Bogleheads.org

Anyone still waiting for a market dip before investing? Well sure, in the sense that no one will be rebalancing INTO a market that's this high. With the market this high the stock portion of my (and I assume everyone here's) portfolio must be at or near the top of its percentage range of our asset ...

But isn't saying that " the returns stated by Lending Club are too optimistic" equivalent to saying that they are lying to the investment community (i.e., us)? Why should anyone invest a penny in a company that's not committed to honest bookkeeping? The Allan Roth article says, "Acco...

You need to be clearer what you mean by solar panels. These days a common product is PV panels which provide electricity to the utility and in return you get a reduction in your utility rate. BUT you're still getting your electricity from the utility, not from your solar panels. The alternative is t...

technovelist wrote:It's great to see so much gold bashing on a forum devoted to investment analysis! That means we aren't anywhere near being in a gold bubble.

Why do you say that? We were bashing it just as much when it was $1920/oz. Are you saying that wasn't a bubble?

Gold is really like buying a foreign currency to a country that is guarenteed to have no inflation or interest and therefore maintains price-parity from year to year. I call it goldland. Matt Bouchard No it isn't. Why do you say that? The price of gold in actual purchasing power parity terms jumps ...

Sam I Am wrote:At the current low interest rates, even though the stock returns might be lower, they (stocks) will still beat alternatives.

Not if they fall and your alternative was cash.

I wouldn't do it myself. Here's a recent blog from Allan Roth: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57582124/the-lending-club-a-critical-review/ I wouldn't let Allan's experience turn you off. Yes, the returns stated by Lending Club are too optimistic, but that doesn't mean solid returns aren't a...

Can't say I know of any myself but whenever I need to track something down I start with a Google search and then weave my way through various websites until I zero in on my exact topic or subject of interest. I have to believe you'd find a lot in your category. Good luck. SCB Just out of curiosity ...

Awhile back I posted a question about selecting a home medical alert system on this forum. It was just a shot in the dark because I've been amazed at the breadth of knowledge I've seen here. No surprise I didn't get a lot of info. But the other day I decided to post the same question to the AARP's d...

How do you guys pay your credit card bills? There are two ways to automatically pay it: 1) through your bank's bill pay system, and 2) through the credit card provider's automatic debit service. The second is more work to set up but gives the peace of mind that less is likely to go wrong. The first...

A roth (up to max), a money market, or both. I'm already Roth'ed to the max with my retirement money. My retirement money is strictly for retirement - I think it's a big mistake for people to start dipping into retirement assets for emergencies - that's what emergency funds are for. I also don't se...

We could talk about what investment you would put these into, but have you considered what container? Do you have anything that would meet your needs in a 401K available - like a stable value fund? My 401(k)'s and IRA's are for retirement, not for emergency money. Of course I put the maximum the la...

Last time I was unemployed (2007-2010) it last three years. Now I have a good well-paying job which I love but I'm also 60 years old, meaning that it won't be easy to find a new job if the economy tanks again. So even though the usual guidelines suggest a year of living expenses, my experience sugge...

Hi All - We are moving house soon and I'm considering outfitting the new place with a Sonos system based on some recommendations of friends. The idea would be to hook it up to our Macs and be able to play music around the house directly from iTunes instead of breaking out the CDs. Does anyone have ...

Cut-Throat wrote:
So, you believe that CD prices are probably in a 'Bubble' Also?

Few people buy CD mutual funds. The bond price bubble will clobber owners of bond mutual funds , not owners of bonds.

I dunno. I live in a 2400 ft^2 contemporary on 1.5 acres. I live alone since my wife died last year. I like it. The downstairs is all open-concept so I can do some great entertaining. Studio photography is a hobby of mine and I've done lots of great photoshoots here. ( http://pnart.com/ ). Cost-of-l...

Jfet wrote:Soon being this month? Considering the market is already down 167 points today, 500 points isn't much of a stretch or premonition.

What market do you mean? When I say "the market" I mean the S&P500 - a 500 point drop in the S&P500 would be over 30%!

Investing is boring wrote:

plnelson wrote: Gold hasn't changed its value. It's cars and houses and food and tickets to sports events (et cetera) that have changed their value.

I do believe we are approaching the start of the denial phase as the mania is fading and the damaged try to rationalize.

You left out the last line in my post.

The real value of gold, imo, isn't that it hedges inflation or stores value (it does, but is way too volatile). The real value is that it operates like a fear index every time we have a crisis. But that's not an argument for owning it - it's just an argument for using it as a signal, like the VIX.

I'm curious about the definition of speculation. Does it mean you have no reason at all to believe it will go up in value? Well, what is your definition of value? I'd argue that gold is never supposed to change in value. It will maintain the same purchasing power today as it would 20 or 30 years fr...

It seems when stocks are down Bogleheads tend to post that they are now going to buy stocks. "Hurray! Stocks are on sale. I'm buying" They almost seem happy stocks are down. So now that the gold prices are down - why is there not a consensus that it's time to buy? I don't see a lot of pos...

It seems when stocks are down Bogleheads tend to post that they are now going to buy stocks. "Hurray! Stocks are on sale. I'm buying" They almost seem happy stocks are down. So now that the gold prices are down - why is there not a consensus that it's time to buy? I don't see a lot of pos...

I keep a small percentage of my portfolio in physical metals, not as an investment, but as a store of value. How is it a store of value any more than cash? I am just a cave-man, but is the answer not obvious. Or is this a joke? It's a perfectly serious question. If you put $100,000 in a Cypriot ban...

It seems when stocks are down Bogleheads tend to post that they are now going to buy stocks. "Hurray! Stocks are on sale. I'm buying" They almost seem happy stocks are down. So now that the gold prices are down - why is there not a consensus that it's time to buy? I don't see a lot of pos...

Hawkeye5 wrote:I keep a small percentage of my portfolio in physical metals, not as an investment, but as a store of value.

How is it a store of value any more than cash?

In this month's edition of Money Magazine Charles Ellis was asked this question: Money Mag: Let's turn to bonds. What's your take on them, given ultralow rates? Charles Ellis: The best piece of advice I could give long-term investors today is don't own bonds. And if you do own them, you probably ou...

My condolences on your loss. Then I used Tax Act, which has a deduction section, to classify everything. It assigned the value. Took me about 15 mins with my handwritten matrix. I looked up Tax Act - it looks like a tax preparation program. My accountant does my taxes. Does the part of Tax Act wher...

Donate it all and don't take a deduction, makes it much easier. It might come to this. I gave my accountant a description of the items and he thought it looked like it was worth quite a bit, and so it would be a shame not to take the deduction but I think he was underestimating the work involved in...

So sorry to hear of your loss. . . . Thanks, but unless I overlooked it, I'm not sure how the above applies to my question. My question is how to economically estimate the value of this stuff in a way that the IRS will accept if I'm audited. Every item will be itemized and acknowledged by the recip...

So sorry to hear of your loss. We got a letter of examination from the IRS and they requested our charitable donations records. Here is my Fatwallet thread about it: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1222889/ And here was the (positive) resolution: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1254...

My wife passed away last year and I'm finally getting around to organizing her clothing to donate away. There are lots of places that will come and pick it up at your house (Goodwill, Big Brother/Big Sister, etc) and my accountant suggested that I catalog everything so I can claim a deduction for my...

I seriously appreciate everyone's comments but it's clear from the number of responses that this is probably not the most fertile forum for a discussion on this topic. Any suggestions on where on the web to ask a question on this and get a real discussion going? Thanks in advance. Have you asked yo...

Yeah well.... Safer to uninstall all your browsers and disconnect from the web...... Hardly a practical suggestion as Java is so heavily used. Java script is used for many web pages, so disabling that would be draconian, but Java on the client (personal computer) is not. Javascript and Java are two...

I seriously appreciate everyone's comments but it's clear from the number of responses that this is probably not the most fertile forum for a discussion on this topic. Any suggestions on where on the web to ask a question on this and get a real discussion going? Thanks in advance.

What is a good newspaper to to subscribe to ??? The city newspaper switched from 7 days a week to 3 days a week. What is a good newspaper to to subscribe to ??? I do not want NY Times or WSJ. NY Times is too detailed. Maybe I should get USA Today. How can we help you when you haven't told us what y...

I am still reading the question differently than most. There are two aspects to a payment. 1) Did the Treasury Department receive my payment? One version of this is did they cash my check. 2) Did the Internal Revenue Service apply my payment to my taxes in my account? Number 2. Exactly . (thanks fo...

Where is anyone paying enough interest for this question to be of any more than academic interest?

I am still reading the question differently than most. There are two aspects to a payment. 1) Did the Treasury Department receive my payment? One version of this is did they cash my check. 2) Did the Internal Revenue Service apply my payment to my taxes in my account? Number 2. Exactly . (thanks fo...

My wife died last June and I live alone in a pretty big house in a semi-rural area (which I love, so I'm not going anywhere). I go out a lot to parties or social events, and I travel, but I don't get many visitors. So if anything were to happen to me it would be unlikely to be discovered. I'm 60 and...

Since I've become self-employed I've been filing estimated tax payments. No problems so far but something makes me nervous - how can I tell that the IRS is crediting my "account" (my taxpayer ID number) with the money? I live in fear of finding out when I file my taxes that some money I've...

bsteiner wrote:The lawyer handling the estate should get you a number.

No doubt, but why should I pay someone $270/hr to do something I can do myself for free? That wouldn't be consistent with the Boglehead philosophy.

So does everyone agree it's EIN?

My wife passed away in June and I'm named in her will as the executor of the estate. Here in Massachusetts the probate court has a new system and both the court and the attorneys are still getting used to it, so things move very slowly but finally I have my official appointment by the court. So now ...

Yeah, but I'm getting sick of chasing these deals. I already have a stack of credit cards I never use, but don't want to cancel because I don't want to get a ding on my credit score. Why does cancelling a credit card ding your score (assuming the card was paid in full at the time of cancellation)? ...

I live in earthquake country, California, and like most people I know don't have earthquake coverage. Last I checked the premium far exceeded that for homeowner's coverage. On top of the high premiums, there's something like a 10-20% deductible based on reconstruction cost before any payout. I don'...

Cosmo wrote:Why wouldn't regular homeowners cover this?

I don't know "why" they don't, but they don't.

We live in Eastern Massachusetts and felt the house shake for a few seconds this evening. The quake was centered in Maine and registered 4.5. I have an earthquake rider on my homeowners policy. It costs about $100 a year. The agent all but laughed at me about it. He said he sells only a few a year....

You need to use a hard drive RAID solution with redundancy if you want to avoid ever losing even the last hour of work. When one of the two hard drives fails, you replace it with the same model and lose no data. Whether you keep a spare of that model or not is up to you, but it wouldn't hurt. You a...

You don't want a PC. You want a professional workstation, with on-site same-day support. I still call that a PC. "Workstation" is a marketing term but it doesn't have any technical meaning. PC's that they call 'workstations' have faster front-side busses, the latest 4 or 8 core processors...

Build your own PC, if it stops working you will just be able to replace the particular part that is broken and not have to reinstall anything or start over. You will also be able to upgrade it over time so that you never have to buy a new computer again. I really don't think reliability is that muc...

You don't even need two computers. Get a portable drive and use to back up all data. Keep your applications installed on your laptop and if the desktop dies, you've got your apps, and data backed up. I have 5 portable hard drives - I do a nightly full backup and store alternate backups offsite. And...