Bogleheads.org

I think an umbrella policy would be worth it. After all, having your wages garnished for he rest of your life due to a driving error would kinda take a bit of the fun out of it, no? You can get a policy for less that a dollar a day. You probably could not get one that costs more than three dollars a...

Notary responsibilities are different in different states.

There may be a requirement that the Notary at least knows the nature of the document being notarized. I don't think they have the authority to notarize all types of documents in all states.

Just how frequently I re-evaluate and make adjustments? The wiki suggest comparing your plan with its objectives once per year, and says that investment program changes must be small: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investment_Policy_Statement But, frankly, small changes have small effects, and it's...

I will re-evaluate and rebalance my asset allocation every 6 months, with each asset class staying within 5% of its target allocation. An alternative it so simply commit to an asset allocation and a clearly specified rebalancing procedure. Or, as an alternative, commit to an asset allocation schedu...

Generally a good job. These clauses seem a bit vague, they imply unspecified considerations and re-evaluations: Rather, I may consider new stock positions or adding to current positions when discounts to the market present themselves. I will re-evaluate and rebalance my asset allocation every 6 mont...

I can't find any messages from Vanguard that do not have links to the home page at the top (in the ship logo image) and at the bottom (at "Home"). All my email messages from Vanguard have links that take you to a page where you can login to Vanguard.

. I think in this case it is from Vanguard even though it has a live (clickable) link, because the link is simply to a page on Vanguard that is available to the public - i.e. it does not require one to log on or provide any personal information to read. The email in fact has a number of clickable l...

. I think in this case it is from Vanguard even though it has a live (clickable) link, because the link is simply to a page on Vanguard that is available to the public - i.e. it does not require one to log on or provide any personal information to read. The email in fact has a number of clickable l...

The annual contract will cost $85 to $200 depending on size and construction of your home. You can get protection from repair costs and other costs in the contract. There are different types of treatments and chemicals ranging from bait stations to direct chemical applications. Contact 2 or more ter...

I hope I am doing this right. My broker is Charles Schwab. I recently got some good advice from them as to revising my portfolio allocation. But my present portfolio is returning 10.13% year to date (1/1/13 - 5/16/13). Perhaps because of the present bull market? I would hate to change my present al...

She might be freaked out by the price fluctuations of a bond fund. She probably does not understand that all her bond holdings are fluctuating in value in a similar manner. One thing you are perhaps missing is that you really can't predict your Mom's reactions to the changes you are making. As I pos...

ML is a broker, so she apparently does not have a general fear of bankruptcy of brokerages. And, ML did not go bankrupt only because the US government forced BOA to buy ML way above it's market price and book value. Not that her bonds would have got caught up in the bankruptcy. Their value might hav...

Your mother very risk averse. I have the opposite problem with my 90 year old mother-in-law. I got her $100,000+ over to Vanguard and out of an annuity that her broker told her had to be terminated before she turned 90 and which he proposed to put in loaded funds. (He was wrong, perhaps lying, about...

I have around $25K in out-of-pocket medical expenses incurred the last 5 years under my HDHP-HSA (more than half of this is for LTHC insurance premiums). Our HSAs are at $57K. So, I'm going off my HDHP next year for a traditional insurance plan that covers major medical surgery better than the HDHP...

He's still predicting a crash... Sooner or later he will be right... and then he will claim that he "called it" Remember back in March of 2000 when Robert J. Shiller said "Up till now, I have been bullish, but the market just became irrational and I can confidently predict that this ...

Craigr's post is excellent but I just want to emphasize a portion of it which is often overlooked (hence the repeated HBPP vs. Boglehead threads). The Permanent Portfolio has a much different objective than a lot of stock heavy portfolios. This is the real point. The Permanent Portfolio is, accordi...

Two things wrong with the PP: 1. It assumes a universal constant lifetime risk level. It fixes the cash at 25%. In Modern Portfolio Theory, you invest in the risk-free asset to determine your risk level, it's not a permanent fixed percentage for life, or the same percentage for all. 2. Gold has zero...

I don't see that owning gold is antithetical to Bogleheadism. Here some efficient frontiers including gold: http://www.merkinvestments.com/downloads/2012-11-27-case-for-gold-portfolio-benefits.pdf The one based on the most data includes only 20 years and that's probably not long enough. And the set ...

I am enjoying this thread. I plan to try some of the non-chemical suggestions. The OP might want to do one (correctly planned) broadcast application of 2,4-D and then move to non-chemical means to control the relatively few that will reseed in the future, depending on his available time and inclinat...

According to the Kelly Criteria, it's not reckless to bet 1/3 of your capital on this bet. Your capital will average a 14.38% growth rate on each bet. Check for yourself with this Kelly calculator: http://www.albionresearch.com/kelly/default.php But, this investment scheme will not get safer the lo...

I am flipping a coin and have gotten 10 heads in a row. What are the odds that I will get another heads? Depends on your prior assumptions about the coin. Before you flipped it, did you assume it was a fair coin? Assume P(heads)=a. Actually, I need more information. If you are certain that P(heads)...

Interesting topic. This EPA brochure discusses the issue: http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/Publications/catalog/greenscaping.pdf From skimming that, I would say the non-chemical approach is: 1. Manually remove the weeds before they go to seed. 2. Replace grass with some other ground cover or native veget...

The way I look at it is the longer you are in the market, the more of a "cushion" you have built up to absorb potential losses. And the loss isn't as bad if the principle isn't affected. For instance, I've only been in the market for about 3-4 months. In that time, I've already built up a...

I am flipping a coin and have gotten 10 heads in a row. What are the odds that I will get another heads? Depends on your prior assumptions about the coin. Before you flipped it, did you assume it was a fair coin? Assume P(heads)=a. Actually, I need more information. If you are certain that P(heads)...

Flipping a fair coin is a simple way to illustrate the situation. Your percentage loss on each bet will be constant, it will not get safer the longer you bet. Suppose someone is willing to pay 3 to 1 on each flip. If you get heads, they pay you $3 for each dollar you bet. Obviously this is a favorab...

rkhusky wrote:I am flipping a coin and have gotten 10 heads in a row. What are the odds that I will get another heads?

Depends on your prior assumptions about the coin. Before you flipped it, did you assume it was a fair coin?

The OP say Merton has warned people about stock long run risk. Ironic that Merton founded LTCM, the hedge fund that went bust. In the book Fortune's Formula , Edward Thorpe points out that LTCM was engaging in reckless betting by betting more that the Kelly fraction of working capital that is the ve...

I think the basic Kelly criterion provides a good model for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion It just covers up or down bets, but Edward Thorpe extended it stock market applications. Samuelson has argued against use of the Kelly criterion, and Samuelson is a proponent the idea that...

I think the basic Kelly criterion provides a good model for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion It just covers up or down bets, but Edward Thorpe extended it stock market applications. Samuelson has argued against use of the Kelly criterion, and Samuelson is a proponent the idea that ...

Among others, in 1979 Paul Samuelson wrote Why We Should Not Make Mean Log of Wealth Big Though Years to Act Are Long Know that life is not a game with net stake of one when you beat your twin, and with net stake of nought when you do not. A win of ten is not the same as a win of two. Nor is a loss...

Even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15% of one's financial success is due one's technical knowledge and about 85% is due to skill in human engineering, to personality and the ability to lead people.

Quote from Dale Carnegie's classic How to Win Friends and Influence People

ziszew wrote:

gkaplan wrote:Plastics, young man. Plastics.

I had to look it up. Hilarious

I think gkaplan is alluding to this scene from the movie "The Graduate":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk

One very accessible modern translation of a primary source (Epictetus Handbook) is: http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Living-Little-Book-Wisdom/dp/0062511114/ref=la_B000APB4YG_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1367281372&sr=1-3 (Primary in the sense that it's a translation of the notes of one of his students. Epic...

As for Vanguard, the reason I want longer passwords is that is really the only area I can control. I have anti malware, anti virus on my computer (multiple, though not all simultaneously). On Vanguard, I can not have any control on their internal security measure, but I can make sure that my passwo...

The F fund has a large percentage (44%) of the fund in US Treasuries, and the interest risk in those securities is uncompensated for if you also have the G fund as an option. The yield on the G fund "should" be around 0.04% so the current yield of ~1.50% represents a nearly 150 basis poin...

Thanks to everyone for their input. To further explain my thinking, and I emphasize I have never timed the market since I constructed my portfolio after reading books by Swedroe, Ferri, and Bernstein years ago, what I've read is interest rates can't go any lower and thus, it seems inevitable the F ...

None of the L Fund allocations have a F Fund allocation larger than 9%. Replacing that 9% with all G does not make much difference. Backtesting from inception of these funds, it would work out to about 0.13% per year in favor of having an F allocation. That's smaller than some active fund ERs, and u...

I posted this in another thread , but it's useful to repeat it here too: ...G Fund, which is a fund unique to government employees. It pays the interest of Treasury securities with four or more years to maturity, but it has daily liquidity and the rate changes monthly. It’s always valued at a dolla...

For what it's worth, I moved my TSP bond allocation all to the G Fund last year. Accuse me of market timing if you want. I did the same, and feel the same. I did not, because I was in the G fund all along. Accuse me of anything. Victoria Do you have 100% of your fixed income in G? You were kind of ...

...what I've read is interest rates can't go any lower and thus, it seems inevitable the F fund's value will decrease in the years ahead. What you read is an obviously false statement, easy to prove false with grade-school math. I read false statements every day, so often I don't keep count. I don'...

Hi Folks, Thanks for your input thus far. If it help, here's my portfolio's allocation (75% equity, 25% bonds - split between Roth IRA [all Vanguard funds] and TSP): 22.5% C Fund 7.5% S Fund 15% Small Cap Value 10% REIT 20% International (approx. 80% of which is I fund, remainder split evenly betwe...

Hi Folks, Thanks for your input thus far. If it help, here's my portfolio's allocation (75% equity, 25% bonds - split between Roth IRA [all Vanguard funds] and TSP): 22.5% C Fund 7.5% S Fund 15% Small Cap Value 10% REIT 20% International (approx. 80% of which is I fund, remainder split evenly betwe...

Brian, that looks like a pretty good mix to my eye. Frankly, I don't think you need to do a thing, especially given your horizon. (If you decided to go all to "G" for fixed income you'd enhance safety and stability of the portfolio at the expense of expected returns from the "F"...

Good morning All, I've been reading over the past several months the outlook on bonds is not bright. I'm approximately 25 years from retirement and maintain 25% of my portfolio equally divided between the TSP's F and G funds. Does anyone have an opinion as to whether or not it would/would not be pr...

Roughly, yes, I do believe this. I'm not sure it's the total number of dollars that is constant--that is, I'm assuming they do factor in the "time value of money" and the interest rate on Treasuries, just the way commercial insurers do. But Social Security is intended to be "actuaria...

Thanks for the input. It probably helped me avoid some pitfalls. I tried the truth . I simply called Billing at TWC and told them my wife was encouraging me to switch to an ATT bundle if I could not get a lower rate. Billing gave me a $53 credit on my next bill and recommended that I call Promotions...

Another thing to consider is the idea that Vanguard would not have disclosed prior data breaches. Well I suspect that this is unlikely. Pretty much every state in the US requires that users be notified if they have private information compromised by a commercial web site. Keeping such information s...

Another thing to consider is the idea that Vanguard would not have disclosed prior data breaches. Well I suspect that this is unlikely. Pretty much every state in the US requires that users be notified if they have private information compromised by a commercial web site. Keeping such information s...

I am considering whether to delay SS after I retire at 66. I will be in a 25% marginal federal bracket and 7.75% North Carolina bracket. SS is not taxed in NC. So SS is taxed at a rate of 85*25 = 21.25%. IRA withdrawals are taxed at 32.75%. Doing the math, I find that my decision to delay SS in the ...