Bogleheads.org

A quick search didn't reveal this has been posted so I thought I would do it. I have the Pen Fed Visa Platinum cash Rewards card often talked about on this site. Pen Fed are now offering to convert their Visa cards to the style containing a 'chip' which will facilitate easier use internationally. Th...

1507.07

HongKonger wrote:
And I concur that the lamb with no mint sauce is a faux pas.

Redcurrant jelly is de rigueur with lamb in my household....

Thank you for posting, I almost missed this article.

Happy retirement Gus Sauter!

ResNullius wrote:I don't know the answer, but one pure guess might be that some companies upped their dividends considerably within just the past couple weeks, some just the past couple days.

Agreed. This is almost certainly the reason, I just wanted to alert board readers.

As we are doing a Roth conversion this year I am keeping a close eye on distributions this December. As the first ones have come in it is interesting to see that some are considerably higher than the Vanguard estimates published at the beginning of this month. For example, VTSAX, the admiral version...

I set up an account with the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program two years ago. $25,000 was the about the amount I wanted to contribute so I did not view the $25,000 minimum as a problem. As our assets are mostly with Vanguard it made more sense to stick with their endowment program, although I di...

Can someone explain tilting as it applies to the house for me. Thanks, I think you are misreading titled as tilted . OP reports that the house ownership is titled as Joint with Right of Survivorship (sometimes abbreviated to JTWROS) which means should her husband predecease her, the house becomes h...

I was in a similar situation earlier this year. Moving from a semi-retired to fully retired position. Our asset allocation recently had been 45% stock to 55% fixed income/bond. With the cash injection from the sale of a second property I purchased -$20k in i bonds, and with the rest - 50% Total Bond...

Thank you for posting about this nonnie. It is a very important part of the 'estate plan' which all of us should make.

jj

One claimed that insurance companies sometimes check the assets of policy holders to make sure they actually have the assets the umbrella policy is insuring. For instance they're not going to cover you for $2M in liability if you don't have $2M in assets. I've never had that happen to me. Has anyon...

with the great buzz about them I also priced them but found them significantly higher than Allstate... My experience was the exact opposite. We had been with Allstate since 1998 and had shopped around once or twice in the following ten years, not finding the savings worth the bother of changing ins...

5) Have health insurance premiums paid by one's employer as part of a pension / defined benefit package. Nice if you already have it. Probably not plausible for younger workers these days where pensions are an increasingly rare species, and where typical job tenures with a single employer probably ...

William4u wrote:Nisiprius' posts should be on the Boglehead bond wiki.

+1

I have to confess that we were invited to a luncheon by Vanguard back in May, 2005 at the St. Regis Hotel, Houston. The previous year we had moved a portion of our assets to Vanguard and had a free financial plan done where we had disclosed further outside assets. It was a pleasant luncheon with a n...

I am also curious about the results of this poll. Health costs after 65 are a very important budget item and it would be great to have some actual feedback from Bogleheads who are already in this phase of their retirement.

Thanks to all who contribute.

The 8938 is a rather strange form cobbled together at the last minute by the IRS. If you try to complete it you realize it makes no sense, unlike the TDF 90-22.1 which is at least logical. By imposing a painful process of annual valuation of assets which are often not capable of valuation, Form 893...

Thank you for the heads up about the 8938. Somehow, I missed this one, not realizing that you had to fill out both the TDF 90-22.1 AND the 8396. If it's not hijacking this thread, I am wondering if someone knows whether the cash value in whole life insurances policies should be classified under Par...

We use it too. Beneficiary is still only 4 though, so time will tell. I agree with the other posters who give the Vanguard indexed funds portfolios a 'shout out'. Low expense ratios and low annual fee. We are steering well clear of the managed funds. I would think that living in IL it's a very good ...

Rick Ferri wrote:I wrote an article that dovetails on this discussion. It includes a chart illustrating the 2013 dividend tax increase by income...wow!

This Decade's Biggest Investment Challenge

Rick Ferri

Thank you for that article Rick. We certainly live in interesting times....

Retired, age 58/53 Asset Allocation 40 Equity/60 Fixed (intend to keep this long term) 24% US Equities 16% Int'l Equities 10% i bonds and CD's (7 yr Pen Fed, 3.25% and 6%) 31% Muni bond funds (mostly Ltd term, some intermediate, long and HY) 17% Taxable bond funds (All in trad IRA, slowly converting...

Yes, in your example, you are right that a 50% decline in markets would hit my 90/10 portfolio much harder than a 70/30 portfolio. But a 50% increase in markets would also benefit my 90/10 portfolio much more than a 70/30 portfolio. And given the current historic low interest rates, it seems a lot ...

I just wanted to provide closure on my post from almost a year ago. I did indeed retire on 31 December. But the retirement will be a bit of a glide down as I will shortly take up a part time position at a local university. So far the toughest part of being retired has been deciding which days I wil...

1373.22 (same as last year's guess)

A Happy New Year to all!

Our Umbrella insurance premium is approaching $1000/yr as we have young drivers and four cars total, so not everyone pays $200....

I would shop around if I were you.

jj

I hate to disappoint you but my understanding of 529 plans is that a computer would not count as a 'qualified' expense. Quoting the verbiage from the 529 plan we are contributing to for my child it says: " Qualified expenses include tuition, fees, and the cost of books, supplies and equipment r...

Thanks for the link to the book. It'll make interesting holiday reading....

(I'll make no comment so as not to contravene any forum rules) jj

snyder66 wrote:I opened a kids account for my son and got $27. Not bad...

me too!

jj

Since the recent upgrade the Amazon link has disappeared from the top right-hand corner of the screen. Is it somewhere else? If so, please direct me to it.

Thanks

I thought I would resurrect this thread as we are in a very similar situation with our 7 month-old car. An older lady drove into our parked car - I was standing about 30 yards away when it happened and heard the impact and then ran across. I was very keen to ensure that she didn't drive away! We are...

I have significant savings in 401k, college savings. In personal account own a fund of hedge funds, munis, CDs, various equity mutual funds. I have no debt and am 45 and save between $400k to $500k per year. So the question I have is do I need equities since I already have a large asset base and do...

I just hope Larry and Rick don’t plan on retiring based on what they make off me. I’ve read some of the books. (from the library) Precisely, I have learned a lot from them too, on the cheap. Long may they stay and post! (Thanks also to Bob of Bob's Financial Website, Mike of the Oblivious Investor,...

Blind Squirrel, welcome… A few points: You say you’re looking at a 40+ year horizon, 3.8% withdrawal seems high for this scenario. Look at the work of Jim Otar. You might be in his gray zone. Think about converting some of your funds to an inflation-linked SPIA for ‘income certain’ for both your liv...

My advice is to look at the british expats forum, do an internet search. The posters there have lots of information for newcomers to the USA. There you can ask all the questions you like on any topic, someone will have been through your particular situation. They have tips on how to build a credit r...

Wait a minute, we don't have to report non-financial assets held outside the US, do we? Are we supposed to report our house, car, baseball card collection...? The draft form is titled 'Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets'. I wonder what that includes, that the FBAR does not include? Wha...

In addition to FBAR, if you own non-US assets over $50k you'll also have to file this for 2011 and later: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f8938--dft.pdf Thank you for bringing this to the Bogleheads' attention. I had not heard of it. I will probably have to file this. I own a fourth share in my moth...

We have Hunter Douglas 'Power rise' blinds in our family room. They work off AA batteries in the top header from one remote, 7 blinds in all. We've had them since 2004 and still good. Not cheap, but a much neater look than with cords, and safer if there are small children around, furniture in the wa...

Very interesting thread - we are thinking about who to appoint as corporate trustee too. Your lawyer will push you toward whoever they are used to using. Great to have the Bogleheads' viewpoints and experiences - please keep your experiences coming. I wonder if there are any surviving spouses/childr...

another vote for one share of BRK A

I bonds - $5k paper and $5k through Treasury Direct, per SS# per year. This defers interest accrued for up to 30 years.

529 plan for future educational expenses.

Research both of these to gauge whether they are appropriate for your situation.

Carbon paper. Ditto machines. Mimeograph machines. Rotary calculators. Slide rules. DC-4's. Human operators that said "Number, plee-yuz." Sputnik. The Army-McCarthy hearings. Knowing Walter Cronkite because he was the host and narrator of "You Are There." Putting records in a re...

1373.22

I voted No.

But as the estate tax limits are a moving feast I shall keep my eye on the rules and plan accordingly to minimize any estate taxes should the rules/limits change in the future.

jj

Be aware that a ‘Life Annuity with 50% survivor’s benefit’ is not necessarily the same as the ‘Joint and Survivor Annuities’ talked about later in this thread. Annuities can be purchased which maintain the benefit for the second to die at the same level and do not reduce it to 50%. An annuity with 1...

I have a question too. is inheritance from cousin in the Netherlands taxed in US? I live in US and cousin died in The Netherlands---in 2002. Still wzitinbg for it to be settled as their are 44 heirs and some property needs to be sold. She left me about $33000 US dollars. Will I need to pay tax on t...

Thank you for posting this link. I had missed this interview. Very interesting to hear Greenspan's take on things.

I will not comment as it would undoubtedly violate forum guidelines.

jj

... have there been any large scale natural disasters in neighboring towns or counties in the last 2 years? I did wonder about this. We're in the TX Hill Country, not near the Gulf Coast. As far as I know there have been no bad hail storms recently, one house about eight miles away burned down a fe...

I have a suggestion. Our 21 yr-old son has recently completed testing with the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation. You can find them on the internet at jocrf.org. They have an office in San Francisco. For anyone contemplating a career change I believe their approach is quite different from the nor...

Our Homeowner's Insurance renewal has just arrived and has gone up from $2268 to $2988, a $720 increase representing almost 32%! We have made no claims, nothing has changed as far as we are aware with our credit history, which is excellent. We shall be actively pursuing quotes from other companies n...

We built a custom home 11 years ago and chose satin nickel faucets for the master bath. The finish on the bathtub set has yellowed. Looking around on the internet for a possible replacement I saw that there is a ‘lifetime warranty’ for this particular brand. I sent an email to customer service telli...