Bogleheads.org

Robdac

There's a good reason that not mixing finances with family is such a cliche. This is a bad idea on so may levels. If they want to be closer and have less maintenance they can sell the home and get an apartment near you. They can also go ahead with the bad idea of putting a second dwelling on the pro...

Robdac

I'm not sure what the typical lifespan of a propane standby generator is. However, when we bought our FL home 7 years ago it came with a "left for dead" 13Kw Generac gasoline powered generator. It became my personal mission to make that thing run again. 7 years later I've changed the oil a...

Robdac

Two kids, two big dogs, lots of stuff for an active life, and very reliable? If you can get past the form factor a Toyota minivan is the way to go. Sorry.

Robdac

No, it does not make me feel richer. I still subjectively feel the same. Objectively, we actually are richer.

Robdac

Hi all, Mid-thirties graduate student in the humanities hoping for a temperature check on my financial situation. I don't exercise, and that part concerns me because I know that will translate to higher healthcare costs in the future. Mid-forties guy interested in being able to enjoy retirement her...

Robdac

Okay, so what should I be doing? What's the sane move to increase exposure or is "100%" the max in the Boglehead way? My understanding is it is not. Mr. Bogle did not seem that scared of leverage. When I was your age I was piling it into VFINX. I stayed the course through good and bad tim...

Robdac

I've owned an Apple watch and a couple Garmin watches and cycling computers. Since you do not use an Apple phone, an Apple watch would be almost unusable. It's the best "smart watch" out there but not the best fitness watch. Battery life leaves a lot to be desired and you'll have to charge...

Robdac

Yep. 2X leveraged S&P 500 definitely needs a sanity check. Sorry. Nice job on not buying an expensive home. It's good that you're paying it down and getting rid of the PMI. Cash on hand is whatever you need to cover emergencies, job losses, and sleep at night. 6-12 months is a luxury I'm willing...

Robdac

woodenpelican wrote: ↑Mon Jan 11, 2021 5:39 pm
Thank you - sorry to be pedantic, but what is "the link"? Is it Ugift?

My529.org > select the icon that looks like a wrapped gift on the left > Manage > then copy URL or select Email.

Robdac

Has the market gone up in the last two days? I hadn't even noticed.

Robdac

We have the Utah 529 using Vanguard funds for our kids. When a grandparent wants to make a gift contribution I send them the link and they do it all online. Works great. No security concerns.

Robdac

When I want to buy something non-essential I write it down and then wait 30 days. Most of the time I've completely forgotten about it when it reappears in my to do list.

Robdac

VTI was a good idea.
Put it all there.
Forget the rest.

Robdac

Lived in CA for five years and loved it. It's one of the most beautiful states in the union. We go back and visit or vacation there on close to an annual basis. We've even discussed a summer place along the central coast. That said, there is no way we would ever become legal CA residents again. The ...

Robdac

Tired of those MA winters? Come down to FL for six months +1 day.

Robdac

Your parents have two financial advisors. They need to pick one.

Robdac

My "cash"/EF is a fixed amount, roughly 12 months of normal expenses. But I "represent" that as a variable part of my AA. For simple math, if my "cash" is $100k and my portfolio is $2M, then my cash is 5%. If my portfolio grows to $4M, my cash is 2.5%. I'm not sure thi...

Robdac

Your are in the opposite of a "tough spot." They may or may not be in a "tough spot" but that's none of your business. You finally have total control over your employment. Just write a four sentence letter. Say whatever you want in the first three sentences because your employer ...

Robdac

Why do some keep an EF as a percentage of their overall portfolio? If the point is to cover emergencies it would seem that having a percentage of your annual expensed would make more sense. Our EF is about 12 months of expenses kept in a money market fund. We've never had that kind of "emergenc...

Robdac

I have what my wife refers to as my 401S plan. I like all kinds of scotch, whiskey and bourbon and over the last couple years I will splurge on a bottle ($30-$60) once every couple months or when I see a good sale. The plan is to enjoy these spirits throughout retirement I'd estimate I have 24-30 b...

Robdac

If you want a Tesla buy a Tesla. Sounds like "fun" you wants it but "finance" you understands the time value of money. The richest person I know drives a Nissan. The clerk at my dry cleaners drives a 535i. Make sure you don't want the car to impress anyone. Nobody gives a Tesla a...

Robdac

Yes, cheap road bikes exist. But they're junk. They're heavy, shift and brake poorly, and have wheel sets that won't last. They're not a lot of fun to ride. You get what you pay for. Even at a $1000 budget you'd have a hard time finding a nice new road bike with a quality frame, wheel set, and compo...

Robdac

Wow. Lose your home in a fire and about to get burnt on your retirement by a glorified salesman all in the same year. Sorry.

Robdac

I refuse to play the "hide the dealer profit" game. I don't care what the MSRP, discounts, or dealer fees are. They can print whatever they want on the price sheet. All I care about is the last number on the sheet. What number do I need to write on the check to leave with the car? With tha...

Robdac

Standard retirement rule of thumb for spending is 4% of initial assets adjusted annually for inflation. So, 4% of $1.85MM which is your retirement and non-retirement savings is $74,000 in year one. But, with being so cash heavy, you are unlikely to be able to spend 4% because cash won't generate ade...

Robdac

What are your annual expenses? Consider running the emergency fund up to a year worth.

Robdac

After maxing 401K, ROTH, HSA and 457B, we just keep dumping into post-tax until it gets to the point of almost hurting. For us, that savings above and beyond the maxed out accounts is 38% of gross income (goes into post-tax brokerage and 529 - mostly brokerage). We don't make much (compared to peop...

Robdac

I would pay down/off the mortgage. Even at 2.9%. In fact, that's what we did and we have never regretted it. Ever. It creates a ton of wiggle room. Understand financially it may not be the best choice. Financially, we would have been better off putting it in VTSAX. But, psychologically, it was a ver...

Robdac

This may be semantics.

I'm not retired. I suppose I have three "buckets." Stocks (VTSAX/VTIAX), bonds (VTBLX), and a cash emergency fund (VMMXX). I refer to them as asset allocation.

Robdac

Let's assume for a moment that you are not a troll. You are a new member with two post and really have $50K you want to invest. First, welcome. "Ultra aggressive" is not what investors do here. We make money over the long haul. If you are real and really have $50K you want to invest aggres...

Robdac

I do swing trading with the money I’m willing to lose & put aside the profit towards buying some individual speculative stocks Suggestions? Okay, you asked... In your situation you should not speculate in the markets. Make every dollar work for you. It's just not worth the risk. Speculation alw...

Robdac

One blind spot seems to be your expenses. What are your expenses now? What do you anticipate them to be during retirement? Once you know your expenses it will be easy to estimate how much money you need to have invested when you turn 67 (or any age) to meet those expenses. You might also separate yo...

Robdac

We have a small brokerage account where the kids get to buy/sell stocks and have meetings to talk about investing. During the meetings we teach them about things like index investing. We also have "Bank of Mom and Dad" which is maintained on a Google spreadsheet and pays a hefty 10% intere...

Robdac

About: 30m. 72k salary (not including 30-40k side income; volatile and don't like to include it). Living at home due to covid saving on rent. Networth: 230k I need a new car badly...current car is at 200k miles. I want to buy a 2018 Honda Accord 2.0t with 30-60k miles. The cost will be 22-25k. I'd ...

Robdac

Sometimes investors hire a "financial advisor." The broker gets them into a ton of different funds to deliberately complicate things. It makes the broker appear very knowledgable. It also makes the investor think that they can't possibly invest the time required to learn to do something so...

Robdac

If it really is "play" money go play. Do or buy something enjoyable with it. Lots more fun than watching ZZZ Computer Co.

Robdac

Pay off the mortgage. If you don't like being debt free you can always get another one!

Robdac

We had a similar experience and only started looking for a new home once the current home was under contract. Worked out fine.

Robdac

Right now you want to invest in the markets because you understand the time value of money. We get that. You have a very long time horizon and every dollar invested now is greatly magnified by time. It's a great lesson to understand. But, what about investing in yourself? A medical doctor spends yea...

Robdac

Both of us are 46 80 Stock / 20 Bond Stock is 80/20 dom / intl While age is a factor for asset allocation is it the only factor even if we ignore individual risk tolerance? For example, if your retirement "number" is say $4M and you somehow reach that at 40 years old how should that effect...

Robdac

At the risk of contributing to a stale thread.... I live in an upper middle class area. According to the interwebs, our household net worth is above the 95th percentile. We save what I consider to be a lot of our income and live a comfortably "non-flashy" life while spending carefully on t...

Robdac

We view our emergency fund as a luxury. It's a significant amount of cash relative to our annual expenses just sitting in a Vanguard Money Market waiting for us. Sure, it could be in VTSAX. We realize that over time we will "miss out" on the difference. That's fine with us. If financial pr...

Robdac

When I was in my late 20's I received enough money from the passing of my grandparents to be able to pay off my wife's law school loans and most of our modest home. It had a profound effect on our ability to save for the future. It jump started our retirement investing. It freed up our income to fun...

Robdac

I would go with the 3 fund option for simplicity sake if I was choosing between your options.

For your 17 year old we went 100% Total Stock Index.

Robdac

Thanks everyone. It doesn't seem to be worth the approximately $250 a year I'd save by doing the conversion. That would be the main reason for doing it.

Robdac

Vanguard indicates that they have many mutual funds that will allow a one way conversion to their identical ETF if you hold the mutual fund through Vanguard. They also mention that this is a tax free/exempt transaction. We are thinking of doing the conversion in both our taxable and IRA accounts fro...

Robdac

You make $350K per year and your wife makes double that? That comes to about $1M per year gross. You do not have an income problem. Even in these forums those are huge numbers. There are very few people in the world who make more than that. More income isn't the answer. You're not in huge debt but y...

Robdac

There are no free lunches. You said you want to double your money in 5-7 years. To double your money in 6 years you need an average annual return of just over 12%. That 12 percent return will come with substantial risk of losing part or all of your investment. Are you willing to risk that? You can g...

Robdac

Do it. We moved a family of four from Illinois, near St. Louis, to Broward county six years ago. Aside from the current, temporary, COVID issues it's been one of the best decisions we've ever made. In our case getting out from under IL income and property taxes made the decision even easier. It was ...

Robdac

If we have as "Doomsday" event holding gold will be the least of your worries. If a virus kills 1/3 of the population of the USA it will be like something out of The Walking Dead. I recently listened a podcast with Peter Schiff who generally has good economic ideas but he tries to scare ev...

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