Bogleheads

I cannot believe I'm about to be a cynical bastard, but that sure sounds like a scam to me...

The mother sent the kid in without enough money to buy anything, assuming or hoping someone would p ...

It's hard when you're an emotional type and super pressed for time.

These are the two most important tools in a salesman's toolbox. If he detects either of these, you're sunk.

I do what I love and get paid pretty well to do it. My take is, I'll keep doing this until they stop paying me. Until that day, I'll pretend like my industry is on the outs and keep socking away the ...

I have an old rear projection television. It went tango uniform about 2 years ago and instead of running out and buying a new TV, I decided to have this one fixed. The repair guy came out and did a f ...

I have an old rear projection television. It went tango uniform about 2 years ago and instead of running out and buying a new TV, I decided to have this one fixed. The repair guy came out and did a f ...

I like the question Dave Ramsey poses to people with this same question. Would you borrow money against your home to invest in the stock market?

So when paying with cash...do you wait until the last possible minute to tell them this after the price has been negotiated?

yes

My brother wanted to pay cash for a car recently but only got d ...

I'm laughing at paying off the house as knowing "we'll always have a house."

That is simply not true. Houses deteriorate. They fall apart. The neighborhood around the house could decli ...

There is nothing special about paying off a mortgage. It is more impressive if you pay cash for the house in the first place. Smile

I wasn't really out to impress anyone. Paying off a loan isn' ...

Another look:

Having liquidity can also make you feel secure.

Yes, a paid off house is great. No argument here.

The problems come with the "paying off" part. The prepayment (extra a ...

Forget all of those cold places. Snow shoveling makes me miserable. Bahamas at #5 sounds like my choice. Although I've been there and ventured outside of the gates of my resort and it wasn't a plac ...

...Ask for references and call them. Likely, the handy man has a photo album of other jobs they have performed...

I have always wondered about the usefulness of references. Is a contractor go ...

There are a number of threads recently about house pay off vs. investing in something that yields higher returns. There is also a wiki article regarding this "frequently asked question". M ...

Thanks all so far, this is definitely helpful. Craigslist is hit or miss on a lot of things, so that's not entirely surprising. I've been putting off some of these projects for YEARS so time is obvi ...

I have a number of loose ends that I can't seem to tie up around the house. It mostly stems from having two left hands when it comes to handy work. The other part stems from hating the tasks. Things ...

Another "me too" post. Satisfied. The rate got jerked around this summer. Some speculation that they *HAD* to lower it to become more competitive (somehow I doubt they argued a whole lot) ...

Now go ask on a technical analysis forum if buy and hold is for suckers. I think your audience on both is extremely biased.

No. The only way to remove yourself from backwardation and contango is to NOT hold futures contracts. With a commodity like oil, that's likely impossible. Metal, on the other hand, not so impossibl ...

Thanks for the replies so far. It sounds like maybe I'm making it out to be worse than it is, then. I guess I just always view insurance as replacing something that would be financially devastating ...

The hail here last spring was pretty intense. We had a number of hail storms, some were pretty scary. So I'm not exactly sure who triggered it or how, but nearly the whole neighborhood, one house at ...

We in the U.S. way over-consume relative to the carrying capacity of our planet. And there are a billion hungry people out there. Spending $3K keeping an ailing cat alive for 18 months is a decision ...

My rule of thumb is, am I keeping them alive for me or am I keeping them alive for them? When that shifts from them to me, it's time to end it. Never an easy decision though.

Kennesaw as well.

I agree, the reasoning sounds very lame. Unless you're considering gifting this money, I think this is a horrible idea. If this is their reason, it sounds like you're being taken by irresponsible ad ...

Couldn't agree with you more. I hate the idea of more regulations and restrictions on trading products, but I think these inverse and leveraged ETFs are poison pills for most people because they simp ...

UDN is short futures contracts, so you'd be subject to contango and backwardation. The best way to get a feel for lag is to compare the ETF with the index it's trying to track. Usually if the holdin ...

OK, I see what I'm up against here. Sorry to have taken up your time ... moving along.

That's not what I'm getting at. I'm saying it doesn't take someone with above average intelligence or above average income to live beneath their means. Can we agree on that simple point?

It doesn ...

Thought on this a little bit more. While maybe not an alternative asset, per se, being short options is generally a profitable idea. Sell some short puts and calls around assets that you like. I do ...

Not to jump on you but based on you post and response I'm not surprised that you don't get it.

Really? Not to smack you upside your head, but *whack*.

You're apparently a talented indi ...

If this is a cry fest, then maybe the current generation needs to learn from this as well. Number of years with a company doesn't, nor should it, guarantee you anything. You should be socking away a ...

You're not really comparing apples to apples here. Right now you're in risk free investments. If this cash can lose principal, then why not invest in foreign where some of the currency risk is absor ...

If this is a cry fest, then maybe the current generation needs to learn from this as well. Number of years with a company doesn't, nor should it, guarantee you anything. You should be socking away a ...

So what are you referring to? Gold is a commodity. Not including real estate, you say? Perhaps Icelandic fishing hatcheries?

I think the more exotic you get, the more you're going to suffer from ...

I'd also like to add that it's not really clear to me what your objective is. The down payment on the house seems like an immediate need, but if I'm reading you correctly, that's going to account for ...

Ask yourself this question. If you gained 20-30% of that money in the next 6 months, would that change your plans? What about if you lost 20-30% of that money, would that change your plans? Most li ...

I don't think so. It's a parody of the old Morgan Stanley commercials where they make it seems like the adviser is there through every step of an amazingly well adjusted, motivated, right thinking ch ...

I might also add, that I agree with you that 30 years without tweaks is probably impossible. But one thing that keeps my grubby little hands out of the long term holdings is a relatively small highly ...

Christine,
Thanks for the response. I don't mind listing the contents of the portfolio currently, it's just a beast. Many single stocks, ETFs, etc.

So here goes:

I'd like to do away with
PWY ...

I've come to the realization that my portfolio has too many moving parts. Many of them overlap or are unnecessary in my current opinion (hopefully it doesn't change much in the near future).

Thank ...

Reminds me of this skit. Apologies if it's a duplicate.

http://www.hulu.com/embed/J4vJO8oTo5zAO0QrO_sbLQ

I dipped my toe in a couple of times on Thursday and Friday, but if you think that this dip is a blip on the way up, that may not be so. We all know that when rates rise, bond prices fall. Here it i ...

To answer your question, um, yes, eventually market forces will arb it. That's the deal with ETFs, they issue new shares when demand is there and suck them back in when it is not. This is how they s ...

What are my returns measured in pork bellies?

Great question, because honestly, if the fit hits the shan, would you want a bunch of gold in your pantry or delicious bacon?

Unpredictable? Stocks are up, bonds are down. That seems pretty "normal" to me. Laughing

Seriously though, I've been looking for months to add to my bond holdings and took the opportunit ...

This is harder to find, but if you do find it, I highly recommend it. Not too expensive, but really tasty.

Dimple Pinch

http://www.scotchwhisky.net/blended/dimple_pinch.htm

2 and 3 sound OK either way. I'd strongly advise against option 1. The emergency fund is there for an emergency. This isn't an emergency.

One suggestion, buy your own carfax report. I didn't trust the dealer's report which came back squeaky clean. When I paid $20 for my own it showed the car had been in an accident. The dealer was pu ...

Amen to that, congrats. We paid ours off when I was 35, so we're in the same ballpark. I have no regrets and you won't either, way to go.

Now-a-days real estate tax is becoming like another mortgag ...

VT, I agree 100%. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against foreign labor, I'm against offshoring because of the problems I've inherited from it (and maybe others have had good luck). I don't have the capa ...