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rennale

As a newbie (and, seemingly, destined to be a newbie forever) this thread is a great learning opportunity. But one word that seems to be missing is Tax. Why is that, what am I missing? My FA (no longer used) had quite a lot of my portfolio in high yield bonds, which I dumped during the process of re...

rennale

Six hours from NYC, according to Google, is the Bretton Arms Inn, which is in the grounds of the Mount Washington Hotel. Both are historic, the former being small and more romantic, the latter being grand and impressive. It's just a few minutes walk between them so you can easily use the facilities ...

rennale

Don't forget that Canadian Thanksgiving is in October (Monday 14th this year) so that can impact opening times and prices. And allow you to catch two Thanksgivings.

rennale

Bee keeping. - It was just something that I was always curious about. I started this year. Absolutely fascinating. A hobby that is both easy and difficult at the same time. Hives are simple to install and mostly look after themselves, but, wow, the complexities of keeping the bees alive and healthy ...

rennale

Heck, 31 years. All the old DECcies, I guess. :-) Anyway, the DCU doesn't support Direct Connect - which would allow Quicken etc. to directly access & download financial transactions. But it does support export of transactions into the following file formats: Excel (.csv) OFX Quicken (.qfx) QuickBoo...

rennale

Well, if you decide to completely blow your budget you could try a once-in-a-lifetime night in the Ritz Carlton. The hotel occupies floors 102-118 of the building, with the reception on the 103rd floor and the bar on the 118th.

It's quite the experience.

rennale

As far as I can tell it's just a matter of being able to alter the 90% bend point PIA calculation to a different percentage. With WEP, the 90% number reduces by 5% per year for every year fewer than 30 "substantial earnings" years. So, if you only have 29 substantial earnings years (and a separate p...

rennale

I'd be interested to know how to modify this excellent spreadsheet to deal with WEP (Windfall Elimination Provision). Such as adding an input cell for the WEP percentage.

rennale

Buy a copy of Excel for Mac for $105. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H4XBM1R Anything else will cause more grief than it's worth.... (and Excel is a good product by any measure) I really don’t want to buy MS products. Is anyone using LibreCalc successfully on a Mac with RPM? Yeah, I didn't either (I'...

rennale

Buy a copy of Excel for Mac for $105.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H4XBM1R

Anything else will cause more grief than it's worth.... (and Excel is a good product by any measure)

rennale

My grandfather would turn off the car engine to free wheel down long hills and save gas. (Long before the days of steering locks!)

rennale

I took the Eurostar train from London to Paris on March 2nd (two weeks ago) and it was perfectly fine, if you don't count the hundreds of young school kids enjoying themselves during the trip (hint: get first class tickets!). I was in Paris for a few days and it too was absolutely fine. I steered cl...

rennale

Take the ferry from from Port Clyde or New Harbor to Monhegan Island and spend the day there. On a nice day it's a little slice of heaven.

rennale

Somewhat tangentially, I believe that there's an additional get-out-of-jail-free card if you retired in 2017/2018 and were over 62 years old. But I have no idea how this is entered on Form 2210. My H&R Block Tax software has no way to select this option as far as I can tell. It also seems to vaguely...

rennale

Well, per The Clash: Darling you got to let me know Should I stay or should I go? If you say that you are mine I'll be here 'til the end of time So you got to let me know Should I stay or should I go? Perhaps Darling is NYC. :-) You mention that you've been in the US five years and would possibly re...

rennale

This topic would likely be shorter if it discussed inheritances that *did* go as planned. I haven't seen too many. My experiences sum up to: 1/ People don't die in the order that inheritance plans expect them to. 2/ Blood is much much *much* thicker than water. 3/ Blindly considering all children e...

rennale

Oh, and two more:

5/ People fail to update their wills when circumstances change.
6/ If a will can't be found it can't be executed. And if there's only one copy, well, it can mysteriously disappear......

rennale

This topic would likely be shorter if it discussed inheritances that *did* go as planned. I haven't seen too many. My experiences sum up to: 1/ People don't die in the order that inheritance plans expect them to. 2/ Blood is much much *much* thicker than water. 3/ Blindly considering all children eq...

rennale

2599.12

The wisdom of crowds. My quick scan makes this the average so far, ignoring the 10 lowest and 10 highest guesses. 280 guesses.

rennale

How about taking a look at:

"A History of the World in 500 Walks" by Sarah Baxter.

https://www.amazon.com/History-World-50 ... 162686554X

A friend gave it to me for a present and I've been in a crisis of decision ever since.

rennale

Well, here's the thing - I never got the itch. It was the calendar that did for me. For the majority of my career I was doing something that I loved, at least at a strategic level if not always at the day-to-day level. And the vast majority of my friends were at work (not an ideal situation, but it ...

rennale

I'm also struggling with the convert or not convert question because I have a large LTCG. If I convert the LTCG will cross the NIIT threshold. If I don't convert, it won't. So, essentially, the conversion is going to cost an extra 3.8%. Bumping the 12% rate to 15.8% isn't so bad. But bumping the 22%...

rennale

The tradeoff is one of actually enjoying these cities versus visiting as many tourist attractions as possible in them. These are often at odds with each other, just the same as any great American city (NYC, San Francisco, etc). Struggling with a huge crowd to see the Mona Lisa or visiting Harrods ca...

rennale

+1 for Moneydance. I started using it late last year after seeing good reviews here in the forum. I previously used several homegrown spreadsheets of varying complexity. I've never tried Quicken or MS Money (which, at the time, people didn't seem to be too happy with due to cost or support issues) o...

rennale

First, check the weather. If it's raining, stay in the airport. I would keep it very simple. Heathrow Express to Paddington. Then just walk: - Perhaps to Portobello Market and the Notting Hill area. Lots of fun. or: - Down to Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. Then down into Knightsbridge and visit H...

rennale

Re: ....I would appreciate some suggestions for some offbeat things to see or do. Have dinner at Nos Ancêtres les Gaulois at 39 Rue Saint-Louis en l'Île (https://www.nosancetreslesgaulois.com/en) I've been a couple of times, although not for several years, and, yes, it's clearly a tourist & after-bu...

rennale

For great views of the city (50 floors up) have lunch at the Top of the Hub in the Prudential Center. Amazingly, lunch there doesn't have to be wickedly expensive. For a cheap thrill take the ferry from the Aquarium to Charlestown. Takes under 15 minutes and gives a fun view of the city, especially ...

rennale

I think it's a matter of getting to talk to the right person. Like your wife, I too was missing an entire year of earnings on my SS record, and I had the W2 & Tax return. After initially going to my SS office and handing everything over, several months passed by and nothing happened. I had to go bac...

rennale

I did this, for the same reasons as you, on perfectly good terms. Simply identify a personal life deadline and tell him you'll be meeting it shortly. In my case I told my FA, several months before I retired, that after I retired I would have the time to manage my portfolio and planned to do so. So w...

rennale

Well, (having not read the entire thread) here are two simple ideas that have served me well: 1/ On the flight out put the airline's blanket all over you prior to the meals, so it acts as a huge napkin. Then, when you've inevitably spilt wine/food all over yourself before you've even got to your des...

rennale

There is a driving school near me that offers a 2 hour lesson for $180. They provide the car. Reviews suggest that at the end of the 2 hours, people feel comfortable enough that they could drive stick now, albeit not perfectly. Would this be a reasonable plan of action? Don't overthink this. Drivin...

rennale

For those of you who have retired within the past year or so, how is it? Have there been any major surprises or adjustments you've had to make. Anything you need help with? Retired last year at 67. How is it? It's very pleasant. I am calmer in myself, kinder to other people, and more interested in ...

rennale

Unless you need Outlook, why not choose Home & Student rather than Home & Business?

Microsoft Office Home and Student for Mac (download) is currently $115 on Amazon. Provides Excel, Word, Powerpoint and OneNote. Full license with no monthly subscription.

rennale

You'd need an options based strategy. Basically buying Put options (bets on the index going down). You can do this yourself but it will get expensive over a long period of time. The closer options are to In The Money (ie exercisable for value) and the longer they are to expire, the more money they ...

rennale

FWIW, back in 2015 Morningstar was recommending FSTVX for taxable accounts:

http://www.morningstar.com/articles/714 ... -fide.html

rennale

I can now answer my own question. I purchased "Office 2016 for Mac" from Amazon for $130. In addition to Excel it provides Word, Powerpoint and Onenote. The original reviews for Excel for Mac back in 2016 were dismal, but I figured that a couple of years of updates would have redeemed it. So it prov...

rennale

A quick question - before I waste a hundred or so bucks can anybody confirm that Excel 2016 for Mac will handle RPM fully (Macros etc)? My Mac is running High Sierra (10.13.3). https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/d/excel-2016-for-mac/cfq7ttc0k5f2 I've been using RPM with LibreOffice (5.4.4.2) for ...

rennale

Previous recommendations in this forum have included Moneydance, so I started using it. Seems to do everything, including Direct Connect and stock price updating. Works very well for me (no bugs/crashes/etc). Data is stored locally (not in somebody's cloud). Free trial followed by a low cost purchase.

rennale

The HR department of the company I worked for (prior to retirement) used LinkedIn extensively to find candidates for open job positions. In fact, aside from looking at the resumes of people who applied for jobs directly through the company's website, it wasn't clear that the recruiters bothered to d...

rennale

Re: Went through this personally. The Monday after I left my job, DW and I marched down to the SS office and filed the paperwork. You need the termination letter from your employer. Keep the termination letter, because they’ll keep trying to add the IRMAA every year until you file taxes with the low...

rennale

As an unscientific comment I have observed no evidence that family longevity history is in any way meaningful in assessing one's own potential lifespan. I've been to too many funerals where a parent has survived long enough to bury a child. (Surely life's cruelest blow.) And on the other hand my par...

rennale

Ditto.

It'll be my first ever meeting. Very much looking forward to it. The social too!

rennale

I recently went through the same process (deciding which Medicare Advantage to purchase) and came to the conclusion that dental was mostly a waste of time. The insurance provisions are minimal, it's mostly a pre-payment system. For example, in my area a cleaning is about $150 and the MA programs see...

rennale

Another update. My last day at megacorp was 1st September. Whoo-hoo. Now six weeks in and just treating life like a series of back-to-back weekends. I've decided to chill until the New Year to unwind and take stock (figurative, not literal). Then sort out something constructive to do. It's amazing h...

rennale

As a previous reply mentioned, there isn't much of a reverse commute to be had. But, as also mentioned, living in central Boston and driving north out to Woburn is definitely manageable. This would put you living in the city of Boston (the Back Bay or Beacon Hill, perhaps), or Cambridge, or Charlest...

rennale

So I am now 67 and retire at the end of this month. I think I have the necessary financial security and my job has become boring. I don't have the "retire to something not from something" figured out, so I'm terrified of the coming months. But unless I work until I drop dead that hurdle must be face...

rennale

I have watched this thread with great interest, although I would prefer one on "Regret *late* retirement/downsizing." I think I've dealt with the early retirement problem by keeping working until my 67th birthday earlier this month. But, that said, the prospect of boredom in retirement is still a si...

rennale

I too am trying to fix this problem. I have one year (1991) where the SSA reports zero earnings, and another (1992) that reports partial earnings. I'm not sure why this happened but blithely assumed that there was no rush to fix it. I also made the mistake of not realizing that the earnings were adj...

rennale

Apologies for topic drift but earlier, Watty mentioned: > The Vanguard 2015 target date fund has an asset allocation of 50% stocks and a 50% bonds so ...... The Fidelity 2015 target date fund is the same and I'm curious about it. Presumably the typical investor in these funds is now 67 or thereabout...

rennale

First post. Not likely to be the last! Got to start somewhere. I also plan to retire this year, when I get to 67. Basically terrified. Been in the IT industry since college. Enough already. Was once wisely advised to not retire from something, but to retire to something. But the "from" takes so many...

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