Bogleheads.org

PenFed and FirstIB ( http://www.firstib.com )are the two most frequently mentioned places for great deals on mortgages. National Mortgage Alliance ( http://www.nationalmortgagealliance.com/ ) is a close third. Amerisave also has had some great recommendations awhile back, but more recent posts are p...

I have accounts at Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab and several banks. Fidelity has the best customer service I know of. They quickly pick up the phone and the person I talk to is helpful and knowledgeable. They respond to email more quickly, and their responses are clear. Has that been your expeience? M...

SkierMom still prefers TIDE over Whisk, Gain, and that cheapo Brand Munchkin Man used. Alskar would like more information: Has SkierMom tried "Up & Up HE", Target's housebrand? Consumer Reports rates it highly, but Alskar probably has less experience with such things than SkierMom has.

I get 3.00% APR interest on the first $25K in my checking account at my credit union if I jump through a few easy hoops (12 debit/credit transactions per month, electronic statements, 1 ACH transaction, etc)... That's over $750 a year for almost no work. Math check: I assume you get 3.00% APY . ($7...

Tax-advantaged accounts do not have different tax treatment depending on which shares you sell, so there is no need to track them. (A possible exception is a Health Savings Account in those states which tax them, but I don't think Vanguard Brokerage offers such an account. I haven't sold anything i...

You are correct that Vanguard will track specific share lots for you -- as an online option you can select "View/Change cost basis method" and then select "Specific identification SpecID." This is only true on taxable accounts. Vanguard does not provide individual tax lot tracki...

I used to believe that. I actually was a member of technical staff for a leading research and development organization back in the 1980s. Our lab was focused on quality management and customer loyalty. By the end of the 1980s, more in-depth investigations started revealing that quality wasn't free,...

Oh man! My "Cloud Berry Futures Fund" is only up 22.34% so far this year...Mudpuppy rules! Where do I sign up for his newsletter?

Consumer Reports recently gave "Up & Up HE" liquid detergent their "best buy" rating. "Up & Up HE" is Target's house brand. I find Up to work MUCH better than the Eco Plus detergent I was using before (available from Costco), but I found the liquid detergent to...

I suggest asking this question on the White Coat Investor site (http://whitecoatinvestor.com/). That site is run by EmergDoc. It is specifically for physicians and other medical professionals.

I'm looking to retire at the end of the year and am contemplating buying an hour or two of time from a fee only advisor for a review of my situation and to reassure me I'm ready to go. The term "fee only" applies to advisers charging a management fee based on a percentage of AuM as well a...

I travel quite a bit on business. I use a Capital One Signature Visa credit card (1.25% cash back and no foreign transaction fee) for my personal expenses when outside of the US. My significant-other's middle-child was an exchange student in Denmark. He used his Capital One Venture credit card tied ...

One of our own, Allan Roth, is a financial planner that charges an hourly fee for his services. I have used his services for over 5 years now and highly recommend him. Even though I am managing my portfolio myself, I find it extremely helpful to have a knowledgeable outside party to look over what I...

I personally avoid hotmail, gmail, yahoo, and other domains of this ilk like the plague. In my profession, these domains are often permanently blocked as they are often used by spammers, hobbyists and other folks that aren't serious professional engineers. I've thought about opening an outlook.com a...

One of our very own, Allan Roth, wrote a column on this subject. I thought that it might add something to the discussion: http://daretobedull.com/download/colonoscopy.pdf Allan's article shows how hard it is to nail down the cost of any medical procedure ahead of time. Based on this article I asked ...

EmergDoc's website (http://whitecoatinvestor.com/ would be a great place to ask this question.

I'm not a doctor (I don't even play one on TV), but I lurk on this site just for the insight.

In my opinion, any investor who does not plan for the day they are unable to handle their financial affairs (and the day will come) is guilty of gross negligence against those they love. Can I get you to say this to my 87 year-old father that isn't doing nearly as well as he thinks he's doing? He's...

Welcome. I'm also a former Ameriprise Client. First, remember that your advisor is acting as a fiduciary - you don't need his permission to move funds. When it's time to move out, do it yourself. Or, let the new company take care of it for you - Vanguard moves funds out of Ameriprise all the time (...

My wife and I had been working with an 'independent' Ameriprise financial advisor for the last 10 years or so. We were actually quite satisfied with the advice and the performance of our investments (exceeding every benchmark I can think of by a couple of percentage points). Our advisor retired las...

I'm actually shocked that the clunky, tedious, confusing rift between Vanguard the mutual fund company and VBS isn't far and away the top selection. :shock: Wow. People are really OK with that? I agree with your assessment. I'm SO not okay with it that I moved my money to Fidelity and closed my Van...

One more vote for Allan Roth! I've used his services for six years now and plan to continue to do so. No regrets.

The human inclination to find patterns in random events is proven, whereas the human ability to predict the markets is disproven. It doesn't matter how liquid the market is, unless you think they have a way of backdating trades, which would be illegal and also fail the "if they could do this, ...

... Vanguard just upgraded their password protection. Schwab still has not in terms of password length and not having ability to have special characters and 20+ characters. ... On the other hand, at Schwab you have the option of using 2-factor authentication. They will, without additional charge, s...

Vanguard Flagship is about on par with Fidelity for me. I have had much better luck with Schwab (emails responded to in 1 day; rare instances I have to call get someone on phone in 2-5 minutes). To me these are the 3 best brokerages/fund companies so Im probably nitpicking about the minor differenc...

For rental property you can get set up to run credit checks (with Transunion only) through AOA/mrlandlord.com service. A one time inspection is required to verify that you're running a rental property business... lots of paperwork and a visit to your "office" where they ensure that you ha...

I didn't have a good experience with Schwab; too much high-pressure sales tactics for me. I left there years ago. I gave Vanguard a try by rolling over a 401(k) last fall. The customer experience at Vanguard was just horrible. However, you have enough assets to qualify for Flagship status, so you'll...

We are going to be renting out a house soon and are looking for a good online service to do a credit/background check. This is in Texas. Any recommendations? I've been using Tenant Verification Service or TVS ( http://www.tenantverification.com/ ) for over 10 years now with no issues. TVS allows me...

TomatoTomahto wrote:And the reason that the company doesn't need the float in falling markets to make payroll but does during rising markets is ____________.

Because they're investing "the float" in something that is liquid but tracks the market and pocketing a few days worth of gains. How do you explain it?

I just went through the math on this about a month ago for myself. After much angst, I decided to not ladder at all. I'm more than 10 years away from retirement so I don't need access to my money every year. The short-term CD rates are pathetic and the early withdrawal penalties can be pretty low (<...

Mathew, I've enjoyed reading your comments. Thirty years of investing has convinced me that tactical cannot work over the long haul, but I applaud your transparency and admire the chutzpah of anybody that thinks math doesn't apply to them! I appreciate folks like yourself that diligently work to kee...

But, stop a minute and think: Why on earth would the company care what the markets are doing? What advantage would it be for them? They get the interest on the "float". Interest rates might not be that high, but they're not zero. Depending on the size of the company a few days of interest...

From your considerate and thoughtful tone, you must be a therapist. :? Our contributions go in quickly when the market is low, and are delayed when the market us up. I have no idea why. It's just always been like that. It's frustrating for an employer to have thousands of your money in limbo for we...

Explanation of my vote for "Other": Individual tax lot identification in retirement accounts. Why is this of any use? Do you pay taxes to a foreign country which does not recognize the retirement account? It is useful in some tax-sheltered accounts; I wil use specific identification if I ...

Explanation of my vote for "Other": Individual tax lot identification in retirement accounts. For whatever it's worth, I recently closed my Vanguard accounts and moved everything to Fidelity out of frustration with VBS, the Vanguard website, Vanguard customer service, Vanguard "securi...

FOLLOW UP: Even though I registered at Broadridge per the instructions in the OP, I did not receive electronic notification that new documents were available for Vanguard Total Market Index ETF (VTI). I transferred my Vanguard ETF's to Fidelity and have closed my Vanguard accounts. I no longer feel ...

Thank you all for your suggestions. Today we will begin to explore the possibility of finding a fee only advisor to help us sort out this mess. :oops: Don't confuse "fee only" with "hourly". Fee only implies that the financial planner doesn't charge commissions. Many "fee o...

I tried doing a search on this forum regarding “Vanguard Asset Management Services”, but was unable to find any posts that were recent. I would love to hear from any of you who may have experienced the same road my husband and I are currently on and/or have used the “Vanguard Asset Management Servi...

I had ML require a Med. Signature Guarantee to transfer out. IMO it is just the last step to increase the marginal cost of switching institutions. The specifics of a Sig Guarantee can be very difficult and if you have to get 2 people to sign at once - it can be even more of a headache. I believe th...

Does anyone find value in financial advisers and if so, what value do you find? I hire Allan Roth ( http://www.daretobedull.com) on an as-needed basis to look over my shoulder and suggest improvements in my investments. Allan charges by the hour. I find it very valuable to have somebody to point ou...

Apparently even Vanguard has decided that their security isn't sufficient. I just got this information from one of Vanguard's Executive Correspondents when I notified her that I was closing my Vanguard accounts due to poor customer service and what I perceive to be lax security: In addition, you men...

I may have spoken too soon. I just got this information from one of Vanguard's Executive Correspondents: In addition, you mentioned that you were pleased that Fidelity implemented two-factor authentication on their accounts. Vanguard recently began this same service to improve the client experience....

I hope Vanguard and my bank get this soon! I just spent a few weeks tilting at the Vanguard windmill. Vanguard feels rather strongly that they're current 10 character password (that treats upper-case and lower-case characters as the same) is sufficient. Vanguard needs an intervention IMHO, but I do...

And that's just the start of it. Even if you somehow manage to get in, say through a phishing attack in which you get the customer to simply give you the username and password, you still can't steal anything due to Vanguard's process requirements. If you change the address or bank, you have to wait...

It is impossible to draw the conclusion that Vanguard is not doing enough to ensure the security of their systems based on the data available to us. I have discussed the 10 character password limit extensively above. Could you please show me where I have erred before continuing with your claim that...

Here is a link to some statistics about the prevalence of data breaches: https://www.whitehatsec.com/resource/stats.html Here's a link to a paper that goes into the economic impact of security breaches: http://www.peterleeson.com/hackers.pdf From what I've heard in seminars and from what I've read, ...

Vanguard isn't likely to publicly announce any breach of their system. Then why did TD Bank , Nationwide Insurance , and Zappos ? My comment about the likelyhood of Vanguard publicly disclosing that there system had been hacked was based on a security seminar I attended about two years ago. The spe...

Vanguard isn't likely to publicly announce any breach of their system. Note that Kevin Mitnick hacked into the networks of the top three cellphone manufacturers of his day and stole the source code for their best selling phones. None of them reported the breach. This became an issue during Mitnick's...

UPDATE: I just switched from using the VIP Access app on my iPhone as the the token device to a YubiKey VIP ( http://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/yubikey-vip/ ) hardware token. The hardware token is potentially more secure, doesn't require a battery, and is much smaller than my cellphone...

Updating my earlier posting to add new information: I just closed on a new refinance through FirstIB. This is my fourth refinance in four years. In sequence they were from PenFed, FirstIB, Amerisave and FirstIB again. I closed my current mortgage on 1/16/2012 and I closed the new mortgage today (1/1...

Thanks for the lenghty explanation. I don't know nearly as much about this as you do, but this is also my take on it. To hack a particular individual's hardware token you physically have to have the token. To hack a software token you could hypothetically do it through the network connection (or bl...