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If they are not maxing out their own 401Ks and his/hers IRAs, I would do that first, and use withdrawals from the inherited IRA to replace the lost income. This is a tax-free move that effectively transfers (some of) the inherited IRA into their names. Fun RMD facts: Mortgage balance from the OP: $1...

I believe this is valid, but maybe not widely practical. If you retire in the year you turn 55, many 401k plans allow penalty-free distributions. So let's say you plan to retire even earlier. You need to be an uber-saver to do that, so you are probably doing more than just maxing out a 401k and IRA ...

^Looks reasonable, but I prefer index funds.
If it were me, I would stick with 100% TSM in taxable.

Without knowing more about your situation, my back-of-the-envelope guesstimate is you will be cutting it close to make this work out. Are you planning to take SS at age 62? I'd be nervous like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin' chairs... I'll be taking SS at 66 or 70. At 59.5 I will begin ...

Pros: 1. Simpler to maintain. It's a mild pain to allocate this across 5 seperate accounts with more money flowing into my 401k 2. Would be slightly cheaper (not by much though. Basically would be able to maximize admiral share usage and could have the cheapest Total Stock Market Index in my self-d...

Just as an FYI, a fair amount of the lost postings can be found in Google's cache. I'm not suggesting that the moderators do anything about it, but those of us who want to restore a post to an existing thread may be able to fish it out of the cache. Example: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic...

Note : this post got trashed as a consequence of the recent BH outage and data loss. I've resurrected it by pulling it out of the Google cache. I am going thru a similar situation with my dad's RMD mess and would like to know if you have an update to share? Did the IRS ever contact or formally waiv...

To anyone... I can see that where you get the dollars to pay the taxes might matter for the conversion. I see 2 feasible options... (I'm sure there are more) Pay the taxes thru conversion from the IRA acct. at the time of conversion. Better: Do it in two steps. Say you've got $10K left in the 15% b...

Does everything sound like it went as it should? It sounds correct to me. Read the documentation on the back of your Form 5498. Box 3 is only for reporting Roth conversions from various flavors of IRA. Box 2 shows the amount of a rollover from any qualified plan--the taxable amount, if any, is not ...

They offer fidelity and TiaaCref and have only 2-3 vanguard funds. They also only have a smattering of the cheaper fidelity spartan funds. Why not ask your employer to add more Vanguard funds and/or more Spartan funds? We have TIAA-CREF as our TPA, but the menu includes a dozen or so Vanguard funds...

I used to think it was perhaps an expectant wash, as one is simply reducing cost basis, but reading posts of retirees, and people who have looked at decumulation tax wise, I have come to realize that tax rates for decumulation are really really low expectantly. By harvesting losses, you are postpon...

Folks, I have been using short term munis as a combination emergency fund and partial bond component of my AA. With SEC short term muni yields at about 0.35% and my local bank offering 1% on savings, there isn't any reason to hold munis vs cash correct? The risk reward seems inverted. Not necessari...

You're right that tax rules for IRAs are no excuse to delay rebalancing. Get off your <expletive> and get it done. The same applies to RIRA: all money is tax-free when withdrawn and doesn't matter which shares are sold. No. The rules governing withdrawals from Roth IRAs are rather messy, and depend ...

Am I missing something? I see nothing here about her anticipated income streams, expenses, and tax rates (Fed + state) in retirement. So, unless she doesn't need this portfolio to cover expenses in retirement, what makes you assume that she'll have the "problem" of needing to re-invest RM...

I believe the leftmost drop down menu of your VG account page has a "Taxes" or "Capital Gains" entry. That will take you to a page that should list all of the cap gains you have realized.

Or ask a CSR where to find it.

Thus, the true value of harvesting the capital loss is the opportunity to invest the near-term tax savings for growth From a cash flow standpoint, TLH'ing is excellent for reducing your bill come tax time. But from an investment standpoint, one must actually re-invest the savings from your tax bill...

My $0.02: 1. Don't invest in things you don't understand. 2. When you inherit a non-spouse IRA, you have to start taking required minimum distributions. (Read also about the 5-year rule, which might be an option in your case, but means withdrawing amounts at an even faster rate.) Wrapping it inside ...

I never read the contract, but I'm surprised that they are able to do this when they stated that the minimum rate for contributions would be 3%. They can do this by stopping new contributions to the account, and creating a new account with a new contract. Similar to closing a fund. Existing money i...

For the record, here are the real (inflation adjusted--as of 3/13) levels that need to be exceeded to qualify as an all-time high: Dow.....................16,124 S&P500...................2,106 NASDAQ.................6,847 Wilshire 5000.......20,005 All of these levels were set during the first ...

TIAA RE and TIAA Trad annuity are unique investments. But I am not sure they are worth chasing given the limited time/ amount you can put it. If you went 100% TIAA RE you'd have a unique asset which you could not really rebalance on. There are risks in these two funds too. I'd probably forgo the op...

TIAA-CREF announced a few days ago that in August, in certain types of accounts they will close current TIAA Traditional contracts to new contributions, which will go into new contracts that have a lower guaranteed interest rate. Before you decide whether to use TIAA Traditional, you should find ou...

Too much overlap. Six funds does not necessarily mean 'more diversified' than three funds.

Pick the Fidelity US Bond Index. It's nearly indistinguishable from VG Total Bond Market.

Someday you might want to add the inflation protected bond fund, but IMO this is unnecessary for now.

It is heartening that the discussion is more on whether I should be investing in a Roth or TIRA than the poor choices I have chosen for my switches to Fidelity and Vanguard! Which must mean I've picked good funds! Any other suggestions in the asset allocation and choices of funds I have listed? For...

The recent MMM discussion got me wondering what you would do if you reach your "number" and for whatever reason, continue working. IMO, you need clarity of thought about what you really mean by "reaching your number". Using that phrase connotes the idea that there is a precise d...

In other TIAA-CREF news, the new prospectus for TREA reveals that the ER has dropped by a whopping 2.5bp to 0.895.

I'm wondering if there's anything that would prevent them from doing the same thing for their qualified plans (403b, RA, GSRA, etc.). My hunch would be - no. Agreed. One thing unclear to me from the webpage is how "additional amounts" would be handled. It is rather hypothetical at the mom...

Looks fine to me. Note that IRA and 401k accounts don't track cost basis, so there shouldn't be any choice involved. (Trad IRAs can have a basis in non-deductible contributions, but that's a separate issue, and not something you elect.) There are wiki articles on dividend reinvestment and cost basis...

I believe you computed the compounding in the wrong direction; a 2.25% gain over 10 years is a 25% total gain, but you need a bigger expense difference to have a 25% loss, because a 25% gain is only the same relative change as a 20% loss. An expense of 2.84% per year compounded for ten years leaves...

This article has the ER changes for April. https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/article/expense-ratio-changes-042013 The investor shares of TBM did drop by 2bp. I hadn't noticed before that TBM II, the version of TBM used in the Target Retirement funds and (maybe?) the Life Strategy funds is li...

David, Seems to me it should also depend on years to retirement (or the point at which the money is spent or RMD'd). Ex: you expect to stay in your current job 10 more years, but won't retire for 30 years. So your options are to use the bad 401k for 10 years, then roll it to an IRA for 20 years, or ...

Most people understand that $1 in a Roth is worth more than $1 in a trad IRA (after taxes). So they think that they want their faster-growing assets in the Roth. What they are forgetting is that once you accept that a Roth dollar is worth more than a tIRA dollar, then your risk exposure is tilted as...

Not enough information provided. Example: 75% of your portfolio is in a 401k or IRA, 25% taxable. Your asset allocation calls for 40% TSM, 20% TISM, 40% TBM. You could hold 100% TSM in taxable and do all of your rebalancing in tax-advantaged accounts. Rebalancing costs you $0. You'll pay at most 15%...

Great chart nisiprius. I feel very stressed out now, because I HOPE I did the math right... and I just picked the last two 30-year periods and am brooding about whether the amazing concordance is real. And of course, how would it look if you used a 60/40 portfolio instead of 100% stocks. Too much w...

Would you recommend that, when I rebalance each year, I reduce my allocation in CREF Stock by one percent and increase my allocation in bonds by the same percentage? This would give me my age in bonds, if TIAA Real Estate can be thought of as half equities, half bonds. There are many approaches. As...

You may have to figure this out yourself; it will depend on how much detail your bank provides.

Here's how my bank reported a recent dividend from VG Total International:

Code: Select all

Mar 25 Deposit ACH VGI-TINTSIADM                         
       TYPE: INVESTMENT CO: VGI-TINTSIADM


Since this person doesn't have a brokerage account, there is little value or need for a money market account.

Direct the dividends to any existing (external) bank account.

I agree with VT that your earlier portfolio had a lot of equity, and I like this new portfolio better. I wanted to mention this in case my earlier post was interpreted as an endorsement of 90% equity. All I was doing there was approximating the TR 2045 fund that you had been using. IMO, most TR fund...

IMO, a fair piece of this failure of TM to outperform Vanilla can be attributed to a poor choice of benchmark. Perhaps the S&P 600 is more amenable to Vanguard's tax-management strategy, but the returns of the index (not the fund) are noticeably worse than the index tracked by NAESX: 1yr 3yr 5yr...

How does the ETF helps avoiding distributions in a bull market? Being in a bull market is an issue only to the extent that shareholders are selling. If they are selling, well....<pause> Paging Grabiner! Seems not to be logged in, so I'll do the next best thing.... When authorized participants redee...

Well, there are no guarantees, but... Going by the data in the wiki, VG Small Cap distributed capital gains in every year from 1994 to 2000. None since. Subsequent to that, VG created an ETF share class of the fund. So it should be easier to avoid distributions, should a repeat of the 90s bull marke...

VBMFX has been paying dividends every month, more or less forever. VTSMX quarterly, also forever. Last year, VGTSX switched from annual dividends to quarterly. Last month, VBMFX distributed some long term and short term capital gains in addition to a dividend. Somewhat unusual for a bond index fund ...

I'm smack dab on the moderate line. Didn't vote. I suppose the chart is normalized for an age 65 retirement? Not clear where those with early retirement goals should fall on this chart. You can argue that they should tend to be on the aggressive side, as they may need to take more equity risk to hit...

What I am trying to find out is are there any differences as far as taxes would go if they were held in a taxable account? Yes, definitely. With Tax-Managed, you'll get 100% qualified dividends, and less of 'em. Not so with Vanilla Small Cap. And it is EXTREMELY unlikely that the fund will ever dis...

I have no interest in or use for tracking net worth. But I do track the amounts in my investment accounts. I maintain e-records of how many shares I own of each fund, so that I don't have to login to see where I am in relation to allocation targets. It fits nicely alongside records of my cost basis ...

Tax forecasting software may help you to figure out the amount you need to withhold. Are you able to recommend any particular product? I do tax forecasting by hand; other people mention using Taxcaster (free from Turbotax). For the specific purpose of getting the right amount withheld from your pay...

Given your savings rate and (seeming) lack of good options, I would suggest that the $4K you are putting into your TDA would be better off going into a Vanguard IRA. Certainly VG Total International is a better way to get your international allocation than CREF Global, which is something like 40% U...

1) Am I correct in my understanding that I should sell everything in the 403b except CREF Stock and CREF Global Equities (and perhaps TIAA Real Estate)? Maybe. The key unanswered question is: what are all of the funds available in your two 403b's? 2) The easiest replacement for my current investmen...

Its a little late now, but the question could have been even better worded by adding 'during your contribution years'. No, my intent includes the retirement years as well. I'm not going to explain why, but I think you should adjust your intent. A much more timely question is whether your tax-advant...

But on a day like today as I watch the S&P I think that's contributing to your problem. Don't watch. Aside from days when I am planning an investment purchase, I make it a point not to visit any news sites while the markets are open. Also, I find that meddling in other people's investment plans...

Here's another calculation with both kids 16 or younger plus $18K in itemized deductions (prop taxes, mortgage interest, charity): $24,000 in qualified dividends $91,000 in LT cap gains $115,000 in income (plus any return of capital from those realized cap gains) Federal income tax: $0.00 (Yep, ZER...