Bogleheads.org

Sorry, but I have to agree with the crowd on this one. You chose the phrase "I messed up" and yet you want to take on more debt to get more education to make more money? Have you not learned anything about college debt to job ratios? DO NOT take on more debt for anything until you resolve ...

I live in VA and have had a number of power outages. I purchased a 7000 watt (10,000 peak) Toro electric start generator from Lowes and had it hooked into a whole house bypass switch. When on generator power it will run refrigerators, furnace, lights, fans and a few other things. It will not handle ...

You have a challenge because of the state you live in. PA did not allow wine shipped to the state because of the state run liquor control board. Not sure if that has changed recently. My wife and I really love good wine. We have a wine cellar with over 1000 bottles. You can find decent wine from $5 ...

A 529 for most wage earners is a good deal. There is another potential upside to the plans. I purchased one for our grandson through Vanguard Nevada plan. Our Grandson lives in Virginia and will most likely go to a Virginia college. Mother went to UVA and Father to VA Tech. When the child is in the ...

I think your plan is very reasonable. I also own two rental properties and I maintain an emergency fund of 7% of the value of one home. That should cover any large repair or any long vacancy. Yes it's possible that both roofs or AC units or a roof and AC could go out at the same time, but doubtful. ...

It's all about income. Nothing to do with assets. I just completed a refi and because I own rental properties which I mortgage to the max intentionally and show very little income, they gave me a hard time. This was for my primary home. All credit scores over 800, enough assets just in Vanguard to p...

She needs some sound advice and it certainly appears you are not providing that. You are taking way to much risk for her. And even for you if some day you will get part of this. Why be set up to fail when it is not required? 15% Vanguard total stock market VTSAX 15% Vanguard small cap value VISVX 15...

Just received a notice today from Amex that the terms of the credit agreement are being changes. Here is the wording of the change. I assume this went to all card holders. Subject is Credit Reports. Effective immediately we are modifying the language concerning credit reports in your Cardmember Agre...

Living just outside Washington DC it's hard to go out for less then that. Occasionally Chinese which runs under $100. But we go out about once a week and 90% of the time it's over $100. I usually don't do chain places so about every regular place runs that much. About the only chain we like is Bonef...

OK, I have a very available vehicle to test your analysis. I have a Rabbi trust that has VERY few investment choices, however one of them of only 4 is the S & P 500. So help me better understand the exact buy and sell signals and I will use a fairly large amount of $$$ to test this and provide r...

With everyone who is supposed to know, telling everyone who will listen, to sell bonds, it is probably a really good time to be buying bonds. The only concession or change I have made is as I re-balance and add new money, if I need bonds I add to short term vs total market. There are probably 20 dif...

I have rented cars in England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and a few others. In Europe I use Eurocar or Avis or Hertz. In Asia Hertz and Avis. I have never had an issue with insurance or been scammed. On a vacation to Hawaii once a dollar rent a car was inc...

This is someones home you are renting, not a hotel room. Leave it as you found it or even better, leave it cleaner then you found it. I own two vacation rental and I charge an $85 cleaning fee after each renter. If a person leaves the place as clean or cleaner then they found it, I refund $50. I am ...

I set mine up with a "bank of dad" checking account. I used an old check book and used a permanent marker to block out the account number. They had to keep a check register. Each week a deposit of allowance went in as a direct deposit. Amount was $5 a week at 6 rising to $10 a week when th...

I did a lot of research into this prior to retirement. I searched out information on over 120 over 55 retirement communities. I was looking for some very specific things. Low cost. Golf plus other. I like golf my wife doesn't play but likes to take classes and paint and photography. An active life s...

I know that area of CO and RE has been improving in value. With the refi you are now breaking even and with the tax advantage you should actually be positive. If you are I would keep it and see if the value improves. But then again I am a landlord and like it. Yes the ROI is lower then I would like,...

I worked in a different industry, but had about the same type income and it is tough to minimize taxes. Use the 401K to the maximum every year. See if your employer has or will set up a Jacob's or Rabbi trust for everyone. This allows high wage earners to set aside an amount each year that is taxed ...

Hi John, Thanks for the information. Looks like a great vacation. Would you share how you found an apartment for 3 months and the approximate range of pricing for that area of Paris? Our goal is to also spend 3 to 6 months in Paris sometime in the next 3 years and so far all apartments we have seen,...

I believe I had a Nissan Murano as a rental car in Kauai last year. The thing that really impressed me was the transmission shifting. There was none. It was a constant adjust with zero shift. I have owned Infiniti's in the past and reliability was always excellent. So my question would be about the ...

I built a spread sheet that estimated expenses in retirement, looked at total investments available to use in my SWR, and then ran that spread sheet out until both my wife and I hit 98. She is 10 years younger then me so had to adjust the last 10 years to accommodate that. I adjusted the expenses up...

I agree it might be. I used the current $59700 cost for 8 semesters, used a 6.25% return and got to 166K in 18 years. I also went back 20 years to see the rate of tuition cost increase and that was the average. Still a guesstimate, but as close as I can get today. I will adjust each year so I have a...

Just went through this for our first grandson. My objective is to save enough to pay for VA in state 4 years of college and provide the flexibility to go elsewhere if he so chooses. I went to the Virginia state 529 web site and did some calculations. They will sell you today for a new born 4 years f...

This is also the same impact when using AMT. Effective tax rate went from the 35% bracket to an actual of 55%. I also completed the return and then upped the income $500 and lowered it $500 to see the impact. It may have been something else as I had a complex return this year. Having retired March 3...

How does it compare to the Schwab Investor checking account? Looks like they both have the same features. On line bill pay, free checks, no ATM fee's world wide, online picture deposits, and transfers from Schwab brokerage account. I already have a Schwab brokerage account but do not have a Fidelity...

I count everything in networth, but only liquid assets in what I base the SWR. So all stocks, investment accounts, cash, and any other asset that I could sell today. I do not count equity in rental property, primary or secondary home, land, vehicles or any other non liquid asset. Over time in retire...

After doing some searching I think I found something that will work. The Schwab investor checking account may be the best answer. Ally, Everbank and the others mentioned only reimburse ATM fee's at US banks. Schwab does global. This was I can keep some amount in the investor checking account which p...

This is probably a dumb question because most will say the money should never be touched. But I like to use this cash bucket for a few different things. What is the best place to keep your emergency fund? A bank savings account, CD's, MM, other? I would like to find an online bank account or other p...

I was in about the same position when I made the move. My financial adviser used TD Ameritrade as the holder of accounts but used many different funds for investments. Lomis, Fidelity, DFA, and several others. I sat down with my adviser and explained what I was doing and why. I had them sell some of...

There may be reasons that make a recast work for you. I sold a bunch of stock options and decided to put a large payment, 190K on my mortgage. I did decide to recast for $175. What this allowed me to do was drop my monthly payment enough to allow me to pay off 3 mortgages on a 15 year basis vs curre...

I live in the Washington DC area where the main local paper is the Post. Over the years I have been subjected to a lot of their polls, studies, and data gathering. In every instance I remember the way they construct the questions it makes the results worthless. It's almost like they want a poll resu...

It is a challenging do it yourself project, but can be done. On my 2005 Honda my son in law spent about 3 days getting it accomplished. Problem was breaking the crankshaft bolt to remove the timing belt pulley. Because of the transverse mounted engine, you get at it through the tire well. I had a so...

If your company has any capital requirements, set up a Rabbi trust. Then you can defer income pre tax to be returned when you retire or leave. Can be spread over a ten year payback once retired.

I just got an EFT brochure from Schwab and they showed there EFT expenses vs Vanguard for there index funds and every one was lower at Schwab. And free trades. Now I have not explored the buy sell gap as I have no plan to change right now, but at least the ER ratios were very attractive.

I really felt I had a plan that was no fail. I had a job move in 1981 at the worst possible time and my home interest rate was 17%. I also bought two 10K 7 year cd's at 15.5%. About a year or so later when rates dropped I did a refinance on the home. I remember saying to the bank, just leave the pay...

I used to do that and finally got tired of it and decided to carry only one. My work phone. I also used it for personal calls when required, but never abused it. Even told my boss what I was doing. I figured if they really wanted me to carry the work phone 24 X 7 then they could suffer the few perso...

I retired last year and later in the year decided to refinance my mortgage to a lower rate. I was originally planning to sell this home, but decided to stay living here another few years. (new grandson) I have excellent credit and enough liquid assets to pay all the mortgages 10 times over. During m...

Insurance in Florida is based on how close you are to the coast and hurricane prone. I have homes in The Villages which is inland 45 minutes and insurance is very reasonable. Average $800 a year for a $300K home. On the coast the same home would be $2500 to $3000 a year. So there is a lot of varianc...

During a period of rising (stocks or bonds), it forces you to sell too soon. That may be high, but it is not the high. sscritic, please the next time you know the exact high and the exact low, tell me. Until then I will re-balance when I am out of balance by 5%. And that will force me to sell high a...

Re-balancing is the single most effective way to make your portfolio grow faster. I guess this also means you have not done the other most important thing, establish your best AA. So step one is to determine your AA. If not able to do that then just select the age old 100 minus age in bonds. Once th...

Just setting this up for our grandson. New born, 8 weeks old. Obviously we do not know which state they will be living in 18 years from now and if the child will even go to a state school. So I decided to go with the Vanguard 529 plan. I went and looked at 3 states to see what a pre paid tuition pla...

I own several pieces of property. 220 acres of timberland, 26 acres that is timber and home site, 2 acres of high traffic commercial land and 2 rental homes. All the land is in NH and the rental homes are in FL. Only the homes have a mortgage. Because of this I do carry an AA of close to 60/40 when ...

Debacle. The great upcoming bond debacle.

I bought a diamond on Graig's list. As you indicated, there is a serial number engraved on the stone. You should have or get the paper work for that diamond. It will list the cut, CW, color and clarity of the stone plus any flaws. I arranged to meet the seller at a jewelry store we both agreed on, I...

You say you are "going to try it on your own with a small sampling" of funds. I guess that means you have other investments elsewhere that you will compare against. So do these funds map well tp those other investments? Or will you be comparing apples and oranges and still not know the out...

If you read William Bernstein he treats SS as a bond allocation using a divide by 7% factor. So lower then you are using. He does not use the home based on the theory that you have to live someplace. I run a higher then 100 minus age AA (I use 110) because I use SS and two DB pensions as part of the...

Age 67, but have SS plus two DB pensions so investments are a little heavy on stocks. Currently close to 60/40 stocks vs bonds. If I add up the SS and DB's, divide by 7% (Bernstein in Investors Manifesto) and use that like a bond allocation in the mix am closer to 40/60 stocks and bonds. Continue to...

Property taxes were somewhat HIGHER in FL than in MA for comparably sized/priced properties a few years back. And homeowners insurance (see separate thread) is definitely higher in FL... This statement about insurance is only true if you live along the cost. I own three homes in The Villages Florid...

Almost all of the requests to ship on Craigs List are scams. Read the posting rules and descriptions and the cautions posted on the very fist page. I have bought and sold many items on Craig's List but you have to use caution with every transaction. I only accept cash and carry now. Almost every typ...

There are several costs that different in Florida, but savings depends on where you live today. I am moving to Florida from Virginia. The state income tax is a huge savings. Property taxes are significantly less. I am not on the coast so I found homeowners insurance to be equal or slightly less then...

During the year a high of 1621.43, a low of 1221.86 and a year end final of 1516.17. So lots of volatility up and down but overall a decent year.