Bogleheads.org

Age 50, wife 50 too. House paid off. Three kids with one college education pretty much paid off. Net worth about $1.2 million w/o home value figured in. 68% stocks, 32% bonds. Bonds split about 50/50 in Ibonds/EEbonds/Stable value and bond index funds. Have shifted some of wife's funds into target d...

Another interesting data point to note, reflecting the growing number of car loans made to sub-prime buyers. Article titled "Americans are borrowing again but still less than before the freeze" in The Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2013 (type exact title of article in Google News to find it):...

More interesting stats on margin debt suggesting a more speculative market: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bradlamensdorf/2013/05/08/money-where-the-mouth-is/ The NYSE recently announced that margin debt amounted to $379.5 billion in March. That’s the second-highest figure on record, behind only the $3...

Heard this on Bob Brinker's Moneytalk show earlier today, and there are a few references to it today on the internet. The European Central Bank is considering negative interest rates; essentially charging banks a fee to safeguard their money. It appears we are in uncharted territory with this. http:...

When the investment world is so enamored of dividend paying stocks to the point that bond funds actually ditch bonds to hold them, then maybe all this talk of a 'bond bubble" is misplaced and maybe the real bubble is in dividend paying stocks. "Bond Funds Running Low on... Bonds" http...

I've always felt that EE bonds are dismissed a little too quickly by many bogleheads. A lot of posters here seem to think that EE bonds basically have no value and that I bonds are the only savings bond worth having, but the reality is that we have no idea what inflation and interest rates will be ...

I just don't see an increase in the availability of 5 to 10% down mortgages as a wholesale invitation to moral hazard. Not everyone's a chiseler. Or a high roller. Young people starting out, for instance, might need the 'leg up' that a 5% down mortgage provides. It certainly helped us 40 years ago ...

No money down mortages are also making a comeback... http://www.cutimes.com/2013/03/27/no-money-down-mortgages-stage-a-comeback?ref=hp Two credit unions, NASA Federal Credit Union and Navy Federal Credit Union, are offering members mortgages without requiring any down payment or mortgage insurance. ...

Down payments for new mortgages are creeping down. Check out the growth in the number of home mortgages that have less than 20% down. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/04/14/lower-down-payment-loans-more-common/2075095/ In another sign of the housing market's brightening outlook, mor...

More evidence that margin debt is creeeping up... Need any more proof that US stock investors are positively giddy? NYSE says margin debt jumped 10% in January alone to $364 billion, 32% higher than a year earlier and the third-highest ever, trailing just June and July 2007. http://blogs.wsj.com/mar...

From today's Wall Street Journal (February 23, 2013)... http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-175265/ Margin debt - borrowing that individual investors use to juice up returns on their brokerage accounts - exceeds $330 billion, up 24% in 12 months. The return of the S&P 50...

Hi Keith,

Here's another chart offering some food for thought. If you're comfortable with this, good for you. That makes one of us.

Much of the market's recent rise is being supported by borrowed money. This is not comforting. It’s interesting to note the tight correlation between margin debt and stock prices in our world that is so overly obsessed with nominal wealth. And we even encourage the use of leverage in the chase for t...

Wife and I had $52k in retirement savings at age 34. Today, we're both 50 with combined retirement savings of $1.1 million. The name of the game is to save as much as you can in tax deferred investments, and keep bumping those up every time the maximums go up. The money will add up faster than you t...

Define risk any way you choose. No one can argue with the fact that the market is 3 steps forward one step back. From 1929-2011, the record is 21 and 9 (years with a gain vs years with a loss). The chart below is a picture of a 7 and 5 record. We must give this risk a wide berth. http://globalquote...

More evidence of performance chasing - from today's Wall Street Journal: Small investors are jumping back into the stock market after abandoning it during the financial crisis. Many analysts and strategists say individual investors are providing another source of fuel for the stock market. One piece...

In an Ibbotson Associates report on Lifetime Asset Allocations: Methodologies for Target Maturity Funds , they present a chart of the "equity glide paths of the largest target maturity fund families." http://i46.tinypic.com/1fe88p.jpg A common element is that none of them follow a straigh...

Bingo. The market has doubled, now it's "safer." Yikes. Great time to become more conservative, not less. How about this? Exactly as conservative this year as last year. Exactly as conservative next year as this year. Hi Zabooma, This means that you would be more conservative this year, t...

Rainier wrote:You mean posts like: "I've had a large amount of cash on the sidelines the past few years now I want back it. The market looks safer now."

Bingo.

The market has doubled, now it's "safer." Yikes.

Great time to become more conservative, not less.

The market "melt up" over the past month and the rapid change in sentiment among small investors (reported by USA Today and others) makes me think about the Airplane Game. There was a time maybe 15 years ago or more in my area where this was all the rage. It was basically an illegal Ponzi ...

You should pull the trigger on this. We did almost the same type of vacation you are talking about this past summer. Five of us including kids ages 13, 16 and 19 went to Iceland and Amsterdam. We stayed three nights in Iceland and eight nights in Amsterdam. We flew over on Icelandair and if you do t...

I go to Vegas about twice a year for business, and I've stayed at a lot of places there. Some good, some bad (Sahara (gone now) but had a fixed thermostat so that when its 110 outside, your room is like 85 degrees and the Riviera - smokiest place of all time). Even stayed at a couple of time shares ...

Went to Jamaica on a cruise maybe 15 years or so ago, and couldn't believe the lineup of people waiting to beg from you on shore. It's like a third of the island is unemployed. You feel like a mark when you get off of the ship. This was Ocho Rios, by the way. Went there for work maybe 5 or 6 years a...

Hi Everyone, Had a chance to visit Iceland in late July of this year. Have to say that the place blew us away. Only spent three days there, but holy smokes - this place is just amazing as far as the natural beauty is. We rented a car and stayed in a place just outside of Reykjavik, did the Golden Ci...

Returned from nearly two weeks in Europe in mid-August, most of those in the Netherlands and part of the time was in Iceland. Have to say that it was always a mystery as to which form of payment would work. I got a Travelex chip and pin card and put Euros on the card (via a credit card debit - if yo...

"Even for those who know their “number” and are prepared for retirement (it happens, rarely), these conversations aren’t easy. At dinner one night, a friend told me how much he has in retirement assets and said he didn’t think he had saved enough. I mentally calculated his mortality, figured h...

This was also on Yahoo. Good article, but I don't get the impression that anyone involved understands that $1 million doesn't go far. Bogleheads see $1 million and mark that down to maybe $40k per year to live on in retirement. The general public sees that number and thinks Ferrari.

Has anyone been to Iceland on vacation? My wife and I will be there for 10 days in the fist part of August. We arrange with a local travel company to do a self drive tour. I get a car, a place to stay every night as we travel the 1400 km loop and a detailed map/cell phone/GPS, etc. Is there anythin...

Hi Johm, I am 49 (with no pension), and my allocation (wife and mine) is 68.5% stocks, 31.5% bonds with a total portfolio value of about $900k. The US vs. International stock allocation as of now is 80% US, 20% international. For the total portfolio, the breakdown is: - Large Cap Stock = 37.4% - Mid...

I've been watching my international exposure evaporate (despite consistent investments), dropping from 25% in January 2011 to 20% today, largely based on what is going on in Europe. I have also been tracking Vanguard's Europe ETF - VGK. With a PE of 10 and a dividend of 4.25%, it looks promising. Bu...

Wow. I can't believe that nobody mentioned the wild horses. Rent a jeep with one of the outfits that provides guided tours, and drive your jeep in the sand looking for the famous Coralla wild horses. We drove all the way to the Virginia line. Believe it or not, there is a fence that literally goes r...

And thus there is no point in holding the tax-managed fund in an IRA; the tax management may cost something and does mean that it will not track the index as well. I'm not so sure about this. After the tech bust in 2000, I took a close look at what did well, and what blew up. Small cap stock funds ...

Yosemite is a great thing to do, but you may want to avoid the route we took to get there. We did the Route 49er route to see Sutter's Mill and all that, and continued on to Mariposa where we had hotel reservations. The last 30 minutes or so of the drive was done at night, and it was hairpin turns, ...

Hi wise Bogleheads, I used to love listening to Bob Brinker's Moneytalk, but noticed that Bob seems to be off the show more than he is on. It reminds me of Johnny Carson in his later years. I did catch about a half hour of the show on Sunday, February 12th, and noticed that all of the talk is about ...

In light of the Fed's commitment to low rates, would any one buy the EE savings bonds with a guarantee return of 3.5% if held for 20 years? Absolutely. It's a free lunch. And if you look at the information on EE bonds, you'll find that the doubling period increased to 20 years in June of 2003, incr...

How about EE bonds? If you hold them for 20 years, they are guaranteed to double, which is a 3.5% annual return. Based on inflation trends, I think that EE's are undervalued as a potential deflationary hedge. Seems good now, but what if rates climb to 7% over next decade. 3.5% wont seem so good, an...

How about EE bonds? If you hold them for 20 years, they are guaranteed to double, which is a 3.5% annual return. Based on inflation trends, I think that EE's are undervalued as a potential deflationary hedge.

If the trip is in early October, that's going to be too late to see foliage in the Adirondacks. Trees begin to change there in late August to early September, and they will be way past peak in early October. I concur about the Finger Lakes. Use Watkins Glen as a jumping off point. There is a new hig...

I'm from Fairport, New York - a suburb of Rochester, and can offer some recommendations on local restaurants. Here are some good ones, both in the city of Rochester and in the suburbs: City - Tournedos - 2 Vine - Tapas 177 - Ristorante Lucano (edge of city) - Virtu (in Corn Hill area - pricey but gr...

Everyone - there is indeed something going on with missing issues for The Wall Street Journal. I recently took out a new subscription within the office (I switch off with another employee) and literally got the paper 1 day successfully under the new subscription only to be followed by 9 days of no p...

Vectorizer,

Wait until you fill out the CSS Profile. If you think the FAFSA is strenous, you'll love this one.

In some ways, it was worse than my 1040.

It felt like financial rape providing almost every personal financial detail you could think of to them.

Regarding Ally Bank... Called at 11:00 am on January 4, 2010 - the first business day of the new year - to liquidate my No Penalty CD after discovering we would be penalized for this on the FAFSA form. CD not liquidated until January 6th - two days later. Did not receive check until January 14th. Us...

Turbo Tax says that the form used for this credit won't be done until around January 29th, so it doesn't appear to be finalized yet.

It sounds like Vanguard's interest in iShares would indicate that the company feels it just doesn't have...ENOUGH.

"New York is doing the right thing to reduce costs so that it won't have the samr budget problem facing California." Chaz, as a New York state resident, I can tell you this is all smoke and mirrors. Consider: - The state says it will eliminate 7,000 positions, but there will be NO LAYOFFS....

I got the Chase letter too, retiring my 5% Rewards card. The devil is in the details of the letter. Consider this: "We've updated your Chase Freedom credit card to Chase Freedom with Ultimate Rewards..." "Earn triple points on eligible gas, groceries and fast food purchases.*" *Y...

Hi Everyone, I have about 5% of my total portfolio invested in JIEIX (Julius Baer International Equity) through an old 401k plan with a former employer. The fund has done very well, but I have never liked the expense ratio that it has which is 1% through the 401k plan. It's the highest expense fund ...

Each year, I try to max out my 401k. The last payday of 2007 was December 31, 2007 for me and the 401k portion of this paycheck has yet to hit my account (as of January 6, 2008) which is with Principal. The means that this 401k contribution will fall in 2008 and not 2007 which will leave me a little...