Bogleheads.org

A duplicate post by Woody from October 2012 http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=104718&p=1519707 Our 401Ks have completely changed so I wanted another evaluation. Is this ok? If not, please delete this thread. What has changed in your 401Ks???? The same fund choices are ther...

A duplicate post by Woody from October 2012
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=104718&p=1519707

Discover card for 2% on restaurants and gas. But you can only get a statement credit at $50. I will probably stop using it when I reach $50. Just got a Bank of America which is 3% on gas so I will be using it for gas except when Chase Freedom has 5% on gas. BoA says 2% for groceries but I am not sur...

Woody999 wrote:We have been in forbearance for 3 years because we think it may not make sense to pay it off.

I am not familiar with students loans. Are you saying you don't plan on repaying any of the loans?
Are you able to do that?

Do you know what funds are available in your company's 401K?
I ask this because often times people will have to allocate money to their Roth IRA to compensate for an unavailable option in the 401K.

Doesn't the answer depend on what other investments you have?

If you invest in a mutual fund, it will throw off your asset allocation of stocks vs bonds.

For your down payment money, you may want to look into i-Bonds.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theboglehea ... e-i-bonds/

retiredjg wrote:most people find they need a stock fund in the 401k too.

I would agree with that.

I answered his question the way I did based on his first question -- Is it worth diversifying within the available bond funds? -- because I thought he was only interested in bond funds for his wife's 401K.

I'd go with the dedicated garage door company.
As for doing it yourself, one look at the installation instructions would stop me cold. LOL.

When Bogleheads talk about low cost mutual funds, they are referring to the expense ratio.
For example the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund has an expense ratio of 0.17%.
As a comparison, the Fidelity Large Stock Fund has an expense ratio of 1.03% which is 6x more than the Vanguard.

I would like to volunteer at the local homeless shelter and be a homework tutor for the kids.

I will start looking for any tripped GFIs. According to the circuiter break box, there ones for the bathrooms and ones for the kitchen. And, yes the outlets used to work. One of them is for the alarm system's AC adapter. The other was "unused". EDIT: That was it. The GFI in the garage was ...

I went to use the Shop Vac today and found that two outlets are both dead. The interesting thing is that the wires (there are two) at the back of the outlet box go to two different places. They go up to the basement ceiling and then one wire goes to the left and one wire goes to the right. I tugged ...

I guess I don't understand plumbing, because I don't understand how you can force the still-not-hot hot water to the cold water pipe. Isn't the cold water TO the faucet? Not from the faucet? The best way to understand this is to understand that there is no direction when it comes to water pipes. Th...

Is the meeting always in King of Prussia or does the location vary?

Yes, the Vanguard fund would be good. I missed it.

If you invest your Schwab in the same percentage as your 401K, you will have 50% international in stocks, so be aware of that.

zero-sum game

finite number of corporate stock shares

I see now that you are the same person asking about the Merrill Lynch stock screening a few days.

Sounds like you don't want to believe in the Boglehead philosophy. Fine.
[Snarky comment removed by admin LadyGeek]

[Personally identifiable information removed by admin LadyGeek] Of course, it was all his doing. HR doesn't get involved with any of that. However, don't be surprised if management takes it as a bunch of "pampered" women who have had it easy, and he is just the guy to "whip everyone ...

How does it work???? I read their explanation, but I still don't get it. http://www.chilipepperapp.com/Howit.htm I guess I don't understand plumbing, because I don't understand how you can force the still-not-hot hot water to the cold water pipe. Isn't the cold water TO the faucet? Not from the fau...

In our house, there is about a 12-foot run of formerly-bare pipe from the water heater until it vanishes into the wall and becomes inaccessible. I bought some of the slitted foam tubes you mentioned and put them over the pipe, a very fast and easy job. It didn't work miracles but it did make a very...

I don't think BlackRock Equity Index is a total stock market index, so you may be missing some mid-cap and small-cap which you can make up with your Roth IRA. As for Schwab they have the necessary index funds both as mutual funds and as ETFs. So, it seems a wash to me. By the way, you should try loc...

How does it work????

I read their explanation, but I still don't get it.

Too complicated for me. http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_Portfolios

My previous answer remains unchanged: Bond Index Fund - 0.07 % ER, Equity Index Fund - 0.07% ER (apparently it is S&P 500), and possibly International Index - 0.15% ER for your 401K. If you have only 3 funds, it makes it simple to calculate how much you should allocate to each. I just re-balance...

Thanks!

Looks like it is good for the time when I am home and awake for the exposed pipes in the basement.
Running the water for that length of time seems so wasteful. I guess I should buy some buckets and fill them up with water and use them to flush the toilet.

I follow the 3-fund "Lazy" portfolio. http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_Portfolios the suggestions for doing that with Schwab ETFs can be found at http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio#Other_than_Vanguard.2C_Boglehead-style As a result, in your 401K, the only funds I like i...

I was in Home Depot the other day and I saw insulation for water pipes. Basically foam tubes with a slit along the entire length.
I have to run the water for 30+ seconds first thing in the morning before the it is warm enough to use.
Would buying something like this work?

If by pre-tax, you mean contribute to the state employee's equivalent of a 401K, the answer is a resounding YES.

I went back to school after 2 years. At that time I wasn't a Boglehead, but if I was, I would not be concerning myself with asset allocation for income.
The goal is retirement money.

For someone of your age 20% bonds is about right. 30% if you are more conservative. For your 401K, I would keep the FXSIX and add SPTN US BOND IDX IS (FXSTX) and jettison everything else. Your wife's 401K sounds okay. Use your Roth IRA for funds you are missing. Use Excel to get the percentages righ...

Fotivator wrote:I can meet my target amount with my current monthly contributions and an 8.9% interest rate over the next 30 months.

Your target amount for what? Is this your grad school tuition money and you need 8.9% interest to reach your target?

Hello, I'm extremely new to investing and need all the help I can get. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Some stats: I'm 26, and have 6 months with New York State civil service. My salary is $37,000. I plan to be contributing to deferred compensation until retirement (which will be in a...

My question is.... When figuring out your asset allocation, do you typically treat each account individually (Rollover IRA, ROTH IRA, taxed account, etc) and diversify each among the various asset classes? The answer is no. You consider your portfolio in its entirety. I only have bonds index in my ...

nightpharmer09 wrote: However, since I will have no employer provided pension income, my 401(k) distributions in retirement should be at least partially state income tax-free.

Is this Kentucky only? I hadn't heard of this.

My father died 3 years ago at 73. He only just retired 10 months before he died. He could have retired sooner but with his seniority he had a parking spot close to the building, etc. etc. My maternal grandmother died from Alzheimer's complications at 79. So, things don't look promising. I am strongl...

Since you are not covered by a retirement plan at work, you should contribute to a Traditional IRA. Your $5500 is fully deductible. http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/2013-IRA-Deduction-Limits-Effect-of-Modified-AGI-on-Deduction-if-You-Are-NOT-Covered-by-a-Retirement-Plan-at-Work Then, pay off the ...

Rich Cape Cod wrote:I have an old XP Dell that I use as a dedicated MagicJack machine (VOIP telephone). Works great for that purpose.

Rich

Excellent idea. The shame about this laptop is that it has a nice big 15" 4:3 LCD just underpowered.

I don't differentiate between 401K + IRA and taxable accounts.
It is all money and all yours.

LAlearning wrote:Pre-retired?

I have just come to the realization that I am pre-tired.
I can retire but want to contnue working preferably in consultant job that is 6 months in the year.

I have just come to the realization that I am pre-tired.
I can retire but want to contnue working preferably in consultant job that is 6 months in length.

Since you have no debt, you should look into refinancing that mortgage.

I just popped a new 1gb ram stick into my 2005 HP ZV6000, which runs XP and had 512 MB of RAM (now 1.25 gb). It went from barely functional to being a serviceable laptop. I'm very pleased with the result. Try adding some RAM into yours. The C840 takes a max of 1GB. I can make it 768MB instead of 64...

Without knowing the rest of your portfolio, in other words, what other savings you have and in what they are invested, it is hard to give a good answer. However, the only two funds I would be interested in from your 401K are SSgA S&P 500 Index Securities Lending Series Fund Class VIII 0.36% and ...

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I thought I would update everyone. I ended up installing Windows Virtual Server 2005 R2 on it. I know this laptop's vintage is limiting what I can do, it still slightly exceeds the system requirement of Virtual Server 2005 R2. Besides the VS 2005 R2 is free, ...

Welcome I am confused by what is available in your 403b. You need to put expense ratios for the funds along with their ticker symbols. Whether you can retire or not depends on whether you will be receiving a pension and the amount of portfolio. For someone who is 57, I would think 50% bonds would be...

Also look into tIRA to Roth IRA conversion.
I wish I had done that in 2007.

FinancialDave wrote:As far as emergency fund I would NOT "invest" it. That is not the purpose of it.

+1

About the best rate you can get for emergency fund money is 1%.
You don't want to be selling something at a loss just because an emergency came up and you needed the money immediately.

I have a Dell Latitude C800 with a brand new 30GB hard drive. I have Windows XP installed. The laptop is Pentium 4 with 640MB of RAM. I don't want to load Linux on it, because I already use Linux on my main laptop. I was thinking of running Windows Virtual Server 2005 on it, but I am not sure if tha...