Bogleheads.org

Maybe I'm a cynic, but my first thought when I saw this was "great, now we're going to drive even more people into the arms of the variable annuity community". I'm a veteran, and so were both my parents. Somehow, someway, it was very common in my hometown for everyone to end up with a variable annuity wrapped in an IRA when they left the service.

I'd rather not give the impression that the "right thing" to do with your TSP money is to get an annuity

A good school is the number one thing one can do to help our kids. I think I’d go for it and I think you can afford it. It may delay that early retirement. Thanks for the confirmation. That is our thinking as well, if we can afford to give our children the best school in the area, we should. Even if it does delay early retirement. Assuming this argument is true, there are other ways to secure a good school. Buying a new house and moving is one of (potentially the) most expensive way to achieve this objective. Private is the easiest lever to pull, then there are charters (or variations thereof), and homeschooling (including homeschool groups which are becoming more of a thing). And there's a difference between school districts, and the scho...

I'm with fpdesignco on this (banking / payments background, but not tech side). The use cases listed in the top post aren't all happening at the same time - consumer/consumer and consumer/merchant aren't going to happen for a while (if ever). What we're primarily talking about right now is bank to bank (Fed basically updating its own system) and merchant to merchant (so broken and convoluted it's borderline negligent). For consumer to consumer - this is basically Zelle. Except that Zelle is integrated directly into people's bank apps already. And I don't agree with the statement about it having low adoption; it does massive volumes and grows faster yoy than Paypal/Venmo/Cashapp. Regardless, I'm skeptical that any eventual Fednow consumer pl...

I threw out every pair of pants I own for Lululenon ABC pants and their commander pants. They cover every event - lazy lounge days to business dress. +1 Lululemon ABC pants are now the ONLY pants that I wear. Try them and you'll be hooked! I’m intrigued by how much positive feedback these are getting. Admittedly I was unaware lululemon sold men’s clothing. But how is the material? It looks polyester with other man-made materials which in my experience (eg bonobos) feels thin/cheap and retains heat. Bonobos fit is also super tight and low rise so trying to avoid those My current go to is banana republic straight fit chinos but keeping an eye into for other options. Material is great. Doesn't wrinkle (and I'm an ex-military guy who still iro...

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? 1) Yes it will be a 2023 contribution, employer match amount does not affect how much you can defer (or contribute to Roth 401k), and therefore it does not affect taxes either. No need to amend your 2022 tax return. Why would you think this is a 2022 contribution? It is *based* on the 2022 compensation but the actual contribution is made in 2023. Why would it matter in any case? 2) It should not affect MBDR, since the...

I recommend the ABC pants from Lululemon. I was able to wear to them at some clients for my MBB firm and for a Fortune 100 bank. Especially great on travel days

Apparently it is beyond the ken of bankers to understand asset/liability matching strategies. :oops: Are you suggesting that banks actually match the timing of all assets and liabilities, for example, having cash or cash equivalents to cover all deposits that could be redeemed on demand or close to it? That's an available option. Nobody put a gun to their heads and made them load up on interest rate risk. I’m surprised there isn’t a regulation requiring the opposite: that banks must hold a vast majority in short term treasuries. I'm not - regulators would hate to see banks voluntarily embracing the volatility of short term durations. How can they create long term forecasts if they don't know what their interest income is going to be? Lots ...

jebmke wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 4:53 pm Roku filed an 8-K in which it informed investors that “approximately $487 million” or 26% of its cash and cash equivalents balance (~$1.962B), is deposited with SVB.

Seems reckless to me

Why is it reckless for a company to use a 40+ year old bank to hold a quarter of it's cash?

The Federal Reserve conducts annual stress tests of larger banks with 2022 results , however SVB even though being the 16th largest bank in the United States is not large enough. Perhaps the Federal Reserves needs to expand their testing to more banks? Seems like this kind of scenario (run on the bank assets) should be Banking 101 and the system failed They used to be. But thanks to deregulation banks under $250bn don't have to do stress tests as of 2019. Isn't deregulation great? https://www.occ.treas.gov/publications-and-resources/forms/dodd-frank-act-stress-test/index-dodd-frank-act-stress-test.html On October 10, 2019, the OCC issued another final rule, implementing changes made by the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer P...

MindBogler wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 10:53 am

trirunner wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 10:51 am No worse case scenario. SVB already shut down and FDIC took over. In my opinion, a big nothing burger, bank fail even in good times.

The risk is that this spreads to other banks. Banks aren't paying enough interest to keep deposits. The 3mo treasury is at ~5% while banks are paying 4%.

This wasn't about not paying enough to keep deposits. Their concentration of tech / startup customers are burning through their cash for operations because fundraising dried up. They didn't move their money to Ally because the savings account is higher APY

"Bank stress from bond holdings". The problem wasn't that SVB held bonds. The problem was that SVB had deposits that could be withdrawn quickly and assets that had significantly longer terms. Borrow short and lend long is risky and the risk manifested. If they had a more conservative portfolio of assets they wouldn't have a problem. They didn't anticipate that they might have to liquidate longer term bonds in the face of higher interest rates due to depositors withdrawing money, leading to a classic bank run. Bad risk management. What happened to bank "resiliency" requirements after the great recession? Lol...Guess that didn't happen...eh? :oops: Oh, it happened. And then things were ok again and we got comfortable and ...

I think OP is asking who keeps track of what - how much is contribution, conversion, etc etc.

The answer is no one OP. Money is fungible, so it's not like Vanguard or anyone has specific dollars tagged. You are responsible for your own recordkeeping about how much you have contributed, converted, etc. You'll have to provide it if asked (unlikely)

They chose to go the co-brand route for their credit card instead of introducing their own (neutral choice), but got unlucky with Apple as a partner. How did they get unlucky with Apple? Its not a good or popular card, and as a partner Apple isn't very good. They overpaid and the results were underwhelming, and Apple kept the relationship / experience a lot more than other brands (you don't go to Delta's app to manage your card for example) ETA: I say unlucky because cobrand opportunities don't come up that often. The good ones are taken and weren't up for renewal. And Apple gets people overexcited so its easy to get carried away I know we’re getting off topic here, but if you use Apple Pay the Apple Card is a no fee 2%+ card with no FTF. ...

Zelle is the best of the P2P transfer options and has the lowest actual fraud rates, despite popular opinion to the contrary. I also don't see a reason to be scared of Plaid - especially when your FI has specifically chosen them as their authentication route.

Its one thing to use Plaid to connect for something like Mint (possible TOS violation), but when BOA or Fidelity gives you that option to connect instantly instead of multi-day micro deposits, I say go for it.

TravelGeek wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 11:08 am

MBB_Boy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:38 am
They chose to go the co-brand route for their credit card instead of introducing their own (neutral choice), but got unlucky with Apple as a partner.

How did they get unlucky with Apple?

Its not a good or popular card, and as a partner Apple isn't very good. They overpaid and the results were underwhelming, and Apple kept the relationship / experience a lot more than other brands (you don't go to Delta's app to manage your card for example)

ETA: I say unlucky because cobrand opportunities don't come up that often. The good ones are taken and weren't up for renewal. And Apple gets people overexcited so its easy to get carried away

Has anyone been able to use a non-BoA checking account to autopay their BoA credit card? I'm happy with my current checking account, but would like to use BoA's credit cards. Perhaps having a small BoA checking account on the side is throwing a wrench in the works? I know I should call their customer service, but my experience has been that the CSRs are hit-and-miss. Yes, did it just last month. IIRC, Bill Pay > Manage Accounts, then select the "Other Pay From Accounts" tab and click on "Add a Pay From account you own at another institution." Once you do that, you probably need to wait for the verification process to run its course. Then, you should see your credit card in the Payment Center with an Auto Pay button near...

How much are you paying in childcare? Depending on that answer, you may already be effectively living without her income. $50K gross minus state tax and marginal federal bracket.....is that higher or lower than your childcare costs?

The net of the two is what you have to make up, either through reduced savings or OT/PT work.

But I kind of agree with Klangfool on the expense side - it doesn't seem like your expenses are actually 2.7K a month

I think that Goldman spread itself too thin. They were good at what they did for many years but this is an area where they don't have the depth of knowledge and didn't commit enough resources to succeed. You can't specialize in everything. Not only will they be divesting some/all of this new business (likely at a significant loss), it will probably negatively impact their other divisions. Looking at their failure, it will be interesting to see if they scare off some would-be clients. I would be concerned that if they can't get their own act together, how could they possibly advise my company? I disagree partially. They didn't fail because they didn't commit the resources - they lost billions of dollars. That is plenty of money. They failed...

I see a lot of comments about taking things piece by piece, room by room, and feel compelled to play devil's advocate. One of the things in Marie Kondo's system is that you DON'T do this. She has you go through your items by category, which is important because it means you only do something once. Instead of the decision fatigue of going through clothes multiple times because they live in multiple rooms, you just gather them all up and put them in one place......THEN go through them. I think this is the real secret sauce to the success of her system, because you will end up with less stuff if you confront the whole pile. You can also compare the quality / condition of all the items at once. The thing from her system that always makes the ro...

It sounds like they're a little confused. From WSJ: “We’ve significantly narrowed our ambitions for our consumer strategy,” he said. Goldman’s shares fell 3.8% Tuesday. Goldman’s plans for a mass-market checking account under the Marcus name never took off, and the bank has already said it is winding down personal-loan originations . On Tuesday, Goldman said it is in the process of selling part of that portfolio. . Emphasis mine And this confuses me. My sense is that all these major on-line banks have an angle where they use your deposits for something else with a higher interest margin. Just traditional banking, borrow at x%, loan at y%. Ally-Auto Loans Live Oak-SBA Loans Capital One and Synchrony --credit cards Marcus' was personal loans...

boglegirl wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 5:11 pm

tj wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 2:39 pm

boglegirl wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 2:37 pm

MBB_Boy wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 8:55 am I'm primarily at SoFi (early direct deposit, high savings rate + savings sub account ability, pretty good ATM access), with BOA credit card system (Platinum Honors, multiple CCR + the 2.62% card). Investing is with Fidelity....

How do you access the 2.625% rate with all of your assets at Fidelity and SoFi? I thought that required a certain asset level at BofA. ($100k)

They obviously keep the $100k at BoFA/Merrill

Well yes, that is the obvious answer, but he didn't mention any banking at BofA.

I mentioned that I have BOA for the credit cards, but yes I have $100K there as well for the Platinum Honors. Guess I figured it was implied by mentioning the latter point, but could have been more clear

I'm primarily at SoFi (early direct deposit, high savings rate + savings sub account ability, pretty good ATM access), with BOA credit card system (Platinum Honors, multiple CCR + the 2.62% card). Investing is with Fidelity.

I WAS at USAA, but left after they ended the Limitless card back in December. Still find myself using the account on occasion for Zelle or ATM access (can use ANY ATM)- one of the things that always stood out about USAA is the fact that deposited funds are available instantly (check or transfer). So I can walk up to the ATM, transfer myself $100, and then pull it immediately with the debit card. Or put money in my account quickly to Zelle someone

I think "category creep" is pretty common once people start budgeting. One way we control for this is after the year is over, I eliminate every category that didn't get to a certain $ threshold (currently $1K). They get rolled up into another category, perhaps with a name change. For example, we used to have separate categories for Bars and Wine Clubs. We no longer go out to bars in our phase of life, so we combined them into one "Alcohol" category so we can have a place for those occasional outings. We used to have a Subscriptions item, but it was really just Pandora and WSJ - so we rolled them up into Entertainment. Etc etc My wife and I also sit down and think about if we need to add any new categories in the upcoming...

I've always shopped myself, and it's always been a better deal NOT to bundle. Which is seemingly abnormal since the insurance industry has conditioned us through marketing to "bundle and save". I used an agent for the first time this year as I was adding an umbrella. Best bundled offer was State Farm....but their Home insurance was so much higher than my current, and with slightly worse coverage, that it canceled out the other benefits. So even after an agent, I have 3 companies separately for Home/Auto/Umbrella. At least it shows I wasn't doing it wrong my way. So if you haven't already, look at your policies as standalone too when you shop. Don't default to bundled How do you get umbrella insurance if you don't bundle auto and ...

I am bumping this thread because I have a similar question. After reading this thread, I now plan to use the 529 for the next college payments, but I wonder if anything has changed since 2016 regarding 529 rules or conventional wisdom. Starting in 2024 you can roll excess 529 funds to the beneficiaries Roth IRA subject to their annual contribution limits up to 35K total (so over multiple years). So this kind of argues for trying to pay some out of pocket and give Junior a $35K Roth IRA as a graduation gift. I wonder what that will be worth at age 72 (50 years after graduation) if properly invested. Could be a serious gift!!! The rules don't allow this. It isn't a lump sum, you're just making their annual contributions in place of them

Things were absolutely dead here in the Sacramento Metro area last fall. In January, things started to pick up and the house across mine sold with 2 cash offers within 7 days. I suspect things will slow down again since the rates have crept up in the last 3 weeks. It's the same in the Bay Area. Prices stayed flat from Nov to Jan and sales volume was way down. All of a sudden, homes have been selling quickly in the past two weeks. Even homes that sat unsold throughout winter have gone pending. All the gloomy talk about tech layoffs seems to be a media-constructed story. The local job market is still very tight. It will take much higher inventory or a jobs recession to drive prices down from here. I believe the latter will occur later in 202...

I've always shopped myself, and it's always been a better deal NOT to bundle. Which is seemingly abnormal since the insurance industry has conditioned us through marketing to "bundle and save".

I used an agent for the first time this year as I was adding an umbrella. Best bundled offer was State Farm....but their Home insurance was so much higher than my current, and with slightly worse coverage, that it canceled out the other benefits.

So even after an agent, I have 3 companies separately for Home/Auto/Umbrella. At least it shows I wasn't doing it wrong my way.

So if you haven't already, look at your policies as standalone too when you shop. Don't default to bundled

Things were absolutely dead here in the Sacramento Metro area last fall. In January, things started to pick up and the house across mine sold with 2 cash offers within 7 days. I suspect things will slow down again since the rates have crept up in the last 3 weeks. It's the same in the Bay Area. Prices stayed flat from Nov to Jan and sales volume was way down. All of a sudden, homes have been selling quickly in the past two weeks. Even homes that sat unsold throughout winter have gone pending. All the gloomy talk about tech layoffs seems to be a media-constructed story. The local job market is still very tight. It will take much higher inventory or a jobs recession to drive prices down from here. I believe the latter will occur later in 202...

There's a saying, "Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good". The advisor your parents have had has definitely been at least "good", due to the waiver of the loads. Compared to what is available NOW, we know that there is some optimization available to get rid of the presumed .24 fee and get into funds that have cheaper expense ratios than the ~.5 being discussed. But that hasn't always been the case - 20-30 years ago things were MUCH more expensive. I might make a case that this advisor has been "great" if you look at things in the past. So I think that attitude / approach you seem to be leaning towards is a good one. It does no good to denigrate or come off as dismissive of the current portfolio and approac...

We've been looking at the Genesis GV80. Relatively new, topping all the lists

JoMoney wrote: ↑Tue Feb 07, 2023 8:33 am

MBB_Boy wrote: ↑Tue Feb 07, 2023 8:26 am

LeftCoastIV wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 7:07 pm You could pick up some tips from the movie Brewster's Millions Richard Pryor had to spend $30M in 30 days...

TIL I learned there was another version of this movie. I'd only seen the original black and white

Apparently, there's several versions of the movie (but 2 english ones), and a broadway play
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/why- ... f-all-time

Oh wow. I saw the 1945, and it was excellent

LeftCoastIV wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 7:07 pm You could pick up some tips from the movie Brewster's Millions Richard Pryor had to spend $30M in 30 days...

TIL I learned there was another version of this movie. I'd only seen the original black and white

They can always change it later. Grandfathering isn't permanent - see USAA Limitless card

Former college national level competitor here. I always just wear some version of the TYR socket rocket (if I'm not wearing bungee strap + lens combo).

GeoMetry wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:16 pm That is really difficult to interpret. I realize that is the law but surly the IRS has translated that into a set of instructions that don't require a law degree.

Why would they bother? How would that help them?

Glad to hear they relented, but I would still be on the hunt for a new bank. They don't deserve his business after this stunt

We went with a Nuna travel system, secondhand from a friend. Close friends had a Doona, I thought it was very low/short as a stroller. And of course, they ended up having to buy a new stroller / car seat anyway when their kid got too big for the Doona

ETA: Get extra car seat bases. We just installed one in each car, and one for grandma. Never had to install again, could just click the car seats (we had two) into all the cars with ease

Keep in mind that the IRS threshold isn't the one that matters - the one for your actual company may be different. I have been a HCE per IRS for years, but didn't run into any restrictions on ability to invest in 401K until this year after a raise / promotion / bonus situation

+1 for getting due dates changed. All the bills in my household can be paid in one session near the end of the month. Some of them are paid a week or so early, but all statements are available for review.

I also typically avoid autopay. I hold out for a financial gain, like $ off bill (T-Mobile) or avoidance of online payment convenience fee (local internet company)

I've been using it for a while, don't know anything about the ios version.

It's adequate. It's definitely not as good as Outlook or Google calendar, but I haven't had any real issues using it. The biggest annoyance is that when you get an email with a meeting invite and click accept, it opens the calendar to do so. It's not seamless

I lost mine, even though my last date of employment was 2 weeks before vesting

hunoraut wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 8:38 am

bwalling wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 6:38 am

hunoraut wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 5:07 am3. If its not your only car, 120V wall charging absolutely fine. Yes you can leave it always plugged in. Software prevents car from sitting at maximum state of charge (which is bad for all lithium batteries in all devices).

Strong disagree on this. It's painfully slow, and it winds up offsetting a huge EV benefit - not having to go buy gas (or go to a public charger). If you happen to get the Tesla down to near zero from some combination of trips, you're looking at 100 hours (4 days) to charge it back up vs 4 hours.

1. 75kwh/1.9kw (120v*16a) = 40 hours = less than 2 days

2. OP has 2 other full-sized, modern, luxury vehicles that he does not plan to get rid of.

3. Go to supercharger for 15 minutes

SpaghettiLegs wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 9:25 pm It’s been discussed in other threads but I wouldn’t own an EV if my only home charging option was a 120v outlet. The calculus may change if you’re using backup ICE vehicles but you’ll find on a cold day you’ll blow through an entire night’s charge just driving around the neighborhood and you’ll find yourself not driving the EV just because you want it to charge more.

Yeah, but there are hundreds of miles stored in the battery as reserve. Blowing through a nights charge doesn't matter.

Even if the earnings are small, may be wise to defer the the tax anyway. No reason to take a 30%+ hit now when you expect to be in a lower bracket later.

Or am I thinking about that wrong because "later" will be a larger amount of money, and even at a lower rate it could be more dollars sent to the IRS?

Doctor Rhythm wrote: ↑Mon Jan 16, 2023 7:43 pm care, as anyone who wants to see my house can Google a photo. Though, I heard Barbara Streisand has a counterpoint opinion on this.

You can get the Google photo removed, btw. We did - house is blurred out now

Everything about this recently was overblown, from the idea that there are health risks to the idea that a ban was imminent.

Gas is WAY better than electric.....but induction is better than gas (but expensive). If you can afford it, explore it. Some of your cookware may also need to be replaced if you do it.

When we lost power last year due to a storm, I was very happy that we were still able to cook since we are on natural gas. May also be a consideration

I just worked with an independent broker for the first time as I'm looking to add umbrella insurance, and long story short they weren't able to do any better than my split combination of Nationwide for home and Progressive for auto. The various bundling options would result in a savings for one but an increase for the other, which always netted out to more money paid.

In the end I increased the coverage level on auto and got a standalone umbrella. I'll continue to be subject to every 6 month potential changes for auto. I think I'd prefer to be annual, but I'm not going to pay hundreds more to change. Maybe the next refresh cycle something will change

I don't recall the exact details, but at a previous megacorp (2005-2013) we (the "highly compensated employees") had the same issue, and were never able to max-out the 401k contribution on account of a large workforce in fullfillment centers which had low compensation. If I recall correctly they usually returned about 10%-20% of the amount contributed, not the whole amount. Sorry but this is all I can recall. What I do recall is that some of us impacted talked to HR / Payroll and the explanation on this was very complex, as the non-discrimination test is a very complicated thing. FYI, it wasn't that the people in the fulfillment centers had low compensation- its that they had a low rate of participation in the 401K. Its not a tri...

Looking for any comments the community may have. Should I feel on-track to achieve my goals? Thank you Age: 34(M), 32(F) Dependents: Four, ages 1,3,5,7 Location: Midwest Professions / Incomes: Me) Finance, junior partner (wall street) - Limited job security. ~50% chance of attrition from industry, resulting in a ~25-50% decrease in compensation $300k salary, $500k cash bonus, $125k stock option vesting, $125k new stock options (3yr vest) Wife) Consultant - Good job security. ~25% chance of changing jobs and taking a 10-20% pay decrease $200k salary, $40k cash bonus Total Income: $1,065 cash flow - $500k salary, $665k bonus+vesting; $125k stock options. 2022 was exceptional - I expect cash flow to come down ~10-15% in 2023 Portfolio: Assets...

Texan here. Opened the NH one with Fidelity for our kid last year