Bogleheads.org

I feel that hiring relatives or friends for anything is a bad idea because things might get messed up. Vanner, you are spot on. Just think for a minute; if you do plan to meet with your uncle for such a discussion, you will need to prepare by compiling list of questions, information about accounts,...

I agree that it's likely the fill line filter has clogged. Even though it's clean "drinking water" that fills the dishwasher, it's amazing what still gets through the system. However, if the machine is filling it likely could be the drain pump is failing. Take a look at the website: http:/...

We are only two, but my wife and I find Costco to be a pretty good deal. Many of their items are of no use to us - we don't need 55 gallon drums of orange juice, etc (slight exaggeration!). However, we have found their prepared foods to be excellent value; very tasty, and the price is good. A few th...

Not sure I would do it the way you are thinking; I would pay off the mortgage, and be done with it. However, if you can stand taking a little bit of risk, have you considered a tax free muni bond fund? Vanguard Intermediate Term Tax Exempt Investors (VWITX) pays dividends monthly, and current yield ...

Thanks to furwut and Steelersfan for correctly pointed out the amount charged for COBRA coverage is the actual unsubsidized premium plus a 2% admin fee . I had forgotten that part. At any rate, it's usually quite a shock to find out what the new rate will be under COBRA. There are certainly better o...

Cobra coverage only lasts for 18 months, and is frightfully expensive. Companies are required by law to provide the option, but they are also permitted to charge a hefty premium for doing so - and they do! Coverage for my wife was going up 40% over what we had been paying through our company plan. S...

Several years ago we had hail damage on the roof of our house in Northeast Texas. There was considerable damage in the area. What I did was call my insurance company (USAA) and asked what they recommended I do. The said they would send an inspector out to see if a claim was warranted - they had othe...

Take a look at the website: http://www.appliancepartspros.com/ . I have found them a tremendous resource, and have repaired a dishwasher, freezer ice maker, and a clothes dryer with their help. Good resource for getting the parts, and have great discussion threads for troubleshooting and repair.

Typing in "financing a classic car" in Google search bar comes up with 4,000,000 hits.

You might start there.

This is another great discussion on cell phone costs. After 18 years as AT&T customer, we switched to Consumer Cellular the first of this year. We had long been out of contract, and purchased new unlocked phones. When we plugged the SIM cards in, AT&T automatically billed us $20 each per pho...

121Osda, I started my RMD in February 2012. The tax implications don't matter, long or short term. Any withdrawal from an IRA is taxable, and must be reported on Line 15a of your 1040. (The IRS have been eagerly waiting for their share all these years!) I decided to do a monthly withdrawal; and spok...

Do not accept this offer! Your boss is a person of weak character, and is not to be trusted in this matter. From what you've said, you have more to offer them than they do you. Don't sell yourself short.

Some good responses to your question here. There was a thread just recently on this subject. Here is link to my comment at the time: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=106745#p1556573 Florida is a large state, with a lot of variety; and whatever your likes are, you can find the ...

You won't be able to use their service with your current CDMA phone; you'll need a GSM capable phone. But take a look at Consumer Cellular. For low usage customers they offer a pretty good service. We just switched over to them a month ago, after 20 years with AT&T; and could not be more pleased...

I have had a number of phone exchanges with Vanguard on several different matters in the past year; all were most satisfactory. Same thing with Fidelity. If one has a serious enough gripe with them to [complain (edit by admin LadyGeek)] about it publicly, I should think the appropriate action would ...

I might as well throw my experiences with Vanguard and Fidelity into this discussion – it might be helpful to the OP, or others. In 2012, I: 1) Opened a joint account with my mother at Vanguard, to invest in bond fund with dividends to be paid into her checking account monthly. Spoke to relevant VG ...

icedtea, here is link to a thread with similar question from last year. http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=83502 Doing your own taxes is not difficult to do, especially with the software that is available these days. I've used Quicken's TurboTax, and H & R Block's Tax Cut. T...

Colorado13, take a look at Consumer Cellular, http://www.consumercellular.com/ . I've been using them the past month on a trial basis with a Blackberry 8900, and just today made the decision to switch from AT&T to them. They package their plans in small enough doses to suit our requirements; and...

My 65/35 equity/bond allocation returned a very nice 13% in 2012. However, I am in first year of required withdrawal of 4%; so my net was 9%. I could stand similar performance for the next few years without complaining.

ROTORHEAD - they are some good rates you have. My flood insurance is the same - I don't even include it in my discussions b/c it is cheap. Are you 1.5 miles from the ocean, or the intercoastal waterway? BarbK, we're about 1/4 mile west of the Intracoastal Waterway, and about 1 1/4 miles straight li...

Hey BHCadet, did you get your free binoculars yet? I got a pair some years ago from Fisher, for "spotting those great investment opportunities." Pretty nice actually - pocket size, great for taking to the theater. I've used them several times. I got on their list 9-10 years ago, when I was...

Very much appreciate the dilemma of OP re insurance costs in FL. There are some very good comments and information given in the thread, especially those of BigOil. In FL the cost of Windstorm insurance is a highly politicized issue; and there doesn’t seem to be any solution that will satisfy everyon...

My weighted ER is 0.18 presently, according to M*. Will re-balance before year end, and do some other tweaking that I expect will reduce the ER a bit further.

Congratulations stemikger! You won't believe how wonderful it will be having that behind you. We passed that milestone 3 years ago; and it's a great feeling, believe me!

ualdriver » Sun Dec 02, 2012 8:03 pm rotorhead wrote:You're welcome. It's hard to get visibility into what all the real costs, the way all the packages are offered. One thing that really burns me is the taxes and fees that are levied on cell phones; total of 16% here in Florida. I'm not rushing int...

Post by ualdriver » Sun Dec 02, 2012 7:02 pm rotorhead wrote:ualdriver, I don't want to hijack your thread; but did you look at Consumer Cellular also? According to Consumers Reports they are the top rated service provider in the country. I'm curious about them because we are long time AT&T cus...

ualdriver, I don't want to hijack your thread; but did you look at Consumer Cellular also? According to Consumers Reports they are the top rated service provider in the country. I'm curious about them because we are long time AT&T customer who are looking for lower cost options as well - don't n...

That tax went out in 2007. See this link:

http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/tips/tip07c02-01.html

Perhaps someone will prove me wrong on this by posting a link, but I think it's telling that basically no one other than bloggers, posters and financial writer's looking for something to write about has ever proposed the idea that Roth withdrawals could be subject to a "special" tax. Take...

I use Quicken for portfolio management, but don't find its budgeting tools all that helpful. It's tax planner is a bit better. I made my own budget spread sheets using Excel; a great program. I created a monthly spread sheet for day to day expenses. At the end of the month I transfer the totals to a...

Try Gold Toe socks. Not too expensive; and very good for business wear, and/or casual. http://www.goldtoe.com/categories/GoldToe/Men/Socks.

Very comfortable.

Congratulations epimedium, on the twins. All your joys will be doubled!! Re: Twins on the way!! Need term life insurance Post by dhodson » Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:58 pm you should use term4sale to give you an idea of what's out there. then talk to an independent agent to get you the best deal. If they ar...

Looking for a Good Historical Fiction Series Unread postby gatorman » Sat Oct 06, 2012 10:16 am I like the 18th century as a time frame, Europe or N. America as a geographical area, military action/espionage as a background theme, but I'm open to other areas/timeframes/themes. I really like nautica...

A very young 71 here. Interplanetjanet stated it very well I think: Re: Average Age of Bogleheads Posters Unread postby interplanetjanet » Tue Sep 25, 2012 1:57 am One of the things that I enjoy about this forum is that the posters form a different sort of cross-section of society than they do elsew...

Re: Fidelity AND Vanguard Post by peppers » Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:25 am Fidelity and/or Vanguard, tools to use, nothing more. Well stated. My wife and I have accounts at Schwab, Vanguard, USAA and Fidelity; and have had no issues with any of them. Each is pretty much what you make of it. We likely wil...

Hi DJB, I may be castigated for saying so; but if that's an itch you must scratch; then I say go for it. Our investment philosophy is Bogleheadian(?), and we are doing OK; but my wife and I like to drive nice cars. I bought a 1995 BMW 525i in 1998, as a CPO; and drove it for 12 years. Was a wonderfu...

Raybo, those are good tips on NZ from Random Poster and Lon. I have fond memories of both Norway and NZ. Norwegian experience was mostly in Stavanger, on the Southwest coast - same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. Lovely city, with lousy weather most of the time; wind and rain more so than snow. Few d...

I was last there ten years ago. It's a beautiful country, great food (especially if you like lamb); and wonderful, well mannered people. Christchurch and Queenstown, both on the South Island, are my two favorite cities. Nelson is a very pretty little town. Park Royal Hotel in Christchurch was really...

Re: Homeowners Insurance replacement cost Post by THY4373 » Mon Sep 24, 2012 9:32 am I had this problem with USAA they put my house at least 250k above what was the likely market value including the land. Now the house is a well built house from the 1980s (fairly high end for the time) but nothing ...

Stuck with taxable funds. Post by Taylor Larimore » Sat Sep 22, 2012 5:06 pm rotorhead wrote: Abuss: We hold seven funds including a money-market fund. If we could start over we would own only these three: THE THREE FUND PORTFOLIO Best wishes. Taylor Taylor, I am intrigued by your comment about mov...

I occasionally listen to Gary Kaltbaum, Business Talk Radio http://www.businesstalkradio.net/weekday_host/Archives/gk.shtml . He's not a Boglehead; but overall pretty sensible investing advice, and has a reasonable track record. He does spend a fair amount of time ranting about the "idiots in W...

The Three Fund Portfolio Post by Taylor Larimore » Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:12 am Abuss: We hold seven funds including a money-market fund. If we could start over we would own only these three: THE THREE FUND PORTFOLIO Best wishes. Taylor Taylor, I am intrigued by your comment about moving to 3 funds. Ha...

I think this says it all. I couldn't get the image to copy, just the link.

Take a look; it's pretty funny.

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2012/09/16

I had the privilege to meet, and talk with Commander Neil Armstrong quite a bit, during the late 1980's, at an aviation trade show. At that time he was affiliated with an aviation computer services company, who were exhibiting at this show also. Their booth was directly across the aisle from ours; a...

As difficult as it is for some of our younger Bogleheads to comprehend, there was life, and commerce, before the internet. I was based in Singapore from 1971 – 1977. Primary method for international communication then was the telex at 50 wpm. There was international phone service, but it was frightf...

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Re: Seeking Best Rate on Term Life Insurance

Postby Johm221122 » Thu Aug 16, 2012 5:54 am
Term 4 sale
http://www.term4sale.com/
John

+1.

That's how I got mine. Very good place to start.

Post by jsl11 » Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:31 pm Toyotas and Hondas are great cars. The problem is that used car shoppers know this, and the used Toyotas and Hondas are priced accordingly. They are more expensive than other used cars. Since you are on a tight budget, you may do better to look at a good bra...

Fix up the old one, or buy a new(er) car? That's a dilemma that many of us faced in our younger years. Some good advice on this thread. Whichever choice you make the money to support it comes from the same place - out of your pocket! Better to make payments on the newer vehicle than repair costs on ...

Post by earlyout » Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:47 pm And just before you take the RMD in December, estimate your income taxes for the year and have that amount withheld from the distribution. This is the only tax payment you will have to make for the year and the RMD (withthe taxes) have been profitably inv...

I just started my RMD in February this year. I'm with Fidelity, and do a fixed amount monthly. Currently hold 5 funds, and each month on the date I selected, Fidelity sells a proportionate number of shares of each fund, withholds 10% for the IRS, and remits the remainder to my bank account. Any time...