If you have a high deductible health plan (HDHP), you may be eligible to create a Health Savings Account. Also known as an HSA, this is basically a special savings account that is used to pay for medical related expenses. The primary benefit of this account is that you can make contributions (or deposits) into your account using pre-tax income. The drawback is that you can only use money in this account for medical-related expenses. The definition of medical related expenses is pretty broad; I have even heard that you can buy diapers with your health savings account.
The tax savings works like this: Say you make $50,000 in one year, and you want to contribute $2,000 to your health savings account (There are yearly contribution limits, make sure you aren’t contributing more than your limit). You deposit the $2,000 in your account and you write the whole $2,000 off on your taxes even if you haven’t spent a dime in medical related expenses that year. You
For more than 80 years, stocks have been paying dividends that have provided an important boost to the overall return of stocks. Dividends often get downplayed but they historically have been very significant. Over the last 82 years of history in the stock market, an average of 35% of monthly returns from stocks have come from dividends, a number much higher than most would guess. Twice there have been entire decades where the dividends paid to shareholders of stocks made up more than 50% of the average monthly return.