Bogleheads

We ended up paying to have all the garage's recommended repairs / replacement belts, etc. made. We trust this garage and think we got good value for money. I think we did the intelligent thing from ...

Looking for advice or thoughts regarding this classic trade-off: to maintain our present car, or buy a new one. We have a 2000 Mazda 626 with almost 75,000 miles on it. It's been a dependable car req ...

When I retired (early) we moved to a beautiful small city in the mountains of North Carolina and bought a bigger house than we needed, in part in order to have room for visiting family and friends. I ...

When I was 30 I had just begun a new career. I had a wife, a child, a small amount of life insurance, a used car, and a tiny, hot, "starter" house. I knew absolutely nothing, nothing, abou ...

For a year my wife put her entire salary as a library worker into Vanguard's Asset Allocation fund. It was my choice, or suggestion, rather, for her pension selection (she was working for the county ...

FYI, If you have at least 5 years of service as a federal or state employee prior to 1989, you are not subject to any NC state income tax on your federal or state pension. This is often not seen in l ...

Anybody want to suggest some authors/titles of really good historical fiction? I'm currently re-reading the Patrick O'Brian series of his Aubrey/Maturin novels, but I'm getting close to the end of th ...

If you really want something that will keep your attention across eight hours in cattle class, you need a great novel with strong, unique characters, humor, drama, pathos -- and a good plot helps too. ...

Please consider just raking or mulching with a mower instead of buying a leaf blower -- especially a gas-powered one. Those nasty things create truly awful sound pollution. Each fall I grow to almos ...

I thought I'd read everything by Dickens but after watching the Masterpiece Classic adaptation on PBS I dug out my copy and starting reading it... To my surprise it seems completely brand-new to me a ...

I just thought about this - will I have to amend my 2008 return? It doesn't effect the return's outcome, right?

I'm trying to decide whether to sell some of our taxable investments in order to fund a 2008 Roth IRA. We're mostly retired now (but my wife and I did work some in 2008 so are eligible to make an IRA ...

There are plenty of smarter number-crunchers out there to answer this but if you really do sell and move in three years, I think it (refinancing now to a low rate) would probably turn out to be a wash ...

I'm disappointed in the large number of "how to beat this ticket" responses in this thread. If, as the OP stated, his wife was speeding, then she was breaking the law, possibly endangering ...

I'm disappointed in the large number of "how to beat this ticket" responses in this thread. If, as the OP stated, his wife was speeding, then she was breaking the law, possibly endangering ...

My credit union switched from Mastercard to Visa, so Visa is now my only credit card. I thought that was a meaningless change from my point of view, since I've only ever seen "Visa/Mastercard Ac ...

I bought my stainless steel Rolex Oyster Perpetual Air King in Bombay in 1982 from Rolex in Switzerland via the diplomatic pouch and have worn it ever since, some 27 years. It has been cleaned and l ...

I just finished re-reading David Copperfield -- worth it (in spite of the weak ending) just for the adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber -- a character of even greater relevance and interest under curr ...

FYI, the TSP's L (target retirement) funds rebalance daily (with no taxable consequences, of course). I like to think the architects of these funds know what they're doing.

I know this forum is about money, how to make more money, how to avoid making less money, etc., and that's why I frequent the forum too -- but I hope all the same that most of us know that wealth is ...

Thanks, Nisiprius, that was enlightening. FYI, I checked the TSP's annuity calculator and a Single Life Annuity from Met Life (Level Payments, No Additional Features) for $100,000 for a 65 year old m ...

I was considering taking a monthly payment from my TSP fund vs. having the TSP buy me an annuity -- or I was considering this until I looked on the TSP website at the current Annuity Interest Rate for ...

My credit union offers a "float down" option -- maybe your daughter's does also. If you lock a rate and then it lowers before closing, you can "float down" to the lower rate for a ...

Thanks for your comments. This is all starting to make my head hurt. According to the calculator results below, I would save some $12,000 by refinancing at 4.5% for 15 years, over pre-paying the loa ...

I've been looking at various calculators and it seems that I could pay off my mortgage ($211,000 remaining) early (15 years from now instead of the 18.5 years left to run on my 20 year, 5.5% mortgage) ...

Will the SSA website's calculator know that you (probably) are subject to the Windfall Elimination Provision? Could this be the reason your estimated SSA payments are so much higher than your suppleme ...

I was 3/4 FSPS retiree and 1/4 FSRDS retiree, so my (COLA) inflation adjustments are (3/4 x official inflation less 1%) + (1/4 x official inflation number). So, closer to inflation, but still not qui ...

It occurred to me that although I am retired, I did do some paid work in 2008, and so I could invest this cash (proceeds from TLH sale of taxable fund) in a Roth IRA or other tax-deferred vehicle. (T ...

That is a good suggestion, Toons. I can apply half the money to the mortgage principal and half to improving my standard of living. The mortgage will be paid off early and then I can ease back on th ...

Thanks for your comment, Laura. I almost sold that small position but didn't, finally. I guess I could capture my losses in it "early" for 2009!

Hi dm200, thanks for your comments and questions.
Yes, we will both be eligible for social security - however, this will not increase my income, because I already receive a supplement to my pensio ...

I currently have a straight 20-year mortgage at 5.5% with about 18.5 years yet to run. My total house payments run about 33% of my gross government pension check (about 41% after health and life insu ...

Happier New Year, Everybody!

Doing a bit of tax-loss harvesting last month, I sold all my USAA International Fund shares, and now I need to find an appropriate new investment. I need to keep it in ...

If you are retired, you might want to look up the Bailey Decision (a quick internet search will suffice) by the NC Supreme Court to find out if you need to pay North Carolina income taxes on any pensi ...

We have two credit cards; one we use for most purchases (it accumulates points like frequent flyer miles) and of course pay off in full each month, and the other we keep just when we're traveling. We ...

Oh, I'm not buying more incandescent bulbs -- haven't since I moved into this house a year ago -- I just needed a justification for using the ones that were already here (until they burn out) rather t ...

I know that incandescent bulbs are much less energy-efficient than (for example) compact fluorescent lamps --- "inefficient" in the sense that much more of the energy going into them (electr ...

Retired 2 years ago at 55 and have been living mostly off my pension (about 85%), plus a bit of work income; not spending my investments yet for living expenses. The economic mess/market decline has ...

consider looking into applying for an unpaid leave of absence from your employer rather than just resigning, if that is an option.

also - is there anything you could do for your current employer ...

Good idea, I'll do that.

Gentlemen,
Mr. Bogle, your books, Bogle on Mutual Funds, and Common Sense on Mutual Funds, and Mr. Bernstein, your book, The Four Pillars of Investing, formed my basic understanding of and approac ...

Chaz, thanks. Actually I do have tax-deferred retirement accounts, but I am not considering any changes there. Sorry if I was not clear.

I'd appreciate your advice about some changes I'm thinking of making in my non-retirement, non-tax-deferred investments. These adjustments are things I've been thinking of doing for some time but hav ...

While we're at it, can't we do something about incorrect usage of apostrophe-S? I see "it's" used wrongly in so many places, by so many otherwise apparently well educated people, that I'm a ...

Thanks, EmergDoc. I'm okay with buying equities now, on the assumption/expectation/hope that these prices will eventually (!) turn out to be bargains (I'm a this-glass-is-half-full kind of guy).

I am "retired" (not working, living off government pension) yet not spending or accessing my TSP L Fund investment or my tax-deferred investments. In other words, I'm neither in the accumula ...

I retired 1.5 years ago and moved to a highly-recommended southern city. Once there, we bought (decided on) a house within 2 months. We are fairly happy with the house, but had we waited another 8 o ...

The original question here is about tax implications and not asset types, but doesn't the type of investment matter too in this calculation? For example, only the TSP has the G Fund, which (alone in t ...

Hi, folks. I'm thinking about converting a portion of our tax-deferred assets to Vanguard's Target Retirement Funds. We already have about 69% of retirement assets in the TSP L-2010 fund. My wife a ...

When I retired at 55 I got term life through USAA and reduced my FEGLI coverage significantly. As another poster has said, FEGLI gets quite expensive when you get 55+ or thereabouts. I am keeping th ...