Bogleheads.org

I did not say the cheapest. Yes a regular bike is cheaper but a electric bike is "faster". Please read the article. The guys main point is the time cost of money. In some cases the car is slightly faster than a bike in actual drive time. BUT if you add back in the time that you have to sp...

I would take the cash and run. Invest in plenty of hard assets. Safety and pacing inflation would be my primary onjectives. I would hold plenty of non-boglehead investments. Lots of hard assets such as gold, investment grade diamonds, real estate and plenty of government bonds/cash. 5% US Stocks 5%...

Sequoia is lovely. High elevation (higher than Yosemite), so temps should be pleasant. But it's a bit of a haul from Yosemite, since you have to drive back to the valley and then back to the mountains. If you can get a reasonable flight out of Fresno-Yosemite Int'l, you might try this, otherwise, I'...

I did not say the cheapest. Yes a regular bike is cheaper but a electric bike is "faster". Please read the article. The guys main point is the time cost of money. In some cases the car is slightly faster than a bike in actual drive time. BUT if you add back in the time that you have to sp...

I *really* don't want to even consider doing that calculation, but I'd bet it's in the thousands. Beer is part of our social life, so I guess it offsets certain other potential costs--it's a hangout with friends, it's a travel destination, it's somewhere to walk the dog to (God bless this weird Cali...

I guess it depends how much you like the local news. It doesn't sound like you have a great alternative source. If I couldn't get news from our major paper, I'd still use the free weekly (sensational, but at least keeps you in the loop on some things). I'd also have a community-driven hyper-local ne...

Excellent choices. Trader Joe's is a good source for affordable beers. Simpler Times is nice to have around, and I'll occassionally buy their dark Mexican beer, which is essentially Dos Equis Amber. Some of their other contract brewed beer is good too, like Mission Street IPA. Anything they carry th...

Getting back to food costs - they are definitely up since I last posted, think we're averaging closer to $450-$500 a month these days. The biggest culprits - meat,chicken and fresh produce. Beef is starting to get a bit ridiculous and I'm starting to wonder if I want to spend the kind of money they...

Specs aren't as good--slower, less RAM, Android 4.0 instead of 4.3, no front-facing camera. You do save $80 and get expandable memory. I'd have a hard time not waiting for the next google phone although the next one is likely to have a bigger form factor, which is not a trend I'm a fan of. By the wa...

The review and the "profit" are good news in my book. I won't be investing in them, but I've been rooting for them for a long time. Not saying that anyone here was doing this, but it does seem like a lot of people feel compelled to examine this as if it was a purely practical purchase, whi...

I recently received a letter from my power company that had a graph showing that our electricity use was above the average for my neighbors and offered a savings opportunity involving them controlling my heat pump. I have that with FPL (Florida Power and Light). I get at $9 a month credit on coolin...

I recently received a letter from my power company that had a graph showing that our electricity use was above the average for my neighbors and offered a savings opportunity involving them controlling my heat pump. I have that with FPL (Florida Power and Light). I get at $9 a month credit on coolin...

We both do things with our hands; not interested. roymeo Yeah, therein lies the rub. (Ugh, sorry.) But it's a concern. I give it a couple years before my fiancee loses hers because of how often she ends up taking it off. Times 2 for me if I wear a ring because I'm twice as absent minded. Well-playe...

No doubt your neighbors will appreciate your "return to nature" in regards to your lawn. :wink: My neighbor puts so much chemicals on his lawn that it leaches over into mine. And that section is the nicest looking part of my lawn! Depends where you live I suppose. Native landscape doesn't...

Got engaged in December (wedding next week!). Fiance and I sat down together one day before hand & looked at our savings accounts. We subtracted how much we needed to leave as an emergency fund & for other goals and were left with about $10k. We decided, mutually, to spend no more than $3k ...

I'm still trying to draw my own conclusions. I only have $2500 (up to $2700 from interest) invested at this point and about $100 has been charged off. Doing any work is an absolute non-starter for me, so when they say I have some free money to re-invest, I just click through their random portfolios ...

Probably a savings account but do the math on CD's--even longer terms ones. Not all early withdrawal penalties are the same and you might be able to find a longer-term one that works out better than savings account, even once you take into account the penalties. Are you heading to Bend? Lovely place...

Hicabob, perhaps you'd like to attend our upcoming wedding... :) I think it's a fine gift, and think you should include in your card that they should feel free to sell it at any time, and you may go so far as to note an appropriate way to do so. My first instinct, were I the recipient would be to go...

I'm in California gov't, FWIW. I don't think there's any way that the pension could be worth *that* much. That just seems like that too big a difference to overcome, even for a relatively generous pension. In these days where we can basically count on pensions changing as the reality of modest inves...

iPhone support and ability to use new apps on iPhones does not seem to extend beyond 2 years or so ... Just to correct this misconception. The iPhone 4 is almost 3 years old and runs the latest version of iOS and thus apps developed for the latest version of iOS. I would challenge you to find a thr...

iPhone support and ability to use new apps on iPhones does not seem to extend beyond 2 years or so ... Just to correct this misconception. The iPhone 4 is almost 3 years old and runs the latest version of iOS and thus apps developed for the latest version of iOS. I would challenge you to find a thr...

Picky, yes, but it's good that you've really thought all of this through. That's important. From here, you can continue to prioritize and add some conditions and caveats to what you've listed. Ugh, good luck with an agent. You may do well interviewing and at least trying to find someone who understa...

Yeah, gees, all of my list (of big companies, excluding the local ones) concentrates in Seattle (T-Mobile, REI, Amazon) or Texas (USAA, Southwest Air). Sheesh. I suppose a huge number of services that I used are California and I just have no interaction with them in a customer service-heavy situatio...

It sounds very elegant but also quite expensive. It seems like it depends on how many rooms you'd want to feed and how much you value convenience. For us, it's easier to connect either via Bluetooth to the one new piece of stereo equipment we have in the main room, or to the "legacy" speak...

I'd love to see city code allow for smaller residences. I agree! I would be thrilled if builders would build smaller homes for empty nesters, singles, or anyone who wants an up-to-date small home. I'm guessing this varies by geographic region, but the "not so big house" concept seems to n...

Loving this thread. OP, it sounds like you can afford this, but if it's combined yours and hers/his funds, that's a tougher sell because it's not your toy. Perhaps use this as an opportunity to discuss how you can avoid in the future the situation where one of you wants something pricey for their ow...

What's losing me in this conversation is not the amount of cash people are dropping on bikes--I'm confused by all the people announcing that they only have one, fancy bike, or that they have, say, 4 fancy bikes. We have two, decent bikes for road biking, and then 4 bikes laying around for various pu...

I like memories of the truly awesome and unique places restaurants I've been to, and I like talking to friends about them, knowing what to recommend to others, etc. It's probably 30% food, 40% experience, and 30% vanity. Diminishing returns come quickly though, and I'd say we don't go out to that le...

Re: parking at the inn's. Wherever you stay, make sure they actually have a parking space reserved for you. I agree that the north end is cheapest and perfectly pleasant, but we've stayed at the places in the area that claim "free parking" only to that they're all first come, first serve.

Do you really want to bring your family there? I wouldn't spend a night in San Francisco. A guidebook might be a good idea. What a bizarre response. San Francisco is one of the greatest cities in the country. You make it sound like he is asking about taking his kids on vacation to Camden, NJ!!! Yes...

Would this website be useful? http://www.city-data.com/forum/ That'd be worth a shot for the OP. I'm active on the local forum, and the C-D fora tend to be not as active, civil, or helpful as this forum (that's an awfully high bar), but depending on the area, you might find some helpful info. Unfor...

On the surface, they seem to have made a fair effort at accuracy (though they probably displayed their industry bias towards owning when they had to make a choice) -- but each renter/buyer's situation is going to have big differences. Though perhaps every assumption is suspect, a couple jumped out ...

In my area, zillow is fairly accurate at pricing newer construction. But, in the city and inner ring suburbs, renovations make zillow nearly worthless. A hundred year old house could have had energy efficient improvements made, plumbing, electrical, appliances, and cabinetry updated. Essentially ev...

You might just move forward with pursuing a refi and see if anyone's interested. While they know that you have to pay for the appraisal, they don't want to waste their time if there isn't reason to believe you'd at least come close. As a random data point, our appraiser during our refi was anything ...

I took a lower risk with Wellington and I didn't have to do any work. If you want to invest $30k+ (so the time you spend reviewing notes worth it) and consider it as a very high risk portion of your portfolio, you like more work during tax return filling time, and you like spending time reviewing h...

The Highlander hybrid paired a V6 with a CVT and hybrid drive. My mom drives a 2008-ish model and I noticed that consumer reports had the Highlander hybrid pegged at one of the most reliable used vehicles available. I imagine some Lexus hybrid have a similar setup? I imagine that the torque from th...

Whoo! Exciting about spring time, which is already definitely sprung out here. The whole experience is just so enjoyable. Mostly because we don't have to rely on our brown thumbs for food. But we've only been gardening for about one full year, and we've troubleshot a lot of our problems: -Original s...

I'm not sure I see where the confusion is. The blog post was very clear that he hadn't seen the majority of defaults yet. LendingClub is very clear about the age of the loans for which they're posting data from. Their net annualized returns that are published on their website do include notes that ...

As another poster pointed out, those nice early returns will soon drop as the defaults start rolling in. Lending Club's claims of average 10% returns are skewed by the fact that they include new issuses , the number of which increases every month. So in order to achieve this benchmark long term, yo...

CVT's are great for efficiency. The challenge is making a pully and belt mechanism that can handle the torque of larger engines - I suspect this is why Nissan is having issues with the CVT behind their V6's like the Murano and Maxima. Off the top of my head I don't believe any other manufacturers p...

Luckily, you still have the option to invest in something like the UC Pathway 2015 or something that you like. It is definitely striking that they're so conservative, but I recall being pretty impressed by the funds overall. I sure wish I'd taken more advantage of the 403b space I had in the couple ...

All of these complications are absolutely necessary to get the advertised returns. It's possible, but not worth the hassle or risk IMHO Hm. If by advertised returns, you mean calculated average returns, then I'd disagree. You only need to be average to get average returns. Do you expect that the av...

It sounds like a "Job" to me. I'm retired. Only if you want to make it. I just let Lending Club choose for me. I have no reason to believe that this reduces the return compared to my choosing loans with the same credit risk. When I have over $100 "free", they send me an email an...

It is my view that eventually online teaching will replace the first couple/3 years of a BS degree. I find sites like Coursera have the same lectures in subjects as they would have in a good university. Semester over semester these classes get innovative on how they address massively online classes...

The problem is you are way overpaying in the first place. We are only paying $63/month for 2 phones with 3G data at 2GB limit/each and sharing 1000min with Tmobile. You're also overpaying. We pay $220/month for 10 phones with T-Mobile. Four have unlimited minutes, six have 500 minutes. All have unl...

I would imagine giving her, say, $10k that she can spend as she wishes for furnishings/home improvements would be received very, very gratefully, and it will be better for everyone involved vs. guaranteeing the home loan. Yes, that would be very kind and much appreciated. I think that's a totally u...

Congrats Savvy. Good choice except--if you're anything like me, you're going to be stuck with that car for a long time, so get used to it!

We have 5,800 sq ft. Our bathroom is close to 420 sq ft. No thanks. I believe in living a simpler life (and we will downsize when the kids are gone) but there is a level of compromise I'm not willing to make, and living in a closet is one of them. I guess the upshot is that when your baseline is 58...

I was looking to buy a pair of minimalist shoes, but they cost too much. I settled for a pair of generic (very inexpensive) water shoes from a well-known big box retailer instead. They are exactly what I wanted. Good recommendation. I found a good article about zero-drop/minimalist shoes on a budge...

I think the fact that this person is wealthy is precisely the point. It would be interesting to see the creative solutions to problems devised by those who lack the means to solve them with cash, but that's a different article. I think the point of the article, at its most basic, is to get people to...