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Meat should never be dried out... Should be moist and juicy. In my experience this is a key factor and unfortunately a lot of places get it wrong.

Stock valuations were low in the early 70s, housing was also low relative to median income. Now both are at record levels. Stocks performed decently at least nominally in the 70s, can we say the same for the next decade? If we have low market returns with a backdrop of high inflation then it's going to be worse than the 70s.

Although folks like Kathy Woods are sticking to their forecast that we are going to quickly devolve into deflation.

I think the $1M figure isn't by itself relevant without considering expenses, current age and other streams like Social Security. Having $500K being 75 with 90% of your expenses covered by SS is very different than $1M retiring at 60 and spending $100K/yr.

7% cash, 5% bonds... Age 49, retiring next year

Just take a break, 6 months or a year and then come back to the work force. That is what I did when I was 36, worked out really well.

aren't most MBS bought by the Fed, so yes, they are worth less but if those assets are on the Fed's balance sheet then it does not matter since the Fed can take that hit without consequence

15 months in now and the end does not seem anywhere in sight. This drawdown looks more and more like a 30+ month cycle more analogous to 2000. Except with the lost decade of 2000-2013 inflation was much much lower, so if we have a similar phase but with our current inflation we could see 20 years of zero instead of the 13 years we saw at the turn of the century - I hope not but it isn't looking good.

I have over $300K sitting in a BOA savings account earning just piddly interest. What would you recommend I do to have my money work better for me? if you understand what your future cashflows look like then you can build a t-bill ladder - I am guessing you don't need the entire $300k at once so it makes sense to choose longer maturities for the money you know you don't need at the moment. You just missed the boat on the 5% rates as they dipped quit substantially in the last few days due to the banking crisis but it's still decent... around 4.3ish%. Have you bought I-Bonds? you have until Apr 30 to pickup $10K x 2 (if you're married) for 6.48% rate for at least 6 months, then perhaps around 5% (estimated - but we'll know by next month for ...

I had this happen in the past with an employer and it was considered income in the year it was distributed so nothing to do with the past. It is a huge disappointment to go through this and i've been there. Thankfully that was the only employer that I had this happen, all future employers had safe harbor plans.

Small caps are getting decimated... I'm guessing exposure to regionals, disappointing as they've underperformed last decade and they were just beginning to get ahead

International is crashing hard today due to possible contagion from Credit Suisse

Thanks for clarifying.. I had no idea the match limits and MBDR calculation was on a per employer basis, that is certainly a relief

Called Fidelity and they confirmed that it is a true up that posts Q1 of each year. I did not ask why I qualified but I guess that isn't relevant if they believe I did qualify.

I forgot to ask but I am assuming this is considered a 2023 contribution (and not a contribution for the 2022 tax year) since I already did my taxes. It should be a 2022 contribution.

This complicates things a bit... This year I am doing the max mega backdoor Roth. Since employer match affects limits how would this affect it?

Thanks, I initially thought perhaps it was a true up but most true ups i've seen including my current employer require you to be an employee as of the final day or week of the year. It would be unusual to receive a true up when departing in Q2 of the year.

Perhaps there could be some other reason, as mentioned above a different true up qualification based on hours - I will call Fidelity in any case to clarify. Thanks!

I was just looking at the 401k I had with my former employer. I quit this job in April 2022. Now, suddenly I see a transaction on 3/9/2023 that says "Contributions" and Sources says "Employer Match" in the amount of $1,057.

Any ideas why I am getting an employer match when I do not even work for the company? Or should I get this clarified with Fidelity? Just checking here to see if I am missing anything and if anyone has seen this before.

I am just a bit puzzled to see this and hoping this isn't some kind of mistake since the money got invested in the market and if they claw it back then it could come out of my pocket due to potential losses.

billthecat wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 12:39 am Maybe I don’t understand but wouldn’t that be double dipping? Let’s say you switch jobs on July 1. Your accrued vacation would be paid out when you leave (right?)

No, my current employer has no accrued vacation, it's a non-accrual system like many other tech companies these days. If you leave you lose all the time you've put in, nothing is paid out. I have almost a year of time put in towards vacation if it was accrued, hence trying to negotiate this with a new employer or at least trying to.

I don't think it would be unreasonable to mention your planned vacation during interviews and then ask for extra PTO (or equivalent signing bonus) during offer negotiations. Having said that, if you literally "can't" take a week off without pay then I'd suggest posting a separate topic for advice on spending within your means. Thanks, after much thought, I think I will just stick on till my vacation, easier that way. Since I'm staying until June anyway it would be an additional 90 days, I think I can do that. Yeah, no affordability issues, I can technically "afford" to take the hit but why should I if my current employer will cover the vacation paid? Makes no sense. I am on a non-accrual vacation system so if I don't us...

Marseille07 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:30 pm Well if that's an option then start interviewing right after the vacation. I thought you wanted to start interviewing way before that.

Thanks! I think I was leaning towards this and just wanted to throw it out there to get some other thoughts. But the feedback of this thread makes me think my original thoughts of just making it simpler and switching after my vacation is the right one.

8301 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:18 pm Don't expect anybody to pay for your vacation time if you have not earned yet. Take unpaid time off if necessary.

Yeah, this isn't an option. I would be taking a massive pay cut to switch already because most tech jobs aren't paying much these days. On top of that pay cut I can't take another big pay hit. I would rather just stick on till Sep and take the vacation paid at my current place.

I jumped ship mid last year to join my current gig. Unfortunately, due to reasons too numerous to list here without going into long winded rants, the job hasn't met expectations and i've decided to bail as soon as the conditions are right. I get my annual bonus next month and my RSU's 1st cliff vest is early June so will be sticking on at least till then. Here is where it gets a bit complicated. I have already planned a trip to Europe in Sep for 2 weeks. So, I am trying to figure out what is the best strategy from a timing perspective to start my job search and how to negotiate paid time off for the vacation. I want the time paid because I can easily take the 2 weeks paid in my current company, but that would of course mean that I have to s...

Florida Orange wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 10:21 am I think they're right for the wrong reason. If you're living on dividends you have a very low withdrawal rate which eliminates sequence of returns risk.

They stated that they have a close to 4% dividend yield due to International investing so it would amount to a 4% WR which would be about the same as most conservative retirees are targeting.

They also stated that US investors would have to "figure something out" since they get an under 2% yield, which is inaccurate since US investors would just take their 1.5% dividend and then withdraw the additional 2.5% from their assets to arrive at 4% and it would be exactly the same.

what is the SEC yield on this? Most tax exempt funds I have seen have much lower yields and the math did not make much sense since the difference in yield amounted to the federal taxes paid.

For context I work in investment accounting and corporate finance. Prior to my formal training I had vaguely similar ideas. It does seem like dividends is free money on the surface, something analogous to bank interest. I think most aren't realizing that this is their own money coming off the NAV - money that they already own being returned back to them. For a 4% withdrawal on a portfolio - whether this 4% is coming off the NAV of each unit (dividend distribution) OR if units are sold but the NAV remains constant (dividend not distributed) - mathematically it has the exact same effect. If the mathematical effect on the portfolio is the same then the effects of SORR should also be exactly the same. Rob Berger made this interesting observati...

Thanks for confirming, I was wondering if it was something that I was missing here because after all these folks are extremely popular in the FIRE space and I assumed they knew what they were talking about.

In fact, I see a huge number of people pursuing FIRE adopt a dividend investing strategy thinking that is what is going to "save" them from sequence risk. I just don't see how higher dividends are going to mitigate sequence risk.

Was listening to Kristy and Bryce from the popular FIRE podcast Millenial Revolution and they made a few statements about their strategy that i'm having trouble understanding. Here is the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxRt2fAzRi0&t=736s First they claim that if you live off the dividends then you can eliminate the sequence risk. How is this possible? Then they claim that if you just spend the dividends then you're not selling anything - however my understanding of dividends is that it comes off the NAV so getting dividends and spending it is functionally equivalent to NOT getting dividends and then selling shares in that amount. Their suggestion is to invest more in International to increase dividend yield because the US market ...

I did the same for 2022 by $70. I decided to pay the 6% excise and will reduce my Contribs for 2023 to compensate... Easiest solution rather than a clawback

In my case removal was $25 fee so made no sense and if I read correctly Fidelity charges $20 so may not make sense either since paying the tax is cheaper

I don't know who explained to you but a bond fund never promised such a thing. A simple example is if the rates keep rising during the duration. I believe the better math is to use a "2 x duration - 1 year" formula. I agree, it's my fault for not understanding, bad research on my part but the math is complicated and based on how many questions i've read asking clarifications I doubt a large majority really understand how it actually works. People are simply told "bonds are safe", that is the advice. More bonds closer to retirement, never did anyone say it's possible your bonds are going to go up in smoke. I am just clarifying that the risks of bond funds are far greater than perceived. 2 x duration - 1 for an Intermedia...

My understanding when I purchased a bond fund, when it was explained to me, was that I would get the SEC yield when I bought the fund if I held it for the average duration of the fund which is around 7 years. In July 2018 that was 2.5%. Right now with dividends re-invested the CAGR is 0.47% from July 2018 to date which is magnitudes lower than the initial SEC yield. Granted the duration of this bond fund is around 7 years and we've only completed 5, however, on a $10,000 balance with a 7 year period at 2.5% annualized I am expecting an ending balance of $11,886. This means that with 2 years left on term VBTLX should start suddenly compounding at 7.8% annualized to give me my promised initial yield and as we know that is simply not happening...

Flashes1 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 8:54 am In hindsight, I was foolish to have invested in bonds when interest rates were near 0%. There was no way for them to increase in value and were 100% guaranteed to lose money because it was a given rates would one day increase (just didn't know when).

I made a big mistake by not selling my position when intermediate rates went to 0.5%, I should've known that it was the bottom and there was nowhere else to go but UP. Unfortunately I was rather inexperienced with how bonds work back then and bought into the "bonds are safe" mantra that is being regurgitated. I know now that Bonds are NOT safe, thanks to the current carnage.

I acquired my position of VBTLX mid 2018 when the SEC yield was 2.5% or so. Now that the SEC yield is 4.37% the NAV has dropped around 10% since I acquired it. So, 5 year annualized real returns are showing up as -3.2% and Sharpe ratio is so low it's a joke (-0.13) :oops: Given the interest rate and inflation regimes the future isn't looking too good for Bonds, to break even not only has it to recover all it's losses of the past, it would have to keep up with future inflation and beat the higher rates offered by shorter term Treasuries currently. Also VBTLX currently has an extremely lousy distribution yield of 2.96% which does not seem to be going up much. Just curious what everyone else is doing a) Staying the course b) Selling and moving...

You lost a whole lot more.. you're forgetting to add in inflation. I would not be surprised if it takes 20+ years for bonds to recover in real terms

GPT3 APIs are not free, they are expensive... Training models is very expensive and they don't seem to have any substantial trial except their $18 in trial credits which is nothing... For example it costs $8-10 to create a custom model using DaVinci

I hold VMFXX at Vanguard and SPRXX at Fidelity, both Money Markets paid me almost exactly the figure quoted by the 7 day yield so that is the interest you will receive or within a hair of it.

Santorini is extremely touristy but I liked it, I went in the shoulder season in May...can't imagine the crowds in the summer. Thera and Oia are very crowded, I rented a scooter and toured the other parts of the island which are much quieter. The hike between Thera and Oia is pretty spectacular. Mykonos was nice but unfortunately I got caught up with the arrival of a cruise ship, suddenly the island went from tranquil to packed with unbearable crowds, packs of people following leaders with their flags LOL! There is an island near Mykonos called Delos which is really cool with lots of ancient ruins. The other place I really liked was Meteora but not sure if you'll have enough time as it's near the Albanian border so it's a bit of a drive inl...

doesn't matter too much if you're going to keep the vehicle for a very long time, as you said 10+ years. Besides, the market is what it is, nothing else you can do about it - have to still live your life For longevity and reliability can't go wrong with a Toyota.

1. What is the most you'd be comfortable paying for a car? (not necessarily what you can afford, but what you'd pay) 25k + tax, I paid $27K out the door for my current car, fully loaded 2017 Mazda3 Grand Touring 6MT Hatch 2. Do you buy new, used, or CPO? Why? I bought new last time but next time I will buy pre-owned - 2-3yr old, buying used makes sense if the car is pricier and the depreciated value is more meaningful, i'm not going to buy a used Honda Civic to save $2-3k. 3. How long do you keep your cars? Why? (i.e. until the wheels fall off, until your lease is up, or at a certain mileage) A VERY long time, I bought my truck new in 2004, sold it in 2020 with 160K miles on the odo. I bought my current car in 2017 and still have it but pla...

I locked my card just for safety... I do have one recurring ACH debit which I am guessing should not be affected as it uses routing/account# and not the debit card#

30/70 portfolio lumpsummed in Aug 2020 has lost 0.3% so practically nothing in nominal terms. You didn't factor total return. https://tinyurl.com/2uhnukmv

With that said I would withdraw the money and put it in a Treasury note, these are yielding 5% now.

Yeah, it's tough when you have a great job and good income. Throughout my life i've had the good fortune of having great jobs, but last year I switched jobs to my current one which is the first job I actually hate. Worst decision of my life to join this company. But for many reasons i'm rather stuck but I was planning to retire in a few years anyway but now i'm just going to pull the plug next year. A bad job makes the decision so much easier.

I did this exact thing last year... no issues, I did not hear back from the IRS, they ignore code G.

t-bills are paying good, 3 months 4.8%, 6 months is over 5% now

also with t-bills you avoid state income tax so that's an additional benefit

There are some folks saying we are starting a new 15 year secular bear...I hope not!!!

https://youtu.be/KAfi4-32mAE

grabiner wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 7:50 pm My point is that you only adjust the qualified dividends. The non-qualified dividends count at full value. Thus, with 76.25% qualified dividends, you should have $2902 qualified and $904 non-qualified dividends. So your adjusted foreign income is 15/37 of $2902, plus $904, which is $2080.

ah, yes, I see it now, it does say adjustment for QD/LTCG. Using $2080 in the computation would've resulted in a max FTC value of $400.35 so I could've captured the entire credit. Guess I may have just messed up on my entry for the Qualified Dividends. Good info for next time, thanks! I'll file a 1040-X if it's easy enough - it looks like it isn't available yet in TT Online (says coming late Feb)

grabiner wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 7:04 pm This doesn't make sense. Your adjusted foreign income should be 100% of the non-qualified dividends, plus 45.04% of the qualified dividends, so this should increase your credit rather than decreasing it.

How did you come up with the 15/37 factor to adjust it? When I use that it matches the amount from TT exactly i.e. 3,806 * 15/37 = $1,543

I tried to lookup the exact formula for the adjustment but everything I found was complicated and ambiguous that it made my head spin

Thanks, yeah, in that case i'll just let the $28 go. Here is how TT calculated this. I am assuming TT did this correctly, the form is incredibly complicated so I have not read all the instructions. From the "Foreign Tax Credit Computation Worksheet": They came up with a figure $1,543 based on an "adjustment" https://i.imgur.com/TlG7Cxh.png This is correct if all of the foreign dividends were qualified, but that is not common for foreign stock funds. Note that the entry on line f (total dividends) and line h (qualified dividends and LTCG) are the same. If only some of your foreign dividends are qualified, then TurboTax should have asked you to enter the qualified amount. hmm...good observation. I don't recall getting ask...

$500k with no mortgage is very different from $500k and renting... Housing being the biggest expense and in recent times the most inflationary as well.

based on the answer here: https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/tax-credits-deductions/discussion/how-is-the-foreign-dividend-adjustment-amount-field-line-1k-in-worksheet-adjustment-required-for-qd/00/530352 it looks like adjustment is required if income is above $183,250 for single and $223,050 for married. I think I may have been slightly under the limit last year which is why it was confusing. - You have foreign qualifying dividends or long-term capital gains totaling more that $20,000, OR - Your total income exceeds the following amount for your filing status: - Married Filing Joint or Qualifying Widow(er): $223,050 - Single: $183,250 - Head of Household: $203,150 - Married Filing Separate: $111,525 Make sure you made this adjustment correc...

Thanks, yeah, in that case i'll just let the $28 go. Here is how TT calculated this. I am assuming TT did this correctly, the form is incredibly complicated so I have not read all the instructions. From the "Foreign Tax Credit Computation Worksheet": They came up with a figure $1,543 based on an "adjustment" https://i.imgur.com/TlG7Cxh.png Then in 1116: 1a = $1,543 3c = $12,950 (Standard deduction) 3d (Gross foreign income) = $3,806 3e Gross income from all sources = $211,996 3f (#3d / #3e) = 0.018 3g (#3c x #3f) = 12,950 * .018 = 233 6 = 233 7 (#1a - #6) = 1,543 - 233 = 1,310 Part II: Foreign taxes paid = 312 (correctly recorded) Part III: 17 = 1,310 18 (Taxable income without deductions) = 189,588 19 (#17 / #18) = 1,31...

Thanks for all the responses, I am not quite sure still how this works but I was able to pay for the online version and look at the Form 1116, it does list $28 as carryover on Schedule B Line 8 so I will not bother with it at this time and try to figure it out later since I can claim the amount on next years taxes.

Next year I will go back to using the Desktop version since I can look at the forms as I do it, I agree it's way better.

nalor511 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 11:59 amBecause you only get credit for the US taxes you should have paid on this income. The rest 312 minus 284 will be carried over to next year, or carried back to last year via form 1116 sch B

The dividends from my International Fund are $3,805 and my marginal tax rate is 32%. So if the dividends are not qualified the US taxes due would be $1,218 well over the FTC, even if the dividends were qualified at 15% rate it would be well over the FTC at around $571