Bogleheads.org

I received a 1099-g this year and the amount correctly states my last year;s refund. The problem is that I received a notice around mid-2012 stating I had underpaid taxes. I promptly paid the taxes owed. What should I do about my 1099-G? Is there an easy way to tell the california state tax board th...

I have yet to see a banking app that let's you save your password. If they enable two-factor, I hope they also give a way of allowing mint.com/other trusted apps to still work. Otherwise it's really discouraging to those that use any sort of software to monitor their accounts. Ingdirect allows you t...

Umbrella policies are cheap. You can get 2 - 3 million dollar additional coverage for auto/home/renters for less than $200 in most states. At that rate, I would just purchase that coverage and not optimize further as your assets increase or decrease in protected accounts.

They've improved substantially by paying off much of their debt. Their credit rating improved so their financing costs are going down. Many of the new cars are also much better quality and have technology that puts them ahead of the competition (i.e. ford sync). That being said, Ford has huge europe...

Use turbotax and do it by hand. Pick whichever gives you a more advantageous return and submit that to the IRS.

I have a few mlps in a tax-account. While its a slight pain, the dividend payout is quite substantial. Turbotax will walk you through it but you need to file for the most expensive version of their software (since you're effectively a partner in a business). You'll need to budget in the additional t...

+1 this thread should be marked as an ad and deleted. A lot of people spent time helping this person with a supposed 7-figure portfolio and its truly shameful that there was such a major hidden agenda.

Congrats on getting ahead of the game. My advice would be to take some time off for 6 to 12 months but not much more than that. Then get back in the game but this time swing for the fences when you start a company. Since you have a successful 'base hit', you'll be able to get intros to a few venture...

If you do leave permanently from the US, there's implications with your 401k. I thought you had to take one lump distribution. I'm not sure if you researched that further but it may be a drawback (depending on your company's match) towards contributing further in 2012.

If you have an umbrella policy with a few million in protection, that should be adequate. On top of that, if your friend has good insurance and an umbrella policy, then you pretty much have everything you need covered.

They probably recouped a sizable portion of that based on all the free media coverage they've received today. I've seen it mentioned on three stations while channel flipping. I can only imagine the coverage they'll get in tokyo.

While these benefits are fairly solid, most major corporations offer very good benefits if killed while working. Its usually a big payout. You can also get additional supplemental life insurance that protects you even if you are killed on your own personal time, that is a very, very large multiple o...

Its tough to categorize the thousands of hedge funds in the world into one basket. Each has a slightly different philosophy with different risks. Most of the individuals investing in hedge funds are accredited investors that probably have the basics taken care of (enough fixed income / index funds t...

You still have institutional risk. If vanguard screws up their algorithms for buying / selling / balancing, you're pretty much screwed. Just not worth the risk to me -- I'd rather have 8 or 10 funds spread between 2 or 3 trusted institutions.

A friend of mine is going through a divorce and california and I wanted to see what other people's experiences have been like. In particular, she started out the marriage with a significant number of assets. My understanding is that california is a community property state. Are they normally good at...

If you work for a big company, you can sign up (usually doing open enrollment) for 1 year of legal services. One of the legal services covered is estate planning. FWIW, you can usually get a decent lawyer to help set everything up for a grand or so, depending upon the complexity of your estate. Obvi...

If you are in an MLP, REIT, or other high-dividend paying stock (i.e. VZ etc.,), it could matter. For me its just a matter of principal. These broker could very well be doing it intentionally because in aggregate it could be a sizable amount of money.

I have a bag ready with clothes in case of an earthquake. Keep enough cash in there to survive a few nights, assuming credit card terminals aren't working. Generally I try to charge everything because I like points and, more importantly, a record of it will be kept on mint for itemization purposes. ...

Even if its not showing up, you should check to see if they start accuring interest on your behalf from the 28th (assuming you have a setting for keeping available cash in a money market).

Why I love amazon: 1.) Create a "subscription" for common household items like shaving cream. Get 15% off. 2.) Pay no sales tax (8% saved in california). 3.) Pay with an amazon visa credit card. Get 3 points for every dollar spent for items on Amazon.com. (~3%) 4.) Free shipping (though th...

Did the issue get resolved?

With such a small amount of liquid cash, i'd focus less on rate chasing and more on finding the most convenient institution. Put it at a bank close to your home that doesn't have crazy fees and provides free checking.

i don't think anyone is disputing the invisible hand but some of us may take comfort in putting x% of our money towards fixing a systemic problem (i.e. get rid of labor unions etc.,). that may come at a cost of less than stellar returns on a portion of our investments. as for actual implementation, ...

What is the 'average investor'? It just seems so subjective. These 'privileged' people were voted in by the average investor as well.

I had a planner try to sell me some of his managed funds with ridiculous fees (2% - 4%) that didn't seem anywhere near market performance. I ran away from that fast. To be fair, the person knew I was fairly savvy and had the desire to put in the hours to do the research. He correctly pointed out tha...

Great idea. On a similar note, I believe that union works are overpaid and underperform. Look at the automotive and airline sector for some great examples. It'd be awesome to have an ETF that invests only in companies that severely limit their exposure to union workers. I used to like berkshire hath...

Its a bad thing and will likely hurt most stocks tomorrow. That being said, a few days from now the markets will be focused solely on europe.

It'll probably be in the millions and most of you will outraged. I'm pretty sure whatever the number is, it'll less than what those executives could make at many of the other major investment fund. If those numbers are published, those executives could be 'poached' and vanguard would lose much of it...

Why not just keep it under the corporation and build up the balance sheet? You could use it as a way to 'shield' some assets in the event that you're named personally in a suit.

Perhaps you could issue yourself a one-time dividend which might be subject to a lower tax rate.

My experiences with BCBS have been nothing but stellar. I'm glad your issue got resolved. If you want, you can send in a letter via 'snail mail' with your explicit question. It may take them a few months, but they'll come back with a complete response that's usually signed and dated by someone in th...

Steve Job's announced iMessage which could potentially narrow the cost of SMS significantly in the next few years. If I were a betting man, I'd say that SMS will be history within ten years. Voice might be longer but it'll fall in price as VOIP (voice over internet protocol) becomes more acceptable ...

You need to factor in opportunity cost. How much is your time worth doing something else? I know a friend that's making about 7k a year in profit renting out several small studio apartments but without fail it usually occupies one morning of his weekend. Depending upon how you choose to finance this...