Tax time again!
I like to get this done as soon as possible to get it out of the way. I have all my tax documents at the ready, but several changes happened in my life last year (moved states, sold home, bought home, etc.) and the tax software I've been using over the last several years apparently "doesn't support" several of the tax forms (or even simply some of the boxes on the forms) I have for this year.

Trying to avoid the "Big Two" if possible.

I'm posting this in good faith, both out of curiosity and self interest. But up front I'll say that I'm not interested in scams, schemes, or get-rich-quick stuff.

I work full time as a teacher, but ever since we had a baby, my wife and I are just barely breaking even financially. Not struggling, but $4k/year would make a massive difference in our lives.

It seems like I'm stuck in this spot where getting a low wage job after school hours isn't even worth the time missed with my family, considering how awful the pay is. Summer work is tough because it has to justify the extra daycare expenses, and again, it's so much missed time with family for such a low reward. Higher paying gigs don't seem as interested in seasonal help from what I've encountered so far.

For the record, I'm not really interested in crypto or casino bonus schemes. I also don't have enough to invest right now to truly put investing over the edge into a meaningful return.

What are some low-risk/low-investment/low-reward side hustles?

So during covid pandemic, a big issue that I kept hearing about in the news and on the Journal podcast was that the economy is hot which is bad and causes interest rate spikes from the Fed if you are in the U.S. or Bank of Canada if you are in Canada.

tbh, I never fully understood that. we live in a consumerism, materialistic and capitalist society. i thought that people buying non-stop was what corporations and American govt valued, hence why we are hit with ads everywhere we go. and yet it was somehow a bad thing and was causing economic issues?

so I looked into it and came across a reddit post that basically explained it in simplistic terms like this:
the iPhone costs 1,000$. now, if not many people can afford the iPhone cause it's out of budget, what that implies is that not many people have 1,000$ which means that 1,000$ is hard to get which raised the value of the dollar, which is good for the economy.
If a lot of people can afford the iPhone, it means lots of people can afford to spend 1,000$ which means it's not as unique position to be in anymore, to have 1,000$ in spending money which apparently makes it worth less, cause more people have access to such funds.
Moreover, besides lowering the value of the dollar, more people being able to afford the iPhone is apparently also not a tenable situation cause apparently supply for iPhones could not meet the demand if it's suddenly now in so much more demand, so the value of the dollar going lowering is not only bad for the economy, but also has an effect on supply-chain issues.

Now, if I understand correctly, during covid and shortly after, the stimulus checks were given to people, both middle and lower class. the stimulus checks allowed for lower class to be able to afford more basic necessities from what I heard. This also however, also caused middle class people to be able to afford both more basic necessities and also to spend on luxuries (gonna continue with my current example of the iPhone). So the lower and middle class people having more spending power to be able to afford their necessities and maybe splurge a bit on luxuries causes the value of the dollar to go down cause now things are more affordable to people. and the value of the dollar going down causes wall street/the fed to freak the fuck out. and this causes them to raise interest rates, which has a domino effect of causing unemployment which obv leads to less people having spending power which causes a dampening effect on how much people are buying which brings the value of the dollar back up and the Fed is happy again.

I know I have probably oversimplified some parts cause I am not an economics person and God forbid the Journal podcast actually do their job and breakdown how the economy is screwing people so most of what I know comes from online research and what I can glean from the news but is anything I said incorrect?

cause if what I said is correct, that means that whenever the government keeps saying "the economy is fine" in response to people saying the times are tough, I get confused how that's a counterargument from the govt and not actually a subtle confirmation that times are tough for people. cause what it actually means is "the value of the dollar is fine, but the people are hurting cause that is needed for the dollar to be fine"?

So my only experience with crypto is buying a little bitcoin after big crashes, ignoring it for 5 years and selling it when theres hype in mainstream media. Happens reliably enough and i made a little change. Also did some fruitless blockchain work when it was a corporate craze in 2017 but overall, don't care for the tech much.

Anyway, I've been looking into some things for work and a lot of roads lead to cryoto. I'm decent at picking apart a reasonable technical system and can call on people who understand legal, financial, logistical or company structures. But the crypto space is a weid mess. It feels like kids playing a pretend game of being a central bank.

There's official documents and company filings with full corporate structures, but everything is just a bit too juvenile. Like you'll see a Senior Auditor with 10 years experience at KPMG, next to the head of marketing: YoloSwagger with an animated One Piece profile pic. There's also these ambitious White Papers attached to code base that seems like the same boilerplate example but with stupid variable names.

A bulk of the info i need is the diction and syntax. Don't know if its because I'm old because I don't get it. I see a lot of start-up and investment language thrown around. And it's mixed with a plenty of meme terms and some utter nonsense. I can't get a straight answer on the meaning of Utility even though its thrown around like a core metric. And don't get me started on Wallets because that definition seems to change mid sentence.

The other thing I need to understand is the technicalities involved and accessing the right info. Before my searches were polluted with the meme coin story today, there's not a lot of good info. Most of what I found was exchanges telling you to not worry about it and give them money, or crypto bros telling you not to worry about it and give them money for their course.

I understand transactions and how everything is just a pump-and-dump to get at whatever liquidity was raised. All the evidence for fraud is obvious in hindsight. There must be ways to track those trends before it happens and find consistent factors. At the same tine how the hell can people just start a coin and other people throw small fortunes at it for a laugh.

I'd be grateful for any good primer unpacking things. It really looks like the normal education is to jump in with you life savings and sink or swim.

With the recent news about Synapse, I am a little on edge with the safety of my money. I am currently living in France for school, and am hoping to immigrate here permanently. All of my savings is in USD, so I need a way to easily and cheaply convert between USD and EUR, and be able to spend EUR locally. After a ton of research, I decided to move almost all of my banking to Wise. They don't offer traditional banking features like in-person branches or checks, but I didn't use those anyway. I can get a local bank number in any of the many countries they support. The savings account APY is insanely high (higher than I have seen from even the best high yield savings accounts. I have a debit card that allows me to spend directly from any one of my bank account currencies, and auto convert to other supported currencies. And the USD account is insured by FDIC passthrough insurance.

In the thread about the Synapse collapse, people were saying that passthrough FDIC insurance doesn't always mean that the customer's money is actually insured. And apparently some fintech services will just lie about what is covered by FDIC insurance. I am not a lawyer, and I have no idea how to validate Wise's claims about passthrough FDIC insurance.

I was recently able to open a France bank account, which was surprisingly difficult. (To open a bank account you need proof of address, like a cell phone or electricity bill. I don't pay for utilities in my school apartment, and to get a cell phone plan I need a bank account. That was fun to try and navigate.) I have these bank accounts currently: my Wise account with US USD, Belgium EUR, and UK GBP, a US Credit Union account, and a French EUR bank account. My US credit union and French banks give a very low or zero APY, so keeping my money in my Wise accounts is preferable for that reason. But I also can't afford to loose all my savings if Wise collapses. My question is this: Is Wise safe enough for general money storage, or should I use it just for converting between currencies and keeping a small amount for spending? If Wise isn't safe, what about another similar product? I have heard of Revolut, but I didn't do much research since Wise seemed better for my use case.

For many years, I’ve been relying on a budgeting system I came up with that leverages the unlimited free savings accounts offered by my credit union, and the scheduled transfer functionality in their online banking. I have a separate account for every recurring bill. I also have accounts for different types of expenses like groceries, car maintenance, clothing, travel, etc. Altogether I have about 50-60 accounts.

I am salaried so I get a predictable paycheck at predictable intervals. After every paycheck arrives, a flurry of scheduled transfers distribute the money among all the accounts. These accounts are my budget — if I go to the movie theater, for example, I’m not allowed to spend more than what’s in my Activites account. I rely heavily on my online banking app and often pull up the balances to see how much I have to work with. Most of my paycheck is allocated but there’s always a little bit left over in my checking account, which is used for discretionary spending and provides a little cushion if I need it.

Most of my bills are on auto-pay. I have scheduled transfers in place to move the money back into checking when it’s due, just in time for the payment to process.

This system works for me. I like how earmarking and separating out funds for specific purposes as soon as I get paid prevents me from spending that money on other things. I have some annual subscription renewals that I don’t even feel because I set aside a couple bucks every pay period and the money’s there when I need it. I like that this system doesn’t require complex paid software or tedious reconciliation processes. It’s admittedly a chore to make adjustments to anything because the online banking system wasn’t designed for this sort of workflow. Once it’s properly configured, everything is automated and it basically runs itself. I’ve added a couple supporting tools over the years: a spreadsheet to plan the whole budget before I create all the scheduled transfers, and a CLI script that projects upcoming balances for n years so I can optimize my biweekly allocation sizes for their corresponding monthly or annual payments.

I don’t know what to call this system. It’s similar to the old envelope method except I’m using actual bank accounts and never handling cash. I’ve heard that YNAB is similar but haven’t looked into that one. I can’t be the only one managing their money this way! Does this have a name? I’d love to hear resource recommendations for this sort of budget, and please share your own systems and tools as well!

Crypto has always been an odd one for me.

Considering I'm in the IT field and generally techy, I've always remained skeptical. That didn't stop me throwing about £100 into some DOGE, XRP and ETH awhile back. They peaked around $880 and I almost cashed out. I wish I had because they fell back and were worth around $140 for the longest while.

Suddenly it's sitting at around $400 and I'm wondering whether to hold my nerve or cash out.

Anyone big into crypto and have any advice?