There aren’t a lot of things stupider than evading taxes. Which reminds me — I need to write to the IRS about somebody (else; not you) who is doing just that. Thanks for the heads up!

Q4: Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like Trent always gives the same non-answer to this type of question: “It depends on what you’re planning to do with it.” I think a lot of people ask this type of question because they have enough emergency fund money in savings and want some practical advice on how to start investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc. I hope some day Trent will consider writing a post on how to get started. Every time I have tried to give advice on this type of things in the comments, I have gotten stuck in moderation for some reason, so I’m not going to bother trying.

One nice thing about saving any percentage is you get used to not living on that percentage, that’s a part of what you won’t need in retirement. In other words, if you’re saving 10% of your salary, you’re only living on 90% so at worst that’s what you would need going into retirement to maintain your standard of living. Generally people need less than that because unless they’ve really given in to lifestyle inflation they aren’t saving for the kids college, aren’t typically feeding the family and paying for all their care, aren’t paying social security or medicare once retired, generally have paid the mortgage off and hopefully reduced debt, etc.

With respect to what counts for that percentage, to me it depends. If you have a defined benefit plan can you take money with you or roll it into something else if you quit? If you can’t maybe you shouldn’t count it or at least not fully rely on it. Do you get matching dollars from the company? I tend to count that as extra though others might count it as part of the percentage.

She addresses wedding etiquette very well.

And yeah, I know you didn’t make the guideline up because, as I said in my comment, I’ve heard it before. It seems common in certain social groups (though definitely not the one I grew up in, so let’s not pretend this is universal). I still think it’s appalling.

Don’t shoot the messenger. I didn’t make this up, the “gift/reception meal” guideline is a well-established tradition. I didn’t say you had to like it (I didn’t even say *I* liked it) – I just said that’s the ettiquette. How you think things “should” work is utterly irrelevant to how the tradition has conditioned people to “expect” it to work.

Me, personally, whenever I can I prefer to give money. You can’t go wrong with that. And you can always ad a token, something really small but sentimental, to the cash-gift.

That being said, I think Trent’s advice with the inner circle and all is probably the most tactful way to do this if the couple is sensitive about asking for money.

In the wedding traditions of those countries, it is customary for guests to pin hard cash (or the equivalent thereof) to the bride’s dress in the course of one of the dances following the ceremony. And quite right too, I thought to myself when as best man at my Turkish friend’s wedding I watched his wife collect almost as much money on her dress as that dress had cost in the first place, which was almost enough money to buy a small flat in North London or a small street in North Carolina.

Let’s face it – you and I are hopeless at buying suitable gifts for people even (or especially) people we love. Every Christmas, for example, this fact oppresses us for so long that the term “festive season” becomes a hideous joke.

As I and my siblings grow older and more cantankerous, becoming grandfathers and grandmothers and great-aunts and great-uncles of ever-more-sophisticated whatsits and great-whatsits, we adopt this rule. Anyone with ostensibly fewer wrinkles than us gets the folding stuff as a gift; anyone with the same number of wrinkles as us is allowed to give us back what we gave them last year once, but if they do it twice (and we remember) they pay a forfeit.

There can be no more useful nor appropriate gift for a pair of newly-weds than the folding stuff. I suspect that only the industry that supports wedding registers is actively opposed to this premise. Though I suppose also that there may be some newly-weds who would prefer that I gave them a $50 wombat-depoucher than a $50 bill. By the time they have opened the third wombat-depoucher, they may conclude as I do that there comes a point at which credulity must make a stand.

Its just simple and practical to include info on the registry in the invitation as far as I’m concerned. Its no more demanding than the invitation itself as far as I’m concerned. The invitiation is saying they want me to spend a few hours of my weekend and possibly drive or fly half way across the country. How is being asked to fly halfway across the country OK, but them also mentioning that a toaster oven from Macy’s would make a good gift a horrible taboo injustice?

Side note : comments here are routinely moderated for no reason whatsoever. Its not about cursing, its just picky / flakey software that doesn’t always work well and randomly decides something is objectionable that is actually totally harmless. If you put any links in the comments then that would also likely trigger moderation.

Not everyone gave the $100 per person in cash that you’re “supposed” to, but most did and some even gave more.

A few people brought gifts to the ceremony, but it was very few.

And I’ve always understood that the cash at the ceremony was, in theory, supposed to pay for your plate.

Exactly.

People should be able to do their own wedding the way they want without being judged failures because they broke one of the tons of different etiquette rules bout the ‘proper’ way to do things.