Dear Money Doctor®, my Financial Advice is:
A penny saved is two pennies earned
My story behind the advice is:
Our family is laser focused on minimizing income taxes; I guess it’s in our DNA. Sometime around 1733, Ben Franklin spoke one of his famous financial tips, “a penny saved is a penny earned” – wouldn’t that be nice! However, there were no income of FICA taxes in Ben Franklin’s day. The first national income tax was passed in 1861 to pay for the Civil War debt. Today, federal tax rates can exceed 50% and state rates can add another 8.9% in NJ. We prefer to say that “a penny saved is two pennies earned” because in order to save a penny, you need to earn 2 pennies to net one penny after taxes.
