Bogleheads.org

When initial benefits are calculated, aren't past wages adjusted based on wage inflation, rather than CPI? If so, this should make a small difference, 4 years of wage inflation rather than CPI would be used for the one who delays.

johnep wrote:Assisted living is definitely the best option for quality of life, and is not covered by medicare or medicaid.

That is not true, it depends on your state.

State Medicaid Reimbursement Policies and Practices in Assisted Living: http://www.pascenter.org/publications/p ... php?id=998

What makes it appear high to the OP is that there appears to be no two-person option (logically that should be about $1,050 (or twice the individual)... Not necessarily, in a group plan a lot of the 2 adults/no kids may be older people, while those with kids are younger and healthier...at least tha...

As the article states: The biggest single reason is low fees. Vanguard's active equity funds charge average expense ratios of 0.37%, compared to 1.29% for the average domestic equity fund. Fund managers can add value, they just don't add enough value to overcome the typical expense ratio. Vanguard a...

You may get an offer for 50,000 miles from the Chase United card, if you have some miles in their frequent flyer program. They will also give you an additional 5000 miles for adding an authorized user.

What about assisted living, rather than a nursing home? My mother is 87 with parkinson's, her assisted living currently costs about $4500 per month, she needs a very high level of care. She is expected to be able to stay there through the end of her life. These days there is not much that a nursing ...

Regarding your wife and her previous family coverage - it is possible for her to get some kind of individual "conversion" plan where she would continue under her previous family insurer/plan, but be issued an individual policy and pay the full individual rate (or perhaps a bit discounted ...

$1200 per month for family coverage in a group plan does not sound high to me at all. My very large employer has plans with total premiums ranging from about $1500-2000 per month, however the emploee share is a bit over $200 per month, not $800 like yours. The $800 should or could be pre-tax, though...

If we decided to complete the replacement of the rest of the whole driveway in the future, this section will have to be removed ($450 down the drain) because it will be matching the existing grade rather than the new grade of the fully replaced driveway. Why would the grade of the new driveway diff...

As for the cost of the engine, I do see online where the cost is much less than the $2500 the mechanic quoted off-hand. Is there any rational reason why the difference would be so dramatic? Is there a question of quality? There is a lot of labor in replacing an engine, did the other price include l...

My wife has a Scion XA, which has been a great car but is tiny. It's likely we'll want to replace that as well in the next few years, simply because it won't be practical anymore (planning on kids 3 and 4 in the relatively near future). Until then, I'm going to be driving that and she'll be driving...

The biggest problem you and I both face is that hardly anyone has any idea what glasses they're wearing! I've asked almost all my friends, who include lots of scientists and engineers, and only ONE knew what lenses (brand and model) they were wearing. Besides the brand and model, you would also nee...

My summary would be if you get a progressive, get free form lenses. If you have a very strong prescription and/or want the lightest possible lenses get trivex, otherwise CR39 (spectralite is also optically as good as trivex but very limited availability). If you have a strong negative prescription, ...

I have thought that for awhile. Not that all fixed income should be in CDs but that Stable Value Funds, Cds, I bonds, Online Money Market and Savings Accounts should be a decent part of most people's fixed income allocation. We have all our "safe" fixed income (about 35% of assets) in suc...

Realistically, I think it will be difficult to impossible to get 2 car seats plus an adult in the back seat. Just to get seat belts and car seats buckled in will be a major chore. Yes, certainly not likely to be possible in a compact or midsize, for example the CRV that several suggested has 53 inc...

I'm not sure what qualifies as more "natural", sea salt or dry roasted pulverized valencia peanuts, but the combination tastes great

Salt is necessary for life, BTW.

The jars I just bought say "best by May ___ 2014", that means it may still be edible after that, it just won't be "best".

We have never had a problem with 3 people eating it and we have not been refrigerating it.

I think private sector employers are far more likely to expect your job to be your life...50 or 60 hour work weeks on a salary, working when you are on vacation, etc. My public sector job is tedious and boring, but it's 40 hours per week, more vacation time (and there is zero contact with the job wh...

My experience at CarMax was less than productive...they were willing to give me about $2500 less than what Edmunds indicates I should glean from a trade in and $3500 less than a private sale. That will probalby be balanced out by them asking you to pay $2500 more than edmunds, if you buy your next ...

We see this stuff all the time. Mostly people use chalk. 100's of times he has removed a customers chalk line and replaced it with his own. So the way I read this, he goes out of his way to make his customers think he is a sleazy mechanic. Why? That's what I thought, too...why :?: (Either that or h...

Yes, I was also pleasantly surprised to find it about a week ago. Our store did have another variety premixed and refrigerated in the deli area for a short time. It was more expensive but still no more than the Holsum or Smuckers natural peanut butters (which were close to $4 per pound last time loo...

I haven't read the entire thread, but I'm a long time Costco member with dues coming up this month. I've hesitated renewing because the radar has gone on alert. I have noticed a significant reduction in quality of some of the Kirkland products. It didn't appear right when the new CEO took over in J...

Total return is about 45% based on "growth of $10,000" chart from morningstar for VTSMX, but only 38% for S&P 500. Inflation is about 35% over that time. "2000-2013 were not steller years for the US Stock Market." I guess I would say 2000-March 2009 period was not, but the la...

I'll disagree, respectfully of course why not call the electric company and threaten to turn off service and get a better deal then the gas company then cell phone company etc None of these typically operate in the way that companies selling TV service do. These TV service companies are constantly ...

nedsaid wrote:...now that the stock market is going up...

It's been going up for over 4 years now.

Well i tried. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: Here is a spreadsheet that compares taking at 62 with taking at 70, for someone who starts with $100,000: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApeIYz1-m6KydGkwLTY3dExRcjhBemNqNWhzVkVoeHc&usp=sharing Most everyone would say the early taker is a...

Note that the 35 mpg cafe standard will translate into average EPA window sticker of maybe about 25 mpg.

Capital One and/or Bank of America may pay you $100 to get a credit card with no foreign transaction fee and 1.5% rebates.

Now, nephew Joseph chose to receive nothing from generous Aunt Minnie from ages 62-69, and instead receive $1,760 every year starting at age 70. How long does it take before Joseph (collecting $1,760 each year instead of $1,000) catches up and eliminates your $8,000 head start? Edited to add: This ...

According to the salesperson, all new refrigerators are guaranteed to break down in the first 3-5 years. How long has this guarantee been in place, because ours was 5 years old as of January and has not broken down. Have we been cheated and sold an old refrigerator as new? I would not ascribe any s...

Go here: http://corporate.visa.com/pd/consumer_s ... _rates.jsp

Do $ to euros, then do euros to $ and you will see that a round trip has a cost (or spread) of about 1%.

Once having correctly determined the actual monthly year-over-year increase, there remains the need to distinguish between the increase in the monthly benefit and the increase in the entire lifetime payout from the SSA. The difference between the two is due to the mortality credit that comes from w...

Yes, just as stated here: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bond_Fund#Rolling_vs._non-rolling_bond_ladders ...most bond ladders are "rolling", because they are not designed to deal with date-certain future liabilities. ... According to Vanguard in their paper Taxable bond investing: Bond fund...

You are thinking about Fidelity which has a 1% international fee but no other fees. No, I have no knowlege of Fidelity but the cost is actually 0.5%. As I indicated there is a spread of 1%, a buy/sell round trip would cost 1%. So in that way, there is an unavoidable cost of 0.5% in pulling Euros fr...

What about Olympic National Park? I think that does not get very many vistors at any time. We went in late June, not July and our trip was a bit longer than you are considering, flew to Seattle and visted Olympic, Mt. St. Helens and Rainier. There is also North Cascades NP out there. Another place t...

It seems to me PA should not require me to pay taxes earned outside of PA? You are mistaken, all income is taxable by your state of residence (or maybe domicile is the term). I have dealt with this for a couple family members, in this case the states were AL and WI. For example, resident of WI mean...

It's possible that the bond funds will perform exactly the way that theories expect them to. But they have never been tested by experiencing a period over which bond yields rose year after year rather than falling, since bond funds are an invention of the period of continually dropping interest rat...

With Schwab, you don't even pay that 1%. Nor with the other debit card that I use (credit union). Actually I'd read something referring to a 1% fee, but looking into this a bit more, I think this is just the spread. If you bought and then sold euros at the exchange rates used, you would end up with...

On a day when Visa was giving 1 Euro = 1.310569 United States Dollar, Chase bank gave me 1 Euro = 1.3871, so they charges about 5.8%, but Chase apparently charges 3% conversion fee for ATM withdrwals and it appears the ATM networks charges 1%. Does Visa also have a 1% charge built into their exchang...

My limited experience is AirTran and Frontier bins crammed.
Southwest and SAS (international flight) loads of empty bin space on full flights.

Chase United Mileage Plus Explorer Visa. It was 50,000 for spending $1000 in first 3 months and 5000 for adding an authorized user.

My wife and I both did that and also Chase Sapphire preferred, which had been 50,000 points, transferable to United.

I began selling the fund when 10 year fell below 1.5%, even that seems like an impossible dream now. Last increment sold was when 10 year was about 0.7%.

With the TIPS yields rising, maybe I-bonds will finally offer something above 0% the next time they set the rate.

I did this for a while, inspired by tightwad gazette (of course, I did not pay for a subscription, I got the book from the library), but it was just too much trouble. Around here we have a lot of careful shoppers, so for the most part if a reasonable store has a sale price it is a good price, especi...

This is why I tend to buy quad-band mobiles... Another option may be to get someone's old phone. My son gave us his old touch pro 2, for which we should be able to buy a prepaid sim card in Europe. The phone will also be a free navigation device, I have downloaded free satellite navigation software...

BTW, Ooma box is $100, after $30 off at costco.com right now. I have phone through cable package currently, but have Ooma waiting in the wings for when our promotion ends (they just extended us 3 months). When we go to that, besides the $100 box and maybe $40 to port, the cost should be under $4 per...

Consider the damage: mutual funds that invest in long-term United States Treasury bonds lost an average 6.8 percent in May, according to Morningstar, with the loss in principal wiping out years of interest payments. But that’s not the worst-hit sector. Higher-yielding bonds and fixed-income securit...

My bank, in America, usually works pretty well So you are still paying to exchange cash. I expect the exchange fee, even if buried in the conversion rate buy/sell spread, will be higher in the US than it would be using an ATM in Europe. Yep. They don't use the interbank rate usually (ever?) But if ...

Of course, the reason there is no overhead room is also due to the baggage charges and their failure to enforce size limits on carry-ons (or alternatively, the customers are too cheap and obnoxious to check their luggage and carry on reasonable size bags). We don't fly too often, but when there is n...

Total return for VIPSX is about -4% over the last month, with the 10 year yield going from about -0.5% to about 0. This could certainly be reasonably expected to rise to 1.5% or 2% yield someday . If that happened over just a few months, at a similar rate to the last month, i.e. rising 0.5% per mont...

I have not seen any indication that sign-up bonuses are shrinking, I got 55,000 miles from United this year. But I am not really paying too much attention any more as we have enough for several trips stockpiled, already.