Bogleheads.org

It doesn't sound like a Costco membership is worth it for your family, then. You can get a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken at any grocery store and how much are you really saving on gas? 10c a gallon twice a month?

There's nothing magical about Costco meat. It's just larger amounts than most grocery packages and reasonable quality at a competitive price. It's neither as good as meat from a specialty source nor as cheap as a grocery store's sale but it's consistently good enough for a lot of people.

"locked" or "asleep" is the common lingo: "I was trying to follow a recipe but my phone kept going to sleep." "I was finished sending a message so I pressed the button to lock it."

Technically they are a little different as a phone may be configured to not actually lock until it's been asleep for a few seconds or minutes.

Scorpion Stare wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 8:28 pm To be completely explicit, you need to perform both of these steps, in this order:

1. Sell of your current shares. DO NOT exchange them for a different share class. Simply sell them for cash. DO NOT withdraw the cash.
2. After step 1 is completed, then perform the rollover.

Your rollover failed because your old account contains shares that can't be transferred in kind. It will succeed if your old account is entirely in cash.

There's no reason OP can't withdraw the cash and then deposit into another 529 within 60 days as an indirect rollover unless I'm missing something nuanced?

Slow down for a moment. You're getting good responses here and, frankly, responding quite harshly. Folks are helping you. If you don't want to listen, well, good luck with your advisor and his 1.98% fees. You don't have to try to roll the class C shares into anything. Sell them if needed. The only thing that matters is that you roll the money. Tried this. The fidelity rep said it doesn’t work that way. Cannot do it. No need to slow down - moving forward in any way I can! https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/how-to-switch-529-plans All you need to do is sell what you have and get a check in the mail. That was already an option on the table according to your original post, with all the taxes and penalties it would entail. However, when y...

WOMoney wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 6:24 pm

If only there were a website where doctors could learn finance so this sort of thing didn't happen to them.

Have you checked out https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/?

Did you look at the username you quoted?

This is simply incorrect. Nope, you are wrong. I recommend some reading of Pub 970 to familiarize yourself with actual laws. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p970#idm140550550676640 Taken out of context. Thank you for your reply. It’s not a simple rollover and therefore does not apply to the original post. What is out of context? Please see the section about Rollovers and Other Transfers for QTP. It is very clear there that you can rollover to other QTP (529) and you will not get hit by income tax or penalty. [Unnecessary comment removed by admin LadyGeek] Please read initial post. Different class shares. Fidelity won’t allow it to happen from C to A. Are you familiar with the CT program? Slow down for a moment. You're getting good respons...

Do the math, though. You can find plenty of cars at $10k that get 30mpg. The $5k savings buys 1000 gallons at $5 per gallon.

For every 120,000 miles you drive the difference between 30 and 40mpg is 1000 gallons.

Are you going to put 120k miles on this car?

I happily drive a Camry Hybrid but I can't argue it's cost effective.

Quick shout-out to the Space Weather Prediction Center: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

We are indeed approaching the peak of solar maximum during solar cycle 25. On track for a particularly active cycle, but so was the last one until it wasn't.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/sola ... rogression

stoptothink wrote: ↑Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:17 am Older millenial, I'm an active churner of credit cards and have probably used a debit card once or twice in the past 20yrs. I never use a debit by choice.

Same here. My friends and family in this generation use credit cards same as everyone else.

Might be a demographic thing?

Honestly this isn't a problem you can solve with $50 on eBay. Old pocket cameras with high advertised zooms are not capable of taking the same quality images as a dSLR with a telephoto lens. You need a good sensor and a good lens, not just a zoom rating. You can get a decent used dSLR from 2010 that would work, but stay away from some of those gimmick cheap lenses you're finding. Beyond 300mm real telephoto lenses get stupid expensive. When you see a cheap one there is always a tradeoff. You can certainly get a photo of a bird from a distance with one of these cheap cameras but it won't be substantially better than what you're getting now. I see the same thing with folks chasing high zoom numbers on cheap telescopes, when that isn't usually...

If you trust this independent Subaru mechanic, then I have to ask, what do they say?

Our Subaru manual says every ten years at most. You're well beyond that, so it doesn't seem like an awful idea.

CletusCaddy wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:54 pm

dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:49 pm

CletusCaddy wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:42 pm FZROX has crushed VTSAX since inception. Turns out there is a way to build a better mousetrap

Uh, citation needed....

Ask and ye shall receive
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/fun ... mark=VTSAX

Your definition of crushed is not mine, then. They've performed virtually identically with the exception of fees.

CletusCaddy wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:42 pm FZROX has crushed VTSAX since inception. Turns out there is a way to build a better mousetrap

Uh, citation needed....

I checked portfolio visualizer and I see 13.28% for FZROX and 13.12% CAGR for VTSAX since Jan 2019 (FZROX started in Aug 2018).

The difference is the fees over four year almost precisely.

id0ntkn0wjack wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:04 pm

chinchin wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:17 am

id0ntkn0wjack wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:02 am Has increased demand from folks moving their non-FDIC insured deposits to the safety of TBills allowed the Treasury to reduce rates?

The Treasury doesn't set rates on their debt, the market does.

So what is the driver that is causing the Market to accept lower rates on TBills?

The market is "accepting" lower rates in the sense that investors are demanding more Tbills which has the effect of lowering rates.

Don't answer the phone unless you know the person calling. Perhaps that was rude at one time, but it's normal practice in 2023. You don't owe anyone the favor of answering their unsolicited call.

Good grief, the outrage over pennies on here...

There's a tip jar at Starbucks and DD for the 1% of customers that pay with cash. Everyone else uses the app, with which you have to explicitly select an extra tip if desired. There's no pressure, no tipping culture, and no automatic 20%.

If that $1 customers occasionally tip makes a difference to a single mom making $11 an hour at her second job, well, good. It sure as hell isn't hurting most BH in their wallets. Refusing to tip bartenders, baristas, and takeout isn't going to promote some social good by overturning the idea of tipping. It's just being cheap.

Quick plug for a balance bike rather than a pedal bike with training wheels. Seems to work well for our youngest and the other neighborhood kids.

The part they need to learn first is balance and steering, not pedaling, after all.

NAND flash and DRAM are essentially commodities and have price swings accordingly. Right now flash is exceedingly cheap and there is ample supply. However, it doesn't really have any bearing on automotive sensors or refrigerator controllers; the fabs to build one type of microcircuit are vastly different from another and capacity can't adjust for market needs. So, I would still expect to see issues on some products even when others have a glut.

lillycat wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:21 pm

dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:33 pm

lillycat wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:38 pm A cup of coffee costs $6 at SB? No.

No it doesn't. A regular coffee is $2.65 at SB and $2.19 at Dunkin.

Yes, it does. I witness my DH order a giant cup at the SB drive thru all the time and it’s $6.
I have no idea what coffee costs at DD.

Then it's not coffee he is ordering, but some sort of latte, cappuccino, frappucino, or maybe a nitro cold brew that would be $10 at any sort of local cafe.

lillycat wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:38 pm A cup of coffee costs $6 at SB? No.

No it doesn't. A regular coffee is $2.65 at SB and $2.19 at Dunkin.

Not usually, but occasionally I do it as a nice gesture. Maybe 20% of the time?

No, I don't think it's common.

You need to call them to do it.

mike_in_ny wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 8:55 pm This has been on my mind as well. How do responsible companies manage this?

I work for a $8B revenue company that at one point I heard had a payroll of nearly $3B. While
not all was US, it would imply that its biweekly payroll was somewhere around $100M.
To stay under FDIC limits would require 400 banks! Or do big companies just go with big
banks that are "too big to fail"?

They don't have all $100M in a business checking account at BoA. It's constantly moving around in short term commercial paper and other highly liquid instruments, some of which are routinely turned over every day to meet various payroll or accounts payable needs.

Vanguard shows the annual returns for up to the last 10 years. Why don't they show performance beyond that other than with the "since inception date"? Basically every fund provider uses the same time periods. They have to draw the line somewhere. Many of your past posts seem to be skeptical of Vanguard. Here you state Surely this is an innocent oversight and not part of a ploy to hide the fact that index funds consistently and substantially outperform actively managed funds beyond the 10 years? And in your other thread today you asked: Surely this is an innocent oversight, and not part of a ploy to increase expense ratios without people noticing? Are these legit questions or are you suggesting there is an issue with Vanguard that...

GaryA505 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:57 pm

dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 7:02 am Merrill Edge is a crap platform with crap service, but it's pretty popular simply for the bonus you can get on BoA credit cards by holding $100k there, which can be any normal indexed ETF.

What kind of problems did you have with Merrill Edge?

I have an account there and it seems to be fine so far, what should I watch out for?

Not much in the way of problems per se, but the app is very limited in what it can do and the website is very non mobile friendly. It's not nearly as nice as Fidelity. But, it functions.

Reaching support is very hit or miss. It's typical big bank level of support, again, not as convenient as Fidelity or Vanguard, but it's not something I use much, either

Jags4186 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:58 pm

dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:52 pm I would. Others wouldn't.

But I also don't see how your $200k income supports spending $106k and saving $72k?

72k includes 7k employer match.

200 - 65 - 106 = 29k in taxes. If he lives in a no or low state income tax state, maxes out 2 401ks and say an HSA or FSA that sounds about right.

I always forget those exist

I would. Others wouldn't.

But I also don't see how your $200k income supports spending $106k and saving $72k?

I have the same issue. Worse, I can't even buy TTTXX or TOIXX as a regular mutual fund transaction but have to navigate via a "cash management" tab on the non-mobile website. But I do what I have to to keep my BoA status. Everything else I have on ME is ETFs which behave as easily as expected elsewhere. You can't buy via the trade tab? I can if I click on "Full Trade". You can't do it under "Quick Trade". I just select Mutual Fund and enter in the ticker. Yeah if I enter TTTXX or TOIXX into the search or quote box from the Full Trade screen I get "We could not find any matching securities." I don't know if this is common or not. Only works from the website by browsing to Cash Management. I can do it ...

anon_investor wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:04 am

dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:56 am I have the same issue. Worse, I can't even buy TTTXX or TOIXX as a regular mutual fund transaction but have to navigate via a "cash management" tab on the non-mobile website.

But I do what I have to to keep my BoA status. Everything else I have on ME is ETFs which behave as easily as expected elsewhere.

You can't buy via the trade tab? I can if I click on "Full Trade". You can't do it under "Quick Trade". I just select Mutual Fund and enter in the ticker.

Yeah if I enter TTTXX or TOIXX into the search or quote box from the Full Trade screen I get "We could not find any matching securities."

I don't know if this is common or not. Only works from the website by browsing to Cash Management.

OldSport wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:29 am

dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:56 am I have the same issue. Worse, I can't even buy TTTXX or TOIXX as a regular mutual fund transaction but have to navigate via a "cash management" tab on the non-mobile website.

But I do what I have to to keep my BoA status. Everything else I have on ME is ETFs which behave as easily as expected elsewhere.

How specifically do you purchase TTTXX and TOIXX with ME? This seemingly very simple action is not clear at all to me, and have wasted a lot of time trying to get this to work. It is frustrating.

I have to go to Research, then Mutual Funds on the actual website (not app). The I click Cash Management Solutions, where a list of money markets is available. Then I can order.

Don't use TMobile phone support. It's garbage. Stores aren't any better. This won't be popular with a lot of BH, but you need to use T-Force support available on Facebook or Twitter. They are vastly better trained and given more power to make things right.

You can just make a throwaway Twitter account if you don't already have one, then send a direct message to @TMobileHelp.

Check the Reddit for TMobile as well - you'll see this is the only real way to get things solved.

An awful lot of wealthy people, like the population at large, aren't rational.

I have the same issue. Worse, I can't even buy TTTXX or TOIXX as a regular mutual fund transaction but have to navigate via a "cash management" tab on the non-mobile website.

But I do what I have to to keep my BoA status. Everything else I have on ME is ETFs which behave as easily as expected elsewhere.

enviroian wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 8:04 pm I see nowhere on the Merrill app what the name of my investment product nor what the interest rate is. Is there something I’m missing? It just says “total portfolio value $100,000 and underneath it says “$0.00 0.00%”.

Did you actually buy anything yet? The account is just an account like any other brokerage. You need to buy an ETF, mutual fund, money market fund, and so forth to have anything other than a pile of cash.

Another reminder that Merrill Edge is not the same as Merrill Lynch. I would never use a Merrill Lynch account.

I only use Edge because I can get the CC rewards and ATM refunds at BoA. If that program was significantly reduced I'd move it all back to Fidelity, perhaps chasing a transfer bonus once.

It's hard to say from the information provided, but a high profit-margin home business can have pretty big tax bills, yes.

The extra chunk of social security payments is significant.

tunafish wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 6:37 am Are you switching between systems? I believe xlsx is for a newer excel and perhaps older excels do not like it.

Xlsx came about in Office 2007 which realistically was a long, long time ago. Anyone using Microsoft 365 would be able to open any valid Excel file even if the extensions were mixed.

Fpdesignco wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 2:24 pm

enviroian wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 2:22 pm I'm divorced, no kids. I only have a BOA debit card. I hold a BOA checking acct (payroll ACH into it) and general savings account.

I'm concerned if I transfer a few hundred grand to a newly opened Merrill account I'll lose my preferred status with BOA (I can't remember the balance minimum tiers).

Merril counts into your BOA status. I keep almost nothing with BOA and eveything in Merril to keep my rewards tier.

And quite frankly, this is the only compelling reason to ever use Merrill Edge - it's not a bad service but it's not nearly as user friendly as Fidelity or E-Trade or Schwab.

Not to lock it, no. You can set "quick taps" on the back as short cuts for various actions but none are to lock the device. You can also tap the screen to light it up (to check notifications and such) but again not to lock it.

Edit - the power button can do this if course, I assume you meant tapping the screen specifically

bikechuck wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 1:51 pm

dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 1:47 pm Are you thinking of MLB.tv? That's entirely different from MLB Network.

I don't know ... I did not know there was a difference I just want to be able to watch Chicago White Sox games in Central Ohio.

That's MLB.tv, the package you pay for (free with TMobile!) that streams out-of-market games. It's not changing. You can get it straight from the Roku app.

YouTubeTV dropped the MLB Network, which is like NFL Network or ESPN - highlights and analysis mostly. It's a single channel that only carries occasional featured games.

bikechuck wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 1:46 pm

Johnny Thinwallet wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:53 pm 03/16/23 update ...

Just got an email that YouTubeTV is hitting us next month with a sharp price increase to $72.99, up from the current $64.99.

Very disappointing, especially because they just recently dropped MLB Network.

I was planning on signing up for MLB network for the second time this season. Can I just add it as a Roku channel for the same price that it previously cost to add it on YouTube TV?

Are you thinking of MLB.tv? That's entirely different from MLB Network.

I dropped YouTube TV after their previous price increase. I don't know what disappoints me more: that they're continuing to raise prices, or that they have enough price-insensitive subscribers to permit them to raise prices. $72.99 is still a bargain compared to cable. The new multi-view feature has been awesome for the NCAA Tournament. It really depends on how many cables boxes or dvrs you had with cable. $72.99 is more than the cost of cable tv + basic DVR for a single TV when bundled with internet. However, there are a lot of households out there that pay over $200/mo for the cable alone, and those are the huge winners with YTTV. I'm still getting YTTV half price through TMobile but when that ends it will be hard to argue against droppi...

bling wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:44 am OP, make sure you mention the signup bonus. merrill edge has a $600 one right now which applies to you (>200k deposit).

Will that apply to funds transferred from BoA?

enviroian wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:27 am Thanks all. Good tips and will contact BOA today regarding a Merrill account.

Sign up for a Merrill Edge account. It's a plain old no cost brokerage. Don't let them sign you up for Merrill Lynch or any advisor led program.

Doing it online is the safest bet.

martincmartin wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 7:03 am Last night a friend mentioned an account at M1 for their 18 year old. It offers automatic rebalancing. Anybody have thoughts on M1, either for a kid who hasn't thought about investing, or for a Boglehead?

M1 isn't bad per se, just be aware that they explicitly describe themselves as a tech company that provides financial services. Their brokerage platform focuses on stocks, ETFs, and crypto. They do not allow you to buy, sell, or even transfer in mutual funds. That alone would be a problem for many BH but a total non-issue for most new investors.

Merrill Edge is a crap platform with crap service, but it's pretty popular simply for the bonus you can get on BoA credit cards by holding $100k there, which can be any normal indexed ETF.

Tracker968 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 11:33 pm Does SIPC have the $250k limit?

https://www.fidelity.com/trading/faqs-about-account

It is does ($500k actually ) but if Fidelity went under suddenly your stocks wouldnt disappear in the way a banks deposits do. You'd still own all the stocks or mutual funds you did before. They also carry excess insurance beyond SIPC. Read the link above.

Cost increase or not, the 4-in-1 multichannel viewing for March Madness is a killer feature. Try getting that from an antenna!

Of course, only relevant for about 4 days in mid March...

It's one of those things that isn't an objectively bad decision. This isn't putting all your retirement in crypto or co-signing for an old roommates's car loan bad. It just isn't necessarily optimal financially.

If you'll sleep better, it's worth it.

an_asker wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 8:00 am I'm surprised no one has told you to use tax software. Apparently once you start using it, all your tax filing issues will be solved. Or so I have been repeatedly told.

Scroll up.

It's true though. I don't understand all the angst over filing a schedule C. It's just a few more screens on whatever software you use.