ‘fess up to. Here’s my advice. Come clean. Right away. Trust and honesty are much more important in a marriage than saving face. It might be a difficult conversation, but in the long run, your willingness to be honest with your spouse will pay big dividends.

For the Men: Allow Your Wife to Buy Pretty Things

I know a lot of men think pretty clothes and soft throw pillows for the couch are a waste of money. But for a woman, these things make her feel feminine. You will have a much happier wife if you allow her these little indulgences. And if you allow her to indulge herself, she’s a lot less likely to complain when you buy the sports magazines.

For the Women: Respect Your Man

There may be times when your husband’s career doesn’t go as planned. He may even lose his job at some point. Nobody plans for these things when they get married, but little hiccups in the career are a part of life.

If your husband is discouraged on his job, you need to be extra encouraging at home. According to my husband, there’s nothing worse than feeling like a failure on the job, only to come home and feel like a failure with your wife. When your husband’s job isn’t going well, if you continue to support him, it will boost his morale and help him stay motivated to find a better job. He will also never forget that you stood by his side in the trenches of life.

Keep communicating, be understanding, and remember you are on the same team. That’s what it all comes down to.
Congratulations Jim and Mrs. Jim! I hope you have a wonderful time on your honeymoon!

I had the fantastic opportunity to email interview Liz Pulliam Weston, a personal finance columnist for MSN Money as well as the author of several books including Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want out of Life and Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve, and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial Future. I’m going to be getting a review copy from her publicist after we get back from our honeymoon but I wanted to ask Liz a few questions about simplifying our finances and she was happy to oblige!

1. I recently got married and discussed how we were going to try to simplify our finances, consolidating accounts and reducing the number of mailers we received each month, did you have any tips or advice for us on how to best do this?

First of all, congratulations!! Not only are you embarking on a wonderful journey, but it’s bound to provide lots of great fodder for your blog.

My best advice with trying to combine married finances is to ease into it and figure out what works for you. I’ve noticed people have VERY strong opinions about what you SHOULD do, but the only thing that matters is what works for you and your spouse.

Also, what works for you now might not work in a few years, and that’s okay, since people’s needs evolve.

What’s worked for my husband and I is to have one joint account where our paychecks/income streams are deposited and from which the bills are paid. But we also have “no questions asked” money—an “allowance” that we’re allowed to spend whatever way we please. Will keeps his in a separate bank account—the money is transferred there automatically each week. I take mine out of the joint account.

As I mentioned in the book, technology makes it pretty easy to move money around in accounts, so you don’t necessarily have to combine everything at one bank.

I’m NOT a fan, however, of hidden accounts—credit cards or bank accounts that are kept secret from the other person. I think the accounts themselves should be transparent and available for both parties to see.

If both of you have good credit, then getting a joint credit card or two for household expenses is a good idea (or you can add each other as authorized users to existing cards). Just don’t close old accounts since that can hurt your credit scores.

To reduce credit card offers, sign up for the credit bureaus’ opt out service, www.optoutprescreen.com or 888 5 OPT OUT.

2. There isn’t a single person out there who isn’t happy to simplify their lives, personal finance or otherwise, but there is always the fear that in “simplifying,” you accidentally cut something out that you never intended. Is there a proper way to approach this so that you make sure you don’t cut out something that was actually quite important?

The biggest fear is probably that you’ll toss something that you’ll need later. But remember that in the rare instance that you’re likely to need financial paperwork, it’s probably “living” somewhere that’s relatively easy to access. Your bank is required to keep your statements for at least six years; ditto your credit card company.

Just take a moment to ask yourself: “What’s the worst that could happen if I consolidate or eliminate this?” If you don’t know the answer, call a pro (like your tax preparer) or post it online in a forum where there are some financially savvy folks.

I’ll reiterate that your simplification generally shouldn’t extend to shutting down credit cards, unless your FICO scores are over 750 and you’re only closing recently-opened, low-limit accounts. Always keep your oldest and highest-limit accounts, regardless of your scores, and don’t close anything if you’re in score-improvement mode.

3. I’m hardly a Luddite but what would you recommend for people who are less trusting of the internet or less able to navigate it when it comes to simplifying finances? Bill pay works great if you trust the system and yourself to set it up properly, but people make errors.

People who monitor their accounts online tend to catch fraud faster and limit the damage compared to folks who wait for their statements to arrive in the mail. And remember that the U.S. mail is not encrypted and there’s no electronic trail showing when a payment left your account and landed in your biller’s account—in contrast to when you’re using online bill pay or other electronic payments.

As with everything else, if you’re new to this, start slowly. Pay a few bills electronically to get the hang of it. Monitor your bank account so you see what’s getting paid. Don’t put everything on automatic all at once.

4. If I only had the time to do three things to simplify my finances, what would you recommend and why?

Use online bill pay. Safer, faster and more efficient than using checks.

Aggregate your accounts. It’s easier to track your money if you can see all your accounts in one place. If you use one bank for everything, you can use its Web site; some bank sites, including Bank of America, have an account aggregation feature that lets you add accounts from other institutions. Yodlee is another account aggregation option that’s been around for awhile and that has lots of features. If you’re wary of having a Web site store your financial info, then use Money or Quicken.

Consolidate to one or two credit cards. The fewer due dates, rates and terms you have to keep track of, the better. Pay off your credit card balances as soon as possible and get in the habit of paying your cards in full every month. Then consolidate to using one or at most two cards for your spending. Try not to use more than 30% of your credit limits at any point during the month to keep your credit scores healthy.

Right now we’re sitting on a two hour layover in Oakland, CA on our way to Hawaii for our honeymoon. Our trip thus far has taken us through Kansas City on Southwest and we were reminded once again why Southwest is easily my favorite airline. We were the only two people on the flight from Baltimore to Kansas City that would continue on to Oakland and we arrived ten minutes early so we had some time to chat with the flight crew. They asked us where we were going and my wife said we were flying onto Honolulu for our honeymoon. They said their congratulations and we thanked them, everyone smiling all around, and we thought nothing of it. A new flight crew came on board to help the first flight crew clean up and then we were on our way. About five minutes before we were to land in Oakland, the a member of the flight crew came on the PA and said “We wanted to congratulate two of our passengers who recently got married, everyone please give them a round of applause!” There was clapping all around, some more congratulations, and then one of the crew walked over and gave us a bottle of Korbel champagne!

Before you cynics out there chalk it up to something devious, you have to know one thing… you can’t actually buy champagne on board. This wasn’t someone just grabbing one of a million bottles and handing it to us in a nice gesture, this was far more than that. One of the Baltimore-to-Kansas City flight attendants had to have picked it up and passed it onto the new flight crew. That’s some serious customer service, I have never heard of anything like that.

So, in addition to fares that can’t be beat, a speedy seating policy (some might call it herding but I have absolutely no problem with it, you can’t expect great fares and to be coddled), great flight crew attitudes and company personality, you can add on a personal touch that you can’t get from many airlines, budget or otherwise.

So Southwest, that’s why we LUV’d you before and why we will continue to LUV you. And if there’s an executive out there, the crews were the ones on Flight 1945 out of Baltimore at 1:05PM and the crew on the continuation leg from Kansas City to Oakland, they deserve some serious kudos. Thanks!

(As a testament to technology, I’m writing about this from the Oakland terminal… the above said act just happened about an hour ago)

As many of you know, I recently got married to the love of my life (awwww!) and had a wonderful wedding and reception this past weekend. Everyone had a blast, we had a blast, and all in all I think the entire weekend went very very well considering the magnitude (both in size and importance!). Anyway, with a wedding comes gifts and some gave a gift in the form of a check.

Why is this worth mentioning? As you can probably tell from the title, the tricky part was in the fact that the checks were made out to my name and my wife’s name. That, in and of itself, is not big deal except they put it in my wife’s new (and, dare I say, better) name, which is not the name on our joint account. So, in the eyes of both the state and the bank, one of the person’s listed on the “Pay To The Order Of” line doesn’t actually exist. So, what were we to do? There are in fact two solutions.

Change Account Name

One solution is to change her name from her maiden name to her new (better) name and all we need for that is the marriage certificate. With the account name changed, she would simply sign the back of the checks in her new name and be done with it.

Double Endorse The Check

The other, far easier, solution would be for her to sign the check twice: first with her new name (name on the check), then with her old name (name on the account). While this struck me as a bit shady, it seemed to be the typical result. If the two names were in fact two different people, this is how we would’ve signed the checks to deposit them into the account. When she signed her new name, she was endorsing the check for deposit anywhere (you can write, “For Deposit Only” on the check to force it into an account your name only). It seemed tricky but the Bank of America tellers (two at two different branches) seemed to think that was business as usual and an accepted practice. Either way, no one will be disputing the deposits so it’s no big deal either way.

After those shenanigans, I needed to sign the check in order to deposit it. If a check has two names (with an “and” between them, rather than an “or”), both have to endorse the check before it can be cashed, deposited, etc.

The blogosphere is chock full of things you should do at the end of the year, like making donations and saving kittens, but what about those things you shouldn’t be doing? I’ve put my brain on the subject and while I’m not a tax expert, I believe the following list is a good start of things to avoid doing near the end of the year if you want to save yourself a few tax dollars.

1. Don’t Get Married:

The marriage penalty pretty much sucks (but marriage is awesome!) and your filing status for the year is based on your filing status when the year ends, December 31st. It doesn’t matter if you get married 11:59pm on December 31st or 12:01am on January 1st, your filing status is married no matter what. Is the marriage penalty really that bad? Two singles making $70k a year will pay a total of $13,923.75 each in taxes, or $27,847.5 combined. A married couple making $140k a year combined will pay $28,192.50 - $345 more. I don’t know about you but I’d rather put that $345 into my pocket than Uncle Sam’s.

2. Prepaying Taxes & Other Unallowable Deductions under AMT

The Alternative Minimum Tax is an ugly word lots of people have been throwing around lately and it has the potential of taking a positive tax move and turning it into a hugely negative one. Prepaying certain deductible expenses, such as state/local/property taxes, early allows you to take the deduction earlier - that’s a positive tax move. However, if you are subject to the AMT, you aren’t allowed to take those deductions so you face the double whammy of prepaying your taxes (you lose interest on the money in a bank account) plus you get no benefit for doing so (tax deduction).

First determine if you’re subject to AMT (there is no 2007 calculator, I would just use the 2006). If you are, don’t prepay these normally deductible expenses (state and local income taxes and property taxes, un-reimbursed business expenses, child-tax credits, tax-preparation fees, legal fees, home-equity loan interest). If you are, then try to prepay them if you can so they can be applied to your 2007 tax bill, instead of your 2008 tax bill.

3. Don’t Sell Stock - Lower Capital Gains Rates in 2008

If you’re in the 10% or 15% income tax bracket, next year that your long term capital gains tax will fall to 0%, so wait a few more weeks if you’ve been thinking of pulling the plug on an investment.

4. Defer Compensation If You Can

The following moves all fall under the greater heading of deferring compensation because money you earn in December 2007 is taxed on April 2008. Money earned in January 2008 is taxed in April 2009 - a significant difference for such a short delay.

• 4a. Don’t Take That Bonus (Yet): Bonuses are hot but try to push the payment of that year end bonus to the new year and you can push the tax bill to next year also.
• 4b. Don’t Take A Capital Gain (Yet): Much like a bonus, don’t take a capital gain near the end of the year when you can push it to next year. The reasoning is the same - you get your cash in a few weeks and you get the tax bill in over twelve months. If you have a loss this year, you can even use that to reduce your income. (plus, you might be seeing lower tax rates)

This is part of a Money Blog Network group project in which we discuss some great year end money moves, I went against the grain with this one. If you can think of any moves one should avoid at the end of the year or have any thoughts on any of these, please do share them and I’ll add it to the post.