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Living Free

With the state pension I would ensure that the state is on sound financial footing. I am not sure if folks have had their pensions reduced in the past, though it seems there are a number of states/municipalities that have poor finances.

Living Free

Well, the whole names and expense ratios are not listed, but it seems like you have some good options, with the fidelity 500 index and small index for US stocks, vanguard total international index for stocks, and fidelity bond index for bonds. So should be roughly equivalent to your VTI, VXUS, and B...

Living Free

The target date fund is great. I personally use VTWAX (vanguard total world stock index fund) in my Roth IRA. You might also get some more helpful info if you post in the asking portfolio questions format: viewtopic.php?t=6212

Living Free

Do you both have long-term disability insurance? 1. Adequate disability insurance for you and spouse I think we're fine without it. As federal employees, we each could go into "disability retirement" and get at least 40% of our salaries going forward. That and/or SSDI should keep us afloa...

Living Free

I’m looking to buy a family car to transport 5 people including two kids in car seats. My top contenders are Kia Telluride/ Hyundai Palisade. It’s killing me that I’m not only buying a gas guzzler, but about to drop $45k on it. I really thought my next car would be an electric car, but there aren’t...

Living Free

I’ve been competitive since birth. Playing sports has always allowed me to scratch that itch, even if it’s just recreational. It’s all very positive in nature and has provided a great mental break from the stressors in life. Despite all efforts, my body is breaking down as I get older. I am still p...

Living Free

I’m looking to buy a family car to transport 5 people including two kids in car seats. My top contenders are Kia Telluride/ Hyundai Palisade. It’s killing me that I’m not only buying a gas guzzler, but about to drop $45k on it. I really thought my next car would be an electric car, but there aren’t...

Living Free

Questions : Overall... I feel like we're well positioned and just need to keep it up and stick to the plan to succeed financially. Am I missing anything? Is there anything we can better optimize? Am I too optimistic? Seems like you are investing a huge amount each year in a low cost diversified way...

Living Free

I live in NH and drive a Honda Fit with winter tires (Michelin xi3 - actually wish I'd gotten Nokians as I've read reviews that they're the best...maybe next time) and it does totally fine - on one occasion in the 4 years that I've had it I had a very minor struggle getting up my driveway when it wa...

Living Free

I agree with the above. I'd do this "above board" and pay her formally. FYI I believe that the typical cost for a full time nanny is like $70-80k per year where I live (northeast), per my colleague who has looked into it. That would be a ridiculous amount of money to pay someone "inf...

Living Free

I agree with the above. I'd do this "above board" and pay her formally. FYI I believe that the typical cost for a full time nanny is like $70-80k per year where I live (northeast), per my colleague who has looked into it. That would be a ridiculous amount of money to pay someone "info...

Living Free

Gotcha. Well, glad to hear you've got the ability to max out the 401k and all retirement accounts, that is certainly a great accomplishment. I agree it's better to max out retirement accounts prior to taxable investing. Good luck with the car search when the time comes - hopefully the used car marke...

Living Free

Hello Bogleheads! I'm a recent reader of The Little Book of Common Sense Investing and The Bogleheads Guide to Investing. After doing some planning, I thought I would join this forum and humbly request any feedback (and validation) of my plan! Overview Emergency funds: 1-year (due to low job securi...

Living Free

Hi All, I'm wondering if we should rethink our plan regarding investing in a taxable account. Our plan has always been to first max out my 401k, HSA, and both Roth IRAs so that we are investing in the most tax efficient way, and once that's done we start investing in a taxable account. We are there...

Living Free

Kookaburra wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:24 am More concerning than the property taxes is that almost half your investment portfolio is in Bitcoin

I agree. OP self describes as financially conservative yet has $665k in bitcoin...I'd gladly realize some gains there if it were me

Living Free

I'd save up for the large planned expenses separate from the emergency fund.

Living Free

Questions: 1) Would a three fund portfolio have beaten this? a) If so would I benefit from moving it from selling it and moving into a three fund portfolio or should I just keep up with this and begin a three fund portfolio? I don't know you could look it up on portfolio visualizer. I'd favor getti...

Living Free

I agree that it would be better if you'd post in the asking portfolio questions format. But in general so long as you have enough emergency reserves available to you, you should try to fill up all retirement accounts prior to using a taxable brokerage account. So if you can do the backdoor Roth and ...

Living Free

Can you do a solo 401k instead of a SEP IRA so that you can do the backdoor Roth IRA? You could probably also max out the full $58k (or whatever it is) for the employer portion of the solo 401k, so that might overall be better in terms of giving you more retirement account "space" so then ...

Living Free

My wife and I were fairly evenly matched but I brought home the big bucks with $8,752. She brought $5,066. So that's the answer: it must be no more than our EARNED INCOME. No the answer is $7,000 for you and $5,066. Unless the IRS permits a greater contribution, perhaps a spousal IRA contribution ....

Living Free

Pay off mortgage and invest in a taxable account and invest into the 529s what you think is appropriate. keep maxing out retirement accounts. consider spending more once you've done some of the above to a comfortable level. or consider giving more away. I know you mention that you both think you'll ...

Living Free

Living Free wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:24 am Sure that sounds fine. We actually hold ours (edit: taxable and bank accounts) in a revocable trust which we can both access (but we have young children, so that's why - otherwise I'd just do it as a joint account).

Living Free

Sure that sounds fine. We actually hold ours in a revocable trust which we can both access (but we have young children, so that's why - otherwise I'd just do it as a joint account).

Living Free

Thanks for this advice, I'm towing a 1200lb 13' Scamp liekly 6-10 times a year on multi-day trips. I basically save exactly 15% of my income for retirement in Roth/401k, I'm not the biggest saver anywhere else and try to find the right balance between living my life to the fullest and being financi...

Living Free

How much does the trailer weight and how often will you tow it?
I do think spending $30-something grand on a vehicle is too much when one is not maxing out retirement accounts.

Living Free

I agree with above consensus to sell the nissan and keep the lexus.

Living Free

I've been wearing bombas calf length merino wool socks when snowboarding. I board in NH and VT (just NH this season due to covid) and don't use toe warmers. So they do the job for me.

Living Free

Too much small value for my taste. But I don't tilt at all (well, slight US tilt at 2/3rd US to 1/3 international). Considering one in the future not so much for returns but for diversification across factors. Haven't really decided on which factor yet.

Living Free

A little bit, I think. You could prob pop into a 15 year at 2% and be at very similar monthly payments while shaving off 7 years of loan payments. I'm in TX too, just signed a 2% 15 year and *I got paid* $2500 vs paying anything. My neighbor just locked a rate yest at 2% 15 year where he was out of...

Living Free

I finally opened a taxable account a couple days ago and I've gone over the board trying to figure the best, most tax efficient fund to put into it. I've come down to ITOT/IXUS or VTI/VXUS to put into my Fidelity brokerage account. For context, one pair will go in taxable and the other pair will go...

Living Free

Living free asked: Another question - if you have to take the RMDs and re-invest them, will you be doing so in a regular taxable brokerage account? Or will the spouse be able to invest all of their money into retirement accounts and then you can just live off the RMDs? I presume you'll start taking...

Living Free

My wife and I own two cars at the moment. 2017 Mazda 6 worth around 12,500 with 40,000 miles and a 2015 Mazda CX-5 worth around 10,000 with 75,000 miles. We have two young kids. Our NW is low 7 figures. We are in our early 30s. Our 2015 is a little outdated for us and we want to upgrade. We would s...

Living Free

Are you able to try out the part time thing and see how it goes and if you don't like it go back to full time?

Living Free

Hi - thanks for the replies. We will live off of my wife's income until she retires at age 65 in the year 2035. Of course, I'll have to do the RMD's but those funds will be immediately reinvested. In that case, I suppose I'd use the date when you'll start portfolio withdrawals, which would be you'r...

Living Free

Yes, I agree with above comments, transfer to another brokerage. I'm puzzled as to why anyone uses robinhood - seems like there are better options out there, including the big discount brokerages which all offer free trades now.

Living Free

Will you start withdrawing from your portfolio upon your retirement or will you just live off the spouse's income and wait until full retirement for both of you to begin portfolio withdrawals?

Living Free

OP, how heavy is your boat? It seems that the Odyssey has enough towing capacity to handle it right now, or you could use the highlander, is that correct? Only buy a vehicle with more towing capacity if you decide you're definitely buying the heavier boat. With 3 kids I'd certainly favor the minivan...

Living Free

I can manage to fit the real estate funds into my IRAs and will avoid them completely for taxable monies. My time horizon is 10+, I believe I can continue to live primarily off of my pension during that period, with inflation eventually requiring me to supplement. So growth funds would be the most ...

Living Free

Questions: 1) Should I be putting money in a Roth IRA? Yes, I would. If you can afford it then you can cash flow it; if not then spend down some of the taxable assets and contribute to the Roth (effectively moving money from taxable to Roth EDIT - if that wasn't clear I don't mean spend down the ta...

Living Free

If I didn't have a taxable account I'd very strongly consider just using target date funds, especially if I had access to low cost target date funds in my workplace retirement account. Also your target date funds that you (and your wife) currently use are too expensive. At fidelity I'd recommend the...

Living Free

I'm hoping starlink (elon musk's satellite internet) or 5G help provide competition even in areas only served by one monopoly monster telecom company with aggressive lobbying powers. I've also listed to the NPR podcast from planet money linked above and it's infuriating how poor internet access is i...

Living Free

OK - agreed term life for a young adult. But now let's look at it from a different lens. I am 70 years old and invested 100% in stocks - all index funds. I have no bond investments. So what about a whole life policy for a retired person. Could it be considered similar to bond investment? I guess it...

Living Free

Hi all, With this new year, we are giving our finance real hard look and trying to reorganize. Priorities are 1. Save enough for retirement 2. Save for Kids education ( 1 kid - 6 years away from college --11 year old currently). 3. Arrange money safely. Here is current scenarion. Total Gross income...

Living Free

I see a lot of information out there about how great 529's can be, but very little if any on what a bad idea I think they are. Here's my take on it" 1. You are forced to use the funds for education, otherwise 10% penalty AND you have to pay income tax on the growth (in a taxable count, you onl...

Living Free

Where did you get the $6,500 figure? I thought it was still $6,000 if under age 50 and $7,000 if over.
Anyway VTI or VTSAX are fine options for a Roth IRA. I personally like the total world stock index fund, VTWAX (or its ETF equivalent VT) in Roth IRAs.

Living Free

Trading stocks/options in Robinhood goes against the Boglehead philosophy of 3 fund portfolio. However, I have been using it for the past 4 yrs mainly for stock trading and have averaged 30% return every year (higher than the S&P500). A wise man once said "diversification is for wealth ret...

Living Free

In the long run it really doesn't matter. Who cares about a few cents in interest or that there is a one or two day delay on the ability to do the conversion? What effect will that have on your Roth balance in 30 years? The answer is academic. The practical answer is nothing significant enough to w...

Living Free

One more thing: By the same token, money that is available now and going to be use to contribute to a Roth IRA in the next tax year should just simply be invested in the same things that the Roth IRA is invested in right now and not in a money market fund or cash. That's because if there was no res...

Living Free

One can convert any amount of money they want to from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA nowadays. One is NOT limited to convert only one's contribution whether it is $100, $6,000, or $7,000. So in your traditional IRA brokerage account simply CONTRIBUTE to the same fund that you would transfer the mo...

Living Free

Good Morning Fellow Bogleheads, I've done the backdoor Roth at Vanguard (brokerage Roth IRA account...) a few times now and am preparing for contributions in January 2021. In prior years I've run into the same issue other have had, which is that the funds are somehow not available/settled promptly i...

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