Bogleheads.org

Are there any low cost options available that avoid problems with rolling contracts over?

I payed my house off with taxable total market and international at about Dow 14000 and had about 40k of taxable long term gains. That being said, I am still very happy with the decision. Had the market tanked and lost the opportunity to pay off my house (mortgage was about 350k) I would have felt m...

You can either join the big organization now or join the PP, put in sweat equity, and than become an employee in a few years along with your former partners when they sell their practice to the big organization.

With a guaranteed renewable an non cancellable contract (which I assume that you have), nothing can be changed in your contract. However, keep in mind that your "occupation" is not your occupation at time of application. Your occupation is the occupation at time of claim. Therefore, depen...

Given the poor outlook for reimbursement due to the ACA you are probably better off in Academics. Universities and the government are the few jobs where you can get paid a lo of money for not doing much work. The private sector responds to economic reality. The government and Academia are immune to...

I have a modified own occ. (physician) from Standard and Principal (principal about 75% of payment). Say i become unemployed for some time. During this time, does the definition of disability change? Does the policy become less valuable?

How about long term unemployment without any special circumstances for someone under 50 say?

Is the preference after emergency fund to use:

1. Taxable stocks

2. 529

3. IRAs/401ks

4. HSA

5. Home equity line of credit (probably can not get when unemployed)

6. Credit cards?

If much of the reason for holding bonds is to make sure we do not sell at market lows, than it would be cheaper to just develop discipline or let someone else manage your money. Especially now when bonds have a negative real return.

If we are in the accumulation phase, than we will continue to buy more shares during bear markets even as the rest of our portfolio drops. You only buy with new money? The advantage to having bonds is that you can buy stocks on the cheap during a bear market. On the other hand, with no bonds you do...

Well considering were at 14000 in 2007, not so good especially when you factor inflation. But no one promised anything as far as returns.

Some thoughts. We all live by the notion that the market will go up in the long run otherwise we would not invest. So 100% equities will give us the highest return. Having 20% bonds will not lessen the pain of a big bear for me. Since we are all bogleheads and are all disciplined, we will not touch ...

Are not commodity futures and precious metals near recent lows?

Guess a bond fund is still better than putting it under the mattress? That will however lower the volatility of the portfolio even more and provide safety assuming you live in a good neighberhood and have fire alarms.

Thanks that helped. Bottom line is that REITS seem terribly overvalued by historic measures.

Where does this fund stand? How about yield?

How about the direxion triple leverage etfs? But if I remember, these are only good for one trading session. Not buy and hold if you think market is going down over the next couple of months.

Anyone use exotic ETFs, options, etc?

University typically covers during training. Not sure it is worth insuring your low salary on your own. If you develop some condition now I do not think they will let you get an attending policy without paying a ton. I waited until I finished residency and than continued my university policy at a di...

It takes 5 years to get vested in Illinois. I worked for Illinois in training and have not worked for them in 7 years. I have a cash balance that grows every year until retirement which is about 25 years away. I could take the cash balance and roll it over into an IRA and get 2X the cash balance. Bu...

Would be nice to have 1-2% of portfolio in lottery tickets that let me play every day until investment either went to 0 or by some luck grew 10000% and made a big difference.

Now that I have looked at quoted for joint life inflation indexed SPIA, I can see just how valuable it is in its current state. I would get a joint life 3% cola annuity at 62 paying about 1800. According to Principal quote this is worth around 700k. My cash balance will not be close to that by that ...

As above. Want to swing for the fences with a tiny percentage of my portfolio.

Can you buy an annuity with IRA money? If you buy with post tax dollars is the income tax free?

But you can die broke if the insurance company goes under.

How does an annuity have a higher withdrawal rate ? Does not a 1 mil annuity right now get you less than 4% even at 65?

Also stinks if you buy it and than die 2 years later! Guess it will not matter.

Don't decide now. The legislation hasn't passed both houses, is not signed by the Governor, and may change yet (or not even pass at all), and what emerges at the end may still be a very generous pension system. Don't decide now. Many pension systems don't have COLAs. I will wait but it seems certai...

Yes 67 is FRA for me. Close to 4k/month is equivalent to 1 mil portfolio so pretty happy about that. Now if they start doing means testing... Better start spending everything so I can actually get this money.

So if my benefit is $2610 at 67, our total income should be $3915? If she has a small benefit will that be added to the $3915?

Says on my statement that if I die this year my spouse is entitled to $2153 per year at full retirement age. How about if we are both alive at full retirement age, how much will she get if anything assuming she does not have a significant work history?

HardKnocker wrote:If the market keeps going up by 15-20% a year, we'll all be rich!

We should all keep buying so the market goes up and up. Can there ever be a point where the demand for stocks and ETFs exceeds supply?

With recent legislation going to the senate making retirement age 65 instead of 62 (for me), COLA only applies as follows to yearly pension: 1k/year of service (6 years for me), and some other negative changes would it make sense to take the cash balance and invest on my own instead in passive index...

With future unknowns of inflation and taxes, how does one know what their "number" is? Even one of my pensions from Illinois ( :x ) is up in the air. I would like to have a rough guess of when financial freedom will be reached assuming steady savings rate. But not sure how much I need ulti...

Therein lies another huge unknown- future tax rates. So is 135k a good estimate for 10-20 years from now?

Does that rule of thumb account for taxes? Say your expenses are 100k a year. Does that mean you need 2.5 mil in a taxable account and more if in IRAs? Is this for a 30 year retirement assuming 4% withdrawal every year?

There are easier ways to avoid debt. A few that come to mind include : Primary care and practicing in a underserved area- they will forgive your loans after a certain number of years of practice. Military. Academic scholarship- probably rare but there was a thread recently about some hotshot choosin...

Excellent thread. Not sure if it belongs on Bogleheads, but is an issue that does not get talked about much. Folks in the field have a "sign of weakness" mentality when discussing such issues and the general public thinks we make money so what are we complaining about. My wife and I are b...

I agree with OP. I am a physician also. There is complete loss of control and destiny since much of what we do is controlled by the government. They cut our reimbursements, impose burdensome regulations, etc. Gov. Cuts are followed by private payers. There is no medical malpractice reforms on the ho...

If money and location are not an issue than Harvard. Otherwise Penn without question or doubt. In fact any medical school with free ride. Like others have said the terminal degree is the most important. You do not learn how to be a doctor in medical school but in residency/fellowship. Especially Har...

I dumped my munis earlier this year. I do not like the idea of investing in something whose fundamental properties may change at any time. Seems like munis tax exempt status has been threatened for years, and more recently much more seriously. I invest in bonds for stability and safety, and this unc...

Munis will lose value when they lose some of their tax exempt status. I dumped mine earlier in the year.

You get in now. If you are a long term investor, it will likely not matter much. Additionally, you do not know where the market will go from here.

There are some great ones which have returned something like greater than 20-30 percent for decades. Now how do you gain entrance into one of these?

Seems to me like there are not enough opportunities for all of the citizens of the United states in almost all fields right now. Not sure if this is a long term trend. I hear that 100-200k jobs were added this month but wonder what kinds of jobs these are? The types that can support a family or ones...

I am at 40%. But have always considered going to at least 50%. Putting more than half of your dollars in one country (USA) seems like betting on the home team too much. Always think about Japan type scenario.

How about if your professional income has no chance of keeping up with inflation (medicine)? They are in fact cutting my specialty to death. Does this justify an allocation to TIPS?

Keep reading so much negative about law school in the WSJ. This weekend read an article that stated that a law school would be a good way for Bernie to start these days. Read how NU is reducing class size since quality of applicants is down so much. The plight of graduates from unaccredited schools ...

Market timing does not work. Index funds, choose an allocation blah blah blah you have heard it before. If you want more risk increase stocks. If you need to fool around, take 5% of portfolio and satisfy your urges. If you need to lend to high risk borrowers consider high yield bond funds although I...

Is this temporary for law degrees? Have there been periods like this in the past where law degrees were not worth it for the majority? Not sure what people are thinking going to mid to lower tier schools taking out 6 figure debt with the current prospects? Not to mention that it seems like even the ...

Jump in your time machine back to January 2000 and ask investors if Dow 14,500 in 2013 would be an out of control bull market rising too fast sort of thing. If you did not look from 2000-now than it would be a yawn reaction. But what a ride! I think the next decade will also be a ride. Too much dis...