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A letter came in the mail from a "dial-a-lawyer" claiming that I may be eligible for compensation for Libor fixing. (Forum rules note: the specific actionable issue is whether I lost money and entitled to compensation. Let's not discuss the aspects of the scandal that would get the thread ...

There's also the option to donate appreciated shares to charity.

Did you have to enter your personal PIN number in the automatic ATM machine to get cash for your residential DHW heater?

I think Keith is trolling. The three-fund portfolio consists of Total Stock Market and Total Bond Market. It does not contain any gold, silver or other commodities. It contains companies that work with commodities, but it's not the same. Myself, I decided on 8% in physical coins sitting in a bank sa...

You could also reach out to the buyer and split the cost of a heater of his choice 50-50.

Although the bulk of the cost is the plumber anyway.

There's probably a market for used water heaters, too.

I am maxing out my 401(a), that is an employer based plan where they contribute a set amount % of my salary, I do not have an option of contributing more, I just take the money they give and invest it into choices the provide. We are maxing out 403(b), $17,500 each. This is the reason I was asking ...

Vanguard shows several with a coupon of 4% to 5%. Let’s assume I find a bond with 4.5% coupon . . . - $100K * .045% = $4500 in income There's your mistake. Coupon is not the same as yield. If you find a bond with high coupon and high quality, it will trade at a premium. That means you'll pay more t...

1) Why not max out the 401(a)?! At your tax rate, it's a slam dunk, ahead of 529. I/EE bonds are good for long-term investments (at least 5 years for I, 20 for EE), have curious tax advantages, and they do contribute to the bond portion of your AA. You probably will retire by the time they mature, s...

Take a hard look at the stable value funds available in 401s instead of bonds - what interest rate do they promise? Bonds offer miserable returns these days and keep threatening to go down.

Dumping ER into mortgage: extremely stupid. Stopping 401(k) contributions in favor of mortgage: stupid. Dialing back 401(k) contributions in favor of mortgage: less stupid. Dialing back Roth IRA or 529 contributions in favor of mortgage: arguable. If you lose the job, you'll be able to pull out some...

My 401(k) funded last Friday as well. I'm squirming but staying the course.

FNK wrote:Now that I hear talk it's going to $350, I bet it's heading back to $700.

Lost the bet, for the time being.

MrMatt, I toyed with this idea a lot when I was learning the Boglehead ropes. I gave it up because it had: ⋅ too much complexity, and ⋅ no point. The problem is: we get so excited about the concept of Asset Allocation that we put it as the centerpiece of financial planning. That'...

The question is which periods are used to account for ER. The answer is I don't know, but I would guess it's either the trailing year's expenses or the budgeted expenses for the coming year, divided into current assets. 0.33% in your example.

I'm curious about opinions of different products too.

Consider installing rigid foam underneath the siding for extra warmth.

A round lot of BRK.A?

401(k) loan interest is double taxed in the following sense: 1) You earn money, and it's taxed 2) After-tax dollars go into the 401(k) account as loan repayment 3) When you withdraw, you pay income tax again In your 1-2-3 step above, where did the un-taxed 401k loan money go? It is clear to see tha...

So is it the Bogle way to max out Roth before 401K and how does a person know if tax bracket now, will be lower or less at 30 years from now? thank you What's commonly recommended is to contribute to 401(k) as far as it's matched, then to Roth. But everybody has a unique situation. You don't know w...

TomatoTomahto wrote:We own some Berkshire stock (a mixture of A and B shares).

BRK.A 143484.00

401(k) loan interest is double taxed in the following sense: 1) You earn money, and it's taxed 2) After-tax dollars go into the 401(k) account as loan repayment 3) When you withdraw, you pay income tax again Just track the transitions between pre-tax and after-tax money. The initial transition of th...

I'd stare at that talkatone thing with serious suspicion.

2.9% is a pretty good rate. I'd split the difference: contribute $10K to Roth and everything else to the loan.

Once you pay the loan off, you can ditch collision insurance.

am wrote:Who would not benefit from buying I bonds?

Somebody who has tax-advantaged space to fill.

Now that I hear talk it's going to $350, I bet it's heading back to $700.

I'm happy to have 50/50 US/Intl and a small tilt. AAPL is less than 1% of my portfolio.

Serving retail investors is a cost to Vanguard. We actually do Vanguard a favor if we invest in Vanguard funds (and ETFs) through other companies. Vanguard still gets the same ER, without the cost associated with answering the phone, replying to emails, printing statements, getting numbers on the w...

AAPL $486

Ouch.

In terms of actual moves, I did a 401(k) loan, ditched TBM and paid down my mortgage.

My usual response (agreeing with freebeer): don't confuse corporations with markets. How much of the emerging markets' 50% is served by US corporations?

If multinationals channel their profits through Ireland, should I overweigh Irish stocks?

Consider the menu of domestic size-segregated funds. International large/small/total is here to stay.

The existing FTSE fund is All-World ex-US. Total International is switching to Global All Cap ex-US. The difference is small caps.

Label them as spam and let the mail service deal with that.

Please spin me a plausible tale about just exactly how the DWS shareholder gets $1335.45 some other way from DWS that she wouldn't get from Vanguard. Does that $1335.45 pay for anything useful to the customer? Is it a good thing for the customer to sacrifice $1335.45 in the interest of making DWS a...

I was bombarded by phone calls from an online pharmacy. No amount of stern talking to and magic "do not call list" incantations would get them to stop. In fact, I'm still probably bombarded by them, but I'm blissfully unaware of that. Here's the trick: 1) Tell your phone to send that numbe...

Apologies! Here's the relevant quote from IRS Pub 550:

Stock for stock of the same corporation. You can exchange common stock for common stock or preferred stock for preferred stock in the same corporation without having a recognized gain or loss.

Thanks. I thought that at first, but there was some discussion about the IRA which is why I left it in the Investing - Theory, News & General forum (General investing). OK, it's now in Personal Consumer Issues forum. (Keep focused on helping the OP.) Sounds like "Investing - Help with Pers...

The real problem is OP's going to concierge services. As an introvert, I prefer to do stuff through the web site, and that tends to just work.

The wash sale doctrine treats it as a non-event from the tax perspective.

czeckers wrote:Converting to tankless, indirect heat, heat pumps, and/or solar requires a bit of planning ahead. Not a lot of time if her heater is already leaking.

I had my leaking gas heater converted to an indirect. No big deal.

It would take 5.2 years reinvesting dividends to get to the same point where you would have been in 5.2 years reinvesting dividends without the change in interest rates. NAV will not increase to 83; your balance will recover. After 5.2 years, you will be better off than if the change didn't happen (...

Someone will have to pay the few hundred bucks eventually. Some funds' low ERs are explicitly temporary.

Vanguard is not a religion. It's a fine company, and as long as it keeps being the best choice, we can stay with it.

xrw1 wrote:I know I could put the extra 100 dollars towards my downpayment, but I want to invest that 100 dollars every month.

Weird. I'd focus on the downpayment if I were you. $100/month is small change if you're maxing out tax advantaged accounts.

Valuethinker wrote:Ok electric or gas?

Don't forget indirect!

If you have hydronic heat (gas or oil, baseboards or radiators), an indirect tank will let your (hopefully very efficient) boiler do the burning and will pretty much last forever.

is it a common alternative to use Vexmx in replace of small cap index? I like Small Cap Index more than Extended Market. Small Cap gently dials down stocks as they grow up; Extended Market hates the S&P 500. So if you have no restrictions on funds, I'd suggest Total Stock Market + Small Cap Ind...

1) Decide what percentage of your portfolio it is. You may get a rebalancing bonus, but only if you rebalance. I'm thinking of getting to 8% some day. 2) Understand what and why. I decided to have gold coins, no silver. I also decided to get a world-wide variety for the additional fun factor. 3) Whe...

Extended market and small cap index are very, very similar. Check out their charts.

In the absence of a major market event, my plan is extended every year to be seven years plus the remainder. It's the remainder that declines, not the seven-year horizon. Isn't that the elephant in the room? The plan works every year except 2001, 2008, and the 1920s. 8-) Looks like you're assuming ...

Check out the graphs for extended market and small cap index. They are pretty much identical.

Keith, You've described a glide path, a really sharp one. 58% in stocks is fairly aggressive and the 7 year horizon is fairly short. If you do something gentler, say, age in fixed income, you'll have the classic AA. Calling it buckets does not make a substantial difference. The way I imagine doing i...