Bogleheads.org

TheAncientOne

If you go to First Republic Bank, which specializes in jumbo mortgages, they'll take RSUs into account. The issue will be how many you have in each of the next several years. I'm pretty sure they discount them as well since high tech stocks have been known in the dim past to go down sharply.

TheAncientOne

I'm guessing he had some serious short positions.

TheAncientOne

I'm usually with the consensus here that borrowing from your 401K is a bad idea. Not only do you face the risk of having to pay that loan back prematurely if you lose your job, we also know that just as the credit card companies that so kindly offer you zero interest rate balance transfers that too ...

TheAncientOne

Odysseus, you need to temporarily reduce your tax sheltered contributions to build up your cash position. First to pay off the partnership loan but also to build up your cash reserves and taxable account savings. The usual view here is that you should never give up the one time chance to make 401K c...

TheAncientOne

If you're going to pick just one, I'd choose whichever has an office convenient to where you live. Lots of positive things to say about VG but I've had to deal with situations like the death of a parent, getting a confirmation letter for my daughter's home purchase (we were advancing her the amount ...

TheAncientOne

I hope this doesn't sound too cynical but lots of folks came up with the same conclusion and sold when Nasdaq hit 3000 the year before. They had to watch it go past 5000 in March 2000 before it cracked. I do wonder if Bogle really sold at the very top of the market.

TheAncientOne

You're doing fine. Any suggestions would just be at the margin. If your wife enjoys her job, the insurance you get through it is extremely valuable. If she's ready to pack it in, however, the two of you have the option of living off what you've saved and invested. Given your low tax rate, I'd have b...

TheAncientOne

Not a big Dave Ramsey fan but you are a classic example of someone who should follow his plan. Those are huge interest rates you're paying so you shouldn't even be doing a 401k except for whatever you get matched by your employer. Assuming you already have one or two thousand dollars in your checkin...

TheAncientOne

Is this a for profit university?

TheAncientOne

I believe it's ok for the wealthy partner who presumably is the one who wants the prenup to pay for both attorneys. However, the attorney representing the less well off partner must be completely independent of the partner paying for the prenup other than receiving compensation for this one matter. ...

TheAncientOne

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but it was my understanding that HELOC interest is no longer tax deductible under the new law. Assuming that's correct, I'd be paying down that loan ASAP because a 7% after tax return will be hard to match with any alternative investment.

TheAncientOne

Keep it simple. Use 4K to pay off the two highest interest rate loans and put the remaining 1K into your underfunded emergency fund. Going forward, I'd take advantage of your lower monthly payments to increase your 401k. A 4% contribution, combined with an equal amount from your company is not enoug...

TheAncientOne

I suggest Fidelity or Schwab for most people because having an office you can go to beats having only an 800 number like Vanguard. As others here have suggested, you can open an account then have your new firm get all your assets transferred,

TheAncientOne

If you're not there already, you need to hang out at whitecoatinvestor.com. Given your high income, LCOL location, and low housing costs for now, I don't understand why you'd be fooling around with PSLF. You didn't mention what interest rate you're paying but the very first step is to refinance at a...

TheAncientOne

The easiest time to say No is at the very outset. Just tell him that you're not interested in having a financial adviser. The whole idea of dinners like this is to create a sense of obligation on your part. Everyone should read Robert Cialdini's book, Influence, which discusses how people are made t...

TheAncientOne

JoMoney, the B shares were created in the 1990s, well before the BNSF acquisition. However that acquisition led to the issuance of far more B shares, making those shares eligible for inclusion in the S&P 500 index.

TheAncientOne

You hire an appraiser knowledgeable in farmland values in that area to do a valuation estimate as of date of death. If the land has been leased for many years to a working farmer, the net cash flow will provide one means of estimating its worth while comparable sales will provide another.

TheAncientOne

I suspect the technical answer is that you should have some legal documentation that includes the appropriate short term interest rate. As a practical matter, as long as both you and the family member are comfortable with an informal loan, they give you the money which you repay a month or two later...

TheAncientOne

Northeastern and GW are very expensive programs that are no better than adequate. I agree with you that you can get a perfectly good engineering education, especially for undergrad, from Rutgers. As others have pointed out, Purdue is a well regarded university with an engineering orientation. It's b...

TheAncientOne

Moto, I think that's fine if we're talking about something like your year end bonus. But what if you get a once in a lifetime injection of cash, as might be the case with an inheritance or the sale of a business. Would you lump sum that money as well?

TheAncientOne

If you have strong political views about not investing in a given industry or company, then don't buy index funds. You can pretty much replicate what an index fund does by picking 15 stocks at random (minus those that offend your sensibilities).

TheAncientOne

With mortgage interest of only $3600 or so, you're probably going to be taking the standard deduction under the new tax law. Unless the two of you are really generous with charitable contributions, the 3.875% interest rate will be your after tax cost as well. You might as well pay that mortgage off ...

TheAncientOne

Can you get a transfer to a lower cost of living area? Even if they pay less there, you'll probably find that after adjusting for the difference in housing costs and state taxes that you'll do better somewhere else.

TheAncientOne

In your case, I'd cut back your 401K to the 10% for a year or two because a) you're in a low tax situation and b) your assets in your only taxable account (checking acct.) is too low. Your housing payments are high for your income but I'd have a hard time switching to a higher interest rate mortgage...

TheAncientOne

Assuming the bank is solid, this is as close to free money as you can get in the stock market. The current value of the bank prior to the IPO is owned by no one so those who buy shares in the IPO become owners of that previously unclaimed value. Buy as many shares as you can. If you have time prior ...

TheAncientOne

drzzzz, you're not required to distribute a certain percentage although the fund as a whole does and they do have the right to make account holders make donations in order to meet this. Since the minimum is 5% and the typical fund (Fidelity is what I'm familiar with) donates 15-20% per year, this wi...

TheAncientOne

First priority should be your 403b. You can do an IRA only if you max out the 403b first. And if you do an IRA, why would it be a Roth? You're looking at a combined 34% tax burden (assuming you won't be itemizing with the new standard deduction.)

TheAncientOne

Paying off the home equity loan will bring your emergency fund down to $45K, or four months' salary if I understand you correctly. Unless you have special circumstances, this would seem to be a more than adequate reserve, which you can now rebuild with the money that's no longer going toward the hom...

TheAncientOne

Given that you have specialized skills, it may take you longer than the average person to get a new job. At least you have a good explanation, from a hiring company's perspective, as to why you lost your job. First, I'd see if they will give you more COBRA than six months. Twelve or nine months? You...

TheAncientOne

The Supreme Court case currently pending involves the obligation of out of state sellers to collect the appropriate sales tax from their customers. All states with sales tax already require their residents to pay what's called use tax at an equal rate for goods brought into the state, whether purcha...

TheAncientOne

The desire of something for nothing will never go out of style.

TheAncientOne

So you have only $150K in investments after margin debt. Sell it all now. Margin debt is a foolish thing to have if you're well off. It's absolutely insane to have it in your situation. Your tax situation will probably be minor if you inherited it and received a stepped up basis upon the death of yo...

TheAncientOne

For starters, you'll now get 10K for SALT deductions. AMT remains but only for an elite group of income earners, which is as it was originally promoted and should be.

TheAncientOne

For those of us who saw the original Blade Runner when it came out, this year's version was a disappointment. By the way, I was talking with a good friend who's an expat in China (born there, came to US for grad school then became an American citizen), back home to visit HQ. He was surprised that BR...

TheAncientOne

Okie, I lived in NYC during the late 1970s when this was universal for all subway cars. When the city finally decided to get serious about the lack of civic order (it was common back then to see cars with the sign "No radio" on their dashboard to hopefully discourage car break ins), a key thing they...

TheAncientOne

Oops, upon reading this again, I'm confused. Did you contribute shares out of 401K or IRA account?

TheAncientOne

The cost basis is the fair market value on the day you donated the shares. You should be receiving Form 8283 from Vanguard that provides you with this information. At least that's what Fidelity did when we donated appreciated shares to our account.

TheAncientOne

Captain Kangaroo, short to intermediate treasuries (or more useful for most of us, a fund of them) would be the logical place to park your cash. I'm not willing to bet that long term treasuries can continue to remain at their current low yields. I'm willing to take term risk for two year notes in or...

TheAncientOne

The burden of public sector pensions and retirees health care costs is, if anything, greatly underrated. Those of you who would like to follow this subject more might want to check out the site pensiontsunami.com. Relying upon the rating agencies to tell you if there's risk is nonsense. Perhaps you ...

TheAncientOne

Your mom is pretty close to $4K/month already. If we use a 4% withdrawal rate on $315K, let's call that $12K, or $1K/month. Combine that with her SS and pension, she's just about there. If she's willing and able to work a couple more years as you suggest, she should reach that number.

TheAncientOne

Do you follow Mister Money Mustache's site? Your situation is similar to him and his followers. If I were in your shoes, I might want to first have an idea as to what my plans, initially, would be for my life rather than go all in with the Take This Job and Shove It path. Especially since you and yo...

TheAncientOne

I'm confused as to your question about "standard deduction." When you convert a 401K or a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, the money converted counts as ordinary income in that year. Standard deduction will not be changed by this or any other income producing activity.

TheAncientOne

Wrong site to be asking this. I suspect most of us would say, "Way to go! Now sell it all and put it into index funds!"

TheAncientOne

The stock market does not know how much you "need" to make your goal. I'm a strong believer in heavy equity exposure when you're young as long as you can deal with the inevitable bear markets and have a job or career that will not be at risk when the next recession hits. If I were in your shoes, I'd...

TheAncientOne

Mutual fund shares are different from shares in a company. Every day after the market closes, the fund's accountants calculate the value of the fund's net assets and divide by the number of shares outstanding that day to report a net asset value per share. If you redeem shares today, the number of s...

TheAncientOne

My only dealing with a FA was when I took control of my mother's account at Fidelity when she was in her mid 80s. As i recall they charged something like 1% and would also on a regular basis move money from one Fidelity mutual fund to another. Between paying the AUM fee, paying for active management...

TheAncientOne

You sound like a physician. If you haven't already, spend time at whitecoatinvestor.com. They specialize in situations like yours. Main thing you need to do is to come out of the box saving lots of money before your lifestyle creeps up to your new income. Second, refinance that student loan debt to ...

TheAncientOne

Going from 90/10 to 80/20 is fine if it makes you feel better but it won't change things much. I'd argue that if you feel that the market is frothy (and most all of us do) then take it upon yourself to go to 50/50 for the next two years. See where you are then and possibly readjust. Lots of us thoug...

TheAncientOne

I don't have hard data for you but I was active in the late 1990s market. The thing about it was that outside of stocks in the dot com bubble along with related tech and "concept" stocks, the market then was very cheap. If you look at the Berkshire Hathaway annual report for 1999, which came out in ...

TheAncientOne

Lrt, I only wish I had been on the ball as much as you are at your age. I'd guess you're at the 95th percentile plus in terms of money management for a couple still in their twenties. It's been my perception that too many people here get so carried away with minimizing taxes that they lose track of ...

Search found 139 matches