Bogleheads.org

AlphaPilot

Looking to obtain some international funds for diversification but this is all inside of a taxable account at Vanguard.

Is VDVIX the best option here? It does not have emerging markets, so I assume that would be an issue and need made up for.

AlphaPilot

Sorry for the confusion. "tax" should be typed in the box upper right corner. My thinking is these funds should not be in taxable -- VBIAX Vanguard Balanced Index Admiral VWEHX Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Fund Invest Shares VBIRX Vanguard Short-Term Bond Admiral Shares VBTLX Vanguard Total Bond A...

AlphaPilot

AlphaPilot, use this Wiki link to learn about taxes. When you open the Wiki, type "tax" into the Bogleheads search box and you will get several options for reading. Send it to your friends. https://www.bogleheads.org/w/index.php?search=tax&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go Paul Paul, When you click that...

AlphaPilot

Wellesley is an excellent fund especially for retirees. If they have 65% of their balance in this fund, they have 26% exposure to stocks and 36% exposure to bonds through this fund. If they sell everything else and move it into Vanguard Balanced Index Fund, they will have 17% exposure to bonds and ...

AlphaPilot

Helping a family member clean up their portfolio. Most of these funds seems like they overlap. They want to get down to a 3-5 fund portfolio and are looking to be about 40-45% stocks, then the rest in secure but still better earning funds than just a money market (so bonds I assume). In a couple (2)...

AlphaPilot

Update - I went to the Avast forums and someone there directed me to something that showed my exact pop up. It was legit so I took care of it. I’d still like to know if a long scan will continue when your computer goes into standby mode. Also after about 4-5 years of having this and tons of updates...

AlphaPilot

If you hold some VTSAX in a 401k but also in a regular taxable account, and want to sell/TLH/Trade in the brokerage but leave alone in the 401k due to the other choices in the 401k, does the bit sold in the regular taxable account count as TLH or since some was held elsewhere....it negates the bene...

AlphaPilot

If you hold some VTSAX in a 401k but also in a regular taxable account, and want to sell/TLH/Trade in the brokerage but leave alone in the 401k due to the other choices in the 401k, does the bit sold in the regular taxable account count as TLH or since some was held elsewhere....it negates the benef...

AlphaPilot

Prime = better yield? Or should I not use effective tax rate but instead marginal? It depends. If that income from Prime is already in the income that was used to calculate your effective state tax rate then it may be OK to leave your calculation as is. If this will be new income not previously tax...

AlphaPilot

Prime = better yield? Or should I not use effective tax rate but instead marginal? It depends. If that income from Prime is already in the income that was used to calculate your effective state tax rate then it may be OK to leave your calculation as is. If this will be new income not previously tax...

AlphaPilot

Running numbers of Prime MM vs Treasury MM with an effective state income tax of 3.85% my calculations on today's current SEC yield of these two funds is that the Vanguard Prime fund is still slightly better even after the effective state tax of 3.85%. Am I missing anything? Today's yields are Prime...

AlphaPilot

The amount of outdated information and large gap of answers ranging from one thing to another is cool to see. I also chuckle at the little jabs between Mac, Linux, and Windows. Trying to be so subtle in there.... :mrgreen: What flavor of OS you have doesn't matter in terms of power. What flavor of O...

AlphaPilot

For those saying pretax space is valuable / invaluable........ Is this not simply subject of opinion? Taxes change?

AlphaPilot

All, The point of this money is to serve as both protection against inflation, some minor spending funds, and also the way I was leaning towards as an alternative to the bonds that continue to go down in value. Yes, the argument is that bonds are better because they pay more than 2.32 yield. However...

AlphaPilot

Very good to know, so it's better than I thought. Thanks. From my reading here, it seems like there was one MM that collapsed or had issues many moons ago but eventually everyone got 98 cents on the dollar? And I also read that regulations were changed after this occured, meaning it should be even l...

AlphaPilot

Can someone tell me if I am wrong in my thought process here? Currently it looks like the VMMXX yields 2.32% and has an expense ratio of .16%. Is this the equavalent of an account that compounds monthly (not sure if daily or monthly?) and essentially yields 2.16% as of date of this post? (2.32% -.16...

AlphaPilot

Not to hijack the thread, but question: Can you contribute 6k to a Roth IRA the first month of the year even if you have not earned 6k that year but will by December? If I were you, I would try to find a "job" (even 1099 work) that gives you $6k in after tax dollars and stick that in Roth. You can s...

AlphaPilot

Since you have natural gas have you considered tankless? I wanted to but I am all electric and can't afford the additional line coming in to justify savings. They are getting more affordable. If you have good water or a good water softener they will last. If you have bad water, forget about the idea...

AlphaPilot

When building a home and leading to that decision, emotion takes over common sense more than we want to admit. You find "THE LOT" the perfect one, you start planning. And you do not stop. I know from previous experiences. You even start planning things in your subconscious. It puts blinders on your ...

AlphaPilot

$400 is high but many details may be missing. Was this during normal M-F business hours? Was the water already shut off? Did he have to find the leak? Why did he need a helper? Did he have to pump water out of your house? How much of the water line did he actually replace? What size was the water li...

AlphaPilot

Is this needed if you list beneficiary in the designated beneficiary area, though? When I spoke with them they said my beneficiary would just call in with their information and they would verify at the time.

AlphaPilot

As mentioned earlier but not in detail - Can any HSA account be transferred from to a different HSA that *does* allow investments without penalty? In the case where an employer offers a standard HSA that is just basically a savings account but offers some match, it would be the best of both worlds t...

AlphaPilot

I think he has somehow "found out" what his risk association COULD/SHOULD be but he's not comfortable with it so he chooses to be more conservative. These are all random numbers in the sky though without context, which is what I am trying to gather. Everyone has a different size of portfolio and exp...

AlphaPilot

I have the "risk tolerance" to handle a 80/20 portfolio. Our retirement portfolio is 40/60. IMHO retirees should not invest even near their risk tolerance. This goes against everything said about maintaining 75/25 allocation all through life even though what you say is what I am more commonly told....

AlphaPilot

Thanks for the link. That's a very in-depth article. So it seems as if a 75/25 AA is acceptable as long as staying true to a less than 4% withdrawal percentage IF I am wanting to achieve FIRE for a duration of 60+ years. It's nice to see how little of percentages can change the final outcome but tha...

AlphaPilot

Just thinking outside the box here. $200k for a two room addition on a 675k home seems asinine. Especially when it's "opening up" something such as the current kitchen. I assume for $200k you are adding on a good chunk to the house which includes foundation work, framing, siding, windows, and of cou...

AlphaPilot

When using Firecalc, what should the "Your Portfolio" Tab have changed to cover for early retirement and less risk once this stage occurs? Currently the default is "Total market, split between equities and fixed income." and it states "If you leave this section alone, FIRECalc assumes your retiremen...

AlphaPilot

Hands down the best product I have found is Quinclorac (Drive XLR8) for post-emergent (Now that you have the weed growing). Amazon sells a dry granular version for ~$40 that will last you a life time. One application in the evening or morning will do the trick, so long as it doesn't rain for a good ...

AlphaPilot

Chromebooks are great for today's general web use. I believe they work great for schools because at school you do not need to do anything extra besides the basics. They are also affordable. And the IT guys like them because at the end of the year they just delete the user profile and it's like start...

AlphaPilot

This is just a scam call. As stated above, back pain is a common thing among people. If anything all they have is your public information, name, location, age and generally that can be used to target people who will have a certain ailment and pick from their drop down menu on what ailment that is, t...

AlphaPilot

I think you're onto something. Two key things I would mention. 1.) It's impossible to rely on REIT as a reliable income to pay for the housing you rent. Too volatile for my own comfort anyway. It would maybe be more possible to rent out your current place you own and rely on that income. If you trav...

AlphaPilot

The good news is she just sold her coop and has $400k of after-tax equity.Thanks! Not the answer you were asking but does she need to factor in taxes on the house profit? I thought for single filers, upto 250K of profit on house is tax free. Does the equity mean profit in the above sentence? Typica...

AlphaPilot

What is the problem with the TLH on these robo-advisor accounts?

AlphaPilot

There is never a gift tax liability to the donee. The in-laws do not need to write separate checks if the money is from a joint account or they live in a community property state. Even if they gift more than $60k, this is only a gift tax reporting issue on Form 709. There is no tax due until they e...

AlphaPilot

Does VG use cookies to see if you're coming from a different machine? Or do they use your external IP address? Will their app use 2FA? I haven't tried their app yet, but just curious. The app using 2FA seems useless considering most people using the app already have the phone (unless logging into th...

AlphaPilot

Maybe to offer a different perspective. I am of that age or age range, we will say. To me, it doesn't sounds like $1m means a lot to you because you are on here saying you are set for life and asking others for advice on what to do with $1m as if it's a drop in the bucket. Maybe I am reading into th...

AlphaPilot

You don't set the depth, and you do not want to cut straight down (perpendicular) or the blade will choke on the laminate and wood material. Cut at a 30 to 45 degree angle. Your wrist is going to shake like crazy even with a high end oscillating tool. However, it will save time versus pulling up th...

AlphaPilot

You don't set the depth, and you do not want to cut straight down (perpendicular) or the blade will choke on the laminate and wood material. Cut at a 30 to 45 degree angle. Your wrist is going to shake like crazy even with a high end oscillating tool. However, it will save time versus pulling up th...

AlphaPilot

You don't set the depth, and you do not want to cut straight down (perpendicular) or the blade will choke on the laminate and wood material. Cut at a 30 to 45 degree angle. Your wrist is going to shake like crazy even with a high end oscillating tool. However, it will save time versus pulling up the...

AlphaPilot

Eating ramen to save money now can be a very bad investment.... :mrgreen: I would do this myself because I do enjoy the flavors. However, the amount of sodium from one package of ramen is insane. Surefire way to have health issues in the future after filtering out that much salt not meant for our bo...

AlphaPilot

Just wanted to chime in with two thoughts. I will admit I read 3/4 of the replies. SSD - This is a must. And I'm sorry, but if you insist on having a Mac (Especially if you are not using it for the key features Mac offers) then you can definitely afford the extra $100 or maybe $150 depending on mode...

AlphaPilot

If you retired in your 50s/early 60s (or younger) in the days before the exchanges, and did so without access to retiree health insurance: At that time, what were your thoughts/plans re. health insurance coverage until Medicare-eligible? In those pre-ACA years, what did you do and how did it work o...

AlphaPilot

But that might not be a real problem for someone on a healthshare plan as they may know that hitting that $1 million cap is a possibility well before it actually happens. That's an example of gaming the system, which will lead to the system's eventual collapse (edited to add: if enough people do it...

AlphaPilot

I won't get into politics, but I do believe that was one thing nice about the ACA. I hope the same law / rule applies regardless of future changes.

And yes, Rupert, that would be interesting to know or find out. Maybe there are some folks who have insight!

AlphaPilot

One thought, assuming 99% of things are covered under the ministry plan insurance.... if/when someone finds they do have an ailment that will cost more than the $1m cap, what do they do? Try signing up for a regular insurance plan in hopes the pre-existing condition doesn't prevent them from gettin...

AlphaPilot

Well this thread was enlightening and also full of gloom. Hah! Basically the best advice is just like anything else...expect and plan for the worst costs in the history of xyz, in this case; health insurance premiums. The religious insurance groups are very appealing to me, because they do benefit ...

AlphaPilot

I'd like to reach financial independence long before my peers. Why? What does it matter what your peers do? It doesn't matter what they do, it matters what they are not doing. If I say "I'd like to reach financial independence" that throws me in a pool of anyone who wants to do that. But when I say...

AlphaPilot

Well this thread was enlightening and also full of gloom. Hah! Basically the best advice is just like anything else...expect and plan for the worst costs in the history of xyz, in this case; health insurance premiums. The religious insurance groups are very appealing to me, because they do benefit m...

AlphaPilot

I'm 53 and pretty much set financially, with about 3.5 million in assets. I'd retire tomorrow if I was assured health insurance. But alas, it's not to be. I'm budgeting $40K per year for my wife and I, assuming I can find coverage when I do retire. A couple years ago I thought $20k might do it. But...

AlphaPilot

Smaller tiles on the floor are also for *safety*. Large tiles get slippery. There are plenty of large tiles designed specifically for shower floors. They have nonslip textures. Tumbled texture is available in all sizes and you are getting more anti-slip from grout likely. What have you had to do fo...

Search found 59 matches