Bogleheads.org

I think you can probably get a better return from rental real estate than from stocks and bonds, but it requires work. It is not a fair comparison to compare a trouble free passive investment to a hands on investment that is also a part time job. If you need more money in retirement, and you need t...

When I was in Staples the other day, I noticed that HP has a detachable that looks interesting. The processor may be under-sized for your needs.

I get access via my paid print subscription. In general I try to honor pay walls as much as I can.

The closest requires a granted easement through a neighbor who will not grant it though we were certainly willing to pay her something for it. It might be worth checking with a real estate attorney. I once owned a property that was inaccessible and I was granted an easement by necessity despite lac...

dm200 wrote:The donating to a charity (that would take it) is something I would investigate.

This would require an appraisal if you want to take a tax deduction. If it is truly unsellable, I don't see how anyone could do a valid appraisal.

My practice was to ignore anything that was restricted or unvested.

Recently there was a short thread on possibly implementing a tagging feature on the board. That might be a good alternative. There are other sub-topics (e.g. taxes) that could benefit from a tagging feature.

I'm not quite sure why the topic is coming up at present. When equities are moving up steadily, there is a tendency to want to let things roll beyond your re-balance point (for those who use trigger points). Part of staying the course is avoiding this temptation and doing the re-balance during thes...

Some high volume printer/copiers contain hard drives which retain the original document.

I would not use anything other than a simple printer. Best advice is to buy an inexpensive one for your own use at home.

Mint has been discussed quite a bit.

https://www.google.com/search?q=mint&si ... eheads.org

nisiprius wrote:An SPIA is nothing more than a safe way to invade principal.

I'm going to highlight this because it might get missed.

annuities

seems complicated it isn't let me rephrase-seems complicated-too me! :mrgreen: It is no more complicated than making a re-balance transaction. You exchange one holding for another. In the case of TLH, you look for something in the same category that would virtually replicate what you are selling. I...

gerrym51 wrote:seems complicated

it isn't

It really doesn't cost anything to TLH these days and there are plenty of substitute holdings. I don't really see any downside.

I think it would be worth talking to a pro to really work out the numbers, but with that amount which could shove you into much higher taxbracket, splitting it across several years sounds like the right way to go. What I did was set a maximum dollar exposure at first. When I was very young and my n...

Blues wrote:I've been dialing back my equities as well in the current environment (but commensurate with my risk tolerance per my written IPS).

I'm curious as to what this means. What does your IPS say exactly?

I am not convinced that tax returns are particularly sensitive. The nice thing about encryption is that it is free and you don't need to decide which data is sensitive and which is not. I used to keep my data in two separate folder "branches" so I could keep my "confidential info&quo...

otbricki wrote:I burn mine to an archival quality CD or DVD and stick it into a file along with a paper copy of the return & support documentation.

So when the file burns in a fire, the paper copy and the disk are destroyed at the same time.

Google Drive with two-step security. Instead of Drive, you could gmail the pdf to yourself (I am sure someone will point out that this is not totally secure). OK, it's not secure at all. A good first step is to make an encypted .zip file using 7-Zip with a strong password. 7-Zip is open source file...

Or a person could invest in all treasury notes they are tax free in all states.

Yes, but if you have a lot of your assets in deferred accounts, they will get taxed by many states when you take distributions.

Sidney, The IRA's earnings can't be spent at his age, so he'd end up having to burn some principal to get to that $80k. That turns into a problem as it is very likely to happen long before he can withdraw the IRA money. If he is generating most of that 3+% from stock, not fixed income just 5 years ...

Scooter57 wrote:Why isn't anyone questioning the assumption that $2M will generate $80K in dividends.

OP shows $2.5M (including retirement accounts) and doesn't mention expecting to only take dividends. $80K is 3.2% - not riskless but might be doable if flexible and "lucky".

The quirks of the tax laws make tax-loss harvesting very very important for some folks. The issue is to realize that TLHing now will be important to some folks because of things that will happen in the future. Example: It is February 2009 and one tax-loss harvests $500,000 in losses and invests in ...

I plan to deal with medical expenses by getting very high-deductible insurance to cover catastrophic illnesses ( This may be a good funding model but you need to budget out of pocket costs based on a realistic assessment of medical expenses. Things happen (accidents, illnesses) and they cost money....

dickenjb wrote:I would never base my decision on where to live in retirement on taxes alone.

Not even top 5 for my criteria.

Total expenses/month: 1008 (includes HOA, Prop tax, Ins, Managment, Vacancy, and Repair) It is good that you've built in an expense for management. What assumptions are you using for vacancy and repair? Even if you don't have a direct expense for management, you need to impute a management fee and ...

Have paper subscription for NYT so I get digital with that for no extra cost. We have a local paper which also provides free online version but I'm not sure how long they are going to survive. You can probably cobble together national and international news with sites like Bloomberg, Reuters etc. Al...

pjstack wrote:Well, to my chagrin, when I turned off the computer after the last posting the Killawatt went back to reading 18 watts.

I just tested 2 laptops which were off but plugged in. Both registered around .5 (point 5) watts. If this is a laptop you are testing, you may have a faulty power supply.

This thread caused me to dig out my Killawatt device. I previously said that my computer and peripherals drew 18 watts when off, but I was mistaken. The present reading is 30 watts when off and about 80 to 90 watts when on. I agree with other poster. 30 W off doesn't sound right. My laptop runs 35-...

dbr wrote:
Does anyone understand the persistence of equating "income" from a portfolio with what dividends are paid?

Part of it is the illusion of having someone send you money rather than you take the money. There is also a low understanding generally about the concept of money being fungible.

No downside even if the contribution is not deductible because cash would not be deductible then anyways. Just be sure to donate appreciated shares held more than one year (which is what you wrote). Livesoft, why donate appreciated shares held more than a year? Wouldn't it be better to donate, if t...

You're sort of mentally holding on to the money even though you've irrevocably given it away. Others have pointed out that your approach doesn't make a lot of sense (though it's what I do, too), because over time equities appreciate and why not take the higher deduction of the more appreciated secu...

I was going to ask the same question. It's a bizarro world: the best way to reduce the risk of losing money is to give your money away completely. ? Different way to look at it. Especially if you have a donor advised account. Suppose you would normally make donations of (keep it simple) $10,000 per...

I think you are over-thinking this. With a good hard password and a secure email (I now have an email account that is dedicated to VG and I never use it for anything other than to receive - no send) you should be fine. If I am not mistaken, someone would have to open a bank account in your name and ...

Also, if you have different lots (and use specific ID) you can pick the lot(s) with the lowest basis.

Your provider may be running the same "scam". It isn't likely that my neighborhood is a reverse Pleasantville where all the people are worse than average.

I recently received a letter from my power company that had a graph showing that our electricity use was above the average for my neighbors and offered a savings opportunity involving them controlling my heat pump. I asked around the neighborhood. Everyone got the same letter.

Round file.

By stand that much I mean if you go to that AA next week, and following month the market begins a long deep dive, you won't sell out of stocks again no matter what. and for many, it means not only won't you sell, but you will likely hit a trigger to buy more stocks at a time when your gut is twiste...

What level (percent) of losses (paper losses) are you willing to tolerate without jumping out again?

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 identi...

We have found that peak nights like Friday and Saturday really test a restaurant's ability to perform well. We avoid those nights.

A good restaurant with a good executive chef should be able to adapt to special needs.

I always prefer to install a clean OS, either way. I would install W7 and not worry about what happens between now and 2020. I jumped from XP to W7 (with a short bad experience with Vista). W7 will be my last Windows. I am nearly off any real dependency on Windows and will probably go Linux rather t...

Blues wrote:I don't think the object of this "game" is to see who dies with the most money.

Well said. Not even top 5. This is the essence of Larry's point about diminishing marginal utility of wealth.

Walking away from the table when you've made as much as you need to make isn't market timing. It's prudent behavior. Yes, but it is good to have a plan that lays out when you walk and when you hold. Otherwise, emotion enters the equation and you end up just reacting current conditions. Are we playi...

Scooter57 wrote:Walking away from the table when you've made as much as you need to make isn't market timing. It's prudent behavior.

Yes, but it is good to have a plan that lays out when you walk and when you hold. Otherwise, emotion enters the equation and you end up just reacting current conditions.

Encrypt your sensitive data. Always. I highly recommend TrueCrypt, just search this forum: truecrypt - Google Search It works in Linux, Windows, and Mac. The same TrueCrypt file can shared among any OS - I share my TrueCrypt file between Linux and Win 7. I have used TC for about 4 years now. I keep...

I use TE MM for my sweep but I don't leave any money in it. My "short term" money is either in Limited Term TE and AMEX Savings Bank.

BUT , the wife received a mini iPad as a gift and she carries it everywhere. Plays games, checks and sends email, surfs the web, down loads eBooks from our library - all at no cost. Please tell me more about the "all at no cost" aspect. 1210 P.S. Anyone....what's a "hotspot"? Op...

We have stayed away from smart phones because of the high cost of data plans, but we'd like to pursue smart phones at this time. There just seem to be too many cool things we are missing out on! I went through the same thing about a year ago. Looked at several options. I spent some time looking at ...