Bogleheads.org

Pay someone else $100k a year to handle the B.S. for you. Otherwise, work 2 more years, save another $1.1 million, then quit forever I'd paid someone half of my profit if they can take care of the problems - though I've not been able to do so - I feel sometimes it's my fault for being such a contro...

How do you know the Clinical job is less stressful ? Dis you ask people who are in that profile ? These days everybody says their job is stressful. Take the maximum vacation your job allows and see how your Boss handles it without you ? Can you take a 4 - 6 week vacation , that will allow you to th...

Thanks for all the replies. No, can't really do away with the stress without walking away from the job completely. We bought all the junk we thought we wanted: cars, jewelry, trips, wine and food, ect. Luckily, we found we have pretty simple tastes and the expensive stuff did not make us any happier...

What would you do? I am in a very good position to continue making $600K+/year until retirement- but sometimes the BS from this "job" gets unhealthy. We've saved over $1M and have another $1.5M in real estate. No debt. We spend about $60K a year and I know we're not going to upgrade our sp...

tulsa002, I understand your concern. Even though I'm 10-15 yrs until retirement (meaning they may not let me work at that point) and yet I'm getting overly cautious. The market fluctuation is a big concern for me because I've reached a milestone that I'd rather not have to re-cross. So, I've set my ...

zed, By taking it off the table - you're not going to put it back on the table, right? If so, then it makes perfect sense. If you've reached your goal and can afford to take on less risk, why not? I keep hearing "why play the game when you've won." I was thinking the same thing lately as t...

letsgobobby wrote:100% stocks, of course. It is the in thing to do and besides it is obvious that bonds have nowhere to go but down.

Really? Why 100% stocks?

A few years back, I felt I needed an advisor. After speaking with a few "wealth managers" - I was offered products I never knew I needed: all sorts of life insurance, 412i, key man policies, and even some products I thought were illegal (tax-wise). I spent more than a year reading up on th...

The problem with most these math programs is they teach rote learning (i.e. learning by repetition), which while good at teaching her how to do a particular math problem, doesn't really help her with any amount of critical thinking. I was fortunate in that I learned the second one in high school, b...

After reading and re-reading all the posts, I am thinking about taking a step back, and going back down to the 35k level for a used boxster, and seeing how it goes. This is a financial forum - not a car enthusiast site. Financialy, you've got most OKs from this site - and that's huge. But what is i...

You're going from a Camry to a 911? What's wrong with you? Just busting your chops. Go for it. Folks on this board can afford a Ferrari yet drive a Civic. :twisted: Make sure you get the manual and get that stock exhaust upgraded. The new 991 with sports exhaust and 7 speed manual is the bomb though...

I was at the Porsche dealership this weekend - wearing my running watch ($50?) while seriously considering a $150K car. I've always wanted a 911 Turbo S - since my 20's :twisted: . I wish a watch would do it for me. It'll be a whole lot easier on the wallet than sports cars. Get the watch you've alw...

I used investment net worth plus home equity for net worth, and the lifetime sum of our "medicare taxed earnings" Does that mean you include investment earnings into part of your networth? If so, I suspect as you near retirement the ratio should exceed +100%. Kind of like school, if you a...

Income from rentals: does depreciation reduce net investment income as it does in adjusted gross?

There is no certainty that they will be able to blindly draw an inflation adjusted $120k from the portfolio forever, but the handwringing over the retirement prospects of someone in the top few % of the US networth distribution is somewhat ridiculous . Should I ever reach a comparable net worth, I ...

I lived in a 600 sq ft studio apartment while in school. I thought that was the whole point of college so you would not HAVE to live in a studio apartment for the rest of your life.

The guy in the article throws a dinner party for 12? Standing room only?

I checked out a Murano and it seems very upscale when you buy the SL. Interior and featurs quite comparable to "lux" SUVs. Price is the same as RDX, high 30s to low 40s. Have to admit I was surprised when I checked it out. They are similar size also. Like to hear from Murano owner. We had...

We intend to downsize. We don't have a mortgage. We know we'll have a chunk of cash coming back to us once we downsize. This allows us to have more in equity if we so desire. I'm sure you're in the same boat. The real question is - do you really need to take the additional risk and why? How will you...

get married

have kids

If you die after you are both retired that should leave your wife better off rather than worse off. With the same portfolio and income you had as a couple she now has one less mouth to feed, one less car to pay for, 1/2 the health costs to deal with, one less plane ticket to buy every time you trav...

FinnTheHuman wrote:if I work more than about 10 days a month I really don't like my job.

Maybe you should focus on this.

wagons with manual shift -

Caddy CTS-V
BMW 3 or 5 series
Audi 4 or 6
Mazda 3
Subaru Impreza

They are all limited when you actually need to haul something.

What have you got to haul around?

Have you considered a sports car/sedan AND a pick up truck?

Rodc wrote:
Too many kids here are way stressed out, which happens when mom and dad believe if you don't get into Harvard, Stanford, MIT etc it is a truly life changing disaster.

That's not normal?

The idea of only going from stocks -> bonds but not the other way makes more sense than going back and forth stocks <->bonds. Thank you - this crystallizes my thinking. I feel like the portion in bonds at some point should cover ALL my retirement needs. The portion in stocks may at best: 1) alter m...

It depends on marginal utility of wealth,. If have already won the game, as one poster said, and more wealth while better doesn't change your life in any meaningful way, why take more risk. This is why IPS and AA should be living documents, whenever any assumption in plan changes should change the ...

So, rebalance is at best a small gamble (I'll not use market timing). What I don't get is - if I have x amount safely sitting in bonds - why in the world should I put that at risk in stocks? Conventional wisdom says that you should not put money in stocks unless you're willing to lose it all. At lea...

If this is "market timing," it is very different from what people who call themselves "market timers" do. It does not involve large-commitment shifts in an out of asset classes, just small adjustments, and it isn't based on technical analysis. I would define market timing in gen...

As a risk management tool? Grows the whole portfolio faster? None of it makes sense. How is my portfolio less risky if I rebalance when stocks go down? Wouldn't it put more money at stake? Suppose the market drops 10% a day for 22 days straight and the bond market stays the same. My portfolio would ...

Did not want to hijack the thread on rebalancing after 50% market drop. So... what's the point of rebalancing again? Especially in the accumulation stage. To rebalance is to time the market, and since I'm certain that my ability to time the market is horrible, I just don't rebalance. But who knows, ...

Petrocelli wrote:I chose less than 39, because I got married when I was 26. That really limited my hobbies.

Thank you for being so honest.

My wedding band threw the golf swing out of balance - at 29.

Bengineer wrote: "one new tool per project" rule haven't you?

Love this rule - it's almost more fun to buy and play with new power tools than doing the project itself.

It's purely emotional. We bought our first home right before the dot-com crash. Although we had money to pay cash, I assumed we'd do better keeping the money invested (taxable account). Mortgage rate was about 6%. Obviously that was a big mistake because we were 100% equities, mostly high tech. We l...

Only a few years ago, I did not care about expenses only because of ignorance. I thought an "expensive" fund might perform better. I also did not know about index funds.

What line of work are we talking about? I did process engineering years ago when I observed hourly employees do manual tasks. For what we were doing, humans could not match the speed or accuracy of machines. We automated a lot of those tasks. We stopped having to watch people work. The machines were...

2007 Hummer with over 125,000 miles on it since bought new. It's been surprisingly trouble-free for someone who has come to expect Japanese reliability over the last 20 years. This year I replaced the serpentine belt and the coolant hoses & coolant (afternoon garage job). Working on the brakes ...

Investing is like golfing. You can make par on a hole in so many different ways. It can seem effortless or it can be painful to watch. Results will be the same.

Once your employee count grows, you are very limited in pre-tax contributions without excessive costs. Any DB, 412e and other "sketchy" plans the insurance guys were pushing ended up being too costly because I have 10-12 employees and some of them are older than me. We have a 401K plan wit...

If anyone has thoughts pro or cons on selling these stocks I would appreciate your ideas. I'm down to 6 stocks in my DRIPs account (about 3% of all assets) because they've become a book keeping chore at tax time. By year end, I'll be down to zero individual stocks and 4 mutual funds (all at Vanguar...

The main point of the article is that credit cards lead to merchants raising their prices to cover the credit card fees and in the big picture, this means money is leaving the local economy (made up of you and your local merchants) and going to the credit card companies. So using that thinking, it ...

Many (Most!!) folks are content to stop climbing. Climbing the ladder (as an engineering manager) got me so frustrated. I got to a level where my work did not factor into my potential for advancement (politics). I felt that had I been a better golfer, I might have made VP ($100K in 1990), and would...

expat wrote:Become a section 8 landlord?

My dad had to turn to section 8 because he had problems with non-paying tenants. Be prepared to bring your house up to spec if not already. Good luck.

Anywhere Japan. The whole country seems like it's a fine tuned machine. Not to get off track, but these excursions can be quite costly. I find it amusing that this is the same group that would chastise someone for buying a nice watch or a luxury car. After a (expensive) trip, I would (briefly) make ...

livesoft wrote:Another thing: The day your (retirement) portfolio goes up by $45,000 in one day is the day that you can afford a $45,000 car.

What about the following week when the market tanks and your portfolio goes down $90K?

Purchasing will tie you down. Not sure if I would do it at your age. It is easy to find a 3/2 rental. We bought a few years ago because we could not find a place to rent (we wanted +5,000 sf home - kids, entertaining). I secretly regret being tied down here, even though when we bought, we committed ...

stlutz, Are you in the medical field? I am and admit that I practice with caution because I can't simply ignore the litigious nature of our society (USA). Take away the threat of a lawsuit and a good doctor will provide better care for his patients, certainly not worse. If your doctor presumably wi...

How about $250K on pain and suffering plus economic damages With medical malpractice, pain and suffering *are* the losses. To use the auto mechanic example, it would be like capping damages at $500 plus the cost of a tank of gas. If somebody runs me over with their car, their liability is not cappe...

The hospitals are not making big money, the docs certainly are not making big money....the insurance companies are making the big money! Maybe time to purchase some Humana or UNH esp. now that you'll have a "tax hike" if you don't purchase insurance! Thank you very much. Surprised that it...

The case where the adviser is also a long time "friend," especially a family friend is difficult. That is one reason why a cardinal rule is to never, ever, do business with friends, relatives, and social associates. My CFP was referred by a good colleague. We run into him socially and I f...

Gator, You must be my long lost brother - from Florida are you? My wife and I went thru that phase about 5 years ago. High income, no desire for early retirement. So we splurged a bit: a bigger house, luxury and sports cars, exotic vacations, fine dining, resorts and spas ect, and found the real rea...

It makes sense for that group. I thought I heard on NPR that half of college grads are not working full time. Sad.