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I received RSUs for the last five years of my employment. I always sold right away and invested it in an index fund. Most of my other colleagues held out of things like "loyalty" and "ownership culture". The stock has been dead money while the index is up 100%. Layoffs started ha...

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About to cross 222,222 in the '07 Honda Ridgeline

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Mine cleared in four days. Mailed on the 8th and cleared on the 11th

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Big fan of Costco Travel or Autoslash. You can also just use an aggregator site like Expedia to start to help guide you to the right company/pickup spot. I like Costco Travel because I can compare both on-site and off-site rental car pickups. If you're landing/departing comfortably within 9am and 5p...

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I'm going to kind of echo what others have said, how much can you tolerate doing nothing? I'd be actively looking for a job and netowrking in case of a layoff. I made a move before I declared early retirement and the "doing nothing" was painful for me if it was more than an hour or two. &q...

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Posting to follow. We're both 37 and have been trying on and off for three years. I was surprised at the IUI cost, have done that once and the gyno plus fees was $400, non insurance covered. My wife hasn't been off other meds and health enough for IVF, but we're getting close to that becoming a real...

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Big fan of Justin's, remember when I was commenting with him on the MMM forums six years ago.

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2018 moved me to the standard deduction. Previously I was deducting $14,000 in property taxes, $11,000 in mortgage interest, and $5,000 in charitable deductions. Married with no kids.

Info

2017: AGI $171,942, Effective Rate 13.27%
2018: AGI $183,511, Effective Rate 14.10%

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I helped a friend out of Betterment. The process to transfer was fairly easy and she was going to Fidelity. It was more difficult around tax time to reconcile the cost basis. If Betterment does what they say, you might have a tax issue if they won't allow an in-kind transfer of the positions. Feedba...

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I did this about six years ago. I went to the Chamber of Commerce directory and they listed how long the companies had been a member. I got quotes from the two oldest companies and it worked out well. Founder owned-led HVAC firm that had been in business for 40+ years. Most of the install folks were...

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A few questions (I spent 15 years loaning money to entrepreneurs/privately held businesses) - What set the value of the business at one time gross revenue? That's an interesting metric - What type of corporation is it? Have you reviewed the corporate documents and does it have provisions related to ...

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I'm about three weeks into this and pulled the plug at 36. I'm just crafting the news based on the audience - older than me "I'm taking some time off work to travel". Younger than me, "I retired early". Many of us would be very interested in hearing the details of your situation...

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I'm about three weeks into this and pulled the plug at 36. I'm just crafting the news based on the audience - older than me "I'm taking some time off work to travel". Younger than me, "I retired early".

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Posting to follow. I'm coming into a similar situation....the benefit is I'd be working directly for the business owner. I'll probably make my fees something high enough to not run afoul of minimum wage and have an understanding that I want contributions of similar amount to my Fidelity Charitable a...

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Applied and was approved for the Capital One Savor Rewards card. Charge $3,000 in 3 months and receive $500 cash reward. $95 annual fee is waived the first year. I think it gives 4% back on restaurants. The one really strange thing about this is, on the Capital One web site, they (like many other C...

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First is power to choose.

We had a former power analyst present to our financial independence group in Dallas a few months ago, it was fascinating. Here's a link to the presentation.

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Lots of information going on here. The deferred compensation plan is interesting. I'm comfortable putting $80k/year away in mine, but I work for a Fortune 500 company in a regulated industry. I would start by digging more into this plan. Who is the trustee, what are the assets behind the plan (are y...

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I'll echo what others have said, I probably trust Vanguard the most in an advisory role. If you start having trouble getting the assets transferred out, it might be worth considering Schwab or Fidelity. I've helped a bunch of people fire their advisors and this is purely from personal experience, th...

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This is a tough question to answer without knowing the rest of your investment allocation.

Do you have a target cash allocation?

If you are planning on investing it *if* the market goes lower, do you have written parameters setup today on when to invest and then when to divest?

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I would consider this simplier for you. Vanguard Institutional Index plus Vanguard Extended Market Index buys you the total stock market index. If you want to add a little international index, that's up to you. Those three funds should fully accomplish the stock portion of your portfolio. I don't se...

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I'm going to echo what another reply said, try to write down a formal investment policy statement. I never thought I needed one, then finally sat down and wrote it out with this last 20% decline. Emotional control is difficult. I'm always a fan of investing as much as you can as early in the year in...

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Did you make a video walkthrough that you have documentation of?

I'd first respond with a friendly letter. As upset as you may be, $410 is not worth a lawyer

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CDs are provided based on the funding needs of banks. The banks have 3, 5, and 7+ year fixed rates their offering to their customers at a higher spread. Treasuries are based on the funding needs of the government. The government is spending the money. CDs usually pay a higher rate, especially those ...

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I agree with your analysis. "Margin" rates are my one frustration with Fidelity. I've needed to use it once for almost three months when I was buying a new house while waiting for my last house to close. I may have to do that again in 3-4 months and not looking forward to Fidelity's rates....

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Personally I would offer to buy the materials directly on behalf of the contract, but not pay the money directly to them in advance.

In full disclosure, I work in commercial banking and have twice had contractors misappropriate draws and stick a client with paying for the same thing twice.

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Every one of your points is part of under performance of international equities. The US is roughly 50% of the market cap of the world markets. Investors will have to earn a premium to keep investing in international. The market will eventually correct and provide that premium. Keeping a portion of m...

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Why not work a few extra years? I always thought that the FIRE mentality was all about financial independence but this thread is convincing me otherwise. If you have to rely on subsidized healthcare you're not really financially independent and are only pushing healthcare costs up for others. I'm g...

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My employer has a 401k % deduction based on gross salary.

Our HSA is a dollar amount.

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... I would personally rather see health insurance mandated for all, which would bring down prices and allow people to buy into the ACA for the same rates as group plans. Until then, the current system is what we've got... The current system did mandate insurance for all (until next year), and whil...

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I'm sorry to hear about the joint job loss, but in looking at your numbers you are in incredible shape to never work again (if that's what you want!). I'd recommend taking some time off, take COBRA or ACA depending on cost/benefit, then figure out what you'd like to do. Working and earning something...

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It might be of value simply as a way to explain to someone who's new to markets and possibly new to even thinking about retirement , the kinds of numbers that are involved but yes it is a dumbed-down approach. It might be a revelation too many to simply realize that your portfolio income should be ...

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Thanks for posting the actual offer. I'd go back to them about #2 - I would directly tell them you didn't expect the health insurance cost to be $11,000 higher than your current employer and that's a significant discount to the base you were being offered. Can they increase your offer by that amount...

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I'll chime in here...I'm planning on quitting my job a couple weeks shy of my 37th birthday, already FI and going to at least take an extended work sabbatical. I've worked longer than planned already due to an injury my wife suffered two years ago and we've been heavier consumers of healthcare becau...

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+1 for the Wellesley/Wellington 50/50 split in retirement. I've been a 10+ year owner of the Wellington Fund. I've helped multiple family retirees sit in the Wellesley Fund. Its a simple option for someone not overly sophisticated with investing. Compared to the sharks trying to sell these family me...

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I work as a hiring manager for professionals.. When I see a nearly 50% base pay increase, my initial thought is to be cautious about how you ask about a lot of other things. If there's no equity at either company, this makes the decision easier. Vacation/Paid Time Off should be outlined in the offer...

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I would stalk slickdeals.net over the next few days

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I'm in banking...I have no idea how they'll be able to get through BSA/AML compliance opening accounts on behalf of other people.

Stick with a brokerage account money market fund and brokered CDs

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I work in this space. I provide banking services to entrepreneurs, I watch my clients go through this, and my institution employs financial planners so I can get some behind the scenes look. If you have an insurance agency, it should be pretty easy to set a value to it. Agencies and books of busines...

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Contractors who do kitchen remodeling. They're the ones hauling out / knowing when someone is going to sell a nice used fridge

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I'll chime in here. I'm a fan of both REITs and certain pipeline MLPs for an asset class that acts both like a stock and bond. My personal opinion about these asset classes is they're difficult to "index and forget" like the other asset classes. You can have wildly different risk profile b...

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I'm a reformed amateur trader/tinkerer with my portfolio and I'm now 70%+ index funds and 20% in a few stock holdings that I have big capital gains sitting in. I found out the less I messed with it, the better it performed. I also regret not just working and earning more money back when I only had $...

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You presumably have a high income and will be able to keep saving money in addition to your debt repayment and tax deferred investments. Eventually you'll probably invest some of that money. I find it easy to just have it all in one brokerage account. My cash portion earns more than I can get in mos...

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Update - cut ties with my advisor today officially! Roths - rolled to Vanguard (in process) (Target Date fund) 403b already at Vanguard (Target Date fund) "money market fund" was not a money market fund after all, sadly, but a taxable investment account with American Fund class C(I am hor...

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I work in sales management for a financial institution (commercial lending). I can give you some insight into the mindset: These folks have an underlying belief they are doing something good. They have come up with their own sense of reality that speaks something like "its forced savings for so...

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I'm going to make a non-Vanguard suggestion here: Consider just buying Berkshire Hathaway.

No dividends so zero tax implications until you sell it.

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I'm going to step into this, but my disclaimer is you may want to hire an Illinois based accountant. If your dad lived in the house for at least two out of the last five years, the first $250,000 in capital gains should be tax free at the federal level. I think its justifiable that its his house if ...

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I've never heard of this and want to follow. I've got a 60+ year old cast iron pipe for half of my house we've been nursing for a while.

I'm just curious what the company's history is of paying claims. That seems like a bad deal for them

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Most traditional bank CDs carry a 3 month interest penalty if you redeem them early. Your bank statement doesn't give you a liquidation value when you see it every month (principal value less penalty). A brokered CD can be sold instead of cashed in with a penalty. The price you're seeing is what it ...

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I own both FSKAX and FZROX along with some legacy holdings of ITOT and VTI. The expense ratios are so incredibly low on all of these we're talking about loose change. ($1.50 on $10,000). I'm not going to make any moves in the taxable account that trigger taxes or trading commissions to make the swap...

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I'm a fan of investing in a regular taxable account. Once I hit $100,000 in one, I kicked the idea of a segregated emergency fund. There are tax efficient ways to invest in a regular account. Buy VTSAX or own a few shares of Berkshire Hathaway. We have almost $400k in a taxable account with a combin...

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