Bogleheads.org

I think this poll would be more interesting if people posted their household income at the time their household net worth, including their home, hit $100k. Are bogleheads great savers or do they just have above average incomes? It would be interesting if people included how much of that could be at...

Reading this forum is just crazy to see how self-selective the audience is. The median American family has a total net worth of $77K http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2012/pdf/scf12.pdf (Page 17) I'm reading and the average Boglehead had a net worth of $100K by age 29? Hilarious. The medi...

Assuming they're already maxing out 401K plans, I'd suggest paying down the HELOC.

I lived in my grad school office for a week between leases. The worst parts: (1) sleeping on the floor when there were rats/mice in the building; (2) lights would automatically come on at like 6am.

Age 32. This thread makes me feel even poorer than the net worth thread showing half of you are millionaires.

What are you thinking about when you say you can create a proxy for a COLA annuity? From what I understand, COLA annuities are difficult to buy (not sure why, maybe this will change over time?), but it is easy to buy fixed annuities with a payout that rises at some rate, like 3%/year. That itself m...

TIPS won't work like this for large taxable accounts if inflation heats up. The actual effect on withdrawal rates is second-order and fairly limited, since you'd primarily be spending principal. In terms of liquidity, since taxes are due on phantom interest, one would need to plan accordingly or he...

What safe asset today keeps up with inflation, doesn't fluctuate in value, can be bought in sufficient quantities and either doesn't have adverse tax consequences or can be held in a tax-advantaged account? ibonds and SPIAs seem the most promising, but they fail on at least one criteria. TIPS held ...

You said you used to box. Imagine someone coming off the street and saying he'd like to box for a living. I think trading is like that: more like a dream than a goal for many. If you can make money playing poker, you might want to devote yourself 100% to that.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Keep in mind that this bond environment is not unusual at all. For 45 years, from about 1935 to 1980, real returns on bonds were near zero to negative. Nominal rates are low now but so is inflation , so that real bond returns today are about typical of long periods of the history covered by the Tri...

Of course, there's a whole school of thought starting with Robert Merton and including people like Zvi Bodie, and more recently, William Bernstein, is that you shouldn't be using a stock/bond portfolio to cover essential expenses. Use pensions, Social Security, SPIAs, and, perhaps, a TIPS ladder to...

AFAIK the US Federal Reserve has no inflation target. Or has Bernanke announced a formal one? http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20120125c.htm The inflation rate over the longer run is primarily determined by monetary policy, and hence the Committee has the ability to specify a...

First, I doubt more than 50% of people under 25 have heard of the "rule of 72" or understand how compound interest actually works . People might know compound interest is vaguely important to financial stuff but I doubt most young people (even engineers) actually could give a cohesive exp...

As many have said, you have way too many topics to cover in an hour. If I were giving this presentation, I'd focus on four specific topics and give suggestions on where to get additional information. Also, you want to be careful not to bore your audience with stuff they've already heard (e.g., rule ...

Depending on your age, you might be able to get an annuity paying $100K/yr, and then get a job paying $100K/yr.

But, second, even according to your chart, the MOVE index was higher in March of 2012 so, again, what's "stunning" or "new" about it? I'm not sure if recent volatility is "stunning" or "new" so much as we've had really depressed volatility for the past severa...

When Markman mentions the MOVE index, he's talking about implied volatility (the market's forecast for volatility), which does not necessarily correspond 1-for-1 with realized volatility (what you see on a graph). The MOVE index is for bonds what the VIX is for stocks. Here is a chart of the MOVE in...

6. Ugly to think about, but based on statistics, there is about a 50% chance you will get divorced at some point. As I understand it, for certain groups (e.g., college-educated, lived together before marriage, no previous marriages, no history of mental illness, etc.), the divorce probability is mu...

Where did the fictitious wealth of Madoff's fund go when the ponzi scheme was revealed? So much of what we call wealth is just confidence in the future. I think that's correct. Well, if this "wealth" isn't really actual wealth but rather materialized confidence, then why does the federal ...

Where did the fictitious wealth of Madoff's fund go when the ponzi scheme was revealed? So much of what we call wealth is just confidence in the future.

Assuming $90K inheritance, I'd use that plus the CDs (assuming reasonable breakage fee) to pay down $100K of student loans. Would then max out the 401K for 2013 and in the first few months of 2014. Once 401K is maxed out for 2014, take out a 401K loan for the max allowed and pay down student loans. ...

Is there a cap on the "freedom fund"? If not, this is a hot deal. Sounds like she's already up about $500 vs. where she'd be with a 4.0.

I would not send this email. If you are unhappy with your work environment, get another job offer.

...doesn't easily allow excuses...blueprint...vast majority...wealthier a society...Will power...$100K pre-tax income I asked the internets for some numbers, and it gave me these... While inflation-adjusted ("real") household income had been increasing almost every year from 1945 to 1999,...

One thing I like about MMM is that he doesn't easily allow excuses. His lifestyle is a blueprint that I think can be followed by the vast majority of Americans. The wealthier a society is, the more vulnerable it is to excuses for failure. Will power is something that must be developed intentionally,...

He then gives 1 million dollars as an example of quote "early-retirement level savings". So let's do the math for a moment here. The median household in the United States makes $50,000/year. Setting aside taxes, it would take that household ten years to just make half a million dollars, l...

Curious if anyone else has gone a different way with their classification of those. Choosing among Vanguard funds, I'd use VUSUX for EE bonds and VIPSX for I bonds. For newly issued EE bonds, I'd increase the value by 10%, and 5% for I bonds. E.g., $10K in EE bonds would be $11K worth of VUSUX, to ...

So who gets the advantage of this "bid offer spread"? Almost all (used) home transactions are between private individuals. There is only a very small group (mostly bottom feeders) that provide liquidity by holding an inventory of houses for sale. In a transaction between private parties t...

The bid/ask spread is the agent commission, not all that different than for financial assets. The price is the same for the buyer and the seller. So doesn't really make sense to add anything for this on top of the commission. There are other costs in addition to the commission, but the bid/ask spre...

August 1998 was when Russia defaulted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russi ... ial_crisis

Jack wrote:

market timer wrote:I don't follow this closely ...

So you quote Santelli? Via ZeroHedge? Have you no pride?

If you're saying it's false, I'd be curious to see the source. These numbers certainly don't jibe with nonnie's stats, but maybe her stats are conditional on the person exiting disability.

Why on earth would you say that and what are your sources? I don't follow this closely, but according to one article, 1% of Americans who were on disability in Q1 11 have left: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-26/santelli-stunned-its-better-be-disability-work-minimum-wage It's possible that wh...

I do not drive because of my medical condition. I do not own a cell phone (too expensive), or even a land line other than magicjack. I do not have cable. I do not eat out (because I have a kitchen now thankfully). And I really do live on re-hydrated beans, mac & cheese, rice a roni, ramon noodl...

If he'd gone to work at a non-profit 10 years ago they'd be gone now. Given that he's presumably already made 15 years of payments, it's all the same going forward whether the forgiveness comes at 25 under IBR or 10 under PSLF. These programs are not retroactive. You actually have to say you are pa...

Given a college cost of circa $250,000 and average post college starting salaries of circa $41,000, college is a poor investment in most cases. You shouldn't take the high end of college cost (250k) and then the average starting salary. Among other benefits of college, graduate unemployment is much...

EmergDoc wrote:I ran into a resident the other day whose student loans were up to $520K and growing at 7%. Can you imagine? That's $35K a year in interest.

Does this resident have plans of using IBR/PAYE or PSLF?

Perkins loans will only be a small fraction of the total outstanding. Half of OP's debt is Federal. Are there Federal loans that don't qualify for forgiveness? I know nothing of these things. My thinking was that if 5 years of teaching could erase the federal debt and OP used the Summers off to wor...

Perkins loans will only be a small fraction of the total outstanding. OP's problem is that half the loans are private, so even something like IBR/PAYE won't clean the slate. There are really only two roads out of this; get a high paying job in the US or start over somewhere else (edit: or deal with ...

bigspender wrote:Question. When I was 18, my parents had to cosign the student loan. So unless things have changed, who cosigned your loan?

I received student loans at age 18 with no cosigner. This was in the late 90s.

In this situation, I'd probably move overseas to teach English.

As Ranger notes, the implicit financing costs of LEAPS are tied to interest rates. In the current environment, where interest rates are well below the dividend yield on SPY, there really isn't a market for long term call options on the stock market (typical deep-in-the-money 2015 call options should...

The best payoff is likely to come from motivating your son to get good grades and a high SAT score. For example, throughout high school in the mid 1990s my parents would pay $400/year ($100 per report card) for straight A's and offered me a prize of $1000 if I could score in the top 1% on the SAT, i...

Both of us earn a very good salary so if I applied the 1/3 of yearly salary "rule" (which seems to high anyways) I would be buying an astronomically priced ring. What is a reasonable amount for a high income earner? We bought what I thought was an astronomically priced ring. I gave my wif...

Don't use leverage. Don't risk what you can't afford to lose.

Both of us earn a very good salary so if I applied the 1/3 of yearly salary "rule" (which seems to high anyways) I would be buying an astronomically priced ring. What is a reasonable amount for a high income earner? We bought what I thought was an astronomically priced ring. I gave my wif...

Assuming the bulk of the loans would be forgiven after 10 years under PSLF, you should probably keep the money liquid until you figure out your career path.

Not precisely. Earlier earnings may be more heavily indexed than newer earnings further the max changes over time. But for rough estimation purposes especially over the span of a few years, yes. The SS cap grows at roughly the same rate as inflation, so contributions while earning 1/3 of max over 3...

I'd be more inclined to retire when expected returns are lower. If stocks were cheap and bonds offered an attractive return, I'd rather keep working and investing.

[ the origins of the question are: I can look up my SS earnings record, and see my estimated benefit. But that's based on SSA projecting my future earnings "until retirement." I want to know how to calculate a reduced benefit based on working less, ie earning less than they project, for a...