Bogleheads.org

Roth IRA limit has increased and is now 5500/yr

Short answer: career change is an adaptive incremental process. Doesn't happen in one big jump. . I agree with this. I am a physician and have thought about it. I also am not as pessimistic as you seem to be about the medical profession. I will agree that it is going downhill, but we may disagree a...

Overreacting.

A few years ago my Umbrella rate more than doubled at Amica. The only difference was addition of 2 teenage/young drivers. I assumed that was a justified hike . Did not do any comparison shopping. I have been very happy with their service. Let us know if you find other better rates.

Easy decision- Penn. I am part time clinician and part time clinical researcher. Look up the NIH salary cap for federally funded researchers. It is slightly below 180 K /yr for MD researchers. (Used to be 200 K two years ago). Salary for clinical work at many academic centers will be similar and for...

A few years ago I needed an elective surgery. The surgeon's front office told me that this procedure is not covered by insurance. I had read the relevant portion of my policy (15 minutes) which said that it was covered. (I had a very high cost Cadillac plan at that time). I asked her to check it wit...

Because of the need to reach a fixed target at age 65 and perceived lower future returns I am saving more, without changing risk.

I am a physician. I do not own my practice, but am an employee. I do not have the authority to give discounts. Our billing office gives discounts to needy people and upfront discounts to cash paying patients. I do not think we have a posted policy to accept medicare rates for cash paying patients, b...

About 4 weeks ago Penfed issued me a chip and pin card. I was asked to go on their website and select a 4 digit PIN.
Will report in a couple of weeks how it works in Europe.

Last year my son and I opened a bank account the day he joined college. The college had Emailed a newsletter to him that gave about 5 options and said representatives of these banks would be available on campus to open accounts. This was followed by information on each bank/CU. This was clearly in a...

Yes. Actually I have been doing that quite often the last 2 months. Small caps constitute 20% of my US stocks as per my AA. (range 15 to 25). International constitutes 33.3 % of all my stocks per my AA (range 30 to 36.6) As of Jan 1 I had 32% Intt and 21% small caps. I have been doing a little marke...

We are an older couple who have gone through a similar situation. Our youngest went to college 8 months ago. We are both physicians. My wife worked fulltime till the birth of our second child, then became a SAHM for a few years, but attended educational conferences. Later did part time work and then...

Bacchus, . Yes, I have opened them for my wife and I and will move them to my kids when needed. Also, since there is a 7-year spread between oldest and youngest, I intend to keep contributing on behalf of my oldest son even when he is out of college if the money is needed for my youngest. Of course...

Lets say I like meat and potatoes. I am going to the store knowing fully well that I have only enough money to buy meat OR potatoes. What would I do? I would walk in the store and see what is on sale and buy that. What you buy does not matter much as you are going to balance it soon. However right n...

Thanks sesq for the detailed answer. We will wait. Calm Man- She is 20 and has used a card jointly with me for 3 yrs. Made one mistake early on at 17, which I explained to her and has used it responsibly since. I have given both my kids CC (jointly held with a parent) at 17 while in senior yr of hig...

My daughter was in a similar position 3 yrs ago and chose the cheaper option. Her options were UW, Madison Vs Johns Hopkins/Duke. She has a good MCAT score and GPA and is likely to get into one of the better med schools next year. We now have money left to pay for the med school.

Nothing wrong with all this, but the first time EM drops by 50% while in your Roth, you are going to wish it was in taxable so that you could tax-loss harvest it. :) (Yes, I have all my US small caps in VBR and in a taxable account and all purchased back in April 2009. It's not that bad for me beca...

I heard that same nonsense when my daughter started college. There was no way she was getting any financial aid and I preferred that for my investment of 50K a year she study or have fun rather than work for minimum wage to build character. They just want information for various statistical purpose...

Hmm... my daughter goes to a state university here in TN and has a HOPE scholarship which I suppose is a merit based scholarship as she has to maintain GPA high enough to qualify from semester to semester. They will not award the scholarship without a current FASFA. In fact, it's on my to-do list f...

I like the idea and have been thinking the same. Essentially book SCV gains in Roth. Sell SCV in Roth, buy INTL in Roth. Sell INTL in taxable and buy SCV in taxable. Thanks Yukon. I cant sell anything in taxable because despite the recent downturn for EM I still have unrealized profits and I do not...

About 7% of our retirement money is in Roth accounts, 43% in 401K and 50% in taxable accounts. I have a written asset allocation and I follow it. Till recently most of the Roth money was in Small cap value index. This has made a nice profit in the last 6 months. Please comment on the following strat...

Thanks guys. One option would be to wait till she is 21 and has that part time job.

My 20 yr old daughter and I have a joint Penfed Visa Credit Card for the last 3 years. We also have a joint checking account with Penfed and every month the full balance of the CC is paid off from this ac. My daughter is a student and has no income. This is the only CC that she has ever had in her l...

My 20 y old daughter has a credit card jointly with me for the last 3 yrs. She has no income. Her score is good enough that she gets offers for rewards credit cards. We have never checked her score

I have never filled a FAFSA. Neither of my 2 college going kids have a campus job, both have merit scholarships.
Edit- 2 different colleges.

Bacchus, I live in Wisconsin. I put $3000 each yr for my 2 kids , but do not have any accounts in my or wife's name. I am looking for advice from you. It appears that you are saving state taxes on 3000 x 5. Is that true. In that case I will start accounts in my and wife's name. The money in my kids ...

Hi there! I'm back after a couple years. As a result of some of my previous posts, I moved my funds over to Vanguard and have pretty much not worried about them since. But, I have a chunk of money in Vanguard's money market funds, which pretty much doesn't have any returns, and I'm trying to figure...

Rent
- an old doctor

All good advice above. At that kind of salary you will have to pay substantial tax. Dont believe anybody who tells you otherwise and has some 'tax saving' investment strategy to sell to you. Stay away from the friendly investment adviser who came to you recommended by your partner and has a 'unique'...

"Financial advice for a newbie high earner"

Read this post. See if this guy wants to sell his 14 yr old toyota to you. You probably want something similar.

rebalance tool

Story- When I bought my new house a few yrs ago we went furniture shopping. The store had a special where customers buying more than $2000 worth were asked to pick a piece of paper from a cookie jar and depending on what was written on the paper they would get anywhere from 10 to 50 % discount on th...

This one blew me away :shock: - my young adult daughter, who is still covered on my health insurance, had arthroscopic surgery on her knee - total time 1/2 hour - great doc, all good, everyone happy. The bill came and I was amazed ... Docs billed $36992.89 (mri, anesthesia, knee work, etc) - but th...

My personal feeling is that list price will go up that high, so that folks with the moolah will end up paying that. OTOH, many folks will not have to pay list price. +1 Even at the present time the list price to me seems grossly inflated. I do not know exactly but my best guess is that the ratio of...

When I was an intern I bought a 10 yr old Honda accord from a graduating resident for $1850. Had some body rust but took me reliably from point A to point B. See if some final yr residents have an attendings contract signed up and got any joining bonuses. They might be purchasing new wheels and tryi...

You have received good advise above.
Any plans for selling the house. If you sell for 1.2 M, pay 60 K and put all the balance in bonds the asset allocation becomes a very conservative 33% : 67% ( stocks/bonds)

Mortgage paid.
Taxes and insurance ~3% of family income.
Rent used to be 33% during my younger poorer days.

The most important question is what she wants to do afterwards, which is an unfair question and she may not know (or if she knows she may change completely) If she wants to do a competitive residency (derm, plastics, etc) or if she definitely wants to do academics, then going to the biggest name/hi...

Question to the OP: If your daughter gets a scholarship somewhere or otherwise chooses a less expensive school, do you plan to give her the money you would have spent for her education? "Yes". And she knows this from day 1. She also knows that the balance has to be spent 'sensibly' . Down...

- Accurate data for rebalancing.
-Show performance and ac balance for >5 yrs

I am closely following the conversation and am happy to hear different views. At the appropriate time I will let you all know where she applied and where she got accepted/rejected.

Lastly, please have your daughter talk to some female doctors. Preferably ones with families and with different specialities (a primary care doc, surgeon, etc.). I think this is the best thing you can do for her. The field of medicine is wonderful and I could not imagine doing anything else. But it...

I hope you don't take offense here, and I'm probably sticking my neck out, but it sounds like you are trying to overly micro-manage a very intelligent young adult's life. These are decisions she is perfectly capable of making on her own, based on her own educational and personal needs and desires. ...

bottomfisher wrote:

But I would strongly recommend a state medical school over private if she is accepted.

Bottom fisher, Could you explain the reason behind this. I understand the financial implication, but is there more to it. Thx

If she wanted to go into academics, I think most academic programs do care about where you went to school. Med schools are notoriously competitive and very fickle about their applicants, and they detest hubris and respect true humility. At times there seems to be no rhyme or reason for how students...

Agree with above. Cost is a real concern with ALL schools today, and med school is no different. And yes, you can match into top specialties even from state schools, and sometimes even from the least academically well-known of them. However, having gone through this whole thing recently, I'd defini...

Go to the cheapest med school available (that is in the US and is accredited). She has great applicant statistics. No one will care where she went to school after she has been practicing medicine for 1 year. As someone who took the other path of going to an expensive private school (Harvard Med in ...

Congratulations! She will have an excellent chance at having several great choices for medical school. You can go right down the list as far as applying since as other posters mentioned the number of slots is so limited and admissions very unpredictable. Why not Harvard, Columbia P&S, Cornell, ...

3) She will be completing her undergraduate education in Dec and will have free time for the next 6-7 months. Any suggestions on what she can possibly do during this time? Currently she is considering working in the research lab at UW-Madison or volunteering at an Indian reservation. I would focus ...

Thank you all for all the excellent advice. Some additional info- We had promised her that we would pay a total of 250 K for ALL of her education. After taking into consideration her scholarships the eventual cost of her undergrad education will come to about 60 K. This will leave 190 K for med scho...