Bogleheads.org

I have never had a problem with special requests. My wife is a pescatarian and we often need to make adjustments to even fixed course tasting menus; never have we had issues. The difference is we don't eat at chain restaurants like Buca di Beppo. Nothing against them, they have their part in the wor...

Here are the cheap index funds in your 401k: *S&P 500 INDEX 09/26/2005 Stock Investments large cap, Exp Ratio (gross) - 0.0661% INTERNATIONAL INDEX 09/26/2005 Stock Investments International, Exp Ratio (gross) - 0.0359% BOND INDEX 09/26/2005 Bond/Managed Income, Exp Ratio (gross) - 0.075% I see ...

Once a week (possibly every other week). $100 is nothing for a dinner in a big, expensive, food loving city. A more interesting question for cities like San Francisco and New York would be $500 dinners. Those we do about once a year.

22.7%. The San Francisco Bay Area is very expensive; before we moved here we payed closer to 9%.

What do the numbers look like for married filling separately?

Am I the only under-30 (I turn 30 at the end of this upcoming June) with a sizable bond portion? I'm at 30% - slightly more than my age, even! - and, even with the stock portion going up quicker than my bond portion of my portfolio, I'm not tempted to switch over to more equities. Well, this 27 yea...

I'm 27 years old and maintain a 60/40 ratio. Vanguard says this returns on average 8.6%: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/saving-investing/model-portfolio-allocations. Even with modest inflation this isn't nearing the 2.5% real some of you are throwing around for similar portfolios. Who ca...

I'm 27 years old and maintain a 60/40 ratio. Vanguard says this returns on average 8.6%: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/saving-investing/model-portfolio-allocations. Even with modest inflation this isn't nearing the 2.5% real some of you are throwing around for similar portfolios. Who can...

http://benbrownmd.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/informedconsent/ is a very good read on this topic. Highly recommended to: those who think doctors are paid too much, those who think teachers are paid too little, and those considering a position in medicine. My wife is a doctor and most of our closest fri...

Are there actual plug-in stations out there? I live in PA and have never heard or seen them. Maybe because I do not drive said vehicle. I'd be tempted to get one, but not without a good number of charging stations. I think it just depends on where you live. In the San Francisco Bay area recharge st...

Like others in this thread: I treat my RSUs as I would a cash bonus. Selling as soon as possible and invest according to your AA is a good plan. This has resulted in wash sales for me; but it's just not a big enough deal to worry about. You'll collect your losses when you sell the shares that caused...

It varies year to year based on bonuses. But right now we are 27 years old and saving 25% of our income. In a few years, once my wife is out of residency, we plan to increase this to around 35%.

livesoft wrote:Do you have other plans for the money? If not, I don't see why you wouldn't keep contributing in order to reduce your taxes.

Reducing taxes is one good reason to continue contributing. I could think of many things we could do with the money.

Does it ever make sense to stop contributing to your retirement beyond reinvesting dividends? Eventually one gets to the point where new contributions (even maxing your 401k, IRA, and doing some taxable investing) are a drop in the bucket compared to the return your portfolio is generating. I've hea...

They often have very nice websites and excellent phone support. USAA for example has a very well designed and useful interface. But my number one reason is needing to do anything in person is a burden to me. I don't have time during the day to wait in line. And a branchless online bank, for obvious ...

We *just* bought a new mattress and tried them all out. We decided *not* to buy the Tempur-Pedic for a few reasons: 1) I sleep very warm and the sinking in worried me. 2) We are young and in love. It did not feel like a good material for the thing that young people in love often do in beds. 3) There...

Maybe I should ask a different question... what's the best 3-fund portfolio in a taxable account? Most of our investments (80%) is in a taxable account. I'm also interested in only moderate risk; I maintain a 60/40 AA that is nearly all taxable. It consists of: Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Adm...

Update: I logged into Vanguard this morning and the conversion had taken place. So rest assured if you cannot do it online, and the rep cannot do it over the phone, that some specialist will be able to do it for you and promptly. Great service. My wife was able to do her's completely online. I'm sti...

I am over the income limits so I contributed for 2012 and 2013 yesterday in a Traditional IRA and today logged into Vanguard to convert to a Roth IRA. I did this two years ago without any trouble. But this year Vanguard had an error message when I tried to convert online. I called them and they were...

I follow Rick Steves' suggestions. Always use a money belt. Keep most of your cash, credit cards, IDs, and passports in it. Keep only the bare minimum of cash needed for the day and one credit card in your wallet. Keep your wallet in a front pocket. We've been to Italy, Paris, London, and Greece. We...

I drove a 2009 Civic all through upstate NY for a few years. Never had any trouble with it in the thick snow.

Some of my friends drove Subarus and claimed they needed it for the snow; I don't know if they drive differently than me but even in lake effect conditions I felt safe in my Civic.

I live in one of the most expensive cities in the country. But I never want to leave. Why? Proximity to all of this awesome stuff. Friends, family, museums, hiking, restaurants, bars, shopping, etc etc etc. If I walk 10 minutes in any direction from my apartment and I will have crossed several outst...

I encourage everyone to get Amazon Prime. Also you can "split" the cost by sharing Prime with your family members. My wife, mother, and mother-in-law all are Prime members under my account; they get the same free 2 day delivery that I do. The only thing they don't get are the extras: strea...

My first job out of college I couldn't safe much. My wife was still in school and I had some debt. We saved the minimum required to maximize my employers 401k match. Only around 6k a year I think. Percentage wise this was 12.5% of our income. 3 years later all the debt was gone and we began saving 4...

For the purely taxable investor which would you recommend? Some books recommend Vanguard Tax-Managed International Fund Admiral Shares (VTMGX) and some recommend Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund Admiral Shares (VTIAX). The Tax-Managed fund does squeak out a lower ER (0.12% vs 0.18%). Bo...

It's part of the compensation package. Full stop. I have worked places that don't match and places that do. The places that don't aren't doing it because they don't want their employees to have a nice retirement. They aren't doing it because their employees have professed that they'd prefer compensa...

I'm 27 and save approximately 28%. But I'm married and live in one of the most expensive cities in the country. If I were single and lived someplace cheaper I'd probably be saving in the 40% range but I wouldn't trade what I have now for that lifestyle.

Sounds like you're doing all the right things. Do you have any debts like student loans? If not, depending on your comfort level, you could start investing on the taxable side. As others have noted, it's really up to you to determine how much of a safety net you need in an emergency fund. If you fe...

Novine wrote:Are you maxing out your retirement funds? That should be your primary goal now that you have your emergency fund established.

Yes . We've been maxing out a 401k, a 457b, a 403b, and 2 Roth IRAs every year for sometime now

FireProof wrote:It's irrelevant how long a period of your income it is. How long is it of expenses?

Probably about 1.75 years of expenses.

How large is too large? Right now our emergency fund (an Ally CD) is sitting at approximately 1 year of income (note: income not expenses). I also have money set aside for a down payment on a house that won't be used for 3 to 5 years. Both of our jobs are very stable. Is that too much? Should I cons...

You really can't go wrong with any of them. Just test drive each and get the one that you feel most comfortable in. For example 4 years ago I was dead set on getting a Honda Fit. I test drove it and found it was too bumpy and aggressive of a ride for me. I then tried the Civic and decided it was rig...

You likely have no control over this and it just isn't worth thinking about. If and when the company decides to go public they will decide how shares are delivered and they will notify you.

Follow advice here and you will be setup for success. Many will state 4% or 3% safe withdrawal rates. You say you only need $975 a month and have $1.081M. So let's do the math: $975 * 12 / $1081000 = 0.0108 or 1.08%. Well under what is considered a safe withdrawal rate! Congratulations on your retir...

They are both equally honest. I am not sure what you are trying to get at though. One would expect different total returns for any different change in time endpoints. But what has that got to do with the price of tea in China? I have a spreadsheet that takes my current portfolio value, yearly contr...

Vanguard has a page where you can see the best year, worst year, and average annual return for many asset allocations. Morningstar will give you the actual 15 year average annual return for any fund. Both are excellent resources but the time periods and thus the results are very different. Which is ...

I've given this advice before and heard it from many others. When your options become liquid you should consider the event equivalent to a cash bonus. If with a bonus you would go out and buy an equal amount of shares of your company then you should keep it all as stock. If with a bonus you'd invest...

Somewhere in that data someone put in 1M instead of 1000000 and it is messing up the Summary page. Can you please fix that row? Thanks!

My parents are letting me live at home for free, but I've still got a job and am saving $100,000+ per year. Don't you want to get out there and be on your own? I don't understand why people would choose to live with their parents and burden them. My sister doesn't earn nearly as much as you but liv...

Consider options equivalent to cash and it makes decisions like these much simpler. If, given $100 hypothetical dollars as a bonus, you would keep $75 and spend $25 to buy some of your companies stock then your plan of exercising 3/4 of them makes sense.

I say sell them all as you vest and diversify.

1) Get rid of the debt. We paid off my wife's medical school loans ASAP and it was a great feeling. With your income it won't take long. 2) I'm sure you've thought of this already but I believe insurance is very important for high earners and doctors. Umbrella insurance and life insurance. 3) Read s...

tludwig23 wrote:Outdated. VTIAX is tax effecient.

Thank you!

I hold Vanguard Total Intl Stock Index Admiral (VTIAX) in my taxable account. Yesterday I finished the chapter in the Bogleheads Guide that says that this is tax ineffecient and I should use Vanguard Tax-Managed International Fund Admiral (VTMGX) instead. I believe this might be outdated information...

What do you define as wealthy? I'm obviously a work in progress (only 26) but I have no debt and consider myself tracking ahead of my path to retirement. My wife and I have had no direct monetary help. All debts (car, school, etc.) we took on by ourselves and paid back. If things keep going this way...

Why doesn't your future wife plan to get a job? This seems like an odd situation. Are you sure you want to support her spending forever? She just finished med school... she won't be starting residency for a year or 2. We are in a very similar situation. Recently married. I've been working for 5+ ye...

Overall: 0.13%

I should be able to get it down to 0.11% towards the end of this year.

The Motorola SB6121 is an excellent machine. If it works with your VOIP setup I'd get it (I don't know much about VOIP) 1) It is a DOCSIS 3.0 compatible modem. That is the best on the market and will squeeze out all of the available speed from your connection. You'll likely get higher real speeds th...

26 years old. ~30% cash (technically CDs) as an emergency fund. It's about 1 year of income (not expenses).

My wife was in the same situation not too long ago. We paid it off and never regretted it. Having zero debt is a wonderful feeling.

I have it in my 401k because it is the only available bond fund. If I had a Vanguard Total Bond Index (or Fidelity equivalent) I'd switch in a heartbeat but I'm not losing sleep over it.