Bogleheads.org

I get a lot of book ideas here, and have read several books simply because Value Thinker mentioned them. I also try to fill in gaps in my reading that school didn't cover. I am currently working my way through my 9yo son's Battle of the Books list: http://www.ncslma.org/uploads/8/4/7/0/8470189/eleme...

Amazing that they haven't cultivated a loyal and generous alumni network.

Unique and FREE college in NYC with lots and lots of accomplished engineering, arts and architecture grads doesn't have generous alums? Unfathomable.

I would say learning the difficulty and randomness of stock picking, with a paper portfolio, is a great lesson, one that might make an otherwise day trader consider the benefits of indexing, before there is too much at stake. It's a three month contest, not enough time to get those points across. T...

I highly suggest buying a used or new electronic keyboard. For $500-1500, you can get a weighted key keyboard that is very very convincing in sound and feel to a regular piano, doesn't need tuning, and can be turned down or used with headphones. We bought a weighted key Casio, about $600 and have no...

The sheer number of people who don't know that they don't know is what keeps me from thinking that financial lit (other than basic checkbook balancing, etc.) is a good idea in our schools. I worked in trust banking for several years. We were 9-5 professionals in the industry, and I would bet not one...

"Mommy, today a man from Merrill Lynch came to our math class and taught us how he could help us beat the market!"

Didn't realize there was such a strong rally... no wonder I'm sitting on a load of cash right now (using VA strategy and 7%/4% assumption for stock/bond returns)... How can the stock market have risen so quickly? Employment situation still sucks out there, am I missing something? It's the old "...

Seven.

Total Stock
Total Intl Stock
Total Bond
Small Value Index
Long Term Tax Exempt
Fidelity S&P 500
PIMCO Total Return

Here in Durham we have a New Orleans style sno ball place called Pelican's. They now have 9 locations, and are growing like a weed.

http://www.pelicanssnoballs.com/

Every time I'm there I marvel at what a gold mine it must be. $3 for a cup of ice and a little flavoring.

Ironic that this comes from one of the very few managers who can probably look in that mirror and conclude, "talent".

I have washed my 7yo daughter's wool pea coat a couple times in our HE washing machine.

Delicate cycle all by itself, tiny bit of detergent, air dry.

It has turned out great, although I wouldn't do this many times.

Convenience, inertia, ignorance of other better options, that's the bank my family/friends/boss uses, etc.

The Bogleheads are a savvy and unique group in that they are up on the banking options. The average person isn't.

I don't buy dividend stocks (we are 100% Vanguard Index Funds), but there is something inherently comforting (to me at least) about buying a stock, then having it pay you cold hard cash for as long as you own it. That cash is yours, you are free to spend it as you wish. :) I think a lot of dividend ...

The whole concept of planning a mid life crisis is a hoot. A true mid life crisis needs to be a spontaneous burst of energy directed in all the wrong directions. Its a knee jerk reaction to the realization that you are not going to play for the Chicago Bulls, pilot a F-15, or play lead guitar for t...

I guess it all depends on what you mean by "real wealth".

If you want to end up with $2 million you should do very different things than if you want to end up with $50 million.

I generally have had an amount withheld from pay so that we owe very little to the Feds and state.

I have come to understand that this is sub-optimal, and the best thing to do is have very little withheld so that the money that will be owed can be invested.

What do you do?

Pfft. You guys missed out on the party back on Feb. 1 when the price of VTSMX set an all time high of $37.97/share. This came three days after tieing the previous all time high of $37.80 first set on 10/9/2007. Bogleheads around the world celebrated by eating a balanced meal covering every major fo...

I think I could do it if I could invest all of my time into learning about taxes and everything else that would be required. I would not want to do it only as an investment adviser, but I think I would love being a "financial councilor," someone to help people with the full spectrum - set...

Thanks Southport for bringing this up. It would be great for us pensioners who vested after 1989, like me. However, it seems totally counter to everything the new legislature is doing. They are bent on cutting taxes and reducing expenses and seem to look unkindly at govt employees and retirees. I a...

there's a Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio Motif: https://www.motifinvesting.com/motifs/permanent-strategy?utm_source=pr_web&utm_medium=press_release&utm_campaign=investing-classics#/overview The equity portion is broken down into about 15 funds. Why on earth would they do that? Just buy the...

Can someone explain to me in normal human-speak how Buffett uses his insurance company as a form of leverage? I keep hearing that he does this to get an advantage the rest of us don't have, but I don't understand it.

No doubt pre-K has value. The study's huge returns on investment for pre-K however came from a very at risk population, and the later ACF study failed to replicate those results. Also, the return for pre-K in a broader middle class or upper class population may be substantially less because of bett...

Followup: I ended up buying a Sommer garage door opener based on soaring's recommendation and lots of positive reviews online. Plus, the opener is right under the kids' bedrooms and I needed a very quiet one. I bought the unit online from Lowes. It came to the house in two days. Yesterday, a Lowes i...

[Oops, I crossed with the last two posts so there's some redundancy here, but what the heck...] (But what are the blue cables?) [added] If your antenna signal strength is borderline, you may find that splitting the signal drops you below the "digital cliff" and causes the picture to break...

A few times a year I go hear classical music, usually solo piano, at Duke or UNC's halls. They both have pretty good concert series. $15-75 per show. I play bass in an originals rock band here in Durham, so I hear local rock bands at the various venues here in town. I consider that more work than fu...

I sold paint part time for a number of years for Sears. There are only a handful of paint makers in the US who make all of the major brand name paints.

I suggest roughing up the surface, priming with an oil or latex primer, and painting using paint that is specifically for floors.

cheese_breath wrote:How old is it? I had a house many years ago where the ring unscrewed from the rest of the fixture. All you had to do was apply upward pressrure to the ring while unscrewing it.

The house is five years old.

Check and see if the chrome device is a splitter( should be Labeled), if it is hook the wire from the antenna to the input terminal then hook the remaining cables to the output terminals and you should have a signal to all areas wired..if it is not a splitter, buy one (pretty cheap) and hook up the...

sscritic wrote:Yes. Change the connections until the upstairs tv works and the downstairs tv doesn't.

Exactly what I'm afraid of.

How would you get to the light bulb in this bathroom light fixture? http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh49/jasper383/tuners/fixture_zpsbeb6fda1.jpg If it is in fact a light fixture at all? And if it's not a light fixture, what is it? There doesn't seem to be a way to get in there. The glass cover i...

We recently canceled cable TV and had a man come out and put an antenna on our roof. It works fine on our downstairs TV, but is not hooked up to our upstairs TV. While he was here, he said that we could get the antenna signal hooked up to the upstairs TV by using the existing cable TV infrastructure...

30 years from now, there will be investors looking at us and asking why we didn't see the obvious.

stan1 wrote:Microsoft Security Essentials -- free, non-invasive, and generally "good enough" for most home users.

+1

Unless you have some unusual security requirements, MSSE is the way to go.

I knew Bogleheads were savings outliers, but I had no idea.

We save about 20%

Here's Ellis recommending 100% stocks for those under 40:

http://www.kiplinger.com/article/invest ... folio.html

40-50 10% bonds, up to a max of 50% bonds.

WHL wrote:so, should our 3-fund portfolios now be changed to a 4-fund portfolio?

Or, one step closer to a Total World Bond Fund, added to the Total World Stock Fund, for the ultimate Bogleheads Two-Fund Portfolio!

I have no intention of installing the opener myself.

Installation is about $100 well spent, imo.

We are looking at having in a garage door opener installed. I get a quote for basically the same opener from Home Depot for about $330, and from a dedicated garage door company nearby for $385. Any reason to pick the garage door company over Home Depot? I am more leery of the contractors that Home D...

dm200 wrote:Seinfeld had several "Dentist" bits in his show over the years.

Louis CK has a dentist episode on his show, too. Extremely uncomfortable.

- there may be something about investor expectations, that as long as current income covers them against inflation, they are prepared to hold on to this long term investment that has truly volatile prices I have thought this many times over the last 10+ years; hanging in there with my stock allocat...

My wife's 401(k) just changed some 401(k) funds, and have added Fidelity Freedom Target Funds. I am thinking we will move to one of these, as most of the other options are unacceptable. There is a choice between A shares and T shares of these funds. I understand A shares have an upfront load (don't ...

z3r0c00l wrote:It is extremely depressing when people around you sell low and buy high. It is just painful to see, and wonder what they are thinking.

They aren't thinking, they are feeling and confusing it with thinking.

The biggest problem with humans, imo.

My problem with referrals is that most people have only gone to 2 or 3 dentists. Saying that your dentist is the best of the 2 or 3 you visited does not carry a whole of weight with me. This is part of my question; everybody has a good dentist or a bad dentist story and is full of recommendations, ...

How do you evaluate a dentist? Our old dentist retired and a younger dentist bought his practice a couple years ago. I recently had an issue with a back tooth filling that needed to be filled a couple times to get it right. I understand that these things happen, but it got me thinking as to how anyo...

Yes, 401(k) up to the match for sure.

After that, I'd be very tempted to knock out those 5+% loans ASAP.

After that, I'd consider debt vs.investing to be pretty much a tossup.

Ranger wrote:
So expected return was higher in 2009. If you measure risk by std. deviation obviously 2009 was higher, but risk can be upside too.

How is risk calculated using standard deviation? Why was the standard deviation risk higher in 2009?

Browser wrote:What difference does it make to your investing strategy?

None. We are DCA'ing 80/20 all the way through.

The Airplane Melt Up thread got me thinking, that's all. The lady jumping in now that she thinks that stocks are safer than they were in 2009.

With stocks at or near all-time highs, are they riskier than they were 4 years ago at their 2009 lows?

Or is it just that the expected returns are lower, and the riskiness is the same?

I suggest Random Walk by Malkiel, Coffeehouse by Schulteis, and the investment books by Andrew Tobias.

Bogle's books, imo, are a little heavy for beginners. Don't want to frighten him off.

Scan them to PDF, then shred the originals.