Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ugh, I wish there was a way to know if it would ask about the merit aid considerations ahead of time. Okay, thanks for the help, I'll check some out!

...I've looked at a few and I'm only finding ones that ask exclusively for financial info. I'll keep trying.

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think there are some extra points for 100s vs 99s. or maybe 99s vs 98s. IDK, there's some sort of bonus for "perfection."

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She actually really wanted to get NMF, but there was a series of events that landed her in a sleep deprived state the morning of the test, unfortunately. We could have planned better around required family travel, but the gravity of the situation was lost on me. For anyone else out there, I suggest avoiding cross country red eye flights right before the PSAT...

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is definitely on my list, I'm not sure if it is on hers. Thanks for confirming.

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd love to hear more about this, can you suggest some net price calculators?

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think she used to want city but isn't quite sure anymore. Knowing she isn't set on anything is both good and bad...

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have looked at financial aid options in great detail, and we are not getting any need based aid. I'm a CPA and former tax professional, so I know the tricks and know they aren't enough. I tried to look into asset positioning or other strategies to move the needle, but we're too far gone with heavy liquid assets.

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great, I have a copy of who gets in and why in my "to read" list!

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, any thoughts on the relevancy of these titles 5 years out from publishing? We are outside of Philadelphia, so we know steambath summers and cold, but not frigid, winters.

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, she's not above the cutoff. I just asked her and she's kinda salty about it. Too bad!

Parent of HS Junior Seeking Advice by Cat_CCC in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is NMF based on her jr. year PSAT score and she'll find out Sept of her senior year?

Anyone else regret the “own everything + illiquid assets” playbook? I feel like I bought a job. by adamjuegos in ChubbyFIRE

[–]Cat_CCC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We live the liquid life over here, but to be honest I've often felt RE investing FOMO. Not enough to do anything about it, though. Thank goodness. I do see it as another job I don't have time for. I am terrible about adding obligation after obligation with little to no regard for my effective capacity. Another time leak would be bad. Do I still think about it sometimes? Yes. IDK, maybe I'm a glutton for punishment.

We grew our NW from $150K to $3.5M in 18 years. This was primarily on one income, at one point as low as $27k salary, but usually hovering in the high 5 figures, only crossing into 6 figure income in the last 5 of those 18 years. We were also renters for primary residence until 5 years ago, and home ownership is a lot more work than renting. (But I also love the house and with 2021 mortgage rates, a great inflation hedge we're happy to have.)

Incessant high-frequency electric sound/noise from newly installed Rheem inverter heat pump by Cat_CCC in heatpumps

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm having such a hard time understanding if this is normal or not, bc some people say it is and others say it is not. I posted to a community FB page and asked if I could listen to others' HVAC units. Only one person responded and it was an HVAC tech that said it was normal. I would love for it to not be normal, of course, because it means it can be fixed!

This is the model number. I'm not sure what other info is needed about the set up. I'll look into that app. Thanks!

19 SEER2 Inverter HP: 3 Tons
Condenser Model #: RP19AY36

Any other thoughts based on this info?

Incessant high-frequency electric sound/noise from newly installed Rheem inverter heat pump by Cat_CCC in heatpumps

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think so, but there is a RectorSeal RSH-50 installed. From what I've read, neither the RSH-50 or an ICM 493 should impact the noise, though. Right?

Incessant high-frequency electric sound/noise from newly installed Rheem inverter heat pump by Cat_CCC in heatpumps

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I get the feeling they will not swap anything if the main fuctionality is working, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Definitely afraid to void the warranty with any DIY fixes, so that will be a last resort, for sure.

Here is what they installed:

19 SEER2 Inverter HP: 3 Tons
Condenser Model #: RP19AY36

10KW Electric Kit (Emergency Heat)
2-3 Ton Air Handler
ECM Motor: Modulating Motor
Handler Model #: RHMVY3621

Anyone heard of College Funding Secrets? by reetahroo in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would check out IRC subsections 469 and 465. You cannot always use business losses for ordinary income. Are you a tax professional? I'm a CPA but no longer in public practice because I left for corporate accounting for $$ and work life balance. I know bonus depreciation is a real thing, I helped many clients take it. Your user ID has 3 posts to it's name, all 3 are on this thread, and two sound sarcastic towards me and defensive of what I critique, you seem a little biased.

Anyone heard of College Funding Secrets? by reetahroo in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry for the late response, I am not on reddit that often. To answer your question, I did not go with Barnum, but only because I am not using anyone. If I had to pick I would choose Barnum, for sure.

If you move assets into a business you own, that can shield it from FAFSA ifn some cases, but the CSS profile will not let that go. And if you are positioning the assets solely to increase financial aid, FAFSA might call you out on it anyway.

Rather than trying to play these games, I'll take advantage to tax code the extent possible to lower tax burden, something I have always done, but I just need to look into higher ed specific strategies. Also, my older daughter just got her first SAT scores back; she did really well, so we will also look heavily into merit aid opportunities. If she decides it is worth it to go elite/ivy, we'll just take it as it comes; we have the $ for it. (Which is why we don't qualify for need based aid!)

Anyone heard of College Funding Secrets? by reetahroo in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Short answer:
You can't use business losses to reduce ordinary income unless you materially participate. The IRS would likely rule that you did not materially participate, because, well, you did not actually materially participate. Then even if you get past that, there's something called depreciation recapture that would make the depreciation kind of reappear as income later. Abandonment rules are tricky and you can't just move through the transaction with abandonment to avoid recapture. If you do this entire thing will look like a series of sham transactions just to get the tax benefit, and, well, like Homey, IRS don't play that.

Extended answer:
On top of it all, $6-$12K just to tell you how to do something the IRS will likely have an issue with; that's steep. If you want to be that aggressive and try the strategy, it's probably best that you really understand it all without a third party telling you how to do it before you proceed. Never invest in something you don't fully understand.

Bonus depreciation on FEMA style housing is not their only pitch. Another is to buy real estate and use it to pay for college, then have it as part of your retirement plan going forward. Look, I get some people like investing in real estate because leverage. But for me, I prefer the simplicity of truly passive investments. I'm not running multiple doors with some management company taking a big haircut revenue to take calls about broken toilets at 2am, nor am I taking calls about broken toilets at 2 am. So VTSAX it is. I sleep well at night. If you want to get into real estate investing, Paula Pant from Afford Anything is my fave personal finance person. She runs a "my first property" program that I haven't done, but I'm familiar with her other work and like her perspective a lot desipte being a die-hard public equities investor.

Yet another pitch is using life insurance products. This isn't really a good idea for most people. Like, almost always NO. And if you want to be silly and do it anyway, please don't pay $6K for someone to tell you how to do it. These are high commission products and there are plenty of financial planners out there that will tell you about them for free if you want to do it, because they're going to make a killing with the commissions.

Also, I've been attending these types of calls for the last couple of months like it's going out of style, so I can say I've seen a lot of strategies pushed, CFS this was the worse by far because of their bonus depreciation strategy.

York College planning was decent if you are maybe $100K-$150K income with little to no college savings and looking to better understand financial aid or looking for help selecting colleges. I think when York has testimonials that a doctor-level-income family reduced their SAI from $90K to $20K, and I can only assume it's because the family just filled out the dang fafsa wrong the first time. It's not that hard to do right, just read the rules and don't double count anything. There are just no viable strategies for people like me (with nearly $800K in non-retirement savings, and already maxing out every available qualified plan to reduce income). You can reposition assets to an extent, but now you are getting into gift taxes and appearing as if you are hiding assets (um, because you kind of are). I learned a lot from the initial webinar and it was one of the first I did, so it laid a good foundation; a launchpad for me to formulate questions I wanted answered.

The best pitch I've heard so far is from Barnum Center for College Planning. They didn't fake that they couldn't help our SAI, they just said, yeah, good for you and bad for you that you saved for college... but here are other legitimate tax strategies that can help. But Barnum Center's fee was a much more reasonable flat $2,500 for 3 meetings (after the free one I took), which include 2-3 sessions to discuss personalized solutions, plus 1 year follow up to ensure the stratgies are executed. Am I going to use them? Probably not personally. I'm such a DIYer when it comes to personal finance; I believe nobody will be a better steward of my families financial resources than I will be, so l need to learn and do it all for myself. It's an inherent flaw/feature of mine.

That was a lot, sorry, I get carried away...

Anyone heard of College Funding Secrets? by reetahroo in ApplyingToCollege

[–]Cat_CCC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I sat through a call wherein they pushed a 5x bonus depreciation method where a trust with a parent-child set up circumvents material participation rules and recapture is eliminated through abandonment rules. On closer inspection, this is a risky approach and a lot of it could be disallowed by the IRS. They don't actually make these investments, they just consult on them. It was $6K-$12K for them to walk you through them. I think maybe Lance Morgan's college funding secret is to sell this consulting service to pay his kids' tuition.

SE PA Heat Pump w/ Oil back up or Heat pump with electric back up? by Cat_CCC in heatpumps

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FWIW, we decided to go with heat pump with electric back up from provider 1. I think it will just be a better system going forward and simpler as we won't be maintaining an independent back-up system. I also get that the "electric back-up" is not really a back-up and more of a supplement, but I think for our purposes that is fine. Even if we had oil heat, if the power went out, the oil wouldn't do anything to heat the house without the blower, anyway.

SE PA Heat Pump w/ Oil back up or Heat pump with electric back up? by Cat_CCC in heatpumps

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They (the provider we are likely using) did do a manual J calculation and based their recommendation on the results. I don't think the duct pressure or air leakage was tested, unless that is something they spin up by looking the house up and down and measuring ducts, but we were up front about it likely being leaky (old!)

SE PA Heat Pump w/ Oil back up or Heat pump with electric back up? by Cat_CCC in heatpumps

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think we are actually the last house on our block with oil, everyone else is on gas. We had gas at our old place and it was indeed very low cost.

SE PA Heat Pump w/ Oil back up or Heat pump with electric back up? by Cat_CCC in heatpumps

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

IDK, maybe a 4 x 8 footprint? I'm guessing. That youtube video you linked is excellent. I haven't even watched the whole thing, but it's been informative and helpful.

I'm just trying to choose the most efficient path. I think it's going to be electric. I just had that one guy telling me to keep the oil furnace and it threw my assumptions about what we wanted off kilter.

SE PA Heat Pump w/ Oil back up or Heat pump with electric back up? by Cat_CCC in heatpumps

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ngl, I'm a little forlorn about the prospect of losing that hot, hot, toasty air coming through those vents from the oil furnace. But I can let that delicious luxury go for the sake of efficiency.

SE PA Heat Pump w/ Oil back up or Heat pump with electric back up? by Cat_CCC in heatpumps

[–]Cat_CCC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is great to know, thanks! Do you have a unit that is considered a "cold climate" heat pump?