Bogleheads.org

I look at the facts and see that 50%+ of marriages end in divorce That statistic has a lot of caveats. Highly educated people who get married in their late 20s have a much lower divorce rate than that. People with a high school education and who marry young get divorced at a very high rate. People ...

1. Sell the condo. No question. 2. I would encourage her to take out the loans, especially if any of them are like the federally subsidized college loans people get (if that is even possible). Docs have a high rate of divorce/break up in the early stages of their career. I know too many of these pe...

Here's a little advice from a guy that was madly in love with some assets, got married and divorced X years later. I would protect yourself financially. I'll second this. Went through the same situation, except I put my wife through dental school and we divorced during her final quarter. I liquidat...

Here's a little advice from a guy that was madly in love with some assets, got married and divorced X years later. I would protect yourself financially. I would keep all pre-marital assets in your name only before and during the marriage. I would rent the condo because San Diego property is in an u...

I've been going back and forth the past couple months and every day I change my mind so I thought I'd ask for some advice. Maybe someone has been in a similar situation before. Here's some personal info if it helps: 26 yo male 160k in retirement accounts 65k in cash(short-term investments) Option 1:...

I am in exactly the same situation as you with HSA Bank so I'm curious what others have to say about this. One point I've heard others mention is you should probably have worst-case several years worth of the out-of-pocket max invested/saved relatively risk-free in the event you get really sick. We...

I've seen a lot of discussion on investing your HSA, where to invest it, etc but I don't want to include it as part of my retirement portfolio. I want to use it to pay future medical expenses at some point way later on in life. I'm 25 yo, currently maxing out 401k/roth ira so I'm not too worried abo...

I'm wondering about investing money(less than 10k) in after-tax accounts. I'm trying to compare three options and figure out which option has the lowest fees for what I want(Vanguard vs TD-Ameritrade vs Betterment). Option 1 The simplest option I think is just to open an account with Vanguard and in...

I visited Tokyo a couple years ago and it was a blast. I stayed with a friend so I can't speak to the hotels but if you're only there for a week that's plenty of time but I wouldn't spend more than one night or one day outside of Tokyo. There is so much to do in Tokyo! I loved the food so I'd be sur...

OK, I'll bite - if you stop working full time, while your fiance/spouse goes back to medical school, what exactly are you two going to live on? Medical school isn't cheap! Are you sure you can afford to quit your job to take a few years off or work part-time? Before attempting this strategy I would...

Not sure if he's looking for a direct position or contract but with 4 years of experience, that is usually the minimum for contracting. If he doesn't mind that type of work, it's a great opportunity to make a ton of money, save up for a few years and then go direct. I completely disagree with what s...

Thanks for the responses. One year from now(Jan. 2014), I suspect I will no longer be working full time at my current job, married with a combined income under 25k, 75k in my 401k and 30k in my Roth IRA, with about 50k in savings. It's my understanding that I can leave my 401k in place with my old e...

Hi, I currently work full time but I'm considering taking a few years off if/when my fiancee goes to medical school. During this time, I may go back to school, work, etc but the point is I'll be getting paid a lot less and I will be married in a year and a half and since my wife would be in school o...

Why not just rent a tiny studio in the school district you want for $1000/month or less and use that as your address for your kid's school? It would be like paying 12k a year for school and the more kids you have the cheaper it gets, sort of haha

This is probably a basic question that I should know but I think I'm more confused by the terminology than anything. As I see it, when people refer to treasury yield they are talking about the amount you would make on a US treasury note or bill right? Right now, the demand for bonds is high since we...

Would you really get the $13,100 from the insurance company outright or would you get what it cost to replace it with one of like quality and at the cost an insurance company would have to pay for the replacement? What does your insurer say? You know what you're right. I just called my insurance co...

So I bought an engagement ring for 7k and it appraised at 13.1k. I have the option of getting anywhere from $0 deductible to $500 deductible. It seems like a no brainer that I would want the deductible to be as high as possible right? B/c if I lose the ring, I'll get a check for 13.1k and that would...

Can someone just pass the series 65 exam, create a fee only financial planning company (LLC) and work at it for 3 years? Wouldn't this satisfy the requirements? That's what I was wondering! What I'm interested in is the whole aspect of financial planning. I like helping my friends out with the basi...

Can someone just pass the series 65 exam, create a fee only financial planning company (LLC) and work at it for 3 years? Wouldn't this satisfy the requirements? That's what I was wondering! What I'm interested in is the whole aspect of financial planning. I like helping my friends out with the basi...

Like others have said, your only option with that budget is to stay in one large city. But if you did want to do a few cities you could do eastern europe. I studied abroad in Budapest and it was awesome. You can rent a car or use public transportation for cheap and get around or you can venture out ...

Don Christy wrote:

Don Christy wrote:
Sept CPI-U up 0.6% to level of 231.407.

So semi-annual inflation rate = (231.407 - 229.392) / 229.392 = 0.878 %

don

Where do you get the 229.392 number from? CPI-U from 6 months ago?

I've read a few articles lately about tax efficiency and placing bonds/stocks in Roth vs 401k. I understand that it's not the same thing if you put in 5k bonds into a 401k(pre-tax) and 5k stocks into a Roth(post-tax). This is essentially taking on a riskier AA right? My AA might be 50/50 but in real...

Student loans at 6.6%??? Wow this seems like a no brainer to pay these off first before investing. I haven't done any calculations but it seems to me that every dollar i pay towards a student loan is a dollar less that I would have to 6.6% interest on right? What other investment will guarantee you ...

Bond returns don't have to do anything. This has been widely and repeatedly discussed here. The main concern is interest-rate risk, which is one of the main risk factors for bonds (the other being credit risk). Interest-rate risk has paid off in recent years (rates down, bond values up). In subsequ...

I read this interesting article last week in WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... lenews_wsj

about bonds heading from bull market to bubble. I tend to agree with what the article says. Don't bond returns have to go down sometime soon??

Hmm interesting. I think I'm going to stick with ARM's but that would be a good option b/c I've heard the best things about PF. I just did a 7/1 ARM with amerisave at 3.125%, so I'm wondering if it's worth it to go 5/5 with PF? No closing costs, so the only difference is the 2 years right?

7-10 years is probably too short for a bond fund IMO. I would drop it in 5 year CD's at Ally or a similar online provider. The only reason why I prefer ally though is they have 60 day interest penalties which is pretty freaking amazing if you ask me. If rates go up, just cancel the cd and get a new ...

The old system was awesome b/c you could book last minute flights for the same price as if you were to have planned ahead. Ex. I booked a $1,000 flight to Vegas 2 days before I left using the old rewards(two one-way vouchers) but that flight now would cost me whatever $1,000 is in points. But essent...

Welcome, you've gotten some good advice so far, let me give you my take. Since you started work halfway through the year you're going to get a good tax refund next year since you're being paid assuming 55k(and taxed accordingly), but you'll only have made half that this year. Don't get too used to t...

Hmm I see a miniscule increase in risk for smaller increase in return, but barely imo. If this is the reason why everyone is telling me I should hold 80/20 I'm not sold. I'll stick with 90/10 unless there is a better reason than that. thanks for taking the time to review my portfolio. OP, retiredjg...

Hmm I see a miniscule increase in risk for smaller increase in return, but barely imo. If this is the reason why everyone is telling me I should hold 80/20 I'm not sold. I'll stick with 90/10 unless there is a better reason than that. thanks for taking the time to review my portfolio.

I seem to recall seeing some charts on here that compared performance of a portfolio based on 90/10 80/20 70/30, can't seem to find them anymore. The chart you are referring to is probably a link in this thread on bonds. The short story is that (in general) you do make more with 90/10, but it is no...

If one compares the 5 year return of the Target Funds, it seems as though holding more bonds rather than stocks has helped get a higher return in the short run. While the future is unknown, it's difficult to say whether holding a 80/20 portfolio will do better than a 60/40. The point here is that t...

Haha I'm 25, maybe I'll change the title since most of the responses are asking how old I am??

I haven't used penfed, but I have done no cost refi's with quicken and amerisave. I have reviews of both on my site: google your pf pro no cost refi

bengal22 wrote:using rule of thumb i would recommend 2% in a US Bond index fund and 98% in a US Total Stock Fund. You are to young to tilt.

Sorry I don't know what this means..

Any reason you're not holding Vanguard Total International in your Roth and just Spartan Total Market and US Bond Market in your 401k? Fewer funds to track, same AA, and better diversification. Also, emerging markets (which is in Vanguard Total International) have historically been less correlated ...

Yea that's what I was thinking, something simple along those lines. I don't think I'll be able to keep a 3 fund portfolio but basically the same thing..

This post is in response to the post I made a couple weeks ago. Quite a few people asked me to post my entire portfolio in order to help out. http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=101399 I posted my portfolio 2 years ago: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6895...

Yes this is a good point, thanks!

Student loans at 6.8% really stick out to me! I would contribute 5k to a Roth IRA over the course of the year and use that as my emergency fund and put every other single free dollar to that loan. Your 401k looks bad so i wouldn't contribute one penny to it until the loan is paid off. I'm not sure w...

An international allocation of 30-40% of equities is perfectly reasonable. Any reason you're not holding Vanguard Total International in your Roth and just Spartan Total Market and US Bond Market in your 401k? Fewer funds to track, same AA, and better diversification. Also, emerging markets (which ...

Nice work, I'm at about exactly the same point as you. I use the 3 fund portfolio, with all super low cost funds, holding us stock in Roth IRA, US, Int'l and Bonds in 401k. Very easy to rebalance and helps me achieve the AA I want. Does your work offer an HSA? That's another way to sneak in a few th...

Thanks for the detailed reply. I reviewed the links you sent me and it looks like I'll be leaning towards a 30-40% international allocation within the stocks portion of my AA. Any reason to include emerging markets within this other than more diversification? I like my 3 fund portfolio and I'm not s...

I'm a 25 yo investor and I've had a 90/10 Stocks/Bonds AA since I started my retirement accounts 3 years ago. I am very comfortable with this AA and I usually rebalance twice a year(doing my second rebalance of the year right now). I max out my 401k, Roth IRA, HSA(although I don't count the hsa as p...

My 401k offers a Spartan US Bond Index Fund(FSITX) at ER of 0.11% and also offers short term, long term and intermediate treasury bond funds(FSBAX, FIBAX, FLBAX) at ER's of .10%. I'm trying to increase my knowledge of bunds but I'm having difficulty finding out the difference between these two type...

I was in a very similar situation to you 2 years ago except minus the debt! Obviously, you have to get rid of that debt before anything else. Before school, before even thinking about a house, etc. I think it's ok to have a nice reliable car, but realize that at your income level, you will need to m...

I'll echo what others have said, but come on dude! If you are pulling in 3400/mo after tax and living at home you should be able to save at least $2,500 a month! You live at home! Pay that debt off ASAP, it's a guaranteed return and then invest in some low cost index funds. Don't ever mention the wo...

Ok I'm a relatively young investor(25), I think I'd be happy with the US Bond fund since it does already hold the treasury funds. Should I expect a higher or lower rate of return in an extended(40+ year) time frame with the US bond fund compared to the treasury bond fund?

My 401k offers a Spartan US Bond Index Fund(FSITX) at ER of 0.11% and also offers short term, long term and intermediate treasury bond funds(FSBAX, FIBAX, FLBAX) at ER's of .10%. I'm trying to increase my knowledge of bunds but I'm having difficulty finding out the difference between these two types...