Search found 1406 matches
- Thu Mar 14, 2024 5:40 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: 5M, probably enough to retire to a frugal lifestyle
- Replies: 180
- Views: 15197
Re: 5M, probably enough to retire to a frugal lifestyle
You may be underestimating just how expensive coastal California is. One will definitely need a strict budget to raise a family on $150-170k pre-tax there. Yes and no. One thing that people rarely account for in discussions like these is the nuance of mortgage payments. People either project them into perpetuity, or they deduct the entire sticker price of the home from the nest egg. The reality might be quite different. I haven't clicked the link to the article, but I suspect if this person has $5m just laying around and is talking about raising a family, they probably already have a home with significant equity in it and fewer than 30 years of payments remaining. So even if a significant amount of that retirement income is going towards h...
- Tue Mar 12, 2024 12:48 pm
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: One spouse retiring earlier than the other?
- Replies: 38
- Views: 2997
Re: One spouse retiring earlier than the other?
As an alternative, might you consider reducing your savings rate for 2 years to accommodate more and/or better vacations, meals, or other splurges? I'm not saying those things fix a miserable job, but they can help mitigate the stress of a job that is all-consuming. As others have said, you have the money, so it's mostly a matter of finding your happiness. The job is a means to an end, and if the end no longer calls for the job, you either modify the end or lose the job.
- Mon Mar 04, 2024 6:28 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: sauna or hot tub, which to get and why?
- Replies: 51
- Views: 4431
Re: sauna or hot tub, which to get and why?
Personally, I think both are pretty terrible as personal property, but especially hot tubs. They aren't worth the maintenance, IMO. They work well as shared property that sees frequent use, such as in hotels, on cruise ships, etc., because then a professional can maintain them and lots of people can make good use of them.
I would prefer an indoor jet tub to either of those, assuming your bathroom has the space. I have lived in a home that had one, and it was great. I've also enjoyed them in hotel rooms that had them. You get the massage benefit of the jets in what is otherwise basically a bathtub that you fill on demand. Even if you rarely use it, which tends to be the case, it's not a maintenance nightmare the way an outdoor hot tub is.
I would prefer an indoor jet tub to either of those, assuming your bathroom has the space. I have lived in a home that had one, and it was great. I've also enjoyed them in hotel rooms that had them. You get the massage benefit of the jets in what is otherwise basically a bathtub that you fill on demand. Even if you rarely use it, which tends to be the case, it's not a maintenance nightmare the way an outdoor hot tub is.
- Wed Feb 21, 2024 12:58 am
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: middle school science books
- Replies: 19
- Views: 2517
Re: middle school science books
Do you really need an authoritative source of verified test questions, or would assistance in creating a set of test questions be sufficient? If the latter, ChatGPT could go a long way. I know theres a lot of resistance to using it in academic circles, but I remember when that was the case for Wikipedia when I was growing up, and now that's seen as an invaluable tool. As far as I can tell, it's no different with generative AI. It's still your responsibility to verify the correctness (and suitability, for that matter) of any generated test questions, but it can potentially save you a lot of time and frustration if you're having to relearn the material after a long time away from it.
- Mon Feb 12, 2024 2:34 am
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: dumb computer security question
- Replies: 50
- Views: 4216
Re: dumb computer security question
OP, have you considered running something like Fedora Silverblue? It's not typically pitched as primarily a security solution because it doesn't address many of the concerns other replies have brought up in this thread, and its main purpose is more to ensure a stable and recoverable system. But somewhat similar to many live-boot distros, the idea is that you boot into a static snapshot of system software. When you install new applications, they are applied as atomic updates, a new boot entry is created, and you explicitly choose your boot environment on subsequent reboots. Admittedly, I am very inexperienced with these sorts of immutable distros, only having briefly used one at work for server container workloads, so I don't really know all...
- Tue Feb 06, 2024 1:09 pm
- Forum: US Chapters
- Topic: Are any BH's not wealthy?
- Replies: 165
- Views: 25673
Re: Are any BH's not wealthy?
Are any BH's here not wealthy? Just normal middle or lower class people? I would argue that class and wealth are different albeit related concepts. You can be a multi-millionaire farmer toiling out in the fields or a high-society socialite on the brink of spending the last of daddy's trust fund. I recognize class has different connotations and people are usually talking about money when they say "middle class", but I think there's also a common misconception that a certain amount of income implies certain spending habits and living standards, which is pretty much disproven by Bogleheads and other investment-minded groups like FIRE and so on. I know Big Tech software engineers kind of get picked on as the stereotypical example of ...
- Tue Feb 06, 2024 12:41 am
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: China trip paranoia [visa requirements]
- Replies: 68
- Views: 6447
Re: China trip paranoia [visa requirements]
I can't speak to current visa experiences as it has been a while for me. If those prices are accurate, wow have they gone up. I do remember reading China was hiking prices and doing other such things in retaliation for the USA making certain visas more restrictive for Chinese nationals not long ago, so it's probably just the state of the world. As for what to expect when you're there, China is absolutely amazing and extremely safe as far as things like violent crime go. However, scams are wild and rampant. That is one country where it can be worth sticking to reputable providers with good translation service. If you know enough Chinese, you can get some of the best service ever for cheap, but that's a tall order for many visitors just passi...
- Sun Jan 28, 2024 1:20 am
- Forum: Personal Investments
- Topic: 401k Rollover check lost in the mail
- Replies: 38
- Views: 6704
Re: 401k Rollover check lost in the mail
I just completed this Voya to Fidelity. No issues, but I find it maddening that in this digital age, this type of transfer is done by paper check through the postal service. Too late for you and the OP (probably) but for roll over situations needing to transfer to a different custodian, consider opening an IRA with the 401k custodian, roll over there and then ACAT over to your preferred IRA custodian. This generally makes it all electronic. The last roll over I did for my wife happened this way. Rolled over her 401k at Merrill to a Merrill Edge IRA and then ACAT over to Fidelity. Then called Fidelity to get traditional pre tax IRA money rolled into my wife’s Fidelity 401K so we could continue doing back door Roths. No fuss, and all done fa...
- Wed Jan 17, 2024 12:27 am
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: Best way to be a first-time home buyer if I intend to move in three years?
- Replies: 54
- Views: 6576
Re: Best way to be a first-time home buyer if I intend to move in three years?
We bought our first home a little over 3 years ago. One thing I'm super happy about is that it's just good enough that we would be content staying here for the long term. Sure, we would like a bigger house in a better neighborhood with better schools, but we are fine where we're at. With some recent sweat equity in the form of a DIY retaining wall and raised patio (which was well beyond my DIY comfort zone and a great, albeit all-consuming, learning experience), my wife has said she would have trouble selling this house knowing how hard we worked on making it on our own. There have also been, and continue to be, many surprise costs, everything from plumbing to the roof, because of the age of the home. We had enough going into the purchase t...
- Sun Jan 14, 2024 1:24 am
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: Strong online privacy settings - advice
- Replies: 58
- Views: 6339
Re: Strong online privacy settings - advice
I'm not sure someone who is recently born and has never gotten online has bulletproof privacy anymore, let alone someone who uses online services. I increasingly find myself being advertised things immediately after talking about them in earshot of various Google devices, without even ever having to type anything in related to those products, so I'm assuming just being in the vicinity of devices with microphones is already giving up our privacy. The point someone made earlier about threat modeling is super important. What are you actually trying to accomplish? Most people don't really care about true privacy, otherwise they wouldn't use most of the services they do. What they usually care about is protecting sensitive information from malic...
- Thu Jan 11, 2024 12:23 pm
- Forum: Personal Investments
- Topic: Real estate as % of net worth?
- Replies: 53
- Views: 6421
Re: Real estate as % of net worth?
The thing about real estate is that its granularity is so course that there can't really be a general rule. In some places, $300k buys a big, beautiful house, while in others, $1m buys a shoebox. Also, the balance between necessities and luxuries changes drastically over the wealth spectrum. It's understandable for a poor person to spend a significantly higher percentage of their income/wealth on housing because it's considered a necessity and it's all they can afford. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos can buy an incredibly luxurious mansion on a private island without making much of a dent in his net worth. How do you compare those things? What guideline could there possibly be? This is just my personal guideline and what worked for me when buying my ...
- Mon Dec 25, 2023 9:21 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: What is Your Biggest "Good Problem to Have"? [Financial]
- Replies: 97
- Views: 13688
Re: What is Your Biggest "Good Problem to Have"? [Financial]
I don't know if it's the biggest, but I find myself having fewer reasons to avoid buying my wife luxury gifts as the years goes by. We have always been very frugal and avoided overpriced things like designer bags, but she has been considering splurging on some items our younger selves would slap us for even looking at. The truth is that the occasional big purchase would barely make a dent in our financial situation. I'm simultaneously grateful to be in this position and frightened of the possible mistakes we can make as a result.
- Mon Nov 13, 2023 2:23 am
- Forum: Personal Investments
- Topic: I need help out of this paycheck to paycheck life
- Replies: 59
- Views: 10161
Re: I need help out of this paycheck to paycheck life
It's ultimately just numbers that boil down to money in, money out. One thing that really resonated with me when I got serious about investing was how there are many ways to really stretch the value of a dollar. While investing itself may not be the way out of poverty, there are adjacent topics which are rather important, like taxes. Most people just think in terms of the price they see on a price tag, but I have conditioned myself to always add my marginal income tax bracket to the price of everything so I know how much it's really costing me. And if that price seems way out of line to me, I'd rather just not buy the thing and put it in a retirement account to reduce my taxable income. I also buy virtually everything on sale. And no, sale ...
- Mon Nov 13, 2023 1:55 am
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: best TV service for channel-surfers?
- Replies: 40
- Views: 4769
Re: best TV service for channel-surfers?
I also question how badly OP really needs to be able to quickly glance at channel content while thumbing through channels. Traditional TV services have notoriously bad guide functions when compared to the incredible search-friendliness of the Internet. The only functional difference is being able to see something on the screen quickly, and I can't think of what OP expects to see that will catch their attention. A familiar actor? Virtually all streaming services allow searching by actor. A year/decade? Best to search online, and there are often even channels dedicated to particular eras, genres, etc. A particular color palette? That seems like a weird thing to care about, and I bet you could search online for that if push came to shove. Thi...
- Wed Nov 08, 2023 5:17 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: best TV service for channel-surfers?
- Replies: 40
- Views: 4769
Re: best TV service for channel-surfers?
YouTubeTV does not behave like this at all on my Roku. It's very much tuned to selecting a specific program by name, or selecting a channel from an unnumbered list and then waiting a second for it to buffer and begin. Maybe I'm using it wrong but it's not at all like thumbing through channels on old-style cable TV I agree. I think the original comment putting YTTV into this category is not from someone who has used analog TV to surf. If the OP wants cable and has Xfinity available, I think they should probably just stick with cable for now. I also question how badly OP really needs to be able to quickly glance at channel content while thumbing through channels. Traditional TV services have notoriously bad guide functions when compared to t...
- Wed Nov 08, 2023 1:06 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: best TV service for channel-surfers?
- Replies: 40
- Views: 4769
Re: best TV service for channel-surfers?
One interesting option is Samsung's streaming service (I think it's called FREE). It's a bit unique because it's bundled "for free" with Samsung devices (I think I read that they're considering opening it up, but as far as I know, that hasn't happened yet). So if you buy a Samsung TV, tablet, phone, etc., it will have it on there. I can't speak to all the features like channel-blocking, but I will say it's an interesting take on traditional TV service. It's mostly reruns of established TV shows, along with a decent selection of movie channels and such. What makes it different is that instead of having all the different network channels like with traditional TV, they sort of curate the channels based on content. There are a number ...
- Wed Nov 08, 2023 12:44 pm
- Forum: Personal Investments
- Topic: No more lump sums for me!
- Replies: 83
- Views: 11124
Re: No more lump sums for me!
Note that it's not just a matter of DCA vs. lump sum in the past, but also how you plan to approach it in the future. Having gotten unlucky with 3 major lump sums in the past does not help you choose more optimally in the future, as they are essentially independent events, assuming these lump sums are spaced reasonably far apart. You can say it sucks that you got unlucky 3 times, but if you started DCA from now on in response, you might find that all your DCA events from now on end up being the wrong choice. It is what it is. You presumably made an informed decision when choosing lump sum in the past. You should continue to make informed decisions going forward. As much as I prefer lump sum myself, I will say the one thing that makes me won...
- Wed Nov 08, 2023 12:36 pm
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: Okay but what about a 401k loan really
- Replies: 40
- Views: 4479
Re: Okay but what about a 401k loan really
401k loans are one of those things I would pretty much never do unless I was dying and desperately needed the money ASAP. I don't even care about the interest or timing implications. For me, it's that the loan is due immediately if you lose your job. That's a massive double whammy. If your company decides to cut costs and puts you on the chopping block, it's going to severely hurt you. I also wouldn't want them getting word of what I was doing. While I'm guessing it would be illegal for them to extort or abuse you based on your 401k loan, I could also see not being able to do much about it because the potential consequences are so severe. I would absolutely not want to hear from my manager, "I know you need this job, and if you don't ...
- Wed Nov 08, 2023 12:32 pm
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: Did anyone spend too much in early retirement?
- Replies: 71
- Views: 14357
Re: Did anyone spend too much in early retirement?
Not me personally, but my aunt is kind of an interesting case, in that she's about as middle of the road as I could imagine. I think people tend to be in one camp (savers) or the other (spenders). My aunt is probably more of a spender, but she would be financially fine if she cut her spending, I think she almost thrives on being just a little insecure. If 3% WR is considered super safe, 4% is the usual recommendation but still has some risk, she's probably like the 6% type, where she has a decent chance of coming out okay, but she always has to be on edge. To be clear, I don't actually know her real numbers, all this is based more on the way she talks about retirement. She had a good career in the public sector and always seemed to live a t...
- Wed Nov 08, 2023 11:31 am
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: Okay but what about a 401k loan really
- Replies: 40
- Views: 4479
Re: Okay but what about a 401k loan really
401k loans are one of those things I would pretty much never do unless I was dying and desperately needed the money ASAP. I don't even care about the interest or timing implications. For me, it's that the loan is due immediately if you lose your job. That's a massive double whammy. If your company decides to cut costs and puts you on the chopping block, it's going to severely hurt you. I also wouldn't want them getting word of what I was doing. While I'm guessing it would be illegal for them to extort or abuse you based on your 401k loan, I could also see not being able to do much about it because the potential consequences are so severe. I would absolutely not want to hear from my manager, "I know you need this job, and if you don't d...
- Wed Nov 08, 2023 11:18 am
- Forum: Personal Investments
- Topic: Permission to Do Something Scary (to me)
- Replies: 57
- Views: 6719
Re: Permission to Do Something Scary (to me)
OP, you mentioned your work was not necessarily stressful or overwhelming, just not satisfying. Might there be a way to boost satisfaction at your workplace? I know corporate fun has its detractors and can come off as cheesy and forced, but hosting board game evenings or potluck lunches for your workplace might be a low-cost way to improve your own engagement and satisfaction. 18x at your age is not a super comfortable amount. If you were talking about making some huge life change with 18x at 35, that'd be one thing, but at 55, you have less time to be taking on lots of uncertainty. I'm very much about enjoying life, but I'm also a realist, and sadly, being jaded with work at 55 seems the norm from every older person I've worked with. I jus...
- Wed Nov 08, 2023 10:40 am
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: Purchasing recreational land
- Replies: 13
- Views: 2514
Re: Purchasing recreational land
Your numbers are fine. I think the question of whether to budget them together is ultimately personal. The obvious counter-argument would be that taking on debt for core housing needs is very different from taking on debt for discretionary luxuries. Recreational land straddles the line between those categories. On the one hand, it's sort of your home in that it provides the kind of life you want and a sense of place. On the other, so do those billionaire houses with in-home movie theaters, bowling alleys, wine cellars, etc., and it's hard to justify those things as anything other than expensive toys. You make enough money that putting food on the table isn't an issue either way you classify it. Personally, I would hate paying interest on re...
- Sun Nov 05, 2023 3:03 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: Small to Medium sized cities for FIRE
- Replies: 103
- Views: 10098
Re: Small to Medium sized cities for FIRE
I always post Kansas City region in these kinds of topics. It amazes me that with the whole pandemic craze of people looking for more remote places to work from, the KC region still rarely grabs much attention. The thing about KC is that it's very hard to get a good feel for what it's like by doing online research. A lot of the usual statistics are misleading when seen through the lens of other places. The city proper has terrible public schools, high crime, etc. Then you look at some of the outer suburbs, and they are consistently ranked among the best places to live in the US, and I think that gives the impression of stuffy, mostly-white suburbs with white picket fences out in a field somewhere. There is some truth to that. But the realit...
- Thu Nov 02, 2023 4:12 pm
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: Question for Married Bogleheads - % to allocate to joint accounts
- Replies: 174
- Views: 13259
Re: Question for Married Bogleheads - % to allocate to joint accounts
I am firmly in the joint-everything camp (of course, certain accounts are individual by definition or out of practicality, but everything is managed as if it were jointly owned). I do somewhat acknowledge that there is room for different approaches that work for different people in different circumstances, but I would also argue that most of those approaches amount to window dressing in practice. Having a little extra spending money in separate accounts for various personal discretionary expenses is largely functionally equivalent to just giving each spouse leeway to spend responsibly out of a joint account. To each their own, I suppose. Where it really matters is in bigger things like home ownership, retirement, family obligations, ongoing...
- Thu Nov 02, 2023 3:46 pm
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: Intuit's Mint App Shutting Down...Replacement Recommendations?
- Replies: 754
- Views: 141343
Re: Intuit's Mint App Shutting Down...Replacement Recommendations?
I realize this is dependent on one's own circumstances, but what I found over the years of using Quicken and then Mint was that they worked great at first for budgeting and tracking, but over time, as my financial life got more complicated, they all failed in similar but different ways. Sometimes it was a broken integration with an external provider, sometimes it was misrepresenting nuanced things like transfers between accounts, sometimes it was getting returns wrong based on edge cases with things like cost basis. That's not to say there isn't value for anybody, but I'm firmly in the spreadsheet camp for people with complicated circumstances. For people who are struggling with basic budgeting needs and really need to watch their spending,...
- Wed Sep 20, 2023 3:47 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: retirement laptop?
- Replies: 146
- Views: 14123
Re: retirement laptop?
Haven't read all replies so apologize if some of this is repeat information. I agree that Chromebooks' EOL scheme is problematic, but given that they recently bumped the support period to 10 years on new devices, assuming you get a new model with those terms, I think it's not that serious of an issue for home users. The problem is exacerbated for schools since it takes time to get those units in and out of circulation. The reason for the headlines is that schools adopted the cheaper, older models in droves during the pandemic without fully accounting for the fact that they might only get 3 years of use out of them. I think more important than the brand, model, OS, etc. is getting the correct form factor(s). A lot of people are used to tryin...
- Wed Sep 20, 2023 1:35 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: Taking a Lyft / Uber ride to a neighboring state?
- Replies: 44
- Views: 4462
Re: Taking a Lyft / Uber ride to a neighboring state?
I've not looked for something like this, but surely there must be some kind of site or app for arranging carpooling. You might be able to go with someone for the cost of gas, if you're comfortable looking into that sort of thing. Whether it compres favorably to flying, I don't know.
- Mon Aug 21, 2023 4:28 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: Upcoming international travel with an infant, any advice?
- Replies: 46
- Views: 3568
Re: Upcoming international travel with an infant, any advice?
Our daughter is approaching 2, and we've traveled quite a bit with her. Never any long international flights, but shorter domestic flights, a cruise, several long car trips, trains, buses, and Ubers. One thing I'll never understand is how so many parents insist on enforcing screen time rules while on a plane. I get that screen time for kids has fallen out of fashion and pediatricians generally seem to advise against it, but to me, the pros of handing our child a tablet to watch Cocomelon far outweigh the cons when it comes to air travel. Even when she has been fussy prior to boarding, she has always been nothing but an angel as soon as we hand her a tablet to watch stuff on the plane. No, we don't put headphones on her, as she would likely ...
- Mon Aug 14, 2023 5:38 pm
- Forum: Non-US Investing
- Topic: China: A place where active investing makes sense? Do Americans have access to these outperforming funds like Chinese?
- Replies: 32
- Views: 6742
Re: China: A place where active investing makes sense? Do Americans have access to these outperforming funds like Chines
Individual investors in China are known for being highly speculative, unsophisticated, nationalistic, etc. Only in China? No, of course not. However research does suggest that while US investors in mutual funds will lose 2% annually due to their poor timing of jumping in after good performance, that figure is 9% in China. It's also not a matter of Chinese people in general. Stock market participation at the individual level is not a major pillar of most retirements or personal financial plans in China, and the "publicly" (I use the word loosely given all the restrictions) traded markets represent a much smaller fraction of the overall economy than in the US. The takeaway is that the markets there are much less representative of t...
- Tue Jul 25, 2023 1:59 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: 41 and FI, going back to school?
- Replies: 31
- Views: 4436
Re: 41 and FI, going back to school?
Saying you want to get a STEM degree is a bit like an engineer saying they want to get an art degree. That's very broad. What do you actually want to do? Many STEM disciplines have very low barriers to entry in terms of learning and practicing the material (not effort). Software development, for example, is arguably easier to learn independently than with a degree, which tend to focus on more academic computer science topics as opposed to practical projects you would do in many business contexts. This is just my perception, but I think agricultural science is less like that, in that much knowledge and opportunity is gated behind industrial connections that the universities have access to.
- Tue Jul 25, 2023 1:15 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Why is there no global market portfolio ETF?
- Replies: 33
- Views: 5159
Re: Why is there no global market portfolio ETF?
On some level, I feel like there's a threshold where non-publicly-traded assets would make more sense than just tacking on public junk. The markets we usually deal in depend on various screens for quality. Just because something is sold doesn't mean it makes sense for our retirement accounts. Should this hypothetical fund invest in timeshares? Rare action figures? It really depends on what you consider an investable asset. At some point, you might just be better off buying a local business or an insurance product like an annuity. ETFs like VT and BNDW are already at a granularity that greatly simplifies the typical retail investor's management of a global portfolio while maintaining high quality. There's just not much value in going much fa...
- Tue Jul 25, 2023 12:59 pm
- Forum: Personal Investments
- Topic: Your favorite investment software tool?
- Replies: 25
- Views: 1989
Re: Your favorite investment software tool?
While I certainly haven't tried many, my experience is that all financial software is good for simple situations but terrible at handling complexity. I used to use both Quicken and Mint to help track expenses and investments, but for both areas, they just got annoying when it came to things like counting ATM transfers as expenses, flashing red because market ETFs didn't track the S&P 500 perfectly after expenses, failing to connect to accounts at various times, etc.
In my opinion, nothing beats a custom spreadsheet you make yourself. It's not that hard. Yes, it requires manual updates. But you can make it do exactly what you need. I use Google Sheets, but any spreadsheet software should work.
In my opinion, nothing beats a custom spreadsheet you make yourself. It's not that hard. Yes, it requires manual updates. But you can make it do exactly what you need. I use Google Sheets, but any spreadsheet software should work.
- Tue Jul 25, 2023 12:47 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Why Roth never Wins when given equal tax treatment with Traditional IRA
- Replies: 434
- Views: 41173
Re: Why Roth never Wins when given equal tax treatment with Traditional IRA
I always find it amusing that these traditional vs. Roth discussions ignore the possibility of the feedback loop between lifestyle spending and tax rates. I get wanting to compare the raw mathematical differences, but for anyone who doesn't expect to just work the same job forever regardless of wealth, they might want to let their long-term plans inform their asset location. I won't get too into the weeds because there are so many things to consider, but I will say that while we are mostly still on the FIRE path, having a child now places us firmly in that messy middle territory. I've come to the realization that while it may not be the best thing for our net worth, it makes sense to "convert" some of our projected savings into li...
- Tue Jul 25, 2023 11:54 am
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: If/when to fly business class? (Length of flight vs. cost)
- Replies: 207
- Views: 26630
Re: If/when to fly business class? (Length of flight vs. cost)
I realize this is a very different alternative way out of left field, and it certainly won't apply for quick travel needs for work and such, but for vacation, at the high costs of typical business/first class flights, I would strongly consider alternative forms of travel. Having recently completed our first cruise, I am honestly considering taking fewer but bigger vacations in the future so we can cruise towards our destinations instead of flying. Very different time considerations, of course, but economy seating has gotten offensively bad on flights. On our flights to and from the cruise ports, I noticed the attendants literally couldn't avoid bumping the arms of every person in the aisle seats, and the restrooms were shaped such that you ...
- Tue Jul 18, 2023 11:59 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: bugdet pc: mini pc or refurbished old desktop
- Replies: 15
- Views: 1437
Re: bugdet pc: mini pc or refurbished old desktop
I'd got with a newer mini PC for sure. Things like driver support matter, especially if you're trying to play games on Windows (you can usually find a Linux distro that will run beautifully on older hardware, but whether you can run the latest proprietary games is another story, though that has gotten quite a bit better in recent years with Steam's Proton). Newer hardware also tends to be significantly more power-efficient than older stuff. Repurposing old systems is great for mitigating unnecessary e-waste and trying little side projects, but for an actual workhorse that you need to run modern software reliably, it's best to stick to something new. The smaller form factors are quite nice these days. They'll make you wonder how anyone ever ...
- Tue Jul 04, 2023 11:02 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
- Replies: 261
- Views: 32615
Re: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
Fundamentally, I don't think we're disagreeing all that much, but rather, I take issue with words like "never" based on very rigid methodology that doesn't map to many real-world scenarios. I acknowledge that part of the problem is that words like "risk" and "excess wealth" are loosely defined. When I say excess wealth, what I really mean is somebody who is reasonably certain their obligations will be met. The scenraio was investing steadily over time in index funds - it's the Boglehead methodology. 30 years of investing is early retirement and most people have a 35-40 year timeline. The results push even more towards heavy stock allocation with longer timelines of working. I left a bunch of room for real worl...
- Mon Jul 03, 2023 1:38 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
- Replies: 261
- Views: 32615
Re: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
People with excess wealth don't really need to take on risk so I personally would say this is not true. People that can't save 20-30x expenses without investing need returns. People without lots of wealth are the ones that most need to manage risk. You manage risk by holding an AA that best gets you to your goals, and one that you can hold accounting for behavioral factors. My argument is that over a 30+ year time frame investing aggressively has always paid off. I have said nothing about someone investing for 20 years, starting extremely late, etc. I am a fan of derisking if you see those great stock gains - the 1993-present example above of going 100/0 to 70/30 produces a safer portfolio when compared to staying 60/40 the entire time. Th...
- Sat Jul 01, 2023 8:57 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
- Replies: 261
- Views: 32615
Re: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
People spending more when the portfolio is high and less when it is low is actually beneficial. Someone that will overspend in accumulation is still going to do that with a more conservative portfolio and they very likely have less portfolio to do so. Having more money in a portfolio can not be considered riskier. That defies common sense. College would likely be a planned expense or a debt. People use 529 plans and take on some stock risk over 15+ year periods for their kids. This is very likely to help over even a 15 year period. That is much different than parents throwing 20k in the market at child age 16 and hoping it pays for school. It sounds like you may be focused on very short term risk without considering long term accumulation....
- Sat Jul 01, 2023 6:30 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
- Replies: 261
- Views: 32615
Re: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
I think one thing you might be ignoring is the impact of portfolio volatility on spending and lifestyle. I have no data to back this up, but I think a lot of rational investors (I'm ignoring "The Joneses" who live paycheck to paycheck because they're irrelevant to this discussion) link spending and lifestyle decisions to metrics like net worth. For example, the fact that I can generate somewhat higher returns on a 100% equity portfolio is probably not enough for me to feel comfortable buying a high-end sports car if I'm making minimum wage and only have $5k in an IRA. This is especially important when you consider things like long-term debt or other commitments. I know from speaking with friends that they plan for things like whe...
- Sat Jul 01, 2023 12:51 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
- Replies: 261
- Views: 32615
Re: Has investing conservatively ever paid off over a career?
I think one thing you might be ignoring is the impact of portfolio volatility on spending and lifestyle. I have no data to back this up, but I think a lot of rational investors (I'm ignoring "The Joneses" who live paycheck to paycheck because they're irrelevant to this discussion) link spending and lifestyle decisions to metrics like net worth. For example, the fact that I can generate somewhat higher returns on a 100% equity portfolio is probably not enough for me to feel comfortable buying a high-end sports car if I'm making minimum wage and only have $5k in an IRA. This is especially important when you consider things like long-term debt or other commitments. I know from speaking with friends that they plan for things like wher...
- Thu Jun 01, 2023 7:32 pm
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: How much money to keep at home
- Replies: 120
- Views: 9385
Re: How much money to keep at home
Anywhere from $50-$200. I will often take a bit more, maybe $400, if I'm traveling, just in case. But for just at home, I keep it fairly low. We actually do spend at cash-only places fairly often, so we will replenish that stash from an ATM every couple of weeks or so.
- Wed May 31, 2023 2:48 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Does anyone think it's odd that Vanguard has some of the best mutual funds and ETFs but also has some of the weirdest?
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5269
Re: Does anyone think it's odd that Vanguard has some of the best mutual funds and ETFs but also has some of the weirdes
Thanks for the hot tip!Lawrence of Suburbia wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2023 2:09 amNow that I've gotten out of Wellington-managed stuff and into indexed stuff (Target 2025), Wellington and Wellesley are probably going to take off ...
- Wed May 24, 2023 12:50 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Does anyone recalculate their SWR withdrawal annually?
- Replies: 270
- Views: 14951
Re: Does anyone recalculate their SWR withdrawal annually?
My net worth spreadsheet that I update every few months actually have a withdrawal rate section. It calculates the dollar amount of various withdrawal rates from the portfolio, and I have different bands color-coded so I can tell at a glance what a relatively reasonable withdrawal rate would be in absolute terms. I guess it's technically variable in the sense that it updates automatically with my net worth. I'm still far from retirement so I don't need the information, but I suspect when I do get there later in life, I'll just play it by ear and use those bands as a guideline.
- Wed May 24, 2023 12:47 am
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: Using Laptop As Desktop Power
- Replies: 45
- Views: 2420
Re: Using Laptop As Desktop Power
This might be a silly question - but if you use a laptop for a home "desktop" type of set up (with peripheral monitor and keyboard), can you leave the laptop closed? Is there a setting to turn off the screen on the laptop (only)? And if so, do you have to then open up the laptop to turn on (this would be awkward)? Yes, laptop remains closed. There are settings for this. Very common. Note that this does vary by system and use case. For example, gaming laptops that run hotter tend to only be designed to run cool enough while open. You might be able to run them closed for light use, but they will throttle badly under load. Usually, the lighter ultrabook-style laptops are good about running closed, but I would still check reviews or ...
- Tue May 23, 2023 5:20 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: Using Laptop As Desktop Power
- Replies: 45
- Views: 2420
Re: Using Laptop As Desktop Power
I've been doing this for about 2 years at home, and much longer at work. It's a great setup. I used to build my own gaming desktops, but I just reached a point in my life where it wasn't worth the time or space. If I could, I would own a much smaller laptop, but I'm currently using a somewhat bulky gaming laptop. I just have a huge backlog of games that I bought in my younger years and want to be able to finish them up at some point. But once I'm through with those, I'll probably never get a gaming PC again. I do a lot of programming work on the go, so carrying a heavy laptop is kind of annoying. I'm tempted to get something like a Chrome book for portability, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. One thing to keep in mind is that true physic...
- Sat May 06, 2023 9:15 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: Active Management in "Less Efficient" Markets
- Replies: 23
- Views: 1894
Re: Active Management in "Less Efficient" Markets
I'm just a layman when it comes to economics, not a trained economist, but it strikes me as odd that people are so obsessed with this notion of inefficiency. Inefficiency implies that there is some intrinsic, potentially realizable value that is different from what someone is willing to transact for. Past a certain level of liquidity/volume in publicly, digitally traded assets, it feels like trying to make sense of dividing by 0. The assets that make up the overwhelming majority of typical Boglehead portfolios are so liquid that there can't really be a notion of an inefficient market. You can disagree with the market consensus based on fundamentals, but at the end of the day, the value is simply what the market will bear, not what you think...
- Sun Apr 30, 2023 10:08 pm
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: Landlord denied 6 month lease, and we're moving in 6 months
- Replies: 66
- Views: 7648
Re: Landlord denied 6 month lease, and we're moving in 6 months
I generally hate paying tons of money to anyone who makes my life really hard. It's not that they're bad people or don't have legitimate interests or concerns, but I just feel like life is too precious to be bending over backwards for some landlord's benefit when I could be spending my time and money on things I care about. I'd rather make them work to serve another customer who is more aligned with their priorities, or lose income because they were too convinced I was going to cave and pay their elevated rent. This may be way out of left field, but I'd look into alternative living arrangements. The easiest would be living with family/friends for a while. If that's not an option, I'd seriously consider renting an RV, or buying a used one if...
- Sat Apr 29, 2023 10:07 pm
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: Unwise to buy a $1.5 million house?
- Replies: 10
- Views: 2207
Re: Unwise to buy a $1.5 million house?
We are blessed to have the income we do but it's a huge jump for us at the same time this tax burden is coming on board for the next 5 years ... My wife loves the new house and I do too but the thought of being debt free is also appealing but I'm not sure I can convince her to live in the current house forever.. especially if we had another child as things are very tight space wise now. What follows is my immediate gut reaction. Feel free to tell me I'm way off base. Sometimes, people get to thinking about one thing and allow themselves to get carried away and extrapolate things to the extreme. I remember my father helping out some family friends with car maintenance many years ago, minor things like changing the brakes, but they were not ...
- Sat Apr 29, 2023 9:37 pm
- Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
- Topic: Looking for another CC - Visa or MC: please advise
- Replies: 9
- Views: 1103
Re: Looking for another CC - Visa or MC: please advise
The bonus is not as juicy as it was when the card first came out, but the Capital One Venture X is a solid travel card that is really flexible and easy to use. While it's not technically cash back, it may as well be for people who spend at least a few hundred dollars per year on travel. It's a $395 annual fee, but you get $300 in travel credit each year plus $100 worth of points each card anniversary, effectively offsetting the entire annual fee. Throw in a nice signup bonus and good earn rates, and you have a card that's kind of a no-brainer for people who don't want to deal with the complicated Chase and Amex ecosystems. The only real constraint is that you're limited to the Capital One travel portal for redemptions, but I've found it to ...
- Sat Apr 29, 2023 1:46 pm
- Forum: Personal Investments
- Topic: Retirement Account Equity Allocation
- Replies: 7
- Views: 781
Re: Retirement Account Equity Allocation
Without mentioning your age/ life expectancy and withdrawal rate you won't get relevant answers. Your asset allocation is based on your personal situation to a large degree They briefly mentioned the following: now that you are taking taxable withdrawals? What you said still applies, but I think they intended to at least narrow it down to retirees who are likely withdrawing from taxable before anything else (although even that is not a given). OP, even if you were to clarify, I don't think your question makes a whole lot of sense. A lot of people think about tax location in addition to asset allocation, so AA will differ between accounts. There are also all different kinds of approaches to glide paths in retirement. There seems to be incre...