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$400 sounds right for this. Pay it and be glad there was nothing to do on FP's time. Patients' families often get worked up about bills -- the greedy doctor or hospital is fleecing them, etc., even when a life is saved, maybe especially then. That's short-sighted. If you can't get over this, next ti...

You are doing OK. It takes longer to raise a retirement nest egg than it does to raise a child. As with a child, feed it regularly (save) and don't jerk it around (switch allocation) too much. The most frightening part is figuring out how much you need to retire, and it seems an impossible goal. But...

Keep a lot in FDIC insured accounts, or insured credit union accounts (NCUA). Max is $250,000 per individual per bank. I keep the max in insured credit union accounts, and the rest in savings bonds and at Vanguard.

Atlanta - I think you've made a good choice. I used to think on-campus living was better, based on my own experience. But your daughter has grown already by learning the economic facts from you, even if some of it is "how not to do it". She can't be the only freshman who will live at home,...

I can sympathize with the Medicaid problem. I get stunning patient profiles twice a week from my cleaning lady, whom I met as a home health aide last summer. She sees two worlds, those like me who pay full freight and live in nice houses, and those on Medicaid who live in cramped apartments with god...

I had a Fidelity 401k and we got group sessions with optional individual appointments if we arranged them. I went to a group session and there was no sleaze and no hard sell. Just info about the legal ins and outs of the plan. When approached with a hard sell, I always "just said no", I'm ...

It's a noob question, but I'll ask anyway. Research shows that 40% of the money is invested in index funds these days. What happens if the rest 60% is moved towards index as well? Doesn't that mean the index (and hence the index funds) will go down, since the trading and frequent sell/buy will stop...

Mr. Bogle was in fine form. Overall, the show made it seem that the problem was unsolvable, which might discourage people on the fence about saving. For those of us who have already skinned the retirement cat, one way or another, it was fun seeing the bank fund guy and gal mumbling and chewing their...

Now, some obvious flags are: 1) $80K worth of individual stocks This is 10% of their investments held at no charge. Does not seem excessive to me. The individual stocks are not overlapping and are similar to top holdings in Total Stock Market fund. IOW, don't sell these lightly. They probably have c...

Count of MC, Sounds like being good (working, saving, having insurance) is not agreeing with you. IMHO your constant worry is not true anxiety. It's a script you've learned by listening to those who want you to be fearful. Couple of ideas, take them for what they are worth: (1) Be a critical thinker...

I love it. People like those who scorn my English major being paid to watch predigested Shakespeare because they would not bother with/understand the real thing. Shakespeare can be part of your life experience, but you have to do it in a homeopathic way -- small doses, a play at a time, starting in ...

Do they naturally normalize to the NAV or can they diverge from the NAV or are they ever manually corrected? Disclaimer - I have no ETFs, just read about them. The way new shares are created as demand requires is, I believe, as close to normalizing as it gets. If you are interested you really shoul...

No, their value is not exactly the same. Can you explain a little more please? ETF's sell at a market price that can be lower (discount) or higher (premium) than the NAV. Vanguard shows the different between NAV and closing price every day. Whenever I've been interested in an ETF it turns out to be...

Like a lot of the personal decisions that get posted here, this one suggests no, your wife is not ready to quit. All I can think is, when I'm ready, the big decision is made, no wondering, no what-ifs. In my heart I know that's what's right for everyone concerned and all the talk in the world won't ...

Just got a phone call on this. As Flagship I get a $25 Amazon credit for doing the survey. Looks like the March 20 deadline wasn't firm.

I agree that the nursing field is not recession proof (there are no guarantees in life). From a hospital pharmacist's perspective, my nurses are not recession proof because they are being stretched as thin as legally possible. They work 12 hour shifts, and being forced to manage as many patients as...

I worked as an RN for 12 years, until 1982. The best things were portability both geographically and among specialties. And of course it was the most interesting and worthwhile work I ever did. I sense the current climate may be different and require more formal certification beyond RN. NPs were jus...

I have a PPO Medicare Advantage plan. Aside from its low cost, I found it helpful that I did not have to choose the doctors and coordinate all the appointments at once when I had 2 surgeons, a med onc and a rad onc and was darn sick to boot. If you keep it all in one network the staff at any clinic ...

FWIW I've had the opposite experience. Two Kindles, the original and the paperwhite, are both fully functional. I bought the original in the first year they came out, don't remember when that was, maybe 6 years ago? I use only the paperwhite now, keep the network off except to buy stuff, and recharg...

Congratulations. Good going so far, now "don't mess it up" as the American Airlines CEO got told yesterday. I'm always suspicious of long-term DCA. Seems to me the investor doesn't really want the allocation he's aiming for if he's not ready to be fully invested within a year. For most of ...

Shylock foreshadows Portia's argument (pound of [Christian] flesh, not a drop of [Christian] blood) earlier when he says, "If you [Christians] prick us do we [Jews] not bleed?" -- nicely placed in the middle of his argument, where you don't notice its significance until the pseudo-trial. I...

The OP's first SS link matches my experience as a 4th Wednesday payee (birthday between 21st and 31st). I don't know what happens when the filer's birthday is different from the earner's. I guess you take whatever SS gives you.

On crowd79's Step 2 - I closed a CD early once at Wells Fargo and the penalty was 3 months interest -- not much! As you can see, getting out of debt is step zero but somehow most people don't even get that far. Managing actual savings and investment can be a long learning process. Keep at it in a Bo...

I had suggested (strongly) to a colleague at work that he should take out his first dates to a nice restaurant that he has a 50% discount coupon for. Whip out the coupon when he pays the check and anyone who responds negatively is automatically out. 50% discount? You mean, buy one dinner and get on...

Marine/boat paint is good for stairs (high traffic area) as well as porch/deck paint. Consider flame retardant sealer.

I waited to pay off mortgage until I had enough to do it from taxable money in one fell swoop. It happened to be 10 years early. No regrets, was able to rebuild taxable account fairly quickly. Keep building the taxable account or maybe make extra mortgage payments. No point in paying large amount un...

Keep it (she said) if you don't mind that it will someday go down 40-50% again from some unknown high point. It's not costing you anything. Bogleheadedness is about low cost investing. Otherwise do mostly index funds.

All you can do is keep saving and investing for retirement. You can't pin an age on it yet. Keep it at it, live below your means, and you will know when you can retire. If this is really a serious aspiration, quit having kids. Otherwise forget the exact retirement age and enjoy the journey. Count on...

I'm doing a similar thing on a small scale. Leaving existing investments alone, new cash is going 60% to short term investmt grade and 40% to Equity Income (VEIPX for div yield). Eventually I plan to merge those two back into my major long-term funds which emphasize intermediate bonds

Yes.....a la Target date and Lifestrategy funds! KISS. Do you know for sure what the details of the rebalancing policy of those funds are? Rebalancing is fully described (in so far as you can describe future events) under "Strategy and Policy", including use of cash, etf's, and derivatives.

I can confidently vote yes because most of my investments are in fixed-allocation balanced funds. Why worry about my ability to rebalance, the Vanguard computers do the job for me.

Rebalancing, if it is part of your plan, should be as automated as bill paying.

You mentioned "buying a car". I'd plan on at least two vehicles for the family you describe, and perhaps 3, depending where you live/work/go to school.

Now that I'm doing estimated tax payments instead of withholding from paycheck, if there is a refund I leave it to go toward the next tax year. Not sure how paying $0 and getting $6k refund is sustainable...sounds like a one-off example rather than a typical year, unless you're a mega-corporation wi...

Disclaimer - I bought a new house rather than deal with remodeling. The best thing about the master bath is the 5x5 glass block window facing west. Lots of light and heat in daylight. Even a small frosted window will help if you can manage it. The worst thing is the oversize light fixture with six (...

It's easy once you get a spreadsheet started for a year's spending, with accurate estimates based on past years. Been doing this for over ten years. 2012 was extraordinary for me -- on the face of it, I spent 20% more than in 2011. But when I zero out 2012 home health care, which I've never needed b...

And I think she is way too defeatist. Agree. I am sick of well-fed talking heads bemoaning the fate of the middle class, how in debt and out of work they are, and the small-investor class, how they were all ruined by 2008 and low interest rates. It is all phony self-serving blather. I'll skip this ...

Chaz - I think Musings meant that not looking at accounts for 2 years could have unintended consequences. I'd agree -- once you have a bit of money, you have to get your head out of the sand and check on it once in a while. For example, I had a transaction labelled "Sweep TO Brokerage" in ...

DaveS wrote:I think the article is right. The bubble will soon burst. I like the description of HY as a "high kurtosis" asset class. I am a high kurtosis skier. Dave

Nice analogy. I'm in that bunny-slope cluster of fixed-allocation balanced funds.

If they divorce and don't reg as domestic partners, doesn't common-law marriage kick in after a few years, making them essentially married again without benefit of ceremony?

One has to have a separate account at Vanguard Brokerage Services if they want to purchase ETFs at Vanguard. Given the above, and the fact that there are commission-free ETFs available at Ameritrade as stated here: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/TD_Ameritrade , I'm leaning toward Ameritrade, unless...

leonard -

I was going to add "keep it simple" too, but you've done it. I found an animated avatar of a Hershey's KISS unwrapping itself and giving a big red-lipped KISS to the reader -- would have been fun, but not doable on this forum.

In my spreadsheet I use values (number of shares, NAV) that result in fractional allocations. But I format the % cells to not show any decimal places so the whole thing looks a lot cleaner. You seem to be doing some predictive things, but any calculation using the cell containing an allocation % wil...

Is there an AA calculator online that will give me the exact AA if I divide my funds evenly between the Target Retirement Fund and the Wellesley Fund? If you have a Vanguard account, log in. Go to Portfolio Watch, then to Portfolio Tester, where you can see the effect of adding new funds or exchang...

Got it. Thanks Dan and Steve. Yes, the cover looks better than a "freebie" has any right to look. Haven't read it yet, but I think I've probably lived it.

I'm working with the same 40/60 allocation and almost the same funds. I've decided to keep Wellesley but not add to it. In the past, they've shortened their bond duration from long to intermediate. But I don't foresee Wellesley becoming a short bond fund. They are managing for income, not principal....

Here's a link to a previous Bogleheads thread on Tempurpedic: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73683 I bought mine for comfort, but as it turned out I needed its therapeutic benefits throughout the past year, recovering from various medical and surgical insults. My tempurpedic was the...

I'm leaving everything to charity so I've done some reading on this topic.

Since a CRT is irrevocable it would be a bad idea for a 29 year old. You can never change your mind even when/if the facts change. You will want some form of trust, but not a CRT or anything else that is irrevocable.

coldav wrote:I heared Ric Edelman say awhile back that Orman herself does not invest in the market though she may recommend it.

She has no need to take risk.

Suze's 100% may not be the same as yours. She consistently recommends a large emergency fund -- I forget if it is 6 or 8 months of expenses, but it's larger than I ever had when I was young and beginning stock investing. That amount of cash would not be part of the investor's asset allocation. In co...

See Pub 502, Medical and Dental Expenses. I looked at it and age doesn't seem to matter. Sick is sick, at any age.