In this holiday Friday Q&A, Don opens with a festive announcement about Season’s Readings—now Apple-featured and temporarily commercial-free—before diving into listener questions on fixed annuities versus CDs, a creative (and complex) 529-to-Roth strategy tied to Georgia tax deductions, simplifying IRA management and RMDs at Schwab or Vanguard, the unavoidable tax traps of old investment clubs structured as partnerships, and the perennial question of how much U.S. large-cap exposure belongs in a diversified equity portfolio. Along the way, Don reinforces core themes: simplicity beats complexity, costs matter, taxes are inevitable, and diversification has no single “correct” allocation—only trade-offs aligned with philosophy and discipline.

0:04 Holiday welcome, Friday Q&A format, and how to submit questions

0:46 Season’s Readings podcast announcement, Apple feature, and commercial-free holiday run

2:16 Fixed annuities vs CDs: safety, state guarantees, and annuity ladders

5:29 Using 529 plans as a long-term Roth pipeline with state tax deductions (Georgia example)

9:29 Moving an IRA to Schwab or Vanguard and automating RMDs

10:20 Investment clubs as partnerships: K-1s, capital gains, and tax inevitability

14:47 How much U.S. large-cap belongs in a diversified stock portfolio

18:54 Reviews, critics, Bitcoin pushback, and holiday sign-off

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