The Nest Egg

One retirement number a week, with the government source it comes from. Free, and there is nothing to buy in it.

Featured

The Four Cliffs

Sep 7, 2026

Four places in the tax code where one dollar of income costs far more than one dollar. The 2026 lines, what crossing each one costs, and a worksheet.

Latest

$45,283.02 to save $2,884.80. The ladder stays exactly as it is.

Oct 16, 2026

Shrinking the municipal ladder to duck the Medicare surcharge would cost her $15.70 for every dollar it saved, and the income given up is exactly her required distribution.

The conversion's cost rate was computed on an empty tax return. It is 26.21%, not 16.42%.

Oct 14, 2026

Which inverts the case for converting, resizes it from $165,000 to $94,216.98, and takes yesterday's invariant ladder with it.

The first death changes this ladder by nothing at all. Two letters said otherwise.

Oct 13, 2026

The couple can collect $109,816.98 of interest before their Medicare surcharge starts and the survivor $71,600.00, and the municipal ladder keeps exactly the same amount either way. Both corrections are mine.

The ladder paying 5.13% finishes last. It is the one that earns too much.

Oct 12, 2026

Three ladders, the same $1,587,583.15, and the first page this month to run federal tax, North Carolina tax and the Medicare surcharge together. The highest yield crosses a line the other two stop at.

The municipal ladder rested on 6.82 basis points of margin. North Carolina takes 17.99.

Oct 9, 2026

Interest from other states' bonds is added back on the North Carolina return while Treasury interest is deducted on the same return, and that asymmetry moves the couple's break-even from 4.4418% to 4.6264%.