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frugaltype wrote:On federal Schedule A, anything medical, including premiums, over 7.5% of your AGI counts as a deduction, so that will help some. You probably don't take that deduction now, so note it includes dental, eyeglasses, etc.

I believe the threshold is 10% starting in 2013.

One factor that favors leasing IF YOU GET A NEW CAR EVERY FEW YEARS ANYWAY....AND ONLY IF...is you deprive the dealer of an opportunity to lowball your trade. It makes getting the next car a cleaner deal. The downside is it sort of fixes the new car date...it's tough to get a new car early or much ...

Certificates of deposit may make some sense for tax advantaged accounts, but yield so small almost does not seem worth locking up assets for several years. For taxable accounts muni bond ladders make much more sense, just bought today several A rated municipal GO issues of 5-20 bonds each with tax ...

However, the behavioral aspect of investing is probably the most critical piece of all. If a retiree can meet income needs with dividends, then share selling is unnecessary regardless of price. This can allow one to sleep easy at night regardless of bear markets or market volatility. Case in point:...

One factor that favors leasing IF YOU GET A NEW CAR EVERY FEW YEARS ANYWAY....AND ONLY IF...is you deprive the dealer of an opportunity to lowball your trade. It makes getting the next car a cleaner deal. The downside is it sort of fixes the new car date...it's tough to get a new car early or much l...

Furnace motor now on "Fan" (running all the time) vs "Auto" (cycling on only as needed by the furnace/AC)?

That makes a bit more sense to me, I think! Thanks.

Insurers are limited in how much more they charge for these things. They may: 1. Charge the oldest people they insure no more than three times what they charge the youngest person How does this reconcile with the fact that younger, healthier people are supposed to offset older, sicker people? I sup...

I think what is missing from this conversation are the psychological and mechanical issues. It's a PITA to have to sell shares for income, and it can be psychologically hard to do. When the market is up you feel like you're selling and missing further gains and when it's down you feel like you are s...

Ketawa wrote:In a bear market, you would probably be selling bonds for your income, and rebalancing into equities.

In theory. In reality that's scarier than it seems in theory!

For people who get a new car every 3-4 years, generally there is not much difference bet buying and leasing and SOMETIMES leasing is actually cheaper...by a little...although you won't know for sure until the end. The more important question is whether to become a buy and holder (till the wheels fal...

It's true. SOME American cars were durable and excellent. And SOME Japanese cars became junk quickly. But ON THE WHOLE, the better bet then and still today is that the Japanese car has a probability of being excellent and durable and the American would have probably been junk quicker back then...and...

Here is what I was talking about. Mainstream financial writer Paul Farrell once wrote a book on using astrology to invest. It's out of print and I suspect he would like it to be forgotten:

http://www.amazon.com/Think-Astrology-G ... 0963884719

With trustee accounts you can insure several million dollars of CDs with a handful of Credit Unions and carefully selected banks. True but with an IRA that's not the case. And for taxable accounts to do as you suggest (have multiple "payable upon death" CDs with different beneficiaries) c...

With trustee accounts you can insure several million dollars of CDs with a handful of Credit Unions and carefully selected banks. It keeps your options open if rates rise, which bonds don't. If rates keep dropping, you've locked in today's rates. With Federal and state austerity offloading vital se...

It really comes down to how lazy one wants to be vs. trying to pick up that extra tenth or two of a percentage point in overall portfolio return. 5 year treasuries are yielding 1.02%. 5 year Cds are 1.75-2%. I think it's more than a tenth or two. And there is no "put" with the Treasuries.

The downside for large accounts is the $250K limit. It's doable, but requires lots of paperwork, record keeping and hoop jumping to deploy millions. Might be worth it though...but it's a part time job (perhaps well paying). The nice thing is the cheap "put" option (small early withdrawal p...

Doing a "back of the envelope" calculation, our power company states that in higher tier usage the cost of electricity is $0.30 per kwh As an arbitrary example if my all-electric car gets 3 miles/kwh efficiency, then it costs roughly $0.10 per mile. Now for a gas engine at $4.00/gallon at...

2" is a lot with 1 adult and 2 car seats back there

I second "Honda CR-V", bot new. For a showroom to junkyard holder like you, new is probably cheaper or close vs slightly used. Plus you start with new tires and brakes and warranty. Toyota RAV is another good alternative

Consider when you only have $500,000 left. Your inflation-adjusted withdrawal amount is still $40,000, but your fees for this year are $5,000 instead of $10,000. This is the basic intuition for why there is not a one-to-one tradeoff. OK, I get it now. I guess I would tongue-in-cheek muse that for t...

Sadly I am beginning to think that the period since WW2 where people could retire in the style they are used to, for 20-30 years might be an historical aberration funded by young, productive, baby boomers. In the end people may have to work to a much older age (if they can) or suffer a seriously pa...

This credit union, as noted by another post, is big into medallion cab lending. This credit union, and several others in this lending, filed suit to block the City adding more, but they lost. http://www.cutimes.com/2013/06/10/nyc-cab-law-upheld-after-cu-suit-claimed-unfair-co Does what they do with...

Fees do not cause a 1-to-1 trade off with the withdrawal rate. The withdrawal rate is a constant inflation-adjusted amount, whereas fees are a percentage of the remaining account balance. Generally, a 1% fee reduces the worst-case scenario (safe) withdrawal rate by about 0.5-0.6%. So that means it ...

whats the failure rate over 40 years of SPIA????????? This is an excellent point. What you are saying is that if the system goes down there is no shelter. And that assuming super low long term SWR rates assumes at least a semi-failure of the system. Pick your poison. The chance of a 3% or even a 4%...

The guy you quoted in the OP is not Pfau, but supposedly he tweaked some of Pfau's numbers even further and came up with 1.8% (which is just silly - we get more than that just from dividends and interest - that guy is assuming less than zero real growth over the next 30 years) Exactly why I posted ...

It seems to me that Pfau and others who bash the 4% withdrawal rate suggest SPIA's as an option. Is it possible that they have been funded by the Insurance industry to promote this line of thinking and thereby profit from fees? After reading the book Propaganda by Bernays I think that very little t...

This might be about more than just record low interest rates. In the '70s I believe we had periods were real rates were even further behind the inflation rate than today.

Here are the numbers in a chart for a (75% S&P500/25% commercial-paper) Portfolio for a Y2K retiree using an inflation-adjusted 4% SWR: [Scroll 3/4 way down the page for the latest year by year chart] http://www.raddr-pages.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1208&start=330 As of January 1, ...

I didn't say it was inappropriate. Just, IMHO, not practical because of the huge dollars needed for every dollar of annuity benefit received.

I was listening to a podcast by Jim Langue (the Roth IRA Guru based here in Pittsburgh) who had on a guest, Todd Tressider. It's podcast #85 here: http://www.retiresecure.com/story.php?page=3 Tressider references many of the well known SWR gurus that have been discussed here...including Bengen and, ...

I wouldn't.

I did pay. One piece went for over $300K. And I am familiar w Concept Gallery. I'd almost be ok with the 35% if I could be sure I was getting an honest market price, whatever that might be.

This is very helpful. Thank you so much.

I own two paintings by the artist HENRY KOERNER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Koerner) and would like to sell them, but don't have a clue how to do so. Is there an "Ebay for Art" type place? Both are authentic original paintings and not merely prints. I even have a letter that Mr. Ko...

I saw this article in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and found it Bogleheadish. YOU CAN BUY HAPPINESS! "Who was happiest? Those who treated someone else and shared in that experience with them. So the cost of increasing your happiness may be as cheap as two cups of coffee. Taken together, the ...

I already did that but wanted to reduce this risk even if his own insurance was more. But if spinning him off on the car won't reduce my risk, ill leave it as-is and keep the insurance (lower cost in my name )

I want to put my son's car into his name, from mine, to limit my liability. My insurance agent says I will still be liable until he turns 21 as long as I am supporting him...which I am. This doesn't sound right to me, but the agent would actually generate a much higher premium if I "spin off&qu...

One downside is that here in PA an perhaps other states losses can't be carried forward. So now that equities have rallied and I needed to sell some to rebalance, my TLH-bot-in-2009 shares have a very low basis with at no carried forward loss to be offset The taxable gain. And net investment losses ...

Amount. That's what I wanted to know. Thanks.

flossy21 wrote:Vanguard's mobile phone app will let you deposit a check by taking a photograph of it with the phone. It works very well in my experience.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/whatwe ... leservices

Any limit on the size check that can be deposited this way?

Also must one purchase and have professionally installed a special charger?

Clark Howard says there is a good lease deal on this car. But no dealer in the Pittsburgh are has one. Anyone own (or lease) one of these?

Rodc wrote:Most colleges provide low(ish) cost insurance of this sort. I would check with the school.

Best of luck.

Be careful. These used to have low limits (but this might be disallowed under current law now).

For many, a house is a good way to force some savings. Particularly now that refinancing out cash is much harder to do. I agree that 7 years is probably a good rule of thumb in the buy vs rent equation.

I can't imagine that stocks compared to bonds might not just be first class versus steerage on the Titanic. I'm not predicting bad things, but can't imagine that just because stock values are good and bond values bad predicts good things.

Agreed it's good that they are taking a closer look at refunds as too many were fraudulent. That being said, a friendly "ENGLISH" (not IRSese) letter would be nice. "Dear Taxpayer, we received your tax return and the $43,000 that you claimed for refund is probably legit. To protect ag...

Would a large credit toward next year (versus a refund) trigger the same scrutiny? Sometimes I make a large estimated payment in January to also cover the first quarter of the following year via a credit.

I agree that it's too tax-costly to shift gears. But for new money/young investors or if we ever crash again and there are tax lost harvesting opportunities (heaven forbid! ) it might make sense to consider equities in sheltered accounts now.

This may have been posted before but I saw it today online and am sure many Bogleheads will be interested. Bruce Steiner is on this radio show and podocast, discussing Trusts and estate planning. Note, I have never met Bruce Steiner nor the radio show host and have no affiliation with them other tha...