Bogleheads.org

Iorek

Clearly you should be talking with a good account. A good one will always pay for themselves by giving you proper advice and guidance. Agree. I'm sorry for your loss but I would sit down and sort through these issues with a professional (or maybe two, bcs I am not sure if you need both a lawyer and...

Iorek

When we bought a condo our lawyer advised us to get homeowners insurance with whoever insured the rest of the building because that way the two companies can't argue with each other (although you still might not hav coverage in this particular situation).

Iorek

My John Hancock policy cannot raise premiums or reduce benefits. That is almost certainly not true. Most likely you have a policy where JH would have to go the state insurance commissioner and seek permission to raise rates for the entire class of policyholders on the ground that it's needed to ens...

Iorek

Your wife is a nurse and she is subject to a $5k deductible for labor and delivery? That seems screwed up.

Iorek

How about just using t-mobile? Free international data and text... That's what my wife and I use, since we hardly ever call out. Using the iPhone for messaging back home and GPS on the road, or searching for resturants, hotels, and so forth... It's not practical for most people (including myself) t...

Iorek

We try to fly economy plus for long flights and to find frequent flyer business class tickets (I've found United to be ok about availability, if you are flexible and willing to keep checking repeatedly beginning months in advance)

Iorek

There was a period in the 90s when all forms of income were taxed at the same rate. Made many tax policy people happy but it didn't last (bcs IMO of the outsized influence of wealthy people, who get disproportionate shares of their income from unearned income, on our political process)

Iorek

I try to tip for beach service and maid service but I agree that one of the reasons I go to an AI (when I go) is to be free of money, not to be worrying about having singles and tipping etc. would never really occur to me to tip at meals.

Iorek

I guess it's personal. If you like REITs and you might want to get back up to 6% if your employer (or your employer's plan) changes in the future then I would be fine with deciding to hedge my risk by cutting back for now but not selling entirely. OTOH if you decide you'd rather not deal with a smal...

Iorek

Not sure how much variation among those places but I think Thailand gets brutally hot and humid in August. You might want to look at planning around climate?

Iorek

First I am truly sorry for your loss. It sounds like you had a great mom and you lost her too soon. Second, the wiki has a good section on windfalls (including inheritances)-- https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Managing_a_windfall The basic advice is to put aside 6-12 months in a bank account and the r...

Iorek

The IRS is not particularly focused on this area. The key is; are your children receiving compensation for tasks that justify that payment. Somethings are clear and the rest is like many issues in the tax code, very gray. Allowances are clearly not compensation. Generally it is believed that can no...

Iorek

Taking dress shirts to the dry cleaners.

I would never deprive someone of a gadget, and ymmv but I found a no-knead bread recipe (like artisan bread in 5 minutes a day) makes better bread with less effort than a bread maker. Only problem was I was eating too much bread

Iorek

I've never had a loan with a prepayment penalty. I think they may be against the law in MD.

Iorek

Nisiprius, this might be the first time I've disagreed with one if your posts but I can't see why the borrower shouldn't just treat it as another option, calculate the break even point and decide if they will still have the mortgage at that time. In retrospect we will know the "right" answ...

Iorek

I did these loans regularly when I was refinancing every year or two (I've owned the same house for 15 years but probably had 5 or 6 mortgages in that time). I think that the breakeven point was usually somewhere around 7 years-- the mortgage professor website has great calculators for figuring this...

Iorek

Personally I see it as a charging issue. Why would I want to buy a Bolt or any electric car for that matter that I couldn't even drive long distance. It's like buying an expensive but very defective car. Not being able to drive 200+ miles on charge is defective in the same ways as not being able to...

Iorek

Mutual funds are required to value shares each day at a price equal to the fair market value of their assets, so that would ordinarily include both unrealized gain and loss. That is generally considered a feature not a bug of mutual funds. If you poke around you should be able to find M* or other ra...

Iorek

That's pretty impressive that competition has driven the prices down. I will say that without a doubt Schwab (and T Rowe Price) have better customer service that Vanguard, but I rarely need customer service (honestly Vanguard, in 2017 your CSRs really assume without asking that my wife and I share t...

Iorek

I don't have a view of how much "should" be I bonds but I just want to say that when I was starting out I liked i bonds a lot as a vehicle for extra savings because they are tax deferred (or conceivably exempt), liquid, and offer guaranteed but decent returns. It's a good option for money ...

Iorek

my problem is I just want an appliance. I am used to Toyota and Honda reliability and scared to own anything else. They're not perfect but the odds are in my favor. Ok, if you want just an "appliance" then you need to wait a while...a long while! Remember, you are comparing the reliabilit...

Iorek

I think Tesla is under such pressure to produce cars that quality will continue to suffer. I'd get a Bolt now while you can get the tax credit (or don't and leave one for me ;) ) It's amazing to me to see how quickly the level 3 charging network os being built out. 18 months ago there wasn't a singl...

Iorek

I think about how things have changed over the last 20 years and I just don't like the idea of tying my money up for that long (yes I could cash them in, but if I do so I accept an interest rate of 0.10 %). Certainly it could be the case that 3.5% will turn out to be a great interest rate for the n...

Iorek

My impression is that the financial industry has been on a campaign (spearheaded at one point by John Robert before he was put on the Supreme Court) to make it impossible to bring class action lawsuits. The companies have been putting arbitration clauses in every consumer contract and the courts hav...

Iorek

You might want to check out Vroom-- they are like carmax but internet based. We sold a car through them recently and it was both really easy and they gave us a better price than carmax. We just took some photos of the car and answered some questions on their website/app and we had a quote very quic...

Iorek

Merry Christmas Taylor, and thank you for everything-- your service, the reminder of that Christmas, and all you've done since.

Iorek

But if you retire at 55 and don't draw your pension until 60 don't you give up your ability to participate in federal employee health benefits? Do you have a plan for health insurance, esp if the ACA goes away?

Iorek

You should be able to do this. You will probably need the nanny to provide a SS number and to sign something confirming the care/payment but neither should be a problem.

Iorek

I think the L Fund is the right way to go. A couple of cautions on TSP vs Roth. I would encourage you to decide to max out TSP before contributing to Roth. Contributing to TSP/traditional 401k instead of a Roth allows you to put more away and I think you are unlikely to be in a higher tax bracket in...

Iorek

Mail order -- Peets or Deans beans.

Iorek

fundseeker wrote:Oh, and while we are here discussing these things, I assume you will be maxing out the FSA?

Maxing out a healthcare FSA is not necc. a good idea.

Iorek

My favorite concept portfolio is below. It assumes that 401k or IRA has been maxed as well as Roth....... 401k or tIRA - 25 % bonds and 25 % stocks ROTH - 25 % stocks Taxable - 25 % stocks Your mileage will vary. Do this as well : Asking Portfolio Questions Just curious. I can see some logic for th...

Iorek

I also struggle with this every year. We have stuck with std on the theory that we are insuring against the worst case but tbh I would guess we are spending more than necessary.

Iorek

You might want to check out Vroom-- they are like carmax but internet based. We sold a car through them recently and it was both really easy and they gave us a better price than carmax. We just took some photos of the car and answered some questions on their website/app and we had a quote very quick...

Iorek

Is the sale price not recorded with the county? This is not tax advice but if what you have is just the price it was offered at I would just take a conservative approach -- knock 10 or even 20% off that. (Not sure if you have any additions to basis from permanent improvement, or how you are handling...

Iorek

Another vote here for traditional with a Roth IRA (probably about the same effect on take home pay as 100% Roth).

Iorek

My parents have given my family cash gifts without strings (but making clear we should not count on them from year to year, which means our budget has to work without them). The outcome is that we can afford to both fund Roth IRAs (on top our employer retirement saving) and travel more than we could...

Iorek

Your money is yours to spend however you wish, but I would suggest if you don't trust your kids maybe you shouldn't give them large sums of money, and if you do then monitoring their statements is unnecessary.

Iorek

brought me to the conclusion that my first investments to be held in a Roth IRA will be index funds. That being said, I'd like to learn all I can about investing in mutual funds The reason nobody talks about this is that index funds are better. This is all you need to know about actively managed mu...

Iorek

You might want to check out EV possibilities-- they are naturally high in torque (leave aside Tesla and its "ludicrous mode"-- IIRC even the EV version of the Chevy Spark has 300+ ft-lb) and are a lot of fun to drive.

Iorek

I would investigate i-bonds and (given low rates and low expected inflation) EE bonds-- those are are good tax-deferred ways of investing in fixed income (many of us use i-bonds as a place to store an emergency fund). I would also get consider (and get more confortable) with long-term investing in a...

Iorek

We max out our 401k, do backdoor Roth, and have an automatic monthly debits from our bank account with 1/3 going to i-bond, 1/3 going to EE bonds (should be in retirement in 20 years) and 1/3 going to VTSAX (taxable). I consider the savings bonds to be tax-advantaged savings-- would rather have I bo...

Iorek

FYI, T-mobile doesn't ever charge for data in Europe, but they say they will limit speeds (that's why the promotion is free LTE speeds). In my experience, you can usually get free 3G speeds, with speeds sometimes being faster and sometimes slower. Three of us traveled with tmo phones, both before an...

Iorek

... The increases for Federal Employees are similar to the increases everyone else has already been seeing. Nothing new. ... _D_ I admit I don't have hard data but as I tried to say above, I disagree with this in the sense that fed employees had a similar increase a few years ago and should have an...

Iorek

In Tuscany you could look at the Val D'Orcia. Lots of smallish towns that could be base for daytrips to other small towns (might try to find a place with a pool, so you do shorter day trips combined with afternoons at the pool). Thinking of places like Montalcino, Montepulciano, San Quirico, Bagno V...

Iorek

Vieques.

Iorek

I find the calculators at the mortgage professor to be very good, but my answer is to always look for a no cost refi, where the lender offers you a slightly higher rate plus a credit against closing costs (in effect, a negative point-- instead of you paying them to lower the rate, they pay you to ra...

Iorek

For what it's it worth, I think it's important for feds to distinguish LTCi generally and the fed offering. There are lots of questions about whether to get LTCi generally, but then there additional questions about whether, if you want LTCi, you should get the fed version or your own policy. Note th...

Iorek

I am not retired (10-15 years out) but fairly conservative and spent some time thinking about this because most of our assets are in TSP which has no EM. I would be fine holding EM in an index but I decided not to try and fill in the TSP for two reasons. One, as you point out, is that it doesn't tur...

Iorek

mikep wrote:For no cost refinancing I would always do it for 0.25%. I would not pay $2500 closing costs though, more like $0.

Agree. Amerisave usually has a good variety of options that allow you to do a no cost and then you have no sunk costs if you want to do another (or move).

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