Bogleheads.org

Lots of wonderful places to visit in Costa Rica. I'd say near Manuel Antonio Park, the closest town being Quepos might be a possibility. It's very beautiful with lots monkeys, bird-watching, beaches, and there is sailing nearby, horseback riding; I think you can make arrangements for ziplines and ot...

Taylor, I wouldn't discourage this person with all those quotes. Yes, they are correct. But, it's not like he is seeing some fund with a 1, 2, or 5-year record only. Wellington was created right before the 1929 crash and has weathered bull and bear markets and other market crashes. It is indeed acti...

Wasn't the character of Bulldog on the tv show "Frasier" based on Jim Cramer to some extent? Even though Bulldog was a sports radio announcer, his on-air tactics and over the top persona, including sound effects, were very similar to Cramer's.

There are at least two previous threads on the topic you should be able to find with a forum search. It doesn't seem likely that a new thread would be useful. I read one of them, and it got a bit more complex than I want to read. I want a simplified version; someone once said something to the effec...

Could someone please explain what this so-called currency is? What can people supposedly buy with it? It sounds to me like some over-hyped sleight of hand, but it is being discussed more often on some sites. I could be wrong, but my gut feeling says avoid and run away.

How about Vanguard match our retirement contributions up to say, 6%? Anything in the organizational structure for or against?

Sorry for your loss. I'll only address the part about what to do with IRA money -- especially if it was from a regular IRA, you would want to put that into an Inheritance IRA. Make sure it is a direct transfer from its current place to the new one, and be sure it is titled as ["your name" ...

I was looking of one of the few charts in Andrew Tobias' excellent book "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" which shows that prime and other interest rates in the early 1980s (due to apparently rampant inflation) were like 12%-15% or higher. Did they get that high by ever increasi...

Does anyone know when women were finally allowed to inherit real estate and money in the UK? I don't know if inheriting real estate and other items (like securities and cash) were treated separately. Besides "Downtown Abbey", many famous novels like "Sense and Sensibility" and &q...

This may be somewhat basic in some respects, but it does have some very good ideas on cutting costs, saving money, investing and so forth. You can click on whatever chapter you like, as some clearly cover more advanced topics. I thought you might want to have a look and pass it along it you like. Th...

Play some LPs -- I held on to mine and ones I inherited from my folks. There are turntables for sale, even ones which will convert them to MP3s. The sound is rich and warm (even if they sometimes skip and get stuck); even some new artists are releasing LPs again. With MP3s and other compacted files,...

You can go into the shopping portal of your frequent flier program and buy one I-Tunes song for $1.00

You can order a magazine and that will also reset the expiration date.

Anyone else think it's actually rather good that the market is down on a day that funds are giving out shares for capital gains, dividends and interest? It always seems like we're getting more shares at a bargain price. Of course, it helps if prices go up in the long run!

I've been twice and love Costa Rica. Check out the tours given by caravan.com which are all-inclusive and very affordable. Even if you decide you want to do CR on your own, reading the descriptions of where they go and some of the sights will give you some ideas. The second time I went more or less ...

You could possibly take dance classes or private dance lessons. Ballroom, swing, and Latin dances could be learned with private lessons; they are hot again as shows like "Dancing with the Stars" are top-rated. Also classes in things like tap dance (which require special shoes), jazz and ot...

I think if I ever meet Mr. Tobias, I would love to be able to say to him, "COME OOOOOOONNNNNNNN, WILLOWWWWW" * *Referring to one of his hilarious stories in his book about his bet on a horse-race. It's a really funny and useful book, and it has indeed been updated a bit in the 2011 version.

I believe that the display of "Balances and Holdings" is too cluttered now. I don't really see the need to have the fund and account #s of each of the holdings visible. Certainly it should be available if you click on the name of the fund or something like that, but I think having these lo...

Is is necessary to somehow still differentiate between converted and contributory Roth IRAs? I have paid the taxes on the converted ones, but just wondering about if I need to keep paperwork (or how much of it to keep). For example, do I need to keep some paperwork of another fund company where the ...

Some wonderful French films - First, courtesy of Francois Truffaut: The 400 blows (autobiographical film about Truffaut's rough upbringing, but very moving and funny too) Small Change (wonderful film about small children) Day for Night (great film about movie-making) Shoot the Piano Player w Charles...

Just erring on the side of caution. When one gets an idea that could possibly make some money, I think a bit of paranoia and prudence might be in order. I've heard of internet millionaires making money buying up sites; I don't know if they have some kind of automated robo-computer checking out searc...

I have an idea for a possible business that could come from a relatively common word or two in English usage as its dotcom website. I was thinking of checking GoDaddy or something like that, but I seem to recall some article (or someone talking about) folks out there looking to buy web domains so th...

Isn't this a hint of more to come from other companies on Facebook? And it's very interesting the timing of this, before the big IPO (which Facebook apparently has just increased the valuation of what they say it is worth). http://marketday.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/15/11719848-gm-to-drop-all-adve...

Jane Bryant Quinn had a fairly simple, but ultimately reassuring explanation for holding bond funds, even when the interest rates are higher. She said that it is true the principal will be lower when rates rise, but then you will be getting monthly interest at that higher interest rate and it will b...

Another thing about some of those charts: some years ago, different mutual fund companies would say that one wouldn't lose money if one kept some money in a mixture of stock and bond mutual funds over a 10-year period; however, because of recent events, including the Great Recession and some charts ...

Why not, say, have a 100-year chart instead, which might give a longer overview? Isn't 1926 a bit skewed since it starts in the Roaring '20s, a few years before the Big Crash of 1929, and including the Great Depression of the 1930s? Wouldn't a longer time period give a more accurate view of for inst...

Singin' in the Rain

Meet Me in St. Louis

Mary Poppins

A Night at the Opera

Strangers on a Train

Love Me Tonight

The Palm Beach Story

The Music Man (original)

Some Like It Hot

The Apartment

Ninotchka

among many others

Thanks for your reply. I have a little exposure to GNMA in the STAR fund. I was just wondering when I kept hearing about FannieMae and FreddieMac being in trouble, but not so much about GNMA. Anyway, I appreciate your taking the trouble to find the answer.

Since recent headlines with all the sub-prime mortgages and terrible loans made by the banks seemed to indicate a crisis with FannieMae and FreddieMac, what is the structure that allows GNMAs to not seem to be having such scrutiny (or being mentioned in the same breath as the others)? Thanks.

Things have really gotten out of hand. Years ago my father warned me never to use a Christmas club account, because the bank doesn't pay you anything, but uses your money which it loans out to someone else. That was something of a scam, since you could have just saved your money in a regular account...

ABCnews.com has been reporting for several hours that the Bank of America website is down. Lots of angry debit-card holders are making their feelings known about their desire to close their accounts.

Could you possibly open a bank account with yourself and the other person as co-owners? I know if you passed away that other person would own the account, but what's to stop them from say, being the only one who ever makes withdrawals from that account while you are alive? Of course, you would have ...

One of my favorites is from Lorenz Hart's lyric to "Zip" from the musical "Pal Joey". A newspaper reporter tells what Gypsy Rose Lee told her what she thinks about as she is stripping. "Zip" English people don't say "clerk" they say "clark" "Zip...

There is a full-size recreation of the Greek Parthenon in Centennial Park. Also the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is a lot of fun, including a studio where many hits, including ones by Elvis Presley were recorded. The Grand Ol' Opry is a lot of fun; besides great country music, it is a hoot ...

That is, for those folks who hold on, say at the end of September when Total Stock Index does its next distributions? And possibly more shares? This would be better, of course, in a tax-advantaged account. Of course, for people who are in for the long-term it would probably be better if they were bo...

I Don't Care [with a shout-out to Jason Zweig]

I've Got the Sun in the Morning and the Moon at Night" - Irving Berlin

Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries

I Can't Give You Anything But Love

Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles

Does that mean reassuring yourself by putting on some band to comfort you, like the Beatles or Fleetwood Mac or Glenn Miller? I'm not sure where this term started from. Yes, I guess when your asset allocation is say 50/50 and it's now 40/60 it is time to rebalance. But where's the music - where is t...

You know, the Dow right now has been heading down to 12,000 lately -- but, of course, several months ago when it approached 12,000 from the 11,000s people were cheering on how high the market was getting. Yet it's the same number pretty much -- 12,000. Everyone knows the market goes up and down. But...

I haven' t been, but my cousin just got back from Nova Scotia and enjoyed it. She went on a Caravan tour at caravan.com -- one trick I've learned from traveling over the years is to look at some brochures (or now websites) of some of the established tour companies (i.e. Tauck, Globus, etc.) and see ...

I thank you for your considered answers thus far.

Don't know why you would trade if you weren't sure; anyway, my building has a boiler and doesn't use firewood.

Apparently after WWI in Germany with inflation so out of control and the German mark of so little value, I heard that it was indeed cheaper to burn, was it millions? of marks to heat one's home rather than to buy firewood. Certainly there were many things at play leading up to this, but with all thi...

Thanks for your replies thus far.

It just struck me that someone could conceivably buy new furniture, a new car, furnishings, new clothes, go on a vacation, and then find themselves in credit card hell. So, they claim bankruptcy. Now, it will mess up their credit for 7 years or so, but does that mean they get to keep all that new st...

Joel Tillinghast, who runs probably my favorite active fund, announced he is taking a 4-month leave of absence from Fidelity from September through January. He'll still be in contact so none of the top 50 holdings will be sold or bought without his consent. I hope he comes back when he says he will ...

When you buy a drink (that doesn't have refills), ask for the drink with no ice then ask for ice in a separate cup. You get much more bang for the buck. Instead of that, sometimes I order a drink like iced tea and tell them to go "very easy on the ice"; otherwise, the drink will be mostly...

I've been called "guv'nor" (Cockney or lower-class British speech as in governor or "one's boss") when I lived in London. I thought it was charming. One of the Hispanic porters who work in my building calls me "Boss" and another says "How are you, my friend?" ...

Maybe they realize that some folks who borrow from the library read their books while on the toilet; others would rather have their own relatively pristine copy. I was warned by my mother years ago about library books: "Wash your hands before dinner; you don't know where that book has been".

just a way to make a dime without making a real contribution to our planet You mean like real estate agents, investment bankers and day traders? I've heard others level the same charges against them. Some coaching is akin to therapy, though without crossing the line where clinical psychologists and...

Thanks. I appreciate your replies thus far. Ms. Beck has a website similar to some other folks who also provide training. As far as meaningful certification, I'm still seeking further information.

I’ve been contemplating a parallel career to my work as an actor and opera singer, especially during slow times. I’m tired of some of the office gigs I’ve done over the years, though they have included stints in investment banks (in administrative support) and law firms (legal secretary in trusts an...