Bogleheads.org

I am interesting in adding a backup camera to an older car for safety reasons and parking. Any recommendations or suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Roosevelt.

My diet is close to the Ornish diet so I always have special requests. Most restaurants can accomodate but I do run into an occasional chef who digs his heals in. I usually go with the flow but never return when that happens. A bigger issue I have is with weddings, etc. I usually call the restaurant...

This winter I took a 9 hour finance course at our local university. The teacher was a relatively knowledgeable CFP, except for 1 major flaw. He failed to even mention indexing or index funds. During class he argued that there is no data to support indexing over active management and he could identif...

You may want to consider working with a career coach advising physicians. I was ready to leave medicine 12 years ago. Coaching helped me to identify what I liked about practicing and the alternatives. It also made me realize I had a choice and the grass was not greener elsewhere. You may also be bur...

Thanks for all the replies. I was looking for generic advice on using meditation to relax and reduce blood pressure.

Roosevelt.

I am looking for an easily understandable book summarizing the major philosophers. It would be ideal to read chapters on Plato, Socrates, etc.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Roosevelt.

Can anyone recommend CDs or iTunes downloads for guided meditations?

An older post has very few recommendations: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=94531

Thanks in advance.

Roosevelt.

My wife also added this: If you live in Shadyside, Oakland or Squirrel Hill, you can walk to almost everything. That includes restaurants, grocery stores, banks, post offices, home improvement stores, big white computer stores with expensive shiny products, dentists, doctors, hospitals, museums, lib...

My wife is from Pittsburgh and here is her take: 1) Would suggest that a young couple moving to Pittsburgh or any new city should consider renting in order to get to know the city. Transportation ease (biking or bus) to town works best from Oakland, Shadyside, Southside (very popular as a newer area...

I usually watch movies based on recommendations by Roger Ebert, the New York Times and the Wall St. Journal. I also use Rotten Tomatoes as a "second opinion." Ebert's star system quantified his opinions. In contrast, I can read reviews in the Journal and sometimes can't tell if it is a goo...

I just wanted to provide a follow up post. I asked an attorney to review the Will and Revocable Trust documents I cobbled together from older documents and a friend's document. She returned it with more red ink than I have seen on a paper since junior high. I told her to incinerate my old documents ...

Consider a weekend rental (only available in some cities). By Monday morning, you will have it out of your system. The fantasy is better than the reality.

Roosevelt.

I am 2/3 of the way through "The Affluent Investor," by Phil DeMuth. His section on asset allocation upends conventional wisdom: 1. He believes investors should have the correct allocation to meet their goals, rather than one matching their risk profile. 2. If you have a low beta job (stab...

B Steiner I appreciate your insightful comments. I came to some of the same conclusions in your post the hard way; by spending a great deal of time on this. It has been educational, so it has not been a total loss. The original attorney is in my home state and I will probably look for a FL attorney....

Fallible: A top flight estate attorney drew up the original will. There are differences however as we now plan to set up Revocable Trusts. The initial plan utilized a Bypass trust and an Irrevocable Q-TIP trust. Your suggestion is a good one and I am going to have an attorney review it if possible. ...

B Steiner: Great points to consider. I am now a FL resident without a state inheritance tax. It may make sense to have this done by a professional. My past attorneys had great reputations but were obscenely expensive! One of them sent me so many drafts that I fired him, refused to pay the bill and u...

This is a different question related to an earlier post: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=112087 I am in the process of re-writing our will and estate plan, using our last plan as a template. The plan is relatively straightforward. My assets will be placed in a revocable trust...

LadyGeek

Quicken for Mac is not nearly as good as Quicken for Windows. I now use a Mac, but with Parallels to run Windows.

Just a consideration........

Roosevelt.

bsteiner I am establishing testamentary (at death) trusts for my 3 children. I chose revocable trusts to avoid probate. We are also not ready to cede control of our assets with irrevocable trusts. I do agree that I could find more reasonable attorneys to work with. I always feel like I am paying hig...

I am re-writing our will and revocable trust documents, using a template created from a software program and several wills. I have always used attorneys for this, however: 1. The exorbitant legal fees seem to be based on my net worth rather than hours of labor. 2. Attorneys overcomplicate the proces...

The safe withdrawal rate studies used combinations of equities and corporate bonds.

For risk averse investors with large fixed income portfolios (e.g. 60-70% fixed income), should more conservative safe withdrawal rates be used?

Thanks in advance.

Roosevelt.

Larry:

Thanks for that explanation.

Roosevelt.

The Wall St. Journal had an editorial piece on "asset inflation."

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB1 ... reno64-wsj

Can someone explain the ramifications of this?

Thanks in advance.

Roosevelt.

I am trying to choose a 4-5 year CD. One has a higher rate of return and the other has a smaller early withdrawal penalty. I used the CD comparison calculator from the Bogleheads Wiki (http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Comparing_CDs) Is there a rule of thumb or way to determine which choice is better? ...

Thanks. I am in retirement (age 60) and don't have years before retirement to create a ladder. It seems impractical at present.

Roosevelt.

I just completed Zvi Bodie's "Risk Less and Prosper," where he advocates a TIPS ladder for retirees. This is great in theory but difficult to implement for several reasons. 1. TIPS are sold at auction 4 times a year in maturities of 5, 10 and 30 years. 2. Pricing in the secondary market is...

I am no guru, but I think a 10 year ladder gives you longer duration and greater interest rate sensitivity. If rates rise, you are locked in for many years on a 10 year CD. The longer term rates may not be high enough to compensate you for the risk. It sounds like State Farm Bank is a hassle because...

I was going to ladder to ride the interest cycle up and down. I am not sure down is possible, but that was my thought.

Roosevelt.

I have a large Roth IRA (Vanguard Short Term Treasury Fund) and finally started a 5 year CD ladder. Here is what I learned over the past few weeks. 1. You should probably start the ladder by purchasing 4 and 5 year CDs from the banks/credit unions with the least restrictive early withdrawal penaltie...

Many posters have recommended PenFed.

Can anyone provide a "top ten" list of CD providers offering competitive rates and solid credit ratings?

Thanks in advance.

Roosevelt.

Do credit unions generally offer higher CD rates than banks? If so, would the reason be that they are non-profits?

Thanks in advance.

Roosevelt.

Someone wrote in a different thread that they would not trust a financial institution to be the custodian for multiple CDs.

The fact that no one responded to this post tells me that few individuals (as opposed to institutions) use CDAR.

Roosevelt.

I am starting a new thread on Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Services (CDAR). Because CDARS aggregate CDs and the account would exceed FDIC insurance limits, are they safe? Who insures the custodian? What are the costs? Do they reduce yields to the point that you are just as well off buying...

Many posters on this site recommend Pen Fed or Ally Bank for CD purchases. An investor requiring multiple jumbo CDs would need to invest with many banks and credit unions that are not well known. Are there any criteria to choosing an institution other than selecting one with FDIC insurance and the h...

Can anyone recommend the best web site(s) for CD rates?

Thanks in advance.

Roosevelt.

I am glad to hear that multiple CDs are doable. I have been resisting this but I think I see a new job in my future.

My in laws in their later years would run all over town opening new CDs for the toasters. We are turning into our parents.

Roosevelt.

Thanks for all the responses.

It looks like brokered CDs are easiest for large accounts. Time = money.

Roosevelt.

I am considering 3 alternatives to VG Short Term Treas Fund in a Roth IRA: 1. Brokered CDs through Vanguard, offering simplicity and higher yields than the Treasury Fund. 2. CDs from multiple institutions; requiring significant work and bookkeeping. 3. VG Short Term Investment Grade Fund, offering s...

Larry:

Thanks as usual for responding.

Roosevelt.

To take this one step further, what bond portfolio best balances risk and return in the current environment? It seems that the rules have changed from super safe short term bonds to increasing credit and duration risk.

Roosevelt.

Larry: Thank you for your response. What I am really asking is why would an investor own corporate bonds? If stock ownership is more efficient, shouldn't an investor sell corporate bonds and buy 10-15% stocks with the proceeds and invest the remainder into safer short bonds? What type of investor sh...

Larry; If equities are more efficient than corporate bonds, what are the reasons an investor would choose corporate bonds over stocks? If a risk averse investor has trimmed equity positions, does it make sense to invest some of that money in corporates and take on the 10-15% equity risk? Thanks in a...

Larry: Your books indicate that it is preferable to increase equity rather than own riskier bonds to achieve a higher expected return. Is that less true in a low yield environment? I would think that adding equity would be preferable to taking more risk on the bond side with a short term corporate f...

Larry:

Thanks again for the insights.

Roosevelt.

Larry:

Thanks for your reply. I am assuming that the similar expected survival results from not depleting assets during an early bear market.

Roosevelt.

Can someone help me better understand the counterintuitive concept that retirement plans with lower equity allocations can have the same survival rate as plans with higher allocations? Larry Swedroe recommends that investors test their allocations with Monte Carlo simulators. In my case, the calcula...

I am an indexer so am just floating this thought. It seems that Window's new interface is scaring off a lot of Windows 7 users who would like to upgrade. I think many of us also have upgrade fatigue because we are tired of forking over hard earned cash for incremental software improvements. IF I was...

I appreciate the replies. If agree that if you purchase brokered CDs at Vanguard in one account the paperwork hassle is minimal. I think rates are higher if one is willing to chase down CDs offered by different banks around the country. That would involve opening multiple accounts. The size of the R...

It looks like I would need multiple accounts to obtain the best rates. The death put feature is a big point, but the complexity comes from tracking down each CD and completing the paperwork.

Roosevelt.

I switched to the Mac platform a year ago but still use Parallels/Windows to run Quicken. I would normally jump to upgrade Windows 7 to 8 but the reviews and learning curve have dissuaded me.

If you use Windows are you upgrading?

Thanks.

Roosevelt.