Bogleheads.org

Thanks for the advice. I guess if I wanted to change my allocations, I should have did it Thursday as Friday my FGMNX dropped 5 cents a share, the most I have ever seen it drop in one day.

At age 71 and 67, my wife and I have been heavily invested in Fidelity's gnma fund for many years. We have also purchased the short term bond fund in smaller amounts and are keeping a signifigant amount in cash to hopefully invest in bonds or cd's at 5 or 6 percent interest some day. Our goal is ass...

My Vista Windows laptop died on me so I bought a new Windows 8 HP laptop. Actually I was forced to buy Windows 8 since that was the only system the Staples store offered and I needed it immediately. I absolutely hate it. In fact so much that I will switch to Apple when my old XP desktop crashes, sin...

Is Windows 8 any good. In a work NO. My vista laptop crashed on me and I needed a laptop immediately. All they offer now is Windows 8. What a piece of junk. It took me and hour to figure out how to turn it off. Better security, hardly. Almost immediately I got something called Babylon Tool bar on it...

Back around the early 1960's my friends and I did a lot of backpacking and camping. Typical meal was a can of pork and beans. Punch a hole in it, lay it up next to the fire. Add some hotdogs or fish we caught and we had a hot meal. All of us are still healthy 50 years later but of course we didn't g...

We live in a very rural area surrounded by high hills. Tried for years to find decent internet service. Tried Verizon wireless, inside antennas, nothing worked. Then like the answer to our prayers, our local phone company put in DSL in the little bitty town less then a mile from us. We signed up imm...

As I understand it the best part about a PenFed cd is if you are facing RMD, you can withdraw money for it with no penalty.

I may be wrong but I have noticed when a new young dentist takes over a practice, I think they push treatment on you that is unnecessary. Probably because they are in debt with with loans and start up costs. I dropped two dentists that took over from my old dentists because of this.

Brush your teeth 2x a day, floss, and use a fluoride rinse. Eliminate the chance of caries and you'll never need to find out. Now I just need to take my dentist's advice. :oops: Yes my wife does that and never has a cavity, nor does any of her immediate family. I on the other hand have spent a lot ...

I have been going to Mexico for some serious dental work. I don't see any shortage of dentists. I am getting 13 crowns and a permanent bridge at a price of $3200 from a superb Mexican dentist that us "Winter Texans" have been going to for years. Of course if you are going to a poor area an...

How would you like to be retired, subject to RMD, need all the income you can get from your IRA, so you are totally in bond and Gnma funds with a small amount in a CD. Then are faced with such low interest rates and the possibility of Bond funds crashing when rates do go up. For the first time in m...

How would you like to be retired, subject to RMD, need all the income you can get from your IRA, so you are totally in bond and Gnma funds with a small amount in a CD. Then are faced with such low interest rates and the possibility of Bond funds crashing when rates do go up. For the first time in my...

Depressed markets are good if you are young and have lots of accumulation ahead of you. Not so good for a retiree with a nest egg that's not large relative to projected consumption. Yes, deff. Exactly, 5 percent cd's would have taken all the worry out of my retirement but now I am faced with Mr. Ma...

I went from 80 per cent stock mutual funds in January of 2000 to 10 percent and invested the money in GNMA's, cd's and bond funds. I was 58 years old So when i retired in 2004, 2008 didn't affect me much. In fact I was enjoying 7 to 8 per cent returns from the time I sold my stock funds until just l...

littlebird wrote:

Firewood42 wrote: It turned out that the bank had hired a new girl

That's what you get for hiring minors. Had the bank hired a fully grown woman, I'm sure this wouldn't have happened.

Sorry I guess she was a woman. May still work there.

We may drive to Alaska again this summer. Already have another couple wanting to go with us. This time we will not drive from Ohio through Canada but will go to Montana and drive North through Glacier and some of the great Canadian National Parks. Heard you can play golf on one course on the route i...

Years ago I had an account in a small U.S. town that was owned by a Canadian Company. They had owned this company for years and all the checks came from Canada. It was the largest employer is this small town. One day I was surprised to see we were way overdrawn on our checking account. It turned out...

I have been investigating immediate annuities with Fidelity since my IRA is with them. As I understand it, they will give my wife and I at ages 70 and 66, 5.66 percent back on a "life with cash refund annuity". There are no other costs. So if I give them $200,000, they will give us back $1...

Johm221122 wrote:I think SPIA are good for some people but remember 1250 a month will be a lot less,maybe a lot less if inflation gets high in 30 years
John

Having no experience with pensions, are other pensions indexed to inflation. Like post office employees, auto workers, etc?

Also our children would get back whatever was left in the annuity if we were to die. Really? To straighten out the mental accounting, you may wish to contemplate what you are getting: 1. An immediate annuity with no residual value, plus 2. Term life insurance. Do you need life insurance? If you die...

Sorry, I thought I had mentioned that my wife is 67 and I am 70. Our children are 44 and 41 and pretty successful in their lives. But they have 8 children among them and that is going to take some money to raise them through college. The salesman also gave me a quote if the principal wasn't protecte...

I should add, our families have long life expectancies. My wife's parents were both 87 when they died. My dad died at 89 despite being tore up in WWII and my Grandpa and Great Grandpa were in their mid 90's and were married over 60 and 65 years. My wife and I are in excellent health, I take no drugs...

The company is MassMutual Financial Group, which the salesman said is second only to New York Life as the best companies in America.

Payments are not indexed to inflation and would continue the same amount until both of us die.

I have called Fidelity's Annuity Sales to find out what it would cost for an immediate annuity for my wife and I. I went with Fidelity because my IRA is with them now. For $264,660 I could get and immediate annuity that would pay my wife and I $15000 per year for the rest of our lives. That would be...

I recently saw a posting on here about immediate annuities. The rate of 7.5 percent was mentioned not as an actual amount but to try and get income tax info about one in an IRA. This peaked my interest, is it possible to get returns close to this amount. My wife is 66 and I am 70, self employed all ...

Just discovered GasBuddy.com It looks like I can save a lot of money using this site, especially since I drive a lot across state and also interstate a couple of times a year. Also my truck has a 36 gallon fuel tank which means a 700 mile cruising range. Anybody else use this site and have any good ...

I have lived in Texas for 38 years and 140 miles from the Border. I used to buy drugs in Mexico, not any more. I do not TRUST the pharmacies to give you what you paid for. Most of my friends also gave up on buying drugs in Mexico. My Health is to important to me to take chances with drugs from Mexi...

My wife and I just recently switched to Humana and can buy drugs at either Wallmart or mail order. It costs us 18.75 per month each, a huge savings over our former plans. We also have another way to get drugs. Where we stay in Texas for the winter, we can go over the border and buy prescriptions dru...

Here in our rural Ohio area, we have great internet service at a reasonable price. One big savings we have in this area is Cable or Satellite TV. May be shocking to many of you but we have not had any TV in our house for 19 years. So we save quite a bit in cable or satellite charges. We don't miss i...

One post stated that in HCOL areas you have more access to professional sports or high quality college sports. I beg to disagree again. Yes we do have to travel farther so you may say it costs us more money to attend these events. Yet in my little home town in rural Ohio, many of us attend regularly...

Many successful people live in central parts of major cities, in areas with walkable streets, efficient public transportation, parks, museums, restaurants. A McMansion owner has only his 4,000 sq ft in his disposal; a city dweller has the entire city at his feet. He is not claustrophobic in his sma...

Potential hidden financial benefit of "high COL" places: Superior public schools often are most responsible for the "high COL" in many places. If you would send your kids to public schools in a high COL district, as opposed to private schools in a low COL district, that can make...

A 2012 F-150 XLT 4 door 4x4 with 6.5 foot bed and Ecoboost engine. Paid cash. Commuting mileage is 22 mpg, lifetime mileage including some towing, off road driving is 19.1. I use if for all the things country people need a truck. If we have snow I can't get out of my lane or down our gravel road wit...

When I think about how much a person's location can affect his or her salary and cost of living, it seems that the individuals, who live in a higher cost of living (COL) area and are compensated fairly for this variable , are at a clear advantage than those who live in a lower cost of living with t...

I am 70 now and my wife and I have been lucky enought to be able to work our service business for three months a year full time since we retired 5 years ago. In fact we are very much in demand. However, this next year we will retire nearly full time as the work requires long hours and accuracy and I...

Thank you very much for all the suggestions. You have given me some ideas that I hadn't thought of before. I will be looking into all this before making my decisions.

We own our home with 7 acres, and another 10 acres in a different area. These are our backup plans I am not interested in the stock market ... don't think we could survive a large pullback at our age[/size] So your theory is that the stock market is risky but a single piece of land is stable? Yes, ...

I am 70 years old and my wife is 66. We are planning on full retirement next year. We have been working 3 months a year and then retirement the rest of the year. We have $ 500,000 in our normal IRA'S invested 75 percent in Fidelity GNMA's, 20 percent in cash and short term bonds and 5 percent in a P...

Not if your farm sits above the Marcellus or Utica shales, it isn't. Yes I live in that area and wish I had more then 10 acres. I was raised on a farm but my father was a rural mail carrier also. So I learned how to raise hogs, chickens, and a huge garden that fed the family. I also belonged to 4H ...

Those logarithmic return graphs are sooooo misleading. Especially when you cherry-pick the start time as the low following the 2000-2002 market wipeout. If you pick Jan 2000 instead, and then use real returns instead of unreal returns you see that $10K invested then has turned into about $8600 toda...

I use the Fidelity 2 percent Amex and the PenFed 5% off on gasoline. Also have a Choice Privileges Visa with Barclay Bank which I use when they don't take Amex or when we are traveling for points and discounts on motels. Like to use the Pen Fed only for gasoline. I like to know how much I spend on g...

Purchased a new Briggs and Stratton 5000 watt generator for $950 this year. Our power here has at least once a year been going out for a week at a time. We always have a big freezer full of food we put up ourselves and this assures that we can save it and also keep our fridge running. Ran it for a w...

Here is a simple question.Lets say I have $400,000 invested in Cd's that pay 2 percent. I am 70 years old. If I withdraw 3 percent per year from this portfolio, how many years will it last? I understand they are 7 year Cd's but there are ways to withdraw 3 per cent with laddering etc. How about if I...

If you are raising kids, the best way to profit is move out of those states. I'm glad I left the state of Washington years ago.

Thanks for the reply. I tried looking it up but couldn't find the limits.

Thinking of getting some long term Saving Certificates from Pentagon Federal. Just wondered what the maximum amount is covered by insurance. Is it still $100,000. Is this insurance as safe as FDIC insurance. Might invest $100,000 in 7 years at 2 percent.

October 19, 1987 was a really bad day, The Dow was off 22.61% - a near tsunami. These little 2% drops are mere ripples, not even wavelets by comparison. Dale I had put a portion of high interest cd's that matured into the market just before this drop. A couple of days later I put the rest of the mo...

On our honeymoon we drove from Ohio to Washington State to Southern California back to Washington State and back to Ohio. It took 5 weeks. We saw everything on the way. Wisconsin Dells, Wall Drug, Yellowstone Park, Mount Rainier, Pacific beaches, San Francisco, Knotts Berry Farm, Disneyland, and all...

Maybe I did something right for a change. I got completely out of the stock market one day before the high this year. What makes you think that the high won't be on Dec 31st? yes!!! That is the same what I am thinking reading posts like this every time during regular market correction. I guess this...

Maybe I did something right for a change. I got completely out of the stock market one day before the high this year. What makes you think that the high won't be on Dec 31st? yes!!! That is the same what I am thinking reading posts like this every time during regular market correction. I guess this...