Bogleheads.org

Your retirement investments have two basic goals, growth of principle and preservation of principle. For those who are spending their carefully accumulated portfolio there is another, primary, goal: INCOME. Those other two are also important, but they are meaningless if income does not meet needs. ...

jsl11 wrote:Your retirement investments have two basic goals, growth of principle and preservation of principle.

For those who are spending their carefully accumulated portfolio there is another, primary, goal: INCOME. Those other two are also important, but they are meaningless if income does not meet needs.

I just don't want to pay an additional $100/month when I am charged $24/month by my employer with the health coverage being almost equal. Almost there A quick Google of "creditable coverage part b" turned up lots of info. Apparently, the "creditable coverage" concept is applicab...

...when you want to be on part b again without penalty you have to prove that you had coverage the entire time. When I first became eligible for Medicare, like most people, I was a long way from understanding it. When I initially signed up the web page listed A and B as separate options, with B req...

Be careful about dropping part B. Oft times health care from an employer is secondary to Medicare if you are Medicare eligible. Medicare Part A+B may be required by your employer's health plan. That was the case with me. Also, there are complications with Medicare itself if you try to re-enroll afte...

Unfortunately there are no easements next to the neighboring properties but the public line could be accessed from the main road, about a mile away. There is a closer line but neighbor will not approve an easement. Wells are common for those who can afford them. I just read the thought about taxes,...

I'd like to question the idea, promoted famously by Zvi Bodie, and by Michael Zwecher, William Bernstein and others, that you should be very conservative when or until you hit some "number". Take the money off the table. Keith, I don't think that is what is being advocated by the people y...

I just don't know what I'll do in the future, but I plan to manage our portfolio without a SPIA for as long as I can reasonably do it. At least that's my current thinking. That's my plan too. If things keep on at a steady state, even with "average" inflation, I'm OK. If things get dicey, ...

YDNAL wrote:NO ONE knows the future

Thus we have risk. SPIAs are a way of paying someone else to take that risk. (Sorry, couldn't resist )

You can have an excellent credit score from two or three open credit cards which you pay off every month; The following is based on personal experience. A WARNING : If you PREPAY such that the statement you get has a zero balance, nothing gets reported to the credit bureaus. That is fine as far as ...

3. My suggestion is to accept that everything else is pretty uncontrollable (face it!) - so go fishing and stop thinking that a model, Excel spreadsheet, what-have-you, is going to make you feel better.[/list] The attraction of SPIAs is that they DO provide a way to control returns. Yes, they cost ...

Tax (in)efficiency becomes is less important in the lower tax brackets. (Duh!) My mother is in the 10% tax bracket so I ignore tax efficiency completely for her investments. If I let taxes influence her portfolio it would be a case of the tail wagging the dog. All told, she paid 3.4% in taxes for 20...

Response to bert- Thanks for info. Where do I find a calculator that figures withdrawal rates? When is the best age to look at SPIA? Philo You don't need a calculator to figure withdrawal rates. If you know what you need to withdraw (say $10K per year) just divide that into the portfolio value (say...

Abe wrote:If you wait until the end to bid, the other bidders don't have time to find out what your high bid is.

The essence of the thing in a nutshell.

A sniping service makes this a snap. You don't even need to be there to make that last second bid, and a perfectly timed one at that.

Q: Are there advantages to owning a Target Fund like VFORX ... Simplicity is a virtue -- a big one. This is especially true as you enter retirement, not just because you get too senile to manage things, but because you need to start thinking about someone else doing the management. After decades of...

Another tactic that seem to work well in a live auction: At every bid, INSTANTLY snap back with a higher bid. This shows intention to win at any cost and discourages others from even trying. I have seen our guy do this. Well said. One point to note: The above only works in a live auction where you ...

About sniping and other tactics at live auctions. I often watch the show Chasing Classic Cars. It is about a guy who buys, sells, restores and collects classic cars. He spends a lot of time at auctions. Now I have not seen him use a last second bid but others in auctions not involving our guy do so....

I'm hearing a lot of (what I perceive to be) mutually exclusive tenants here. 1) Sniping is the way to go; don't ever bid early 2) Sniping works best when there isn't a lot of activity on an auction Those are not at all mutually exclusive. Just because it works best in one situation does not mean i...

I would recommend looking at it from a cash flow perspective. ⋅ guaranteed income (SS, Pension, Annuity) ⋅ non-discretionary expenses (e.g. taxes, food, clothing, shelter, medical) ⋅ discretionary expenses (e.g. entertainment, travel, charity) Compare Income to expenses...

You don't want to sell and then buy, you want to EXCHANGE. Those are exchanges I was talking about. You *might* be able do it as telemark suggested, but I (and the VG rep) was "tricked" into doing it the wrong way by the confusion of the fund exchange screen. I seem to remember other rule...

Pardon my impertinence, but so far not a single response has actually answered the OP's question. I'd like the answer as well, as I don't want to figure it out on my own. Let's keep it simple. When I log into my VG account, off to the right are two pie charts showing my equities, bonds and cash. If...

I found TLH'ing in 2008 to be a big plus later on. FWIW... As did I. But in my case I didn't know I was doing it. It was pre-Boglehead days for me but I had already figured out that my Smith Barney rep wasn't doing me any favors. He had me in some weird mix of investments, the bulk of which were hi...

I don't think the mechanics are as simple as people are making out. Consider the following situations. BASIC PREMISE You have four funds, A, B, C, and D. All have drifted from their target allocations. FIRST SITUATION First, the simple case: One fund (A) is over allocated and the other three are und...

I'm not sure how else I can explain it, but I've used sniping for many years, and it works when there are few bidders and doesn't when there are more than a couple of bidders. Overall an excellent description and it covers an aspect not mentioned before, that is, the situations where it is most and...

mlipps wrote:Thanks all, it's clear as mud. Just kidding, it makes more sense now. Nothing's easy around here. I try not to love Chicago so much, but it's not working... Appreciate the insight.

All you need to know about Cook County property taxes is covered right here.

I am really not sure if i would be paying high price if the offer gets accepted and if i should wait a couple more years to see if this craziness in bay area would subside. I moved to the Bay area in 1973 (!) and had the same concern at the time -- housing prices were through the roof! I thought th...

I'm not sure the issue is being framed very clearly. I disagree with pretty much all of this. The "issue" is clear. It is not rocket science. It is simply a matter of whether or not you want to participate in a bidding war, or worse yet, contribute to its cause, which amounts to the same ...

The only way to learn more about my bid is to commit yourself to placing an actual bid yourself. If I am using a snipping service even that doesn't work. An active bidder simply cannot discover my max so he can't "inch" past me, even at the last second. Best he can do is snipe it himself....

Statistical analysis has proven it with a very high degree of confidence and consistency. Placing an $X bid in the last second is much more likely to result in winning, and at a lower price, than placing the same bid earlier in the auction. Even if you don't understand why, that's the observed phen...

Boy I love all you snipers on ebay. By sniping you totally destroy the "auction' price finding mechanism ... ... the auction was sniped for a price above what I had offered but below my maximum price. So it wasn't snipping that messed up the "price finding mechanism," it was you who ...

If everyone understood how ebay worked, then it wouldn't matter much. If everyone understood how ebay worked, then everyone would snipe. Anyone who bid early would need to bid outrageously high or never win a bid and pay through the nose for any win. If you bid at the last second, then they [newbie...

If everyone bids the maximum he or she is willing to pay, it doesn't matter when you bid. The trouble is, you can't make that happen. If you want to be successful at eBay bidding you need to play in the ACTUAL eBay environment, not the one you think would be best. It doesn't matter if you are right...

You've nailed a good example of using cherry picked data to generate compelling graphs. One of my first thoughts as I read the initial post was "is that the best they can show?" If it was meant to be compelling, I think they failed. Perhaps they need a better cherry picker. In the context...

ps56k wrote: You can't directly paste a graphic/chart into the text editng window
and therefore MUST use an external hosting URL site.

Right. This site can only point to images, it can't (or chooses not to) hold images. Well, except for the avatars!

And perhaps the fact that VG Equity Income is actively managed by Wellington and VG, and the Value Index fund is passive. :) I note that in other threads Larry talks about DFA studies and funds. DFA themselves state that they do not have "index" funds. Here is a quote from a paper/pamphle...

Go here: http://tinypic.com/

Here is an example:

HI JamesG, Welcome to the forum. Reading that you are 20+ years from retirement and that you are intrigued by the flooring concept, it reminded me of another option that might also interest you. It is the Treasury savings bonds route. Mel, a well-respected contributor here, once illustrated how one...

I love mystery/detective books. When I find an author I like I hunt down everything by the author I can. I'm knid of dry right now, not having picked up on a new author in a while. Favorites: Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe) M.C. Beaton (Hamish Macbeth) Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot) Donald E. Westlake (Dor...

Wow! LG please remove me from this forum permanently so that I am never tempted to post here again. Thanks. Bruce, This is "mostly" an informational Forum where people exchange ideas, new posters ask for some direction & help; and sure, some discussions get distasteful and even requir...

I actually own this from the days it was known as Philadelphia Suburban. Now, if my recollection is correct - the stock historically traded in the $17-$25 range for a good period of time, and with that 5% discount assuming you Drip'd the dividends, that was an average price of low 20's. So, it make...

BobK, A question re using the cost of an annuity as a benchmark for how much you need in safe assets. (Or is that in any assets that will eventually be converted to safe assets?) An SPIA pays a bit more than other safe assets because of mortality credits (or because the insurance company keeps what'...

The amount is treated as straight income. This means it is usually not a good idea to do it all at once as you will end up paying the taxes in a higher bracket. I look at my last year's taxes to see how much headroom I have until the next bracket and only convert that much. An estimate is fine. No b...

I think we'll have enough DB/SS income not to get one, but if that wasn't true then there's a good chance I'd get a SPIA at retirement. Is your DB inflation-indexed? If not you need a way to account for that. A big enough portfolio can do that for you, but that has no longevity insurance (other tha...

At age 79 last year, I bought my first small annuities (SPIA) (two $50K) which gives us $800 a month. I may buy more if interest rates rise to assist my wife's money management if I become infirm or I pass on. Another $1600 monthly plus that $800 and SS would cover our (her) expenses. Right now tha...

ruralavalon wrote:I voted "I don't currently have one but plan on getting one some day" even though that doesn't quite fit.

Me too.

My "plan" is to leave that option open, depending on how things go over the next 5-10 years.

Eventually, the classic comics led to my reading the book classics probably at an earlier age than most and those certainly changed my life forever. My progression was more low-brow than that. From comic books I went to The Hardy Boys. (Same authoress, different pen name, as Nancy Drew. I wonder ho...

This may sound facetious but perhaps the "books" with the biggest influence on me were comic books! When I was very young I was having great difficulty with reading and therefore hated it -- until I found comic books. These were primarily the Walt Disney Duck comics: Donald Duck, Uncle Scr...

Just reading P. J. O'Rourke's Driving Like Crazy which is an anthology of his automotive articles spanning something like 30 years. If you are familiar with P. J. O'Rourke you know that this is not some boring collection of technical articles. This is a seriously funny book! I wouldn't bother postin...

Raymond wrote:just call me lazy.

It's the lazy people who drive progress. Keep it up.

financenoob, Please don't ignore Valuethinker's question. It is probably the most important unknown (to us): The only issue then becomes inflation, and that is something that *does* need a look at. ie is the pension CPI indexed? Along with that, what percentage of retirement expenses is covered by p...