Bogleheads.org

Note that I did not say "Don't pay off the mortgage early." Indeed, I paid off my mortgage early already. But I used gains in the stock market to do so. So invest the money, make the big gains, cash in, and pay off the mortgage at that time. The problem is, you cannot be certain when that ...

My spouse just returned from a 2-week vacation in Italy and Turkey. Despite my suggestion she did not have an ATM card that worked in Europe, but had no problems in these 2 countries. Well, at least no money problems since her non-chip-and-pin CapitalOne credit card worked. Her traveling companion h...

I don't pay and I don't do anything special to circumvent the pay wall. It is more of a pay net with large spaces between the netting. Actually, call it a pay joke or idiot tax.

Last week's thread on the subject: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=116185

Have you actually done your own taxes to see if you are even affected by whatever you think you will be affected by? Or are you just going by hearsay? You should be able to put a big chunk of your consulting income in a solo 401(k), so that your AGI and taxable income wouldn't be that high. You shou...

Let me just say that if you do not believe that you can do much better than 2.75% investing in a taxable account, then why bother investing at all. You might as well not have an IRA or a 401(k), too. Folks will come along and write, "You can't get risk-free 2.75% anywhere else nowadays", b...

Nevertheless the fees are $15K when the owners withdraw only $60K. That's like a 20% tax on benefits of this portfolio. Ouch!

Our it could be half a year of college education for one of the grandkids.

OK, how about "they should have found that their portfolio went up just in the last 6 months by the full cost of a 4-year public college education"?

ieee488 wrote:No, no relatives near my mom at all.

Near is relative. They could be across the country and move the piano cheaper themselves than she could. (And at lower cost than buying one.)

About 5-6 years ago, I read several books recommended on this site and did quite a bit of research in deciding on what my optimal asset allocation should look like. .... Ah yes. The books years ago matched the availability of investments at the time. With the introduction of the Vanguard Total Inte...

Do any relatives want it? We gave one of our pianos to our niece. She rented a U-Haul truck, drove 300 miles to pick it up and drove back the next day.

This may be sacrilege in this thread, but I would guess that many folks here are insensitive to the price of a college education. Lots of folks here describe how they are maxing out retirement accounts or starting 529 plans before their child is even conceived or how they are helping their grandchil...

The retiring exec didn't write any of the stuff that Blodget (the article writer) paraphrased.

Blodget wrote:Now, before you go scrutinizing Minack's note to find these bullet points, let me be the first to say that Minack does not actually explicitly articulate this advice.

Mr Volpert makes a compelling statement on bond yield to maturity: But I would just point out again realistic expectations for bond investors as well as stock investors going forward. So we looked at the yield to maturity of the bond market right now—about 1.7 to 1.8%—that's a reasonable number for ...

An article in the NYTimes goes more into advisors fees than usual, so it is an interesting read: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/your-money/an-investment-firm-evercore-offers-clients-honest-returns.html Perhaps it should have its own thread, but it seems to me it might be worthwhile for the OP to ...

I'd try the cookie cutter Vanguard approach first because it will cost you less and you won't be making a mistake. If you find that you don't like it, then do something else.

If you do it in the reverse order, it will cost you more money and will possibly lead to more regret.

If I click on My Accounts > Messages / "More ways to contact us" (right-side of Message Center), a pop-up dialog appears with an option "Send a secure message"

My Accounts / Messages is the place where you read the messages.

I ask because on my first playing with the charts I started on April 15th and saw NASDAQ first went down 4% to end up 4%, Dow Jones down 2% then up 2% (though with today's numbers they're both up a touch more than that. But that doesn't seem like "way up" in that time frame, especially si...

I don't know if Fidelity Spartan index funds are as tax-efficient as Vanguard ones. I am talking with respect to percentage of qualified dividends and lack of cap gains distributions. I own Fidelity Spartan funds in my 401(k) where I am not concerned about tax-efficiency, so I have not looked up thi...

Looks like a historical version of our portfolio, so I like it.

I didn't write that mulch kills weeds. But you didn't write that I wrote that either.

I think the basic economic force is that folks don't want to be worse off than in the past, so they strive to better off than they are now. Think about it.

Looks like today was a RBD for a some funds, for those of you with a market-timing bent. VBR down 3.44%, VSS down 2.66%. Of course, now it's too late to transact. Interesting that all the preceding discussion occurred on a day that ended up being nothing, but nobody said anything on the actual RBD....

Place mulch over them then. They disappear instantly under mulch.

Or even more effective: weedwack them, then place mulch over them.

Also please post a photo of these beds. I hope you are not talking about marijuana droppings in your bedroom. Thanks!

Doesn't seem aggressive to me. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

A burning question though: How did she end up with this portfolio? Who decided this would be the portfolio? I doubt it is luck or happenstance.

Why do you need to ask this question? Just go out in your yard, put vinegar on the weeds and see if they get killed. Simple. Please keep it a secret though.

In the 1990's one of the funds with the best performance was Vanguard's S&P 500 index fund. That is, large-cap growth funds kicked butt. If one was performance chasing, they bought VFINX.

So rather than a little thing that led to index investing, a big thing beckoned.

In old news, Oxford and Cambridge are no longer free.

Ok, I did that and I get a growth rate of about 2.4% for the past year, so the 12 month yield - Expense Ratio. I guess that chart doesn't factor in the actual decline in the value of the shares which seems to be about 3/4 of a percent. The chart does factor in the decline in the value of the shares.

I completely understand the concept of Federal grants, research, and universities. I myself benefit directly from Federal grants. It's a business. Many other entities that do not grant degrees (i.e. are not accredited to grant degrees) live and die by Federal grants. I believe the business of resear...

I think college administrations should be allowed to charge what the market will bear. Supply and demand. When people refuse to pay their prices, then those prices won't be paid anymore. It is that simple.

To get the total return of any fund, go to morningstar.com and chart the "growth of" between the 2 dates that you are interested in. For ETFs, please chart a mutual fund FIRST (say VBMFX), then compare to the ETF (say BND). If you chart the ETF first, you will not get a "growth of&quo...

I read this and it is just like many things related to money and finances. The not-so-well-off want to be like the wealthy: They want to driver nicer cars than they can afford. They want to live in nicer homes than they can afford. They want to have nicer home electronics and phone plans than they c...

The best strategy for him is to keep working and never retire.

For all non-practical purposes, there is absolutely no difference in the two options. From posts on the forum there are some practical differences. Some are summarized in the wiki: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/ETFs_vs_Mutual_Funds We have seen many people ask your question. And many people explain...

If one has a HDHP and negotiates and pays instead of submitting the bill to their insurance, doesn't that mean that the expense does NOT apply to their deductible? If one keeps doing that then they essentially don't have health insurance at all because their deductible will never be met and they wil...

My experience:
Spouse has own medical insurance free from her employer, but is on my dental and vision insurance. Kids on my plan. No issues that I have seen.

If I dropped my insurance and kids & I went on hers, it would cost an arm and 2 legs. Her employer nails the folks on a family plan.

You have to become leader of the team of IT folks. Then you can assign folks to work the hours you don't want to work. So if you can get somebody else to work that day that you don't want to work, then you are golden. The work gets done, but you ain't doing it.

If one of your criteria for buying this fund was that the manager owned significant chunks of it, then that has changed and you should sell.

If you didn't care when you bought this fund if the manager owned shares or not, then it doesn't matter what you do.

My impression was that OP wanted all contributions since inception with the contributions of employer separate, too.

A few folks on the forum posted that they moved from VIPSX to the short-term version: VTIPX aka VTAPX. If you look in the upper right, you will see the "Google..." search field. Just type VTAPX in that text field and enjoy reading all the posts on the subject. Here's one where Taylor Larim...

If you want to laugh at the noise then watch The Colbert Report. A steady diet of this show will lead you to disregard daily noise.

Before our kid started college we were already over 50 years old and contributing the max to our 401(k)'s (say $23,000 each in 2013) and Roth IRAs (say $6,500 each in 2013). Thus, instead of saving 2 x ($23K + $6.5K) = $59K in retirement accounts annually, we could just divert that money to college ...

Short-term bond funds can lose money. Perhaps not as much as bond funds with longer duration, but lose money nevertheless.

CDs that are FDIC-insured will not lose money, but they will probably not maintain purchasing power either due to inflation (which affects bond funds, too).

When evaluating a fund for taxable accounts, can I use Morningstar's tax cost ratio to completely evaluate a fund's appropriateness? No. I think you have to do the math, run the numbers, create a spreadsheet, ...., and not believe what M* says. And do people have a general cut off for tax cost rati...

Actually, Fidelity offers bonuses to new deposits of existing customers. You should at least ask him about your bonus money and when it will appear in your account.

But the doc-in-a-box will likely do nothing for the broken finger and tell you to make an appointment with your orthopedist. So one can skip the trip and just make the appointment yourself. My last visit to the ER resulted in three full-anesthesia orthopedic surgeries, but I had to walk out after 9 ...

The rate has been pre-negotiated and should be in your plan documents or online. Also these HDHP all have toll-free numbers for questions. I would guess the incentive for them to have pre-negotiated is the chance that you have already met your deductible through other health incidents and that they ...

He can show you how to use Fidelity's RIP and other software. His office might be able to sponsor your daughter's softball team as part of his advertising budget.

Your principal will not be protected if you use short-term bond funds. That is, short-term bond funds can lose money.

I think basically it's the IRS publications. So the things you do to minimize taxes while working, also work while not working. Here's the ZERO taxes in retirement thread:
viewtopic.php?t=87471