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We keep two months at the bank between checking and their money market for normal bills. We transfer money to the bank as needed to replenish the account or cover a big purchase. When we recently purchased a car, we ask the dealer to hold our check for three days to allow us to transfer money. They had no problem doing so.

85/15 is pretty aggressive for a 92 year old.

I look across all my accounts as one portfolio. Those two funds would not be my choice. I prefer passive vs actively managed type funds.

Our son is doing the same thing. It can feel like you are off to a slow start, but I assure you that you are doing everything right. Well done!!!

We track our retirement expenses and do not make any adjustments.

brak wrote: ↑Fri Oct 22, 2021 9:40 am I am retired, in a high tax bracket, partly due to my RMD's. I did Roth conversions in the years leading up to my retirement. Would there be any reason to continue doing Roth conversions in my present situation? Thanks.

I don’t know if this will help you decide, but there was a relevant presentation at the 2022 Boglehead conference

Breakout Session - Pre-Retirees and Retirees (Mike Piper on Social Security and Tax Planning)

https://boglecenter.net/2022conference/

Callable CDs are starting to look interesting to me because I'm noticing more and more you can buy them longer term for a higher price, and even if they are called early, their rate will still beat the comparable rate of a regular CD for the same time period. Do you have a specific formula, or checklist you go through on whether or when to buy a callable CD? The thing you need to realize is that the callable feature tends to benefit the issuer, not the buyer. It's sort of a "Heads I win, tails you lose" sort of proposition unless interest rates stay flat during the term of the CD. If rates drop, your CD will get called and you'll be stuck trying to reinvest the money in the lower rate environment, if rates rise substantially, you...

I'd avoid this. "Free" just means you're the product, just like face book. Sharing passwords of financial sites is most likely a violation of the user agreement, so if something bad happens, data leak, hacking incident, etc. you'll be in a lousy position because you willingly shared your password. Regards, I just want you to understand that just because you put your password on their site that does not mean they store it. That might be true, but the Vanguard website states the following: Safeguard your account information. For your protection, you should not provide your Vanguard account information, username, or password to anyone. If you become aware of any suspicious activity relating to your account or if you suspect fraud, p...

I like the “If you can” PDF.

Our kids only got interested in investing once they were in college. We had them go online to pay their college bills, and track their spending. They have a budget.

We matched their college job W2 income provided that they invest the match. That provided them money to invest and follow.

W2 box 12 code AA for Roth contributions.

Code DD and the amount of your employer-sponsored health coverage plan.

I would check with the payroll department about the calculation.

Aldo ask if they will credit the match after you retire (assuming that the 401k is left in place.

Andy12345 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 2:50 pm

HomeStretch wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 2:33 pm
If your mom is contributing $600/month to a Taxable savings account, she should instead contribute to a Roth IRA, which will grow tax free. Or to a deductible Traditional IRA, if eligible, as it looks like her marginal tax rate in retirement may be lower than her current rate.

She’s just putting the money into a savings account that is paying .1%. She’s not funding any retirement accounts. I talked her about treasuries and she said “well that’s doesn’t look smart. The government is about to go belly up.”

She has more than a lot of people. It doesn’t sound like your Mom wants to change. You probably have more patience than me. I’d walk away.

I don’t quite understand why if we’re 99% sure of not outliving our money, we should move our money to a less risky allocation that’s so expensive. So they can make some money. Simple as that. There is no benefit to you. In fact, by paying them the 1%, you are reducing what you can safely spend yourself...thereby INCREASING your risk. The generally accepted "safe" withdrawal rate has historically been 4%. That includes all your expenses...including what you pay for investment advice. If you are spending 4%, then paying them 1% leaves you with only 3% to spend on yourself. Go figure out how that is a good thing for you. If you feel the need to reduce your risk, just increase your bond allocation. However, there is no indication in...

This is my understanding, but I never submitted an appeal. Hopefully a forum member has successfully appealed a situation like yours. SSA does not consider the execution of a conversion or the lower income following a large conversion year to be a life changing event. Even if the person did the conversion the year following retirement, the conversion year will be a year later than the loss of wage income. If person retired in 2020 and income dropped in 2021, they could appeal the 2022 surcharge, but if the person converted in 2021, driving the 2023 IRMAA surcharge, appealing the 2023 surcharge would likely be a waste of time. Due to conversion driven IRMAA surcharges, it is recommended that the surcharge be factored into the decision on how...

Flexibility in retirement is key. Especially when the market is down for long periods.

RadAudit wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:16 pm The older I get the more I realize the benefits of a simplified portfolio of fewer, low cost, broad based mutual funds. Three will do great.

This is 100% true for us.

Three fund portfolio here plus municipal fund and treasuries.
Closed accounts to simplify.

Everything we one fits on a single sheet of paper.

Once you retire, you will have more time to focus on your properties and your finances. In other words, I don’t see that you necessarily need to solve this problem in the next four or five years.

There are some differences between the two platforms which are well documented on this forum. The way I see it, you can do so much more of the brokerage account. I’d convert and enjoy the additional capabilities.

Try: how long will my money last?
https://www.calcxml.com/do/how-long-will-my-money-last

Yes. By "taxable account", I was referring to mutual funds that are not parked in any IRA, traditional or Roth. I did a little research today, and discovered that the term "qualified" has nothing to do with the tax consequences of an IRA. Thanks for checking. I have an interesting story. I did a dumb thing in May of 2022, almost a year ago. I bot crypto, and lost 70% of my investment almost immediately. Currently I have been speaking to a financial advisor from Vanguard Personal Advisory Services, but I am not yet a customer of their advisory services. She showed me their proposed portfolio, which had the comment about "we recommend selling the Crypto". My thot is that if I sell now, I lock in a loss, right? S...

I wish we had used a combination of 529 and UTMA. We went with the UTMA because that’s what our friends did. No big regrets other than we got hit with some taxes. We are retired now, so the kids draw from their own account instead of asking for money from mom and dad.

1. Cancel Edelman service. Side note; TDF not needed with other funds.

2. Open Roth for your wife

3. I would stop ESPP since the discount is minimal. Redirect money to child (UTMA, 529) or to wife for Roth IRA

According to the article Treasury-only MMFs have significant liquidity cushions. The state and local tax exemption is helpful in taxable.

VUSXX is the safest because of its pure T-Bills composition and state and local tax exempt.

VMFXX is second safest, but the composition is not a pure US treasury play. VMFXX dividends are partially taxed at the state level.

kchico wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 8:08 pm The other guy that they kept on my team doesn't live in the state so he gets to work from home.

DW worked for a company and the rest of the team was 1,000+ miles away. DW is the sole team member that is 7 states away. It makes no sense for her to go into the office, but the newly crowned Manager is taking orders from above. LOL

I completely sympathize with your situation. Instead of full retirement, would the next option be to find a different job? First of all, you’ll take a lot of zeros and Social Security.

One way to optimize your portfolio is to eliminate funds with high expense ratios.

If your current employer allows it, would you benefit by moving your old retirement accounts into the current employer 401k?

To reach your 500k goal, is your savings rate appropriate?

We hold the three fund portfolio plus a municipal bond fund. Most recently we added treasuries when they hit 5%.

Our kids had a children’s savings account and a UTMA brokerage account at Fidelity.

A UTMA covers more asset types. The Uniform Gift to Minors Act (UGMA) established a simple way for a minor to own securities without requiring the services of an attorney to prepare trust documents or the court appointment of a trustee. The terms of this trust are established by a state statute instead of a trust document. The Uniform Transfer to Minors Act (UTMA) is similar, but also allows minors to own other types of property, such as real estate, fine art, patents and royalties, and for the transfers to occur through inheritance.

I believe that each UTMA account is limited to one child and one custodian.

Yes, that strategy makes sense

Since the accounts are IRAs, you could put the money in an “all in one fund” such as:
VSMGX - Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund

Who hold the three fund portfolio, and a municipal fund. That’s it — 4 funds across our entire portfolio. Recently we added a treasury.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio

What you are doing is a reasonable way to reduce your holding. It’s a very popular fund, just not the most tax friendly.

In response to aristotelian, I am interested in TIPs and ibonds. However, I don't feel like I understand them enough at this time to invest in them. That will probably be a task for this year. You mention that this portfolio will have a very low return over time. For this year, I anticipate that it will outstrip my current salary. I understand that is an unusual interest rate environment and I cannot count on that continuing. However, you have touched on an issue that concerns me. I am going to consider increasing my stock allocation. I imagine 30% might be as high as I can go, given the risks. 30% stock is perfectly reasonable. Inflation is really your only enemy. We have been buying Treasuries and CDs over 5% Ibonds have a purchase limit...

Since you received a step up basis for the individual stock, it seems like NOW is a good time to exchange individual stock for the vanguard total Stock market fund (VTSAX).

If you don’t want to pull the trigger, you could engage Vanguard PAS to do it for you. Rick Ferri will give you good advice, but he does not manage the portfolio, and I am under the impression that you want someone to re-organize the portfolio for you.

Consider VBIAX - Vanguard balanced index fund admiral

We like to use our Roth IRA to hold the investment with the greatest growth potential. We hold the Vanguard total stock market there and bonds elsewhere.

The last place we will spend from is our Roth IRA.

We are 5 1/2 years into retirement. Last year we withdrew 2.5% from the portfolio. Big ticket items in 2022 included taxes on a large Roth conversion, new vehicle for DW, and HVAC replacement times 2.

Our portfolio is down $210k from the market highs and our AA is 65/35. Right now, we are prepaying some taxes to get a nice split between Roth, traditional, and taxable accounts.

Hope this helps.

We started with 2/3rds in tax deferred and 1/3 in taxable. We concluded that we will not take SS early (before full retirement age) so that we will convert larger dollar amounts into Roth. Our goal is to move 1/3 into Roth. That will position us for 1/3rd each in pretax, taxable, and Roth. We think that will give us a good mix of account types and better manage the surviving spouse filing as single. We are less concerned with higher medicare payments for 1-3 years. The open social security tool does not take into account Roth conversions. Also, as the interest rate rises, it favors taking SS earlier will limit Roth conversions. I very much like the SS tool, but it’s important to understand how it works. The tool has a lot of good details on...

Duplicate

We hold the three fund portfolio.
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio

Just looking at the first fund in you list, the ER is Expense Ratio is 0.56%.

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I’m buying equities. Buy the dip, don’t sell the rip. LOL

nisiprius wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 2:50 pm I'd appreciate it if others would check their Portfolio Watch results--

vanguard.com >> [log in] >> Portfolio Watch >> Stock analysis "See details" >> Industry Sectors

and see whether "Consumer Discretionary: 0.0%" is showing for just me, or everyone.

This is what I get for a single vanguard fund. Two differences that I see immediately are:

"Consumer Discretionary: 0.1%"

“uncategorized: 38.3%”

nalor511 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 6:03 pm You should be calling vanguard about this account specific question. Any answer here is pure speculation.

+1

Nothing wrong with tax gain harvesting if you are so inclined. I’d say that we are fat, dumb, and happy letting our portfolio grow. It’s better than paying someone for a portfolio that you really don’t want and will ultimately sell.

We tend to do gifting and charitable gifting in our DAF. We are generally in the, “it’s ok if things are not perfectly optimal” camp.

We are planning trips to different countries. We are also looking into putting in a home elevator before we replace carpeting and schedule maintenance on the house. I’m not sure that this spending will make much of a dent into the portfolio though. my older brother has talked about an elevator for his house (I solved that problem with a one-story house - they can roll me out onto the dock and into the water). Are these expensive? I guess it depends on how much demolition is required to fit it in. I think he has concluded that it would destroy the value of his house and for them the cost would be prohibitive since it would have to be inside the existing structure and have no visible signs from outside. There are many types and sizes of elev...

We are planning trips to different countries. We are also looking into putting in a home elevator before we replace carpeting and schedule maintenance on the house. I’m not sure that this spending will make much of a dent into the portfolio though.

We are also helping my widowed FIL and that takes time from our projects. Hence the portfolio is growing.

My employer started to charge a $75 annual 401k fee as the company doubled in size. A small fee is quite common and nothing to worry about.

The FDIC adds together all single accounts owned by the same person at the same bank and insures the total up to $250,000. For a joint account, you are covered up to $250,000 per owner.

The owner of a revocable trust account is insured up to $250,000 per each primary beneficiary. Limit is 1.25M ($250k x 5)

If your employer declares bankruptcy, all of your contributions that were safely in the plan prior to the bankruptcy filing are protected.

There are two circumstances in which you may not receive all the money you thought was due you. The first is if your employer didn't deposit your contributions before declaring bankruptcy. The second is when an employer match hasn't been deposited into the trust.

We did something similar. We discussed with our children the concept of long and short term savings goals. For example, saving for a computer versus saving for something much bigger like retirement or house down payment. The idea of a savings goal resonated with them. Our kids both asked for advice when their UTMA account was put in their name.

I see nothing in the news other than the Schwab stock price. Can you elaborate on the Schwab specific issue?

Charles Schwab CEO says firm is seeing significant inflows and that he bought the stock Tuesday.

"Our bank is very conservatively managed. If you look into the holdings of the bank, we have about 10% of client deposits outstanding in loans," Bettinger said.

Have you sold from this account before without spec id? Perhaps the oldest shares were already mark average cost. How long has spec id been enabled?