Bogleheads.org

Edit: Haven't figured out how to quote only part of a response without it looking like the above :confused Surround the portion you wish to quote with one "[quote ]" at the beginning and one "[/quote ]" at the like this: [quote ] This is the portion I wish to quote [/quote ] And...

Haha, well, after that intermission -- to get things back on track... My original post was asking which sorts of topics or questions on these forums have historically been the most popular? I see lots of active posters have been here for over 5 years!, but also lots of of new members. 600+ replies ...

John Hancock USA uses the revenue received from 12b-1, sub-transfer agency, and management fees to determine the AMC for that Fund, such that the sum of 12b-1, sub transfer agency, management fees and AMC received by John Hancock USA equals 0.50%. I can't wrap my head around what all this means. Th...

I agree. It says that the percentages "shown below" are "annual". So 0.12% should be annual. That's not bad. My 401k has 0.25% in annual fees (deducted quarterly), on top of mediocre expense ratios. Just out of curiosity, what are the expense ratios like in your plan? Are there o...

Regarding the purchase fee: keep in mind that the purchase fee can BENEFIT you, if you hold your shares on average, longer than other shareholders, and/or have less turnover. It's not intended to be a net benefit; it is intended to allow existing shareholders to break even. If a fund receives $2M o...

Regarding the purchase fee: keep in mind that the purchase fee can BENEFIT you, if you hold your shares on average, longer than other shareholders, and/or have less turnover. If you plan to be in the fund for a long time, then I wouldn't let the purchase fee stress you out. :D Although I wonder, if ...

What kind of a duration do you want? You can hardly go wrong with Vanguard's NY muni fund. It's classified as a long-term fund, but has a current duration of about 6 years. Do you want a fund with a longer duration, or a shorter duration? High quality, or lower quality with higher yield (and higher ...

The holding periods for Roth ira do NOT apply to individual funds. It applies only to the "cash" which comes into and out of the account. I.e. say you place $5500 into a Roth IRA today. Then you purchase and SP500 index fund with that money and hold for 4.9 years. Then you sell this fund a...

I'm not smart enough for this game. No one is smart enough for the game of "time the market". So welcome to the club! On the other hand, the game of "slow and steady with a well balanced portfolio to achieve my long-term goal" is very fun to play and one which has many many winn...

Good luck with your issue. I have seen this same problem come up in hospital settings where people transfer from the "university" to the "college" of a medical center, or something like that. I had a different yet related situation where I was switching from one job designation t...

The NY pension exclusion does apply to Roth conversion income as long as the account owner is over age 59.5 on the date of conversion; and the exclusion can be used in combination with the NY standard deduction. That's a good deal for one who plans to retire early and/or make Roth conversions in lo...

Is this $20k/$40k deduction for using IRA withdrawals for living expenses only? Or it would also apply to Roth conversions? Victoria I THINK yes, $20K/$40K of a Roth conversion would be excluded. But I could not find a definitive answer from an authoritative source. Only some links to general infor...

joe8d wrote:

while NYS taxes IRA withdrawals at 8% but with a $40,000 deduction.

Neurosphere, Are you sure on that? I thought it was 20K.

I believe it's $20,000 per person. My example was for a married couple.

Much as I am not a fan of paying taxes, most states, even the absolutely highest taxes have max rates of about 6 or 7% (unless you are in NYC or have very, very high income eg over 500k in NJ). One has to be very careful when talking about tax rates relative to retirement income due to whether stat...

How much do you save in premiums with the HSA vs a non-HSA insurance, if you have both options?

Do the HSA funds come out of your paycheck such that you do not have to pay FICA taxes on the HSA contributions?

What I'm saying is that, given my age, my level of health, my medical history, my family medical history and my health practices, the chance of my health declining significantly in the near future is miniscule at best. My wife was denied disability insurance outright, and she is in PERFECT health. ...

We paid $4000 for a very nice platinum band with sapphire and diamonds, and $300 on ebay for a 1ct moissanite stone. Her friends think the ring is "the most beautiful ring i've ever seen!" and that "you can tell he really loves you because he paid so much for this ring". She went...

Any time someone has responsibility for others finances - they should fully expect to be asked questions and held accountable. It's the very nature of being a fiduciary. So, if mom or anyone else is unable to answer questions about the financial duties they execute without becoming defensive - they...

It could be a lot worse. I would let it go. Assuming the inheritance is going to be invested prudently by this advisor, calculate the cost you estimate will be spent on fees over the next 5 years that would not be charged by a professional of your choosing. Then, compare this dollar amount, this fe...

If you look at his profile, you can see when he was last online. good one: caught in the act Last visited:Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:45 pm Big Brother exists :) Ah, hopefully he had a good time away wherever he was and whatever he was doing. sscritic is a great resource for bogleheads. And I hope he contin...

Nisi, If we're talking about a bond that costs me $999.90 and pays me back a total of $1010.00 after 12 months, I just wouldn't take that bet. That's a tiny nominal return, but in real terms it's a loss. I simply wouldn't invest there. Lock up my $1000.00 for a year for a whole $10 bucks? I'd rathe...

(Mods, I didn't know where to put this post, in fact, please delete it entirely if it's inappropriate). It's been a long time since sscritic posted. I don't recall him saying he was going anywhere. I hope he's just busy catching up on his chinese soap operas. sscritic, I hope all is well with you!! NS

At minimum, take the money you are saving by NOT needing to pay SS taxes, and invest this. Consider this a "match" of 7ish percent. If you invest this in low-fee, tax-efficient funds, you will still get a substantial benefit. Is this benefit more than your colleagues who are forced to pay ...

Thanks for the advice everyone. I guess I'll just go with the Roth. I heard that it could be bad from a prominent financial advisor. Of course you heard that from a prominent financial advisor. I'm sure he'd rather sell you a whole life policy than have you either pay down the loan or invest in the...

Also, I've recently heard that the benefits of the Roth are overstated, particularly for physicians, who do have unusual financial circumstances and who make large leaps in income tax brackets over a short period of time. Can someone explain what the negatives of having a Roth might be for someone ...

Here's an anecdote about billing/rates which illustrates some ways the system is [messed up --admin LadyGeek]. I work for a large hospital which is university affiliated. I am on salary. Because I do not do any procedures, I can only bill for office visit and hospital visit billing codes. I live abo...

@bertilak: are you using an old, squarish monitor by any chance? Then, the desire for portrait would make sense. As for the Mona Lisa, well, many fine paintings are in landscape. Landscapes, for example. I have this monitor: http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-u2913wm/pd But I STILL prefer portr...

For what it's worth, collecting sales tax by online retailers will remain the law in NYS at least for now:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/techn ... technology

I have dozens of purchases shipped to NYC last year. The majority of them charge a sales tax. I just found two that did not, and I presume because these were not items which were shipped by Amazon, but rather a third party was the primary seller, and amazon acted as an intermediary. This is new info...

I have used picassa on windows xp, vista, and now on two machines with windows 8. I don't find any difference between the machines. I use windows 8 almost exclusively in "desktop" mode. I put all of my photos in one folder (with as many subfolders as I want), and picasa finds them just fin...

10% ARTLX: Artisan Value Fund investor Shares 10% SGENX: First Eagle Global Class A 10% HIINX: Harbor International Investor Shares 20% OAKBX: Oakmark Equity and Income 10% ODMAX: Oppehheimer Developing Markets Fund Class A 10% SGRAX: Wells Fargo Growth Class A 30% PTRAX: Pimco Total Return Adminis...

Here is a mutual fund and ETF comparison tool with does exactly what you ask if you want to compare two or more mutual funds: http://apps.finra.org/fundanalyzer/1/fa.aspx What you can do is find two mutual funds which have approximately the expense ratio of the portfolios you want to compare. Then y...

The Canadian penny will remain legal tender forever. But 1) they are not making any more, 2) the mint will collect and destroy them as they collect them and 3) prices paid in cash are rounded to the nearest nickle. But in canada, you will still be able to pay a bill of $1.35 with 135 pennies, if you...

According to the BLS, the median plumber makes less than $24 an hour. So not only is it wildly incorrect to say that plumbers earn 3 times your rate, by your own numbers it appears that you earn one and a third to two times the hourly rate of most plumbers. Why would you make a claim that is off by...

Most plumbers get paid 3 times per hour compared to what I, as a physician, average per hour. I'm sorry, but misinformation such as this cannot stand unchallenged. This type of nonsense, when propagated, pollutes the internet and corrupts any rational discourse. Where do you "woe is me" d...

It concerns my DW is the now $35 tip, is what she makes in 2 hours whereas the hairdresser only spends a total for about 30 minutes on her, the rest is with the girl that gives the wash and sitting around waiting for whatever one waits for when getting such things. Most plumbers get paid 3 times pe...

I don't understand why a bank is willing to provide such a guarantee. There's a big downside risk and no upside. Well, first, the liability is limited (i.e. $500,000 or some similar amount), so it's not as if they would be on the hook for millions/billions of dollars. Second, the chances that 1) so...

I don't know if you got the 5% rule. You should only speculate and pick stocks with 5% of your money. The rest should be invested conventionally. That does not mean 5% in any given stock and then 5% in another. Having said this, I would only do so if you need it to keep you from getting bored. I pu...

However, I did not get this sentence. Can you please explain a bit "Another thing to keep in mind is that your iBond purchases are limited to 10K/year. So if you have 50k of iBonds with 0% fixed, and fixed rates go up tomorrow to 3%, it will take you 5 years to buy iBonds at the new rates sell...

Hi all, my wife and I are just now getting around to doing our wills, living wills, etc. Very easy stuff, since we have no children, and all of our assets are in retirement accounts with beneficiary designations. Does it make sense to make each other our fiduciary power of attorney? I assume it does...

With an HSA/HDHP, if you go to an in-network facility, you will still only pay (at most) the contracted rate between the insurance company. It's just that the insurance company won't pay anything for you until you reach the deductible. One reason the universities have such high rates is that they ne...

SimonJester wrote:Time to go out and purchase a dozen roses....

That would be getting off too easy, in my humble opinion.

When listening to TV or AM radio, they sound just fine, it was only the FM classical station that was distorted. I guess I will need to isolate it. Is there an external FM antenna? Perhaps the connection is loose, and your reception is thus a little bad for some FM stations. That might explain why ...

It sounds like the general partner has not been following the partnership agreement. This is definitely something to talk to a lawyer about now so that you can determine what needs to be done now. What is in the partnership? If there are appreciated assets (hopefully some real estate...) that are w...

Let me preface this by saying that all of these questions WILL eventually get put directly to a qualified attorney who specializes in these matters. Here is a simplified scenario which illustrates the question I have, which involves me and members of my immediate family. Suppose there is a family pa...

Here's a data point for you. In the hospital in which I work, any physician wearing pleated pants gets teased, in a good natured way, by the residents, nurses, secretaries, etc, unless they are 75 years old or older. They are considered very old fashioned. I'm in my 40s, and my wife has forbid me fr...

My case might help to serve as an example of one way things can be set up. My family is involved in a business, which is an LLC. It has two "members". Each of those members is a "partnership", which has both active and passive partners (i.e. general and limited partners). So ther...

Thanks Dianne, for an extremely helpful post which illustrated exactly the potential pitfalls, none of which I was previously aware. The end result is that it's important to make sure the drafting attorney knows what you plan to do. Given your brother's situation, it may be important for everyone in...

I recognize that the article involves IRAs rather than trusts, but Vanguard's actions in this case evidenced a much too casual attitude toward carrying out its customers' dispositive estate plans. That had nothing to do with attitude. They decided they no longer wanted to provide a certain service....

Why wouldn't the aunt and uncle be managing all the child's money? If they're incompetent, they shouldn't be raising the child. However if your friends are really desperate and have no one else... My children are grown now. However, when they were minors, I have relatives who are perfectly good par...