With the time of year where nothing much is happening financially, I figured a post on how I save money might be good.  I may be retired from my career employment, but it seems like I still have various interests that keep me active or at least keeps my mind sharp(?).  What follows are a few of them.  And with that, off to:

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Trade #1: Financial Advisor

With the arrival of February came the arrival of my yearly "job" - being my mother's tax preparer.  Thankfully this year taxes for her will be easier as she has shut down her business (hair dresser), so that will be easier for me going forward.

But the new part of this job is as a CPA/Financial Advisor to her.  I already helped her get started with investing, but last year was the first time I got involved with her investments and what to buy / sell and how to minimize (actually avoid) taxes.  

In the past I talked a bit about taxes with her, but I could see it wasn't a big concern for her as her taxes were so low, so I didn't push it.  Last year with her stopping working I could emphasize that taxes were an expense, even if low, and if she would work with me I could get them to possibly zero, plus making it better for me should I inherit the money.  So she did as I asked, and ended up with more money than she wanted anyway.  And this month I did her taxes, and I determined I got the numbers right.  Her taxes for both state and federal are $0.  The big move I had for her was taking a large amount out of an IRA and move it into her brokerage.  Basically using up all of the 0% federal tax space she had available.  The money she didn't spend went into her brokerage and she bought alot of the same stocks as before.  And even crazier, I had her withdraw maybe 35% of the IRA thinking we could get it emptied in a few years.  Instead the IRA has re-inflated to 20% HIGHER than when we took the money out last year. And this year I plan on her only taking out a minimum distribution, so who knows where this will end up.  SMH

And now for this year she wanted to sell and buy in the brokerage.  So I her wait until I did a 2026 tax estimate based on her wants.  I then let  her know what she could do and still avoid all taxes.  So far she has followed my instructions, hopefully she will stick with the plan.  

Skill level: Advanced

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TRADE #2: Woodworker

This is an old (for me) item, but I used to build furniture as a pastime, or fix & refinish beat up items.  I had stopped that for quite a few years, but this past summer I saw a beat up dresser out for trash.  I went and looked it over as I thought I could get some drawer pulls off of it.  Instead I thought perhaps it was solid enough to be worth working on as a project.  

With a ton of effort I was able to get it in the back hatch of my Tesla Model Y (going to the gym helped as it weighed a ton!).   It had been painted over, there was a ton of damage from a dog(?) around the base, and a leg was torn off.  But I saw possibilities.

So over the span of a month I had to: strip paint, strip laquer, build a new leg, try to minimize the look of damage about the base (lots of sanding), fix every drawer (all the drawer guides were busted), sand it smooth, stain it as it was originally, and finally put multiple coats of polyurethane on everything.  As I checked it out I found it was an original Hungerford mahogany dresser, so I got mohogany stain to get it looking as close to new as I could.

That's pretty much it.  It is in my bedroom, replacing one I had that was sort of Ikea quality.  But doing that has made me look at my older items and realize they could all use recoating (and in some cases a bit of repair work).  That will be one of my upcoming summer pastimes - rejuvenating older furniture in my house.

Skill level: Moderate

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TRADE #3: Gambler (!!??!)

Actually I am going to leave this as a tease for next time.  I plan on finishing this project at the end of February.

Skill level: I'll let you decide next time.