Bogleheads.org

Trial and error. Tried individual stock picking. Lost a lot of money. Tried market timing, didn't work. Selected MFs based on past returns, sector funds based on "hot" sectors, "tips" from experts. Tried my hand at Options. Read several good investments books. Everything turned o...

Check out any prepaid phone plans (numerous small carriers out there) but you will need your own phone.
T-mobile has no-contract plans.

For about $30-50 per month per line there are good options for decent talk, text and data.

I too resisted Smartphone for a while thinking it will not be very useful. Once you have it, you start finding more & more uses of it. And ultimately you wonder how you managed without it. Even for a leisure user Maps & Navigation Ease of texting / typing Decent camera & Video recorder a...

As others have pointed out, and I want to reiterate, CA coast does not have warm waters even in the summer. http://www.beachcalifornia.com/beach/california-ocean-temperature.html shows average water temperatures for different CA locations. You can get natural beauty, aquariums/zoo, etc but not anyth...

Until now, we had always bought used cars, but after checking prices (craigslist, dealer used, kbb, edmunds), we decided new would be the most price-efficient going forward. We are considering Honda Civic (28/39 mpg) or Mazda3 with Skyactiv (28/40 mpg). Taking initial cost, ongoing maintenance, fuel...

S&P raised CA rating. Just trying to understand how such things impact a state's muni bond market (from investor perspective, say VCAIX) in the short and long term. Do the interest rates i.e. yield drop (just like consumers with high FICO pay lower interest) but demand for the bonds increase, re...

A couple of years ago, I used an Epson V500 to scan all my slides and negatives (1000s of them). I tried another scanner unsuccessfully but after reading a lot of reviews went with the V500. It is a slow process, but I am glad it is done. The results are decent. Read the reviews on amazon and decide...

According to our current 401k administrator, per IRS rules, if I have pre-tax and after-tax money in the 401k and I rollover to Roth, it will be pro-rata. i.e. I can't choose to rollover just the after-tax. So I would have to pay tax on the pre-tax contributions. Of course if you only have after-tax...

Bill Gross (PIMCO) like bonds / 5-yr treasury now. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1109031-bill-gross-likes-the-5-year-treasury-here-s-why?source=yahoo What do you think of his assumptions? The one that stands out in the article "Assuming rates stay relatively stable between the time you purcha...

I have heard (but not tried or verified) that Yahoo Finance historical data (use adjusted close numbers) give you the true returns for any time period.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=VFINX+Historical+Prices
The 'adjusted close' price accounts for dividends, splits, etc.

Sorry - it is near the end of the piece - 04:10. Oh, OK. That's enough to make me listen. But they just say "research shows." Not a hint of what the research is, not even the name of the researchers. [/b] Link to the research referenced http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/250021?uid=373...

1523.14

um...I did read that. See the excerpt below. What am I missing here? edit: here's a picture chart from that wiki link. explain??? http://www.bogleheads.org/w/images/0/03/Slide2.JPG Step 2: Place your least tax efficient funds first Fill your tax-advantaged accounts with your least efficient funds. ...

Jane1: I thought I have read that due to the fashion that bonds accrue, I should have them in my Roth IRA? Both Bond funds and REITs typically pay ordinary dividends (taxed as ordinary income). Stock funds typically pay qualified dividends (currently taxed at lower rates but that could change based...

Your overall plan sounds good. I am probably repeating things would already know and have planned. Without going into the exact line-by-line critique of your revised plan, here are some general guiding principles and recommendations, given your goal of Simplification. 1) Choose the one best bank/cre...

Congratulations on a great start! 3% match is good, no reason to not take advantage of it. What are the costs associated with your Schwab account? Do you pay commissions for each stock buy/sell transaction? If so, it would seem with $11.2K across 20 stocks, you might be better off in a low cost Stoc...

My main question back to you is: is this a taxable part of your portfolio? If so, is Total Bond the right choice for you? If you have a lot of money (sounds like you do) you may have a high income. If you have a high income, you may want to be more tax-efficient with your bond holdings. Have you co...

My desired asset allocation is significantly low on bonds (100K+ short) and the long term plan is to invest it in Vanguard Total Bond Market Fund/ETF (VBTLX or BND). Most of that amount is currently in the bank earning 0.8%. I don't anticipate withdrawing from these for say 10 years. With everything...

My wifi bluray disc player allows me to access my laptop photo/video files that can be displayed on my (non wifi TV). It also allows me to access internet sites directly. If I want to display my laptop screen on the TV, I use HDMI connectivity.
Roku, Apple TV probably would do something similar.

I use TD Ameritrade's commission free ETFs (VTI, BND, VEU, etc). The short-term trading fee $19.99 applies to selling within 30-day buy of any shares in that ETF. Also if you use leverage/Margin, I believe there is also some restriction about using the ETF funds towards your margin account - probabl...

t-mobile $100 for 1000 minutes that are good for one year. If you then pay $25, you get 150 new minutes and all your old minutes roll over. Repeat each year. After four years, you will have spent $175 for 1450 minutes (48 months times 30 minutes per month is 1440). That's under $4 a month. +1 T-mob...

Bora Bora - Not yet Cappadochia, Turkey - Yes, absolutely out of this world Iceland - Not yet Bhutan - Yes, very unique Machu Pichu - Top on my to-do list Namib-Naukluft Park, Namibia - Very high of my list Okavango Delta & Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana - Very high on my list Xian, China - Great...

I have Smart Office 2. Usually $9.99 but got it free a few weeks ago. I think it is still free. Lots of good reviews.
Can sync with Dropbox and Google docs.

If interested, property taxes as percent of home value
http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfound ... 100225.xls

The list is by county. One of the columns shows the % being discussed.

livesoft wrote:I'd mix half-and-half. That way I won't have 100% VNQ in either one in case VNQ tanked. And if it tanked, I would have some BND in each to buy more VNQ.

Thanks. Good point.

If you had enough room in Roth (tax-free) and IRA (tax-deferred) combined for holding all your Bonds (BND) and REIT (VNQ), which one would you put where and why? Wiki on tax-efficient fund placement (http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Principles_of_Tax-Efficient_Fund_Placement) - Is that saying VNQ goes...

Does anyone know how it works if you live in California when you contributed to the HSA (and paid CA state tax on it) but then move to another state after 65. If you withdraw after 65 and treat it like an IRA (for non-medical expenses), do you pay the new state tax on the entire withdrawal? Double s...

My recommendation would be ipad. Refurbished iPad2 was $319 on the Apple Store last week (inventory keep changing, so you will have to check from time to time). I am very satisfied ipad customer (2+ years). Battery life (~8 hrs), screen, everything is like new. I use it several hours a day and no lo...

Husband never wanted kids. I was okay either way. Focussed on career and early retirement in our 30s. Semi-retired at 40. Travelled a lot, love the freedom, enjoying. But from time to time, regret not having kids and having focussed so much on financial independence. The important thing is to find m...

We have ipad, touchpad ( webos) and android smartphone.
Waiting for ipad3 .... Apple again without a 2nd thought. They got it right even in the smallest of things.

If you want market presence and transfer in kind, do the following steps -

Sell your Fidelity Mutual Fund
Buy VXUS (Vanguard Total Intl ETF) in Fidelity $7.95 fee
Have Vanguard transfer it from Fidelity in kind
Selling in Vanguard has no fee

Hi Jane: You and your husband may see yourselves (as I once did) in this article by my friend Jason Zweig. How Many Funds are Enough Taylor, Thanks for the encouragement. That's us, although I'd like to believe we got into this by our negligence, not by intention. 1. Sell every taxable fund with a ...

Jane, you are correct about capital losses offsetting gains first. If you don't have any realized capital losses for 2011, you could sell holdings and realize some gains to take advantage of the 0% LTCG tax rate. The 0% tax rate applies for the portion of the gain that falls below the 25% tax brack...

Just an observation: If you have 20k loses already, it might be worth to be TLH in next year when you have short term gains with higher tax bracket. Your low tax bracket right now(wasn't it 0% upto 15% tax bracket for LG?) is too good deal to take it before this tax year ends(tomorrow?) Also it mig...

25% bonds + 10% cash is considered pretty aggressive for your age, but given your lack of debt and other expenses it seems you've chosen it deliberately. Thanks, tyler_cracker. Given that we have been in the withdrawal phase for the past 3 years, maybe we should increase bond %. We have 3 yrs Emerg...

Hi, I have been lurking on these forums for a while, and this is my first posting. My husband & I have managed to complicate (mess up, as you will see below) our investments over time and now we'd like to take a holistic view, simplify our portfolio, reduce risk/volatility, minimize taxes and ho...