Bogleheads.org

"Age in bonds" is advice meant for people whose attention span extends no further than three words. For anyone willing to put time into reading this forum and related resources it is completely irrelevant. "Age in bonds" is like training wheels - very nice when you need them by v...

For what its worth I've started putting new money each month into my TIAA traditional, after neglecting it for a long time, for the same kind of reasons you point to. It currently accounts for about 45% of my non-equity holdings, and I'd like it to be at least half.

Makes sense to me, but why stop there. Why not get your HOUSE for free? 1) Buy a house, live in it for a three years, and then sell it for the same price you paid for it. 2) In the meanwhile, pay yourself a bunch of money and invest it at a high rate of return. 3) Buy a new house using the money you...

I agree with Watty. If you think $7K is too high replace the number with whatever you think is right and carry out the same thought experiment. The OP's scenario seems to reflect a classic instance of the behavioral trap of inflating the value of something purely as a function of the fact that you ...

I agree. My last two cars were a Volvo and a Honda. I bought the Volvo used (three years) but bought the Honda new.

If you are a baseball fan, try to catch a Marlins game. They have very few local fans so you can get decent seats at a reasonable price even on short notice. In comparison with what I have to pay in places like Boston, NY, Phillie, the seats are basically free. Yes, and you will get to watch one ma...

10 funds? That is crazy. Have you thought through that rebalancing nightmare? 3 - 5 funds tops is all that is needed. Really anything more is diminishing returns and probably won't move the needle. Keep investing simple. Mine is in a spreadsheet, so the answer is always there. However, even if I di...

Lots of questions like these can be turned around to get a different perspective. What if someone asked you; "I have $7000 sitting in the bank, should I buy a used car just so that I can have it for these occasional uses?" Most likely you would think they were crazy, but it is the same qu...

Mohamed A. El-Erian, born August 19, 1958 (age almost 55) in Cairo, Egypt is the CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, must love his job, and earns easy and significant money while at it !! Otherwise, IF over the years he knew exactly what WILL happen in the market, why is he still working ? Reportedly he made ...

Unless you can repair cars unusually cheaply because you can easily fix them yourself the problem with the "keep it for low-level use" scenario is that at some point the car could need a major repair. At that point you have to either pump a lot of money into it or sell it far below what yo...

If you are a baseball fan, try to catch a Marlins game. They have very few local fans so you can get decent seats at a reasonable price even on short notice. In comparison with what I have to pay in places like Boston, NY, Phillie, the seats are basically free.

In a 75/25 portfolio your dry powder is the 25% in bonds John I read the OP as having 75% in stocks, 25% in cash, and no bonds. Hmm. I read the situation as 100% stocks. Cash being saved for a house down payment isn't part of a retirement portfolio. The OP now wants to rule out buying out a house, ...

abuss368 wrote:I only consider cash.

Remember cash is king.

You can keep the emergency portion of your HSA in cash.

I should have clarified that it is only the portion of my HSA that already qualifies for no- penalty withdrawal that I count as part of the emergency fund.

I treat my HSA as part of my emergency fund, and your circumstances would seem to warrant doing the same. If you agree, then don't start investing any of the HSA until you surpass your emergency needs.

Not everyone needs life insurance. That's silly.
Same reasoning applies to disability.
Identity theft insurance is a stretch.

You are regretting a lack of omniscience that, if you had it, would make you a billionaire. Do you really want to waste your time agonizing over why you aren't a billionaire? Set your sites on something more practical and the micro-timing of your investments will fade into irrelevance.

I stayed in a very simple hotel on La Rambla, and would second the recommendation to stay in that part of town.

Hmm. If we assume that the rebalancing "premium" is slim and impossible to time (which I do), and that the primary function of rebalancing is to maintain a preferred level of risk (which I also do), is there then an argument to rebalance more aggressively using tighter bands in up markets...

The couple of times I've sold used cars I had to deposit several thousand dollars in cash. I suppose I could find another way to deal with the cash, but I was happy to have my local bank for that task. Almost as rarely, we sometimes get checks that aren't made out quite right -- a name is off in som...

Good suggestions. I'd add the Munch museum.

1/3 International, 2/3 domestic because I like the fractions. It means I have twice as much domestic as I do international! Or conversely, half as much international as I do domestic! I think anywhere between 20% and market weight is great, but the thirds appealed to me in a way that only thirds ca...

. I have one (4-part) parting thought. 1. We know that water boils at 212°F (99.98°C) at sea level. 2. Since I am quite close to sea level, in boiling an egg tomorrow I know that the water WILL boil at 212°F (99.98°C). 3. To invest intelligently, we studied market(s) past behavior, theory(ies) on r...

You really don't see any science behind this? The quote you cited states that many of the ideas came from Nobel winning economics research. The Nobel prize for Economics is a science award. Each item on that list is either derived by scientific thinking or can be proven via scientific experiment (w...

There's no formula you can use for this. The only reason not to lump sum is to help you control your anxiety and regret. But anxiety and regret are not universal -- each person is different so you have to choose your own path. The more worried you are about bought-too-soon regret, the slower you nee...

Vanguard doesn't weight international by market cap in its target date funds for the same reason that nobody else does (as far as I know) -- very few investors want it. Even on this forum I believe only a minority set their US percentage based on market cap. Most investors tilt toward their home mar...

If he loses his job two months from now he will be able to handle it better using supersharpie's plan. If he pays off his mortgage, the only way to access that money is to sell the house or get a home equity loan (which might be difficult without a job). Obviously he would have more liquidity if he...

vpotus wrote:I'll finally be able to max out my 403b and Roth.

I understand the attraction in paying off the mortgage, but I don't understand the sentence quote above. How would not paying off the mortgage make it any harder to max out your 403b and Roth?

I like many of the things others have mentioned. I'll list some of the less well-known first that are among my favorites: JuiceDefender -- tremendous increase in battery life CamScanner -- generates cleaned-up PDFs of documents using input from your camera. CardStar -- stores all those horrible loya...

You should move in as fast as you can tolerate. Only you know how fast you can tolerate. If you are completely immobilized and need some external guidepost, try this: deposit 12 equal monthly sums over the next year, arriving at your AA in one year. Any scheme is as good as another as long as it get...

The logic sort of makes sense, but it would mean overweighting many more countries besides China -- emerging markets would need to be overweighted by a large multiple, because their exchanges are so small relative to the economies. Is there a South Sudan company you can invest in? You'll want to buy...

Your post doesn't make sense. The first part says you don't listen to Dave, say his advice is lunacy and following it would cost you money. Then you go on to agree with his advice to the caller. PS - there are many Bogleheads that agree with his debt-reduction advice and his steps for doing so. Me ...

I've never listened to the guy but from what people say here he fetishizes debt out of proportion to its actual importance for careful, responsible people. For the average boglehead his advice would be complete lunacy. If debt plays a role in your financial life that is analogous to what alcohol doe...

I suspect you may be asking the wrong question. If you need the money in just ten years, you should be scrutinizing your AA much more carefully. If I needed money in ten years I would not have it in 80% stocks, more like 20% or 0%. In the end your choice of AA is going to have a far bigger impact on...

Normally you get a title when you first buy the car, and it lists your loan provider as a lien holder. You normally get a release-of-lien letter after the loan is paid off. That plus your title give you full rights to the car. That's how it is has worked for me -- I imagine this is all regulated at ...

Craigslist is good, but definitely less than smooth all the time. We recently sold our car for $7500, but I went through about two weeks of getting 3-4 calls per day asking if we would take $5000, etc. I got very tired of the question "What's your best price?" or "How low are you wil...

I sold our last two cars through Craigslist and Cars.com. We keep them too long to be able to get much through the dealers and services. I sold a 2001 Honda Odyssey just yesterday. If you set your goal of making the process run quickly and smoothly, it can be done very straightforwardly. + write a g...

I do a simplified version of the kind of glide path that the target date funds use. When I worked up my plan a few years ago, I was comfortable with a very aggressive allocation, but I knew I'd want something more conservative when I got older. I drew a straight line from where I was in equity perce...

In some places you can simply tell the town you wish to relinquish ownership. You then stop paying taxes and eventually the town will take over ownership. I had a family member do this with an unsellable plot.

A few things clicked, in ratchet manner. + When I had my first academic job the only choice was TIAA-CREF, and their most popular funds were pretty close to passive indexing (if not entirely). So I got into the habit involuntarily, to a degree. + Around the same time I was at a meeting sitting next ...

You can't use a smart phone on AT&T without paying the data charges. They will detect the change and hit you with the fee immediately. I have a family member who has similar needs to your mother in law. We got him a Pantech P9020 Pursuit. AT&T doesn't consider it to be "smart" but ...

Preaching to the choir but a fun read regardless: http://www.businessinsider.com/best-investment-advice-2013-5 "This means that, if you plan to hold your investment for 3 or more years, you have about a 1 in 9 chance of picking a fund that will beat the market." This can't possibly be tru...

Did you sign a contract? Does it commit you to pay for whatever labor is needed to get the done, regardless of the estimate? Or is it a fixed-price contract? Or is there no contract at all? There is a signed estimate, that constitutes the contract. The estimate only specifies if additional time is ...

Did you sign a contract? Does it commit you to pay for whatever labor is needed to get the done, regardless of the estimate? Or is it a fixed-price contract? Or is there no contract at all?

Based on what you say he should probably stay where he is. You will provide better help if you talk him out of making more off the cuff moves rather than trying to steer the next one. You are [not] going to be at his side every time a whim strikes him. You could have him go through the exercise of a...

When you cross a busy street because you want to get to the other side, do you ever deliberately walk slowly because you think that if you take longer to cross you'll improve your outcomes? Crossing a busy street slowly never improves outcomes. A better analogy is choice between taking an expresswa...

That's an interesting question. If I interpret "wbern" correctly, valuations and volatility enter into the decision to employ DCA or not when purchasing into an allocation, so I would think they should also be considered when selling out of an allocation. When buying, high valuations and ...

bucksfan2 wrote:If someone said to you, you can beat the market by over 1% you would take it, wouldn't you?

Of course not. Such a claim would have no credibility.

I have been in the same position as you. I ended up with a bill for $2300. I tried to negotiate the bill down because we were paying out of pocket, but had absolutely no luck.

The HDHP world is a very different world than what we lived in before.

...4) When I add something new to the paper archive, I try to remove something, to avoid having it grow. E.g. I need to keep two years of utility bills for Little League eligibility .... OK, my apologies, I tried hard not to thread-jack, but say what?? When my son plays in Little League tournaments...