Bogleheads.org

I can't speak to its accuracy, but this car buying tips wesite says the following states DON'T let you deduct the value of a trade-in when computing sales tax on a new car purchase:

California
District of Columbia
Hawaii
Kentucky
Maryland
Michigan
Montana
Virginia

Jim

Though I have to proof, ending auctions on a holiday weekend isn't such a good idea. I agree, which is why I want to run the auction for only 5 days so it'll be done before the weekend. Interestingly, I got the laptop for a steal on ebay almost exactly 2 years ago on an auction that closed on the S...

If it matters we are trading in an 08 patriot with 69k miles and are probably looking at getting some sort of a used Buick Enclave or GMC Acadia. IMO, it's nearly impossible to get the best price on a new car if you include a trade in the deal. With the Internet car buying process that's been descr...

Hello Bogleheads, I've noticed we seem to have a few ebay selling experts here and I wondered what the thinking is on the optimal/minimum ebay auction length. I've sold old laptops on ebay a handful of times, always for surprisingly high prices (to me). Usually I do a 7 day auction with a start pric...

You can't use a smart phone on AT&T without paying the data charges. They will detect the change and hit you with the fee immediately. Again, this wasn't my experience and now I think it was because I used an AT&T prepaid SIM on a pay-as-you-go voice only plan. I didn't have a regular AT&am...

... I used a smartphone for a couple of years, albeit on T-Mobile's network, exactly this way - for the camera and with wifi only for data. Had no problem with email syncing or apps updating; they just waited patiently/silently for an available wifi network, which was typical available about 22 hou...

AT&T is the worst carrier to have for using a smartphone without a data plan. Other carriers have psuedo smartphones that you can get that can use wifi for basic apps and email etc. without needing a data plan. Other carriers also usually won't try to force you to pay for a data plan for a smar...

The phone will work on wifi with the full functionality of a data plan (and likely faster) without a SIM card. There are a number of apps that will allow you to use your google voice number for wifi calling, and it will be a fully featured phone. I did exactly this on a recent trip to mexico; I dow...

it just took the cell number, and brought it from google account 1 to google account 2 (the extra pristine one, i don't use often). emailing me that google account 1 (g voice) will no longer ring the cell phone number... so there is no way to use google voice, w/o an actual cell phone number it see...

I take a phrase, say "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall... My guess is your approach would be pretty robust in the real world. However from a cryptography theory standpoint, especially if using this scheme for passwords, I have one nit pick. When choosing a phrase, it's best to avoid anything fro...

If you can't get an in-store demo of a TV's 'smart' features, try to find a youtube video of someone using Netflix and/or Hulu on the model you plan to buy. While everyone seems to do a decent job rendering the video, I've seen big differences in the quality of the user interfaces for smart features...

Problem was, we forgot to account for the websites that require a new password every so often, and will not accept a repeat of an old password :oops: Yeah, so we could add "1" or "2" or "3" for each change, but then how to remember which iteration for which website... ...

That WAS a very good idea. :beer OK, I'm bagged. What I described isn't exactly what I do, but it gives the general idea. You could use 4 letters or 2, or some entirely different variation. IMO, the key is to add something that makes the answers different from the 'real' answers and unique even acr...

Edited to add: Slightly related topic here but I recommend not using actual answers for your security questions at any important site. I give random complex answers and then store the answers in a safe place. If I ever have to reset a password it does take a few minutes longer because I have to loo...

We just received our notice of valuation from the assessor for our rental property, where the property value went down by ~$40K, reducing my property tax liability by 25% - which is great ... One caveat - if this was part of a city-wide revaluation, the change may not impact your tax bill the way y...

you are associating items that you have no evidence are associated. You dont know (and unfortunately cant find out) what the exact makeup of the investments and costs (such as comissions). I am not aware of a reliable way to predict the ability of an insurance company to pay distantly in the future...

Of course it isn't actuarially completely fair, they want to make money. This is a product where it doesn't make much sense to focus on the comission. Just focus on the payout. Ignoring annuity costs completely could be dangerous, since there's an underlying risk that your insurer could go bankrupt...

BTW those claims that the wall-warts left plugged in are drawing lots of power might not be as big a deal as people make it out to be. I tested my Nokia charger with the kill-a-watt and found a nominal draw during charge, then when charge was complete - it went to zero on the meter. YRMV I saw this...

I recently received a letter from my power company that had a graph showing that our electricity use was above the average for my neighbors and offered a savings opportunity involving them controlling my heat pump. I have that with FPL (Florida Power and Light). I get at $9 a month credit on coolin...

Will you be living in a state with an income tax? If your state doesn't have an income tax and you have no other deductions, you may be able to bunch your property tax payments so you can itemize 2x your property tax bill every other year and take the standard deduction in the off years. If this is ...

This is for the safety of the technicians who may be working to get the grid back up and running. It's not just about safety. Grid-tied systems use special inverters that lock onto the power company's AC signal (60Hz in US). When utility power goes away, these inverters can't product output because...

This is for the safety of the technicians who may be working to get the grid back up and running. It's not just about safety. Grid-tied systems use special inverters that lock onto the power company's AC signal (60Hz in US). When utility power goes away, these inverters can't product output because...

As I understand it, your prior year's income is only used to determine whether you get reduced monthly premiums during 2014. Your 2014 income determines whether you actually qualify for a subsidy on your 2014 premiums. If you get reduced premiums, but in fact don't qualify for a subsidy, you'll have...

Wifi can be easily hacked/packet-sniffed. If you bank from home use the Ethernet cable. I don't think this is accurate. Assuming modern technology and best practices, when you connect to a banking website through a wifi connection there are actually two completely different and highly robust layers...

I have a Foscam but have not set it up for remote access. They have a newer model that records in high definition and also takes a SD memory card for recording any activity. I would recommend this, since you are unlikely to be watching the video continuously, and this will be easy to play back for ...

Perhaps there are small amounts of bleach left over from the last user of the washing machine? Or maybe bleach sometimes splashes back or gets spilled on the washer or a nearby surface and isn't cleaned up properly? It takes just a tiny amount of bleach to cause problems. The risk seems like it woul...

I would understand this as no net leverage. Rather than holding $100M in stock, the fund might hold a futures contract which costs $1M and represents $100M in stock, and then hold $99M in Treasury bills. This is equivalent to holding $100M of the index, but it provides liquidity; if the fund has $5...

Can you support your claim? While the total market prospectus does allow for the use of derivates, this is what it states about the use of leverage........" The Funds will not use derivatives for speculation or for the purpose of leveraging (magnifying) investment returns. The quote below is f...

I would tend to agree with your points for most scenarios, but ours is unique in many ways. Basically, it's my in-laws using the funds to purchase property for a hobby automotive shop. There's no risk of the company failing because the company isn't interested in generating revenue. The approach is...

PCRIX may buy securities that are leveraged Can't be just a little pregnant. The 'can't be little pregnant' analogy is unhelpful to folks genuinely interested in understanding this asset class. If you don't like the idea of investing in CCFs, that's fine. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to b...

From the 7/31/2012 prospectus under Principal Investment Strategies for PCRIX it states..............The Fund will seek to gain exposure to the commodity markets primarily through investments in leveraged or unleveraged commodity index-linked notes, which are derivative debt instruments with princi...

In this Forbes.com article , Timothy Lee thinks that Bitcoin is a breakthrough technology that could have major implications for society, even if we don't yet know exactly what form they'll eventually take. Public key cryptography is a rare exception. Programmers in the 1960s wouldn’t have known how...

The argument that low US government bond yields mean corporate bond yields are 'more fairly priced' is suspect indeed. Because any market player can arbitrage between the 2 markets, and in an efficient market, they will. US Treasury yields are 'too low' so short them, corporate bond yields are 'too...

Because heating oil distributors have to finance an inventory, they tend to offer sales to clear inventory towards the end of season. Similarly in August the market is forecasting re the winter period, and that will either be too high or too low. I would therefore expect low prices around late spri...

I do agree Valuethinker that the price of natural gas will not be going anywhere quick. Especially because of all the Marcellus Shale drilling going on around us. One caveat I'd offer is that pipeline capacity seems to be severely constrained and IMO that's probably going to be a big factor, at lea...

The oil cost from $4.15 to $4.30 per gallon for the 3 deliveries. IMO, this could be part of your problem. In January of 2012, I paid $3.40 for a delivery and then in June I paid $3.26. In January of 2013 I paid $3.37. Check out this website called New England Oil . It links together a bunch of pri...

In terms of expected repair cost and repair cost volatility, I think of a new car as a short term treasury bill, while a high-mileage car is more like an emerging market stock. On average, an older car offers lower overall transportation costs, however with an older vehicle, you're exposed to more v...

In my research, their high yield savings accounts are at 1.6% with balances of $100,000. I must be missing something because the savings rates shown on their website aren't anywhere near that high. It shows a high yield savings account paying .2% with a $100k balance. To get a rate of 1.6% you'd ne...

One can buy laddered nominal SPIAs. Once a year (or so) buy just what you need to get you through another year. Inflation is accounted for by reacting to the current year's shortfall. You could even project ahead a bit and over-buy. Inflation riders cost more than they are worth because they need t...

No you don't get to do something intentionally wrong and stick it to your insurance co. However there is a way to make them cover punitive damages. This is now a good time to learn the law regarding policy limits. Dave, Thanks for the info on policy limits - very interesting. Do you have any experi...

In addition to the focus on safe retirement income instead of just safe withdrawal rates, there are a few other important differences with this framework, compared to popular retirement calculators like FireCalc or The Flexible Retirement Planner. The first difference is that the model focuses all o...

What this seems to be telling me is that using 100% SPIA is so efficient, that there is NO combination of stocks and bonds that can equal this return. No. It's definitely NOT saying that. These frameworks or models can shed light on how things might play out under a specific set of assumptions. But...

I have a couple ideas for online stuff you might consider... IMO, the lowest hanging fruit in terms of online marketing for a business with a bricks and mortar location is google places. There's lots more you can do, but definitely start there. Google Places for Business is responsible for that map ...

The position in the UK is that the insurance company must pay third party damages, but may (depending on the contract) sue their client for repayment. This public policy protects innocent third parties but not the guilty. I don't know if any US state has adopted this, but you might want to consult ...

Here's one website that offers an answer to your question: http://www.autoinsurance.org/will-auto-insurance-pay-for-a-car-accident-while-dui-or-dwi/ Thanks John. That takes care of the auto liability coverage question, but I still wonder about umbrella coverage. I'd bet state regulators could make ...

You aren't seeing what the windfall is. See my post above on how SSA benefits are paid and favor those with lower lifetime earnings. In other words, for retirees that had very low income during their working years, SS is more of a welfare program than an insurance program. The benefit formulas are ...

Custom coding is OK for formatting and moving data around, but the heart of the math processing should be left to the built-in Excel or MATLAB functions. Wade can develop with confidence, as he has the full support of Mathworks behind his code. Wise advice indeed. I've seen people try to implement ...

If all other things like tax rates are equal it doen't matter. You may pay more in taxes with the higher asset in the tIRA but the after tax return is the same. Minimizng taxes is the wrong way to look at the question. The important thing is after tax returns. I think maybe we're talking past e...

Your example is comparing two investments with different pre-tax returns ... As I read it, jidina80's original post asserted that with all else equal, it makes sense to put the higher expected return asset class in a Roth and the lower expected return asset class in a tIRA. That seems irrefutable t...

Asset location is one area where I allowed myself to do some market timing after the crash in 2008-2009. I moved our REIT holdings from a traditional IRA to a Roth in early 2009 (keeping our overall AA on target of course). Each $10,000 invested has grown to over $30k since and because it's in a Rot...