Bogleheads.org

OP here. Just thought I'd share an update. I decided to interview for the job. I'm in the middle of the process now. I should find out in a couple weeks if I'm getting an offer. I haven't made up my mind yet but I figured it would be best to see how it goes. I'd rather go for it, and assess the offe...

Another technique: have 2 values in your mind - your "probable" portfolio value and your "current" portfolio value. "Probable" one is a lower value - think of some values where your investments are not likely to fall down to. E.g. pick [ current value - 30% ], or base ...

I got a new one I've been telling myself. Last month I was overseas for work for 1.5 weeks and then on vacation. In that time, I sublet my apartment for $700. So my bad timing on the VTIAX purchase is kinda the same outcome had I bought the fund two weeks earlier and didn't sublet. The sublet was on...

It doesn't seem to me that "what do you tell yourself when you buy at the peak" and "80/20" really belong together. Especially "80/20 moving to 85/15." Or even 82/18. You're right. I suppose with my perception, had I bought the fund two weeks earlier, I wouldn't have c...

These are all great posts. Thanks for indulging me. I should probably rename the title of this post to 'mini-peak.' I definitely think in due time Total Intl Stock Admiral will grow beyond the price I bought the fund at, perhaps in a matter of days, weeks, or months. I think the frustration stems fr...

Total Intl Stock Admiral stayed pretty flat from January till April, then it had a nice little 5% rally not long ago, and I happened to buy $10,000 at about the peak. Since then, the fund has dropped back down quite a bit. I'm sure this happens to nearly everyone in this forum at some point. What do...

retiredjg wrote:That should work. Good luck!

Thanks. Actually, I'm at 82/18 so I guess I'll let things roll for now and hold off on moving bonds to stocks in my Roth 'till I get closer to 80/20. That could be a while.

That makes the question a little clearer. I don't think there is an answer. Or maybe I just don't know it. But you could make an exchange from bonds to stocks in the Roth IRA before you make the transition from after-tax-401k to Roth IRA. Would that make it seem any different to you? Or you could b...

But I also would have had more taxable gains. So do these things cancel each other out, or would I be better off continuing to buy the bond fund in my 401k but also regularly exchanging bonds in my Roth IRA to stocks? Hard to say which is better. You have decided to reduce the earnings on your afte...

4. Most importantly, I've been sticking with an 80/20 AA lately, and I'm contemplating moving slightly more aggressive to 85/15. Bad move--sounds like Recency Bias. Paul Thanks for the comment Paul. I decided a few weeks ago not to move to 85/15. I'm starting to realize that adding my second to las...

OP here. Just wanted to provide an update and pose a related question. I ended up doing the in-service withdrawal from my 401k (about $10,500 after tax money plus about $100 in taxable gains). This amount constituted all the after tax 401k contributions I've made since Jan 1, 2013 plus some gains, ...

OP here. Just wanted to provide an update and pose a related question. I ended up doing the in-service withdrawal from my 401k (about $10,500 after tax money plus about $100 in taxable gains). This amount constituted all the after tax 401k contributions I've made since Jan 1, 2013 plus some gains, m...

The problem for your question is past performance does not guarantee future performance. That is why some DCA.History has shown the market always goes up, hopefully it stays that way John Fair enough. Let me rephrase. If one assumed a 5% growth of the fund annually -- I think this is fair, given th...

On some weeks the market can jump several percentage points one way or the other. This is nothing new, I understand, but I often wonder if market gyrations are more extreme than they used to be. If an investor contributes $10,000 on a single day to a given mutual fund, and a week before shares of th...

My girlfriend is considering increasing her 401k contributions. She currently contributes just enough to get the max match.

What characteristics would you say make for a good 401k? Is there a suitable range of fees? She has good choices including some index funds.

Thanks,
Iced Tea

When I read a fund's performance graph on Google Finance or another financial site, in order to identify the percentage growth or decline of the fund between two dates, I simply calculate the formula as follows: ((NAV of a share on date 2) - (NAV of a share on date 1)) / NAV of a share on date 1 Do ...

Bacchus01 wrote:I rebalance on the first of each month. New after-tax funds are converted (from cash) then.

Once a month for me.

You rebalance every month? I've heard of rebalancing every 6 or 12 months but not monthly. How does that work? You add funds monthly to bring your AA to your desired allocation?

For those of you who invest in your taxable account, do you invest whenever you have money to invest, or do you hold off and contribute quarterly or semi-annually to reduce the # of purchases, for tax simplicity purposes? I was having a discussion with a friend the other day and he is trying to deci...

You can put the total amount of additional withholding in either line 3 or 4 (NYC). When you file your NY & NYC taxes it's all together on one form. All of your payments are totaled up and all of your tax liabilities for NY & NYC are totaled and a single amount owed is computed. So as long ...

I remember replying to this thread before the website meltdown a few days ago. I recall suggesting you check the NYS Estimated Tax instructions to see what the "safe harbor" rules are and how you make sure you are in a safe harbor. You may be able to avoid changing your withholding if you...

I paid $560 in NY state tax last year. I was told by some people on this forum to complete form IT-2104 to elect additional withholding from my paychecks in order avoid owing too much next year. This seems easier than paying estimated tax payments at this time. The form is available here: http://www...

best opportunity i'll likely have to get a client-facing position - after 9yrs of marketing, the reason i'd have a shot at this job is that i know the products, the target buyers/influencers, competitors, etc., if i were looking for a sales job outside the company, it would be a hard sell to get an...

This is the OP. Thanks to everyone who posted. This is a very personal decision but hearing others' thoughts has helped me take everything into consideration. I'm still mulling this over but I have mapped out the key pros and cons, to get myself more organized. The items below aren't listed in a par...

This is a personal decision. What is your family situation? If kids, I say no way. If not, heck yes! I don't have a wife or kids. I have a girlfriend. We've been together for a little over a year. She's supportive but hesitant about this possibility. I recognize that it will impact things a lot. In...

I've been working in marketing and communications positions for 9 years. I'm satisfied with my career, and was recently promoted, but my role hasn't evolved and I'm a bit bored. I've been thinking of trying to move into a client-facing position in Sales for some time, though I never acted on it. But...

Thanks. My bands have always been +- 5% I would think, except during rapid market change, you could stay in your bands during 4 months of contributing only to bonds. Then adjust in the 401k and start over. That's what I think I would do. I agree. I'm going to start by doing my first in service with...

I initially planned to buy about $5k in I Bonds at the end of this year. I could probably manage to buy up to $500 in I Bonds now in order to secure the current rates. But if i look at the rates today versus what's coming after the 30th, the difference in interest earned is nominal. Is there really ...

Are you saying if I stick with an 80/20 AA, I'd start by rebalancing to 84/16, contribute to bonds for 4m, then rebalance again to 84/16, and so on? If I did that and the market spiked upward for a time, wouldn't my AA potentially move even higher? Maybe I'm not following correctly. I could see sta...

[quote="letsgobobby" If you buy I bonds by April 30 you'll get 1.76% for the first six months.[/quote] I do plan to buy more I bonds this year. I picked up my first batch at the end of last year. If I wait till after April 30th, do we have any idea what the rate will be? I'll do some resea...

Not much expected diffrerence between 80/20 and 85/15. My concern is more about the lack of discipline that it shows. Why now? The stock market is up 150% in the last four years. When the market is performing poorly there tend to be more "switching to more conservative AA" posts. These ar...

I thought that is how they were all supposed to work, but I thought you were telling us yours was different. Guess that was not your intention. If you put $17k into bonds and rollover/rebalance, $17k into bonds and rollover/rebalance, and $17k into bonds and rollover/rebalance each year, in a portf...

As a side note, you did not mention an emergency fund. You did mention having $5k if needed. Ideally, an emergency fund would be able to cover 6 months or more of your expenses. While you are doing very well, I would not operate without building up the emergency fund. I count $5k as my immediate ne...

Since the bond fund in the after tax 401k can go to a bond fund in the Roth IRA, there is no change in stock to bond ratio when you do the rollovers. Why is there a need to do offsets while the money is accumulating? I may not be "getting it", but I think you are making extra work for you...

That being said, I don't think you'll see a huge difference between 15% and 20% either way. Flip a coin, make a decision, and stick with it. Just don't decide to change to a more conservative allocation right after a big market drop and thus lock in your losses. Good advice, thanks. As for simplify...

I'm no expert, so don't make any descisions on just my opinions. 1. Yes 2. I guess it depends if the headache of filling out the form is worth the money you save 3. You can do this, however I think most people would say it's not necesary. I would think maybe rebalancing things once per quarter is p...

bumping this for a reply, thanks

I have a few questions regarding my portfolio. Any input on these, I'd really appreciate it. I think I have a good handle on things overall but I could use some feedback. I've included details on my portfolio down the page. 1. I am interested in increasing my holdings of international stocks to 35% ...

Yes, you can send a check in with your extension. Be sure to keep a copy of the check because NYState will act like they lost it. At least that has been my experience 100% of the time. And when you eventually file your return, be sure to attached a copy of the check you sent with your extension, ot...

Yes, it does have to be filled out for both regular and AMT (if you have any AMT). It seems like it's a horrendously complicated form for my relatively simple situation of no AMT, no foreign income except for (U.S. based) mutual fund dividends, and only marginally more than $300 in tax withholding....

How in TaxAct do I increase my withholding for NY state tax? Based on the above advice, I was going to enter $20. To recap, I'm getting about 500 refund from the fed and I owe about 560 to NY. I haven't paid estimated taxes in 2012. Rather than pay them in 2013, I figured I'd just increase my withh...

I think I'm over my head on this. The Foreign Tax Credit is from having international stock mutual funds in my taxable account. I paid $165 in foreign taxes. I didn't work overseas or anything. So should I need to fill out this section? TaxAct says the following: The system automatically claims the...

Take a copy of your taxact return, take out $660 of income and see what that does to your state taxes. It will probably change them by around $66, not a big part of the $550. NY state and city tax rate schedules are in IT-201-I, Your probably looking at something close 6.5% state, 3.5% city as marg...

I'm having some challenges finishing my taxes, so I think I'm going to file an extension. I read that I need to calculate my tax liability as best as possible, and pay it by the 15th. I've gone through TaxAct and am supposed to get a fed refund but I owe NY state. So do I just pay NY state through T...

For quite a few years now, my employer has paid KPMG to prepare my taxes, and this is because I was on a foreign assignment and have significant foreign tax credits. I have reviewed the tax returns in the past, and I can confirm that KPMG prepared two sets of foreign tax credit forms - one for regu...

Bumping this since it's timely. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'll also call TaxAct in the morning.

Your 1099-R does not need to have the corrected box checked. While 1099 forms are due to taxpayers in January and February, certain payors can request an automatic extension of time to file with the IRS until April 30th. Therefore, if the company changes your 1099 but has not yet filed the 1099 wit...

The original 1099R had no taxable gains in box 2a because the brokerage processed it as a 401k withdrawal rolled over to a traditional IRA, not a Roth. The new form has the correct amount of taxable gains in box 2a. It just doesn't have the 'Corrected' box checked.

I'm finishing up my taxes -- this was delayed since I've been waiting on some corrected forms until now -- so it's down to the wire. I just noticed a section in TaxAct about the AMT. This is the first time I've seen that. I guess when I went through my credits the first time, I somehow bypassed it. ...

I finally received a corrected 1099R for withdrawals from my 401k (after tax contributions) which were rolled into my Roth. The new form doesn't have the 'corrected' box at the top checked off. It's not clear to me if the brokerage has notified the IRS that the original, incorrect form should be dis...

I read some documentation on the NY State tax law and it looks like footwear purchases from April 1, 2012 - end of 2012 are tax free. That means one of my 2012 online purchases doesn't need to be reported. Glad I read the fine print. I found another online order in my email history that has a small ...