Bogleheads.org

Even if the bill passes both houses and is signed into law, state employees and their unions are sure to challenge it in court, with a decent chance that the law will be declared unconstitutional. I'd wait and see what happens before making any decisions.

I keep about six months' worth of expenses in my Vanguard money market account. If I need more than that, I'll pull money from my Vanguard Limited-Term Tax-Exempt Bond account. It's not as stable as a money market fund or a short-term bank CD, but it pays more in dividends, and the income is exempt ...

I check my balances daily, record them once a quarter, and rebalance as needed, usually once or twice a year.

I've been classifying my I Bonds as having a duration of 1 during the first year, and then 0 thereafter. That's how I've been classifying my EE Bonds as well.

I'm grateful to all of you for your help and advice. Thanks to you, I'll be able to make a much more informed decision.

I'm a conservative retiree in my sixties. Several years ago, I decided to allocate 30% of my financial assets to stocks, with a 5% band on either side. Most of my stocks have been in taxable accounts, with a smaller amount in accounts that are tax-advantaged. As stocks have risen, I've rebalanced by...

I'd like Vanguard to publish percentage yields for its international stock funds.

In December 2008, I harvested losses in my taxable accounts, and immediately rebalanced by exchanging into similar (but not substantially identical) funds in my tax-deferred accounts. I didn't reopen the taxable funds that I had sold in December until July 2009.

I harvest a tax loss whenever there's a loss to harvest, but I haven't had a loss to harvest since 2008. Going forward, stocks will have to drop about 40% before I can harvest another loss.

I'm in a similar situation, Bustoff, but I don't get bored. I find books, television, and the Internet endlessly fascinating.

I received a similar offer from a Comcast sales rep via telephone several weeks ago. I told him that if he would send me a copy of the offer, itemized and in writing, I'd be willing to consider it. That's the last I've heard of the offer.

I'd harvest some tax losses, immediately invest the proceeds in different funds, and then rebalance to my target allocation gradually, over the course of a year or so. That's pretty much what I did during the last bear market, when stocks dropped more than 50%.

The shower scene in "Psycho." I've been locking the bathroom door ever since.

I started investing in Vanguard's 500 Index Fund way back in 1985. If I sold all of my shares and moved the proceeds to a different fund company, I'd have to pay a fortune in capital gains taxes. So am I sticking with Vanguard? You'd better believe it!

Does anyone know where I can find recent statistical information on the distribution of wealth in the United States? There seems to be considerable information on the distribution of income, but I haven't been able to find anything recent about the distribution of wealth. For example, where could I ...

And Morningstar is showing a yield of 5.11% for Vanguard Tax-Managed International. Surely that can't be correct?

I have a friend who's in her eighties, and on my advice she bought a good many I-Bonds when they were available in paper form. But now that they're available only electronically, she doesn't want to buy any more of them, because she doesn't trust computers or bonds that she can't hold in her hand. S...

I'm a retiree who doesn't qualify for Social Security, just a state pension with a 3% COLA (which the state wants to cut). I keep about a third of my savings (and about half of my bond allocation) in I-Bonds and a TIPS fund, and I'm thinking about adding more. If I qualified for Social Security, I'd...

For those of us who haven't saved tax calculators as far back as 2001, is there an online calculator that will show what one's tax will be if the current tax cuts aren't extended? One could then plan accordingly.

DVDs. Why rent when you can buy? I've got about five hundred.

P.S. I no longer need HBO, Cinemax, or Showtime, so I cancelled them. Does that make my non-frugal vice frugal?

I'm an old Ivy Leaguer and a retired university professor, but my thoughts on education are similar to those of Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest": "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate, exotic fr...

I agree that Treasury Direct's website is quirky and clunky, but this wouldn't be a serious problem if Treasury Direct provided enough representatives to answer telephone calls promptly. On the rare occasions that I've had website problems with Vanguard or my bank, my phone calls have been answered ...

I'd like Vanguard to post yields on its international stock funds.

I always use Firefox, but whenever I log in using an updated version, Treasury Direct notices the difference and has me register the new version with a temporary passcode, sent to me by email, as if I were registering a different computer. It's mildly annoying, but I'd rather have strong security th...

I've always been a conservative investor. In the mid-1990's, when I was in my forties and had about 40% of my investments in stocks, I decided that I would gradually reduce my stock allocation to 35% by 2000, and then to 30% by 2010. So in early 2008, as planned, I had about 35% of my investments in...

For me, the important number isn't the inflation adjustment or the amount of I Bonds you're allowed to purchase each year. It's the fixed rate, and I stopped buying I Bonds when the fixed rate dropped below one percent. Yes, I know that bank savings accounts and CD's are currently paying less than I...

According to the Savings Bond Advisor, the next inflation adjustment for I Bonds may be zero. If you buy or already own an I Bond with a fixed rate of zero as well, you may receive no interest at all for a period of six months. Perhaps this helps to explain the Treasury Department's "generosity...

"Gone with the Wind." I've watched it at least twenty times, and I'm still wondering if she ever got him back.

Would I recommend Vanguard to a friend? Yes. Would I recommend Treasury Direct to a friend? Probably not.

I was able to logon to my account in the wee hours of the morning, but this afternoon I can't get past the "letter or number" page. Treasury Direct was probably unprepared for the volume of logons they've been getting from people who want to try out the new security features. And that's un...

I was able to logon to my account in the wee hours of the morning, but this afternoon I can't get past the "letter or number" page. Treasury Direct was probably unprepared for the volume of logons they've been getting from people who want to try out the new security features. And that's un...

I was finally able to login to my account a few minutes ago. The new security features were easy to work with, and everything seemed to be as it should be. Perhaps more people than Treasury Direct could accommodate were trying to login earlier. At any rate, let's hope that's the end of the problem.

It's very frustrating. If an online bank were this inaccessible, it would probably go out of business. But this is our federal government, and our government goes on forever.

I haven't been able to fully login either. Perhaps there's too much traffic on the line, but one would think that the Treasury Department would anticipate a high volume of logins and provide enough capacity to handle the traffic.

It's the ultimate in security: no one can log in and drain your account. Not even you.

Both of the charts are displayed, and they're aligned with the rest of the data on the page. But I have to move a horizontal scrollbar back and forth to see all of the data, or to see both of the charts at the same time. So I think the problem is that the page itself is too wide to display fully whe...

I have the same problem as pkcrafter, running Firefox 6.0.2 on Mac OS 10.6.8 when viewing pages like this one: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0040&FundIntExt=INT Oddly, if I'm using Safari for the Mac 5.0.5, the problem disappears. This has been the case for at least a ye...

This is a great time to buy a condo but a bad time to sell one. One of the units in my association has been listed for sale for over a year, and a second one has been listed for over two years. My advice: don't buy a condo unless you plan to live in it for five years or longer. And even then, you ma...

During a discussion of the next year's budget, a City Council member said, "We need to have more physical restraint."

I agree that Scrapbook is a must-have. It's great for saving records of online financial transactions, and it's the primary reason why I use Firefox.

I know that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a buyer in State A must pay sales tax to State A on goods bought from a seller in State B, if the seller has a physical presence in State A. But has the Court ruled that a buyer in State A must pay "use tax" to State A on goods bought in St...

I'm partial to Stuart Kaminsky's "Toby Peters" murder mysteries. Set in Hollywood in the 1940's, each novel features a different movie star--as a suspect, as a witness, or as an intended victim. The stars include Gary Cooper, Judy Garland, Mae West, John Wayne, Joan Crawford, and Groucho M...

The discrepancy presents a problem for investors considering a purchase or sale of the fund. A few minutes before the market closes, the ETF may be down 2.62%, and the investor may assume that the fund will be down a like amount. When it isn't, the investor may buy or sell at a price substantially d...

Vanguard's Total International Stock Index Fund (VGTSX) dropped 1.76% today, but its ETF equivalent (VXUS) dropped 2.62%. Why did one drop so much more than the other?

Go for it!

I don't care, as long as they keep on buying.

Most definitely a Boglehead bubble!

Yes, that's how I noticed it, too--many more posts per day than was the case even a couple of months ago. In fact, I've had to become more selective about what I read, since I don't have time to read that many more.

Hasn't there been a substantial increase in the number of posts during the last couple of months? Is it because stocks are up, or because many new members have joined the forum, or because we're in tax-preparation season? Or some combination of those?

My situation is exactly the opposite. For several years, I've been an unpaid board member in a condo association with a paid manager. The association's books are examined annually by an independent auditor, and detailed copies of the auditor's report are forwarded to all of the unit owners. Every pe...