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10-4 thanks!

I have an HSA with a decent-sized balance ($60k) from a previous employer. I have never spent it - I’ve just saved receipts/EOB’s over the years. But last year I changed employers and I’m now covered under a plan with an FSA. I’ve already spent all my FSA funds for the year. Going forward, for remaining expenses this year which will NOT be paid via FSA, can I save receipts/EOB’s and earmark those receipts to backup future withdrawals from HSA?

Johnny Thinwallet wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 1:35 pm I'll also add that I had a second person with me (my dad) during the transaction. We met at a public place convenient to me. The buyer had a concealed carry (loaded) with him, and that was a bit unnerving. He admitted he was as wary of me as I was of him.

I guess he must be pretty bad at concealing if you knew he was carrying! I’ll have a pistol in my pocket when I make the transaction, but that doesn’t make me invincible. I like your idea of getting a friend or family member to accompany you. I sold a car many years ago (cash transaction) and never thought twice about the risk, but it was a much smaller transaction (~$2500).

Jack FFR1846 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 11:51 am In the past, it was so much easier to sell. These days, anything like a car, I'll bring it to Car Max and accept what they offer.

I'm wondering why you didn't just trade your car in with the new(er) car purchase.

Thanks for all the tips. I go back and forth after reading all these posts, on whether I’m going to regret the hassle of selling. Maybe we should have traded into dealer when we purchased. We live in a city of ~150k population and drove 5 hours to a big city to make the purchase, so now we have to deal with selling in a (somewhat) smaller market.

Agent 99 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 3:00 pm I recently sold a 10 yo Miata with 11K miles to Carvana. I checked carmax and vroom as well. Carvana quoted a price I couldn’t refuse or a nanosecond. As recommended above get the on-line quotes rather than solely relying on other sources to come up with price.

Interesting to hear that you got a competitive offer. I just assumed that a private sale was the only way to get close to market value, and that any company like carmax or caravana would lowball.

Agent 99 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 3:00 pm How did you arrive at $8-9K?

I probably need to fine-tune this. $8800 is the “Carguru fair market value” for the same year/make/model with similar features and mileage. So I figured that would be a good starting point to list.

We recently bought a vehicle to replace my spouse’s 10 yr old car. Now we are looking to sell the old car. It is likely worth +/- $8k.

Any tips from the group? Should we just list it on Craigslist or should we (can we?) use one of the dedicated used car sites (eg Cargurus, Carfax, etc) to sell it? Also, how should we request payment?

Thanks!

cshell2 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 27, 2022 3:17 pm

makeitcount wrote: ↑Thu Oct 27, 2022 1:56 pm How does one make a straightforward savings rate calculation after taxes if they, like many of us, contribute to pre-tax accounts like 401ks? Perhaps I'm overlooking a simple answer but it is escaping me.

I can't figure out how you would do that either. I have over 50% of my gross coming out pre-tax for 401K and HSA savings, so right off the bat I'd be at over 100% savings rate using net in the denominator.

It’s not possible to have over 100% savings rate. You must be misunderstanding something.

Using your example, but making it more specific: if someone had a $50k income and put $25k into 401k/HSA, paid $5k taxes, and spent $20k, then they would have a 25/45=55% savings rate, when using net income in the denominator.

MGBMartin wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 7:45 pm No paperwork sounds a bit off to me.
So no written estimate or work order and no receipt for what was done or that you actually paid.
What happens if something goes wrong like you show up to get your car and he wants more than he told you.

I guess I’d just use my spare key and take my vehicle back. Or I’d call the cops. Either way, this seems unlikely.

MGBMartin wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 7:45 pm Or, you get your car back and it breaks down 2 miles down the road, that actually happened to me once.

Not sure how paperwork would help in this situation. When you take the vehicle back to the mechanic, he’s either going to stand behind the work he did, or he isn’t. A piece of paper won’t make much of a difference, in my opinion.

mk1039 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 8:18 pm

dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 8:15 pm

mk1039 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 8:11 pm I think cash only means they don't want to pay for credit card charges.

Sure, if that's what you want to believe...

Yes it happened to me in a small repair shop, the guy charged me extra if i paid by credit card instead of cash. though i did get receipt of whether i paid by cash or credit card.

If they let you pay by credit card then they weren’t a cash-only business.

If buying $2 million of AVGE now, any concerns about the 30-day median bid-ask spread of 0.16%? Maybe I should wait a bit? Even if you got terrible execution (executed price equal to the ask) it would only cost you 8 basis points (half the spread). The expected return of AVGE is something in the ballpark of 3bps per DAY. So you should expect that waiting 3 trading days and getting excellent execution would cost you MORE than making the trade today and getting poor execution. Long story short, I wouldnt consider waiting to be a very good option. How do you figure an expected return of of 3bps per day? I took a 750 bps expected annual return and divided that by 250 trading days. I’m sure that neither of those numbers is exactly right, but th...

Ray_McKigney wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 1:41 pm If buying $2 million of AVGE now, any concerns about the 30-day median bid-ask spread of 0.16%?

Maybe I should wait a bit?

Even if you got terrible execution (executed price equal to the ask) it would only cost you 8 basis points (half the spread). The expected return of AVGE is something in the ballpark of 3bps per DAY. So you should expect that waiting 3 trading days and getting excellent execution would cost you MORE than making the trade today and getting poor execution.

Long story short, I wouldnt consider waiting to be a very good option.

Cost is a continuous (not a discrete) variable. Not sure what purpose there is in “drawing a line.”

This is standard practice for employees w a vehicle stipend. The expectation is that you have a late model car w low miles that is both professional looking and reliable. Good to know. It’s still a great deal for you. Buy a used Ford Fusion or similar and you will be well ahead. It also gives u flexibility to get a luxury car and offset the costs. (Which is attractive to some people) I suppose this can be done. That said, I currently drive an SUV and so swapping it out for a ford fusion would make shuttling around the family more challenging. Having said all of that, you should never have viewed it as compensation. It’s to offset the costs of having a vehicle to use for employment. Fair point. I will say, they featured it pretty prominentl...

Do you submit a mileage expense report instead of the $750 per month or do they expect you to drive and get nothing? Still a bummer if you don't drive much to get reimbursed for the miles. Do you work for a megacorp or will they see you and your vehicle on a regular basis? I think an exception is a fair ask especially with the vehicle supply issues. I asked (about getting mileage reimbursed instead) and got a wishy-washy vague response from my supervisor. So my impression is that the desire to reimburse for mileage isn't there, though perhaps I just need to press a little more firmly. I don't know. I agree with you, even if I only drive a couple hundred miles per month for work related matters, that's still going to irk me to be paying out...

JoeRetire wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 3:00 pm You can ask for anything you like. Be prepared for when they say "No".

Do you happen to know why the mileage and age requirements are in place? Do you drive customers around?

I didn't get a clear answer when I asked about why the mileage/age requirements are in place. I do not drive customers around. In fact, we really don't have customers of any sort (hard to explain how that's possible, without sharing the exact type of work I do).

JoeRetire wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 3:00 pm For me, I would ask about it politely. But if denied, I'd just wait until the time in the future when I purchased a new car.

Thanks. I guess this is all that I can do. It's not like I have much leverage at this point.

Unfortunately spouse’s car is almost as old as mine - about 10 years old. One option is to buy a vehicle to qualify for the stipend. But honestly we both like our current vehicles and they both have been reliable for us. And we don’t have a lot of cash floating around at the moment to buy a new vehicle.

I started a job this week with a new employer. Prior to accepting this job offer, they sent me an offer letter that included a section which outlined their vehicle allowance policy. To compensate for mileage put on personal vehicles, they provide a $750 monthly stipend to employees (to cover gas, maintenance, wear and tear, etc). Upon starting work this week, I inquired about the stipend and found out that to be eligible, an employee must have a vehicle with less than 150,000 miles and less than 5 years old. There is a form I must submit for my manager and HR to sign off in order for me to receive the stipend, and the form specifies these requirements. I was not aware of these stipulations when accepting the job offer. My vehicle is 12 year...

Thanks everyone for the input! I ended up calling a local water well servicing company and talked through options with them. They are going to inspect the well’s output and check the equipment (pump, pressure vessel, etc). Also going to do a basic water quality test.

A little pricey at $325, but I think will be nice to have a little more info about the well. And if they seem thorough and do a good job answering my questions then I’ll have a company that I can rely upon in the future if we encounter any issues with the well.

Thanks again.

We're under contract to purchase a home which has a water well, but the water well is used only for the sprinkler system to water the lawn. Any reason for us to line-up a water well inspection? This feels like a silly question, but I'm just trying to make sure that I'm not missing anything here. I assume that if the water is used for non-potable purposes, then there is no reason to take a sample and test the water?

Hey everyone, I received a job offer which I found appealing, with the exception of an underwhelming sign-on bonus (very small and in the form of gradually vesting stock as opposed to cash). I plan to make a counteroffer to ask for a higher sign-on bonus, in cash. Question for the forum: Should I make the counter offer to the hiring manager or to the HR rep? My thoughts: It feels like HR rep is probably the person to deal with (HR rep was the one who called me to tell me about the job offer, and also sent over offer letter). BUT, Id like to express gratitude and explain why my counter-offer will make me more excited to take the job, and I don’t know if that “falls on deaf ears” to the HR rep. Isn’t it likely HR rep will just shoot an email/...

The money has to go somewhere, is it all going to short-term cash reserves?

The money doesn’t go anywhere. When stock prices decline, the “money” just vanishes. And when stock prices increase, the “money” is produced out of thin air. You seem to be thinking of asset prices like a material balance, but this isn’t physics - those concepts (e.g. conservation of mass) do not apply.

I find it somewhat fascinating that both value and growth investors alike consider their own strategy to be the aggressive/risky one.

I'm in my late 20's and will soon be getting to a point in my investments where I'd like to consider adding a small tilt (~10%) with a growth fund to accelerate potential returns. I have anticipated job stability and increased earning potential in the future since I'll be finishing residency training and eventually moving on to fellowship and attending positions. What factors should I be considering for whether I go for a large, medium or small growth index fund? At your age, with job security and earning potential as you stated, I would go all in with growth. Large cap growth etf if that is your style. My style is individual stocks. Mid- and large-cap growth, plus others. 30 years from now your portfolio will thank you for being aggressiv...

james22 wrote: ↑Wed May 25, 2022 10:18 am

thisisdmac wrote: ↑Sun Feb 13, 2022 12:54 pmSuppose VG did offer a good, low-cost, ex-US large cap value fund...

VTRIX

Vanguard isn't very clear on the approach for this fund, but I'm pretty sure it's not a quantitative value fund. So that makes it pretty unappealing to me. It HAS managed to pickup a bit of exposure to the value factor....but not much (~0.25 loading on HML over past 25 years).

billaster wrote: ↑Sat May 21, 2022 12:30 pm
Worse, just a few months later Vanguard merged the retail and institutional funds, proving that the costly exercise was entirely avoidable -- after the damage was done.

I did not know about this part. Not a good look for Vanguard.

billaster wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 9:58 pm Otherwise Vanguard's reputation is going to be at stake when crying "widders and orphans" testify publicly to a jury about how Vanguard's callous actions caused permanent losses of ten and hundreds of thousands of dollars forever from their retirement funds.

They would have to be some seriously loaded widdows and orphans in order to make that claim. Someone would need to be worth millions in order for Vanguard to have cost them tens of thousands of dollars. They would need to be worth tens of millions for Vanguard to have cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I’m not trying to defend what Vanguard did, just saying that you may have exaggerated the impact a bit.

If you like buying cheap stocks, why not invest directly in a value fund? Rather than investing in segments of the market (eg small caps) that happen to be cheap at the moment.

Given your past indecisiveness on an asset allocation (I remember some of your posts from last year) I'd suggest (1) switch back to VTWAX after a month (2) setup auto-invests into VTWAX and (3) leave things alone.

One thing I don’t get is the millennials-buying-houses theory for increased demand. Every year 29-year-olds become 30, 30-year-olds become 31, etc. Some percentage of those folks will decide to buy a house. Maybe the 31s are more likely than the 30s to buy a house. But the idea that an entire generation of millennials (people born from 1981 to 1996) have been sitting on the sidelines and suddenly en masse all decide to purchase a house? Is there any evidence for that? I don’t know the answer to your question, but I will say that if you google image search “US births by year” you’ll see that birth rates gradually climbed throughout the 80’s and reached a new peak around 1990. People born in 1990 are now 31-32 years old. So (I guess) that’s ...

I use a Braun series 9. Cost me $250. For context, I drive a 14 year old vehicle and spent $400 on my queen mattress. So I’m not exactly a big spender. While $250 is admittedly a lot for an electric shaver, I absolutely hate shaving. So I ponied up for a high quality electric shaver to try to make my shaving experience only mildly distasteful. The Braun Series 9 doesn’t rock my world, but it’s definitely a lot nicer than anything else I’ve shaved with. I have a braun series 9 too and I end up not really using it. I don't even have a lot of facial hair and I have to do so many passes. Really hard to get up close to your nose and you gotta charge it and the cleaning station charger is ugly on the counter. Super underwhelming. Razor is so muc...

I use a Braun series 9. Cost me $250. For context, I drive a 14 year old vehicle and spent $400 on my queen mattress. So I’m not exactly a big spender. While $250 is admittedly a lot for an electric shaver, I absolutely hate shaving. So I ponied up for a high quality electric shaver to try to make my shaving experience only mildly distasteful. The Braun Series 9 doesn’t rock my world, but it’s definitely a lot nicer than anything else I’ve shaved with.

brademac wrote: ↑Sat Apr 16, 2022 2:24 pm
I was debating on adding AVDV to my taxable but based on this I think I will.

I too am glad to see this update, since I hold a decent chunk of my portfolio in AVDV in taxable. Comparing against VXUS (for my own tax brackets): AVDV carried an 8 bps tax disadvantage against VXUS in 2020, but this reversed and in 2021 AVDV had a 7 bps tax efficiency advantage against VXUS.

One of my concerns is : do the big companies even go to small colleges like Swarthmore for hiring ? I think that should definitely be a major consideration when choosing between these two schools. Cornell has ~5,000 engineering students. Swarthmore, on the other hand, appears to graduate about 20 engineers per year. I assume that there is a very well established engineering career center at Cornell that helps to coordinate between the hundreds of companies that recruit their engineers. Obviously swarthmore engineers get jobs, but it’s just not possible for more than a small handful of companies to recruit their engineering students. This is one of my fears as well. Internships and jobs might be a lot more easier at Cornell than at Swarthmo...

ag1 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 10, 2022 9:27 pmOne of my concerns is : do the big companies even go to small colleges like Swarthmore for hiring ?

I think that should definitely be a major consideration when choosing between these two schools. Cornell has ~5,000 engineering students. Swarthmore, on the other hand, appears to graduate about 20 engineers per year. I assume that there is a very well established engineering career center at Cornell that helps to coordinate between the hundreds of companies that recruit their engineers. Obviously swarthmore engineers get jobs, but it’s just not possible for more than a small handful of companies to recruit their engineering students.

Nothing magical happens at 25x expenses. The reason to save 25x instead of 24x expenses is the exact same reason to save 26x instead of 25x expenses.

Keep in mind that with a 529, both contributions and earnings will be accessible for college education expenses. With Roth, the earnings willl not be accessible until 59.5 without penalty.

$2500 which was given back to the buyer. Lesson learned. That's a really small amount. But what did the documents state about returning the money? The point of that money is to dissuade someone from "just walking away" after keeping the property off the market for some time. it's usually not supposed to be just "given back to the buyer", although some buyers may fight to get it back. But 2 days prior to closing?? Was it stated anywhere that they could get that money back, with no time limit? Note: In our area, it is conventional to give 10% of the purchase price, although I understand that other places typically do less. (We were very startled when we purchased another property in a different state, and were only requir...

Just use the Dec bank statement for ytd interest. Do the right thing.

Personally I don’t think there’s a moral aspect when we’re talking about <$2 in federal income taxes. I think most people that do not report this are trying to get their return filed in a timely manner, not trying to steal a dollar from the US government. Just my take.

Splitz wrote: ↑Sat Mar 26, 2022 7:11 am Was curious how others handle the situation.

I think the answer is that most wouldn’t refer to it as a “situation.” You are trying to find a way to increase your expected wealth by $2, by seeking input from others and evaluating different options. This sounds like more of an OCD thing than anything else.

Latestart2022 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 8:57 pm So that was my first assumption for allocation, when I ran it through portfolio visualizer, it didn’t break down as I expected.

Those splits between each fund gave the allocation I mentioned.

You’re portfolio ideas are fine, but just keep in mind that 1/3 large 1/3 mid 1/3 small (what you have proposed) is just as arbitrary as 1/3 VLCAX 1/3 VIMAX 1/3 VSMAX. After all, the size brackets themselves (e.g. where they start and end) are totally arbitrary.

Standard 4 -5 % at a MEGACORP? must not be my megacorp, where 2-3% is the norm. Can you provide the industry and/or your function? I think the challenge with this thread, and many others, is that we have no formal definition of what a MEGACORP is. I think we could agree that both Apple and General Motors are megacorps... but certainly they have wildly different realities for pay bands and raises. So whats a megacorp? Is it 50,000+ employees? 100,000+? Is it 10BB+ revenues? 50BB ? Is it simply being a member of the S&P ? Some posters may be calling firms with as small as 10,000 employees or single billion revenues mega... but I think that's too small as we would need ultra- and exa- mega definitions. I have always worked for what I woul...

How do you find the balance in the SSA? It's in the letter they send out after the SSA distro. That is what USAA said also: "How can I find out my Subscriber's Account balance? USAA sends a Subscriber's Account annual statement each February showing your Subscriber's Account balance. An electronic version of this letter is on usaa.com under My Documents." But I never receive such a letter. Yeah me neither, and I’ve been a USAA member for a couple decades now. Not sure if certain criteria must be met for a person to become part of this program. Look at your insurance policies. Is the prefix USAA or something else? Are you insured by USAA or one of it's subsidiaries? It's a subsidiary. Apparently in my case, the fact that I'm a rel...

I am seriously considering leaving USAA as well. They used to have all my business. Now we are just down to home and auto insurance. And if I leave that, they pay out the $5,600 I have sitting in my SSA. I am in the same boat as you. The only way I can get the $5K in my SSA is to leave. I always thought that was strange from an incentives perspective. How do you find the balance in the SSA? It's in the letter they send out after the SSA distro. That is what USAA said also: "How can I find out my Subscriber's Account balance? USAA sends a Subscriber's Account annual statement each February showing your Subscriber's Account balance. An electronic version of this letter is on usaa.com under My Documents." But I never receive such a ...

I am seriously considering leaving USAA as well. They used to have all my business. Now we are just down to home and auto insurance. And if I leave that, they pay out the $5,600 I have sitting in my SSA. I am in the same boat as you. The only way I can get the $5K in my SSA is to leave. I always thought that was strange from an incentives perspective. How do you find the balance in the SSA? It's in the letter they send out after the SSA distro. That is what USAA said also: "How can I find out my Subscriber's Account balance? USAA sends a Subscriber's Account annual statement each February showing your Subscriber's Account balance. An electronic version of this letter is on usaa.com under My Documents." But I never receive such a ...

Same story from me - I've had the card for years, ever since it became available, but I just got a notice saying that it will be converted to a Preferred Cash Rewards Visa and will drop from 2.5% cashback to 1.5% cashback at the end of this year. Sad.

We took the plunge into I-bonds based on that 7.12% rate. For me they still have two issues against them. They require accounts at Treasury Direct whereas I can invest in everything else, including other treasuries, at our regular brokerage. And the annual purchase limitation, generally $10K per SSN, is pretty low. With a $10K annual limitation it's hard to "Move the needle" on a portfolio for many investors. Over time they could become a significant holding, just like IRA accounts have had comparatively low limits for "fresh" money. Maybe over the long term the Treasury Department will add additional features to the program, intuitively they face one of the same challenges as other banks and investment entities, how be...

Stormbringer wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 10:55 am I read one of Bogle's books a couple years ago where he said that the interest rate on bonds includes "expected inflation".

How wrong he was*:

Code: Select all

1-Month Bill...0.142%
3-Month Bill...0.380%
6-Month Bill...0.752%
1-Year Bill....1.116%

* More accurately, perhaps, is that this assumption goes out the window when the Federal Reserve is throwing its weight around in the market.

Why do you think the numbers that you posted contradict Bogle’s claim?

If anyone is prone to motion sickness then they might think twice. I enjoyed the fall (though it only lasts like 45 seconds). But the most time is spent slowly gliding down with the parachute open. I felt slightly ill the rest of the day. Not a very enjoyable experience.

It wasn’t as bad as tandem paragliding. I asked to end the flight early due to motion sickness. That one was miserable. I think I’ve learned my lesson when it comes to trying any sort of experience that involves a parachute.

i spent $20 on Covid tests at CVS and submitted to insurance. After a couple weeks it’s now shown as out of network ie not covered. I was confused, but didn’t care enough to investigate further due to the small dollar amount.

At my previous (FAANG) company, HR published statistics on this. Someone with a referral was something like 50x as likely to get an interview as someone without a referral. This doesn't mean it's impossible to get hired without a referral, but it sure is harder. I have read statistics like this too, but it seems to contradict several posters in this thread who have said that the majority of people they have hired did not have a referral. So I’m not sure what to make of it. They aren't necessarily contradictory. You may be 5x or 50x more likely to get a job with a referral, but the majority of applicants don't have one. Most of the time when I am hiring I have 100+ applicants in a few weeks and often zero of them are referrals. Interesting ...