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OP is 37. Pretty sure that is too old to enlist in the military.

Oh, no! [Insert political scandal du jour]! Thee country is going to heck. I think I'll sell everything and convert to CDs. Except, oh no! [Insert least favorite government policy] is going to cause rampant inflation, and my cash isn't going to be worth anything. I know! I'll put all my money in sto...

For your ages and desired retirement ages, your allocation seems very equity-heavy to me. I think you're doing okay, but the stock market is way up right now. If it crashes tomorrow, suddenly you're 10 years out from retirement with only 8 times your annual income needs saved up. How would that make...

I'm continually surprised at the inability of the lay public to properly determine a medical emergency. Pardon me for not being educated enough to correctly diagnose whether I'm having an actual emergency. Next time I'll just wait at home until I'm positive I'm bad enough to be one of the people wh...

Some more information might be helpful here if you are looking for specific advice beyond making more money. For example: Student loan 1: $xx,xxx, private, Sallie Mae, 7% variable Student loan 2: $xx,xxx, subsidized Stafford, 5% fixed, currently in deferment Student loan 3: $x,xxx, Perkins, 6% fixed

The NHS basically covers you for operations, hospital treatment etc. However, it does not cover you for care when elders go into a home. It actually does but not without taking your assets into account. If you have assets you pay for care, if you don't then you do not pay and the State covers it. I...

I would say it depends on what NHS covers, which is not something I know anything about. Will it cover assisted living and long-term care? The concern about having too little cash is that one will have unexpected expenses that exceed the cash reserves. In the US, extremely often this is health-relat...

Based on your previous posts, I would recommend doing nothing for at least 6 months. You are young, and many people tinker a bit before coming to their final allocations, but generally speaking, unless one's current allocation is objectively terrible/disastrous/incorrect, I think it's a good idea to...

I am a few years younger than you and started a couple of years later and am also moderately backloaded and though I haven't added it up with as much detail as you have, I can say with confidence I'm in the same general range. Seems about right to me.

Buy EE-bonds. $20k/year every year, will double in value over 20 years, providing you with the equivalent of a $40k yearly annuity when you retire 20 years from now. One or more of your kids is likely to be in college by then, and they redeem tax free if used for qualified educational expenses.

If it's less than the FDIC max, put it in an Ally online bank account and have Vanguard do automated monthly withdrawals of 1/24th of the total. If it's more than the FDIC insurance max, open up 2+ online bank accounts and have Vanguard take automated monthly withdrawals. If it's really just an emot...

Off topic, but my GF's brother teaches junior high at a charter school. He only has a GED, no college whatsoever, and has the writing skills of about a 4th grader (literally). His 11yr old son uses better grammar (written and verbal), has better penmanship, and can do basic math better than he does...

Rebalancing only once a year may not be sufficient to help you get the advantages of buying low in times of high volatility. For example, if you rebalance in November and the market drops 50% in December, with your current allocation, you should sell almost 1/3 of your bonds to buy stocks. If you do...

If you are just opening your own account and do not have enough to reach the minimums on a bunch of different funds, Vanguard Target Retirement Funds are a good way to start off. The funds have a mix of stocks, bonds, international adjusted based on your anticipated retirement year but take a minimu...

I would not do it. Roth space is precious. Also, this is not intended as a political comment, and I hope no one takes it in that direction, but to the extent that your actions are prompted by the sequester and the resultant affect on your salary, I would give it a bit more time before making an irre...

This does not sound like a great investment to me. Personally, it sounds like something I might consider if I already owned a property and for whatever reason could not sell or did not want to sell and wanted to make some money off it, but I wouldn't buy a property for the specific purpose of gettin...

How hard is it to get approval to be "approved off-campus housing"? How hard is it to maintain? How much control does the school exercise over your property? What happens to your property if you don't get approved, or if the school builds a new dorm and changes its policy to require studen...

Fidelity is a good sponsor, and 500 index and TBM are good funds. I would not give up the backdoor Roth option for the sake of avoiding a Fidelity 401k that offered these options. Also check to see whether your employer has the Fidelity Brokerage Link option. If it does, you can buy pretty much what...

Some of my financial institutions keep only 18 months. Must date back to expensive hardware. I doubt it. I've had a Vanguard account for 15 years now. The data cliff is new. The 5-year cutoff mysteriously appeared without warning a few months after the bottom fell out of the market in 2008. I assum...

leonard wrote:All that's relevant at this point is that the OP (and I happen to agree) doesn't think this is a fair (or prudent or smart or fiduciary or whatever you want to label it) use of .7% of resources.

Actually, all that's relevant is whether his mom (the trustee) thinks it is. She does.

Not "the end". It may not be dishonest - but I would call her approach negligent and reckless. .7% AUM fee is reckless. Negligence: n. failure to exercise the care toward others which a reasonable or prudent person would do in the circumstances, or taking action which such a reasonable pe...

Not "the end". It may not be dishonest - but I would call her approach negligent and reckless. .7% AUM fee is reckless. Negligence: n. failure to exercise the care toward others which a reasonable or prudent person would do in the circumstances, or taking action which such a reasonable pe...

That includes being asked questions about the financial duties for which you have responsibility. If someone does not like being asked or having to answer questions regarding finances for which the are governing - they should never, ever by a fiduciary. Any time someone has responsibility for other...

SCV is about 20% of my equity holding. So slight small-cap tilt. I still hold 8% of my total investments in REIT. I took it to 8% from 10% when I added the small value tilt for the overlap reasons you mention.

Another question that will be relevant--how long after your child's 18th birthday are you looking to support him? I ask because you make reference to needing to "make up" is SS stipend. My understanding of the SS stipend for minor children of retirees is that it is paid to the child with a...

It's difficult to provide you with specific advice without some idea of how much you have and what your specific goals are. Your post says you would like to provide for your wife as well as your son until he's finished college, but it's unclear whether you mean by that a) that you would like to prov...

Your child is not going to start school for another 4 years. Instead of raiding your Roth right now, why not try the intermediate plan of scrimping and saving everything you can for the next 4 years and then using the Roth 4 years from now to finance whatever you can't save?

I guess an initial question is why you feel like you need a financial advisor? I'm not saying you should NOT one, just that I don't think everyone should, so I'm curious your reasons for wanting one.

If you do decide you need one, it's good you are looking at a fee-only advisor.

Save as much as you can now. There is no sense in giving up 401k savings now for the sake of saving in taxable because you are worried that you will have too much in 401k at 45. In reality, you will need a substantial amount in BOTH to be able to retire at 45, and 20 years is far away. Max out tax-d...

Congratulations on your early start! One question--what are you saving this money for? Have you discussed with your parents who will pay for college? Will you need to buy a car at some point? A big part of investing is not just returns but also reducing the risk that you will end up with less at the...

Ask yourself what you are saving for and whether your current savings rate is significantly higher than you will need to meet that goal. If it is, why are you saving so much? If not, is the goal realistic and important to you? Figure out how much you need to save to meet your goals, add in a cushion...

If you're in good shape with respect to the amount, not prone to panic, but also just not terribly knowledgeable, I think Vanguard Target Retirement Income 2010 ot 2015 for the bulk of it with a couple of years worth in cash is a good bet. 2010 is about 42% stock at this point and will go down over ...

Not everyone has the luxury of picking among people to work for. Everyone does have the luxury of picking who to work for, it's called getting a new job, and she needs one. I'm happy for you that you are fortunate enough to be able to choose among employment options. I do not know OP's sister, and ...

And not the least, whoever is paying under the table is also a crook. Working for crooks is not a good idea. Dale Not everyone has the luxury of picking among people to work for. It's possible to pay taxes on income received under the table. I recommend that your sister keep records of her earnings...

Tax law is public knowledge and deductions are intended to be utilized. There is nothing that prevents OP from giving someone money and encouraging the other party to donate to charity. Correct. As long as OP understands that what he is doing is gifting daughter, and she is under no legal obligatio...

I'd be interested in hearing people's ages in their responses. I'm in my early 30s. The first big crash of the last 15 years happened about a year after I graduated from college. A few years of scrambling for work and I was back to graduate school where I was in my final year when the second big cra...

Why are you investing in a Roth before maxing out your 401k? Since your company matches 25% of your contribution up to $17.5k, I would not put any money in a Roth unless you are putting $17.5k/year in your 401k. The $2750 you put in your Roth a couple of weeks ago would be worth $3437.50 (2750 x 1.2...

Another important question--is the payment you would receive if you left the money in the retirement system cost of living adjusted? i.e. do you get more every year to account for inflation? If so, at your ages unless a) you're both in poor health, or b) unless you think there is a real and substant...

You say you "aren't trying to beat the market," but if you aren't trying to beat the market, why not just buy and hold the market? Foolproof way of keeping even with the market with much lower transaction costs. What you want is to get in on the upside without exposing yourself to any of t...

Very important question: How old are you? It looks like your retirement plan is effectively "selling" you a $847 monthly annuity (the difference in payout between leaving in your $170k vs withdrawing your $170k for the two survivor benefit plans) for $170k. Whether or not this is a good de...

The amount of the inheritance is substantial enough that I have an anxiety attack looking at the bank statement If you are holding the money in a bank account until you decide what to do, make sure you are not exceeding the FDIC insurance limits! If you are, open an account at another bank, or more...

My 401k plan has an auto rebalancing feature. Something for you to look into? Keeps me honest. Also reduces the psychological "pain" of having to manually sell assets that a doing well to acquire more of those that are lagging.

I have been to Panama. I would not rent a car in Panama unless there was absolutely no way to avoid it. There is whole industry designed to move people without personal vehicles around the country. It's cheap and safe(r). Renting a car can be expensive and dangerous. You may not have a choice. But i...

I second the rec for NY long-term tax exempt bond fund, which is really closer to intermediate term. I am similarly situated and hold this fund. NY taxes are brutal. No minimum hold period, though it is subject to Vanguard's frequent trading policy, so if you sell, you have to wait a while (a few mo...

unless the only thing I have is house debt, I wouldn't invest until the debt is paid off. imo So if you had 30 year student loan at 1%, you'd skip all investing until it was paid off? Why? Are you so afraid of your ability to handle finances that you wouldn't trust yourself? Brian yep..thats how I ...

Subsidized or unsubsidized? Subsidized loans accrue no interest while you are in school. If your loans are subsidized and you are returning to school relatively soon, paying them off is less attractive.

On the other hand, we are managing our portfolio not only for our own retirement, but for the future of our grown children, thus the Retirement Income Fund might be somewhat light on stocks at 30%. Closer to 50% might be a better allocation for growth taking the children into consideration since th...

You're 30. Why do you care if your retirement portfolio drops 50% in a few months? Do you think it will stay there for 30+ years? If that level of national catastrophe happens, we've all got much bigger problems than retirement, frankly. I understand some of this is about psychological comfort, but ...

At the age of 70, if I became convinced at bonds were too risky, I would probably trade them in for cash, CDs, or ibonds rather than trading them in for even riskier assets like stocks.

I'm so sorry about your husband, and congrats to both of you for pulling through a disaster that would have ruined many people financially. I personally would stop the 529 contributions for the moment. A near-term emergency is probably more of a priority for the whole family, including your children...