Bogleheads.org

It's funny to see how automatically new, as well as some of the more experienced posters, simply assume that they will easily stay the course for 40+ years. I'd like to see some kind of study showing how often people really make changes to their portfolio. I'm definitely in favor of nisiprius' sugge...

If your bond fund had a 6 year duration before and a 6 year duration now, and if its credit quality hasn't changed, it has the same "risk profile" then as now. The increasing focus on the "riskiness" of intermediate term bonds is a result of anchoring. It's a cognitive bias. The...

This is an interesting and relevant question, since I plan on winning the Mega Millions today and the Powerball tomorrow. I was doing the math just the other day. The odds of winning one are the same as being 1 of 40 people picked out of the entire world population. If you imagine 4.4m Earths, each ...

If you buy a house at an insufficient cap rate, you've pretty much guaranteed you've made a bad investment absent dumb luck (ex. price appreciation). Shoot for 8-10%+.

Thank you for the suggestions - i was "overruled" on Fenway Park (she is coming from the Canadian NW and I am only 200 miles away). That will be on a trip I go with some sport friends. We are discussing the duck vs. trolley for the tour plus a walking tour of the Freedom Trail. We also wa...

1. Boston is a walkable city. Don't take the subway (also known as the T) everywhere you want to go. Sometimes it's even faster to walk. 2. Museums- there's the MFA, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the ICA, and the Museum of Science. The MFA and Isabella Stewart Gardner are more traditional and to ...

1. Put $17.5k in your pre-tax 401k 2. Put $5.5k in a Roth IRA (don't do traditional if my point below applies to you). If your income gets too high, you can always do a "backdoor" Roth 3. It sounds like you can make after-tax contributions to your 401k. See if you can withdraw this amount ...

Yes, figuring this out was quite the revelatory moment for me when I was first learning about investing. I think I saw it illustrated in one of Rick Ferri's books. This is why it can make more sense to go with 80/20 stocks/bonds instead of just 100% stocks. The CAG in the end can be higher by combin...

This is easy. Put your entire bond allocation in the G Fund. All done!

Even with an all stock portfolio, I would want to add some international. I'm talking VT, not VTI. VT is the Vanguard Total World Stock Index. A 100/0 portfolio but better sliced had an historical return of say 13% and a standard deviation of 15%. This sounds appealing. What's the portfolio? I'd re...

If this is in a taxable account, the advisors have quite the hurdle to overcome. 1.5% AUM fee + Expense Ratio Fee (probably averaging 1%) + taxes (index funds are more tax efficient) + inflation. Real after-tax returns are all that really matters. Ask them to adjust their charts to show that!

Isn't he only a 3 time Putnam Fellow? I'm sorry, but I only take advice from 4 time Putnam Fellows

To be serious though, I always enjoy reading his posts. He is incredibly helpful and you can tell he knows what he is talking about.

Edit: Ok, it's nagging me. What happened the 4th year?!

First you go to an online brokerage website like: https://investor.vanguard.com/home/ https://www.fidelity.com/ https://www.schwab.com/ You need to register and create and username and password. Then you can choose to open various types of accounts (taxable, traditional IRA, Roth IRA). Once you do t...

Also look into using the ETF TLT instead of the VG mutual fund.

It's very competitive to break into investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, consulting, etc. If you want the route that will most likely lead to landing a job in this field, then you should go to a top college for undergrad, either an Ivy or Stanford or MIT. Major in Econ, Math, Physics, or...

I think simpler is often better. The following funds are an absolute must: Vanguard Total Stock Market Signal Vanguard Total International Signal Vanguard Total Bond Index Signal Vanguard Money Market Vanguard Target Retirement Funds The rest comes down to individual preference, but realize that peo...

I know that some members of this forum generously volunteer their time to help people with their taxes. My grandfather is a 95 year old WWII veteran living in the Newton, MA area. His accountant was not able to fully complete his return and returned his money because he said he was too busy. Is ther...

The expected return is higher, but don't confuse that with thinking that the amount of money you end up with at the end will be higher. When you go 100% stocks, you are essentially betting on the future growth and prosperity of the economy over maybe 40 or so years. Keep in mind, however, that there...

I think people have a tendency to confuse "normal" with the recent past. Where do you think 30 year treasury interest rates "should" be? 5%? 7%? If you asked a person what they thought "normal" interest rates were in 1980, 1990, and 2000, what do you think the answers w...

It's only high relative to what it has been in the PAST . That doesn't say anything about what will happen in the future. There isn't some artificial barrier preventing stocks from going any higher from where they are now. Do you think that this is as high as the stock market will get for the next 4...

1. The size of your mortgage seems really high relative to your income. Do you have a sufficient cash reserve to cover expenses? The first thing I would do is bump up your emergency fund to 1-2 yrs. Have you ever calculated the cap rate for your property? Let us know what it is. You calculate the ca...

If starting fresh, you make your after-tax non-Roth contributions to the 401(k), request a rollover distribution, then send it to your Roth. Assuming that the earnings are minor, the tax due will be negligible. This will not affect your backdoor Roth. I'm starting fresh and will be employing this s...

Can GTU be held in a Roth? If so, then buy it there and swap for assets in the 401(k) that you can get. It's difficult to give specific advice without knowing the balances in various accounts and the choices in the 401(k). That being said, I would do whatever it took to increase Roth holdings throu...

I have mostly been maxing out my pre-tax 401k and Roth IRA each year, but I have a small taxable account of $25k invested in GTU (gold). My company 401k allows me to contribute after-tax money to my 401k, so I've been thinking about doing this and using my taxable account to pay for living expenses....

I don't have time at the moment to reply to all of your questions, but I would use the $70k to knock out the student loan.

Thank you so much to everyone! I just checked my benefits summary. My employer offers a 401(k) and a Roth 401(k) through Vanguard. The age limit for withdrawal is set at 65 instead instead of 59.5. After 1 year of employment, I am eligible for employer matching up to 4%. These retirement plans seem...

After using mainly eneloop for a long while, I bought a pack of Lithium AA batteries for my smoke detectors. Just can't stand the constant beeping when the batter drains, and need to change and charge. I use the Eneloop still for most devices, just not for smoke detectors. I published my first arti...

Of course I can afford to max the 401k, but my employer places a limit of 25% salary as a pretax contribution. Figure out who is in charge of your company's 401k and write to them asking to increase the 25% limit to 50%, as it hurts lower income workers who want to build valuable tax-deferred space...

You have many great fund options available to you so there are multiple ways to set up your portfolio that would work. There are two ways to look at your stock/bond split, both of which are valid. You only need to draw $20k from a $1m portfolio, or 2%, which is a very safe withdrawal rate. For this ...

OP, be careful if you are buying bonds on the secondary. The fixed income market is treacherous, and the preferred way to buy munis is at issue, or the "retail order period." During this period, fees are low and fixed, and pricing is set equally for all, a unique feature of muni market. T...

While, I've never been, I've heard Prague is supposed to be a very inexpensive place to visit.

While I really feel bad for the OP's situation, I can't help but find the actions (or inactions) of the adviser a little bit funny. Many of them spend so much time trying to convince people how they follow and understand the market and will be able to move in and out of funds to avoid losses and pre...

I'd be concerned about fully committing to this because you have only taken Calc 1. Do you realize what you're getting into and how difficult some of these classes are (primarily the proof-based classes)? You will have a lot of undergrad math classes to make up before you can even start a math gradu...

You are going about this completely backwards. You need to save first and figure out spending afterwards. How much you want to save for retirement each month? Let's say you want to put away $2k per month. So $6k income - $2k = $4k left to cover other expenses. You spend $2.3k on your house. That lea...

how does the passive investor explain their success? What success? That's a good example of "begging the question." Your question contains the statement that they are successful. Why do you think that? Read Larry Swedroe's The Quest for Alpha , with, in this case, particular attention to ...

After reading the latest TIME article, why don't you become the CEO of a non-profit hospital instead lol!

I can't believe no one has suggested looking into I bonds and EE bonds. You can buy 10k per year per SSN, so 80k per year for you, your wife and children. His tax bracket is the highest 39% plus NYS/NYC tax add another 10% - what benefit do you see when every $1 earned will result in a 39%+ (add in...

I can't believe no one has suggested looking into I bonds and EE bonds. You can buy 10k per year per SSN, so 80k per year for you, your wife and children.

I think you can simplify by starting with the Total Stock Market and overweighting small and value. In other words, forget about the large value tilt. Instead, do something like this: VTSMX-20%--Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund VISVX-20%--Vanguard Small-Cap Value Index Fund VGSIX-10%--Vanguard...

In order to evaluate this as an investment, I would calculate the capitalization rate (cap rate), which is the gross rents less non-financing expenses divided by the purchase price (including closing costs). I invest in income properties. The properties I own are mostly multi-family, but a few SFH (...

This is what you should do: 1. Contribute the minimum to your 401k to get the employer match. You are turning away free money. 2. Set up auto-pay on all the loans to get the rate reduction. Set it up to pay the minimum each month. 3. If your goal is to be debt free, it makes no sense to hold on to s...

A summer internship in i-banking is a pre-requisite to getting a job offer post-graduation. Not getting an internship would put her at a serious disadvantage. Also, her major isn't really an issue as long as she has relevant coursework and shows she is capable and interested in the interview. Edit: ...

The relationship between a bond's price and it's coupon is one of the most fundamental relationships of bond investing. This relationship has always been present ever since there were bonds in which to invest. This is the first thing that every bond investor learns about. It is common knowledge that...

My AGI was $28,950 in 2012. I contributed $5k to a Roth IRA in Jan 2012. Should I re-characterize it as a Traditional IRA to get the $200 saver's credit? Are there any downsides to doing this?

Why would you invest in properties with negative cash flow? Are you counting on appreciation in the value of the property? You can't always count on that, as we saw with 2008-9. What is the cap rate for each of the properties (gross rents less non-financing expenses divided by the purchase price inc...

I save about 45-50% of gross income

You are correct that VG's Total Bond Market is continually buying new bonds as the old ones mature. This means as long as you have a long enough time horizon (roughly greater than or equal to the duration of the bond fund) a decline in NAV due to rising interest rates will eventually be made up by t...

I would just leave it as it is. It's dangerous to just change your AA on a whim because then you are letting emotion rather than reason guide your decisions. I think Nisiprius has mentioned this before, but you should keep a list any time you make a change to your IPS, along with stating the reasons...

In order to evaluate this as an investment, I would calculate the capitalization rate (cap rate), which is the gross rents less non-financing expenses divided by the purchase price (including closing costs). You should include the following in your estimate of non-financing expenses: Your model must...

With the way your interest rates are setup up (higher rates on the smaller balances), you could use the debt snowball method. Pay the minimums on all loans and direct everything extra to the one with the smallest balance. You'll pay this loan off quickest, and when you do that frees up cash flow whi...