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45 percent.
Decently compensated career, seasonal sidegig, one rental unit in LCOL area. Live very below my means, 45% of gross is about 15 months of current expenses.
I then save another ~15%/yr in taxable (I-bonds & cash).

A walnut kernel. Just rub it for several swipes across the scratch. Does an amazing job, especially on hardwood floors.

Do you like to garden?
In my slow quest for acreage, at first I was ruling out any properties which had a swimming pool. Then I saw this concept and now find myself almost wanting a defunct swimming pool, no longer seeing them as a liability but as a leverage point to start my permaculture projects.
https://youtu.be/FYTCU4Jlqkc?t=259

I adore Berne. Extremely cosmopolitan and central, just get a SwissPass and you'll be able to go in any direction on the remarkable train system to daytrip to Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne, Luzerne, up in to Gimmelwald, etc etc. Even covers the ferry from Lausanne across Lac Leman over to the famous spa resort Evian-les-Bains in France. SwissPass also covers entry to most Swiss museums and all city transport in each destination! Including funiculars and cablecars. Truly a marvel. Look in to it!

I pooh-poohed them at first, thinking them to be gimmicky and overindulgent. Then we started using them at my work. My career is in a tech-heavy realm but in my off time am not very tech-reliant or an early adopter consumer. We ship exclusively with FedEx and they have become increasingly unreliable for our needs in the past year or two, delaying simple shipments by several days and outright losing high-value items which we ship regularly. After our IT department installed AirTags in our Pelican cases of our most time-sensitive equipment, we've been able to supercede the FedEx tracking information when it goes vague (i.e. "it's depicting it's still in Puerto Rico per the last scan but it's actually on the airside parking ramp of the Me...

Big Dog wrote: ↑Mon Jan 09, 2023 3:37 pm If you can get up to the North Slope, highly recommended.

Agreed! It's very far-flung but my weeks spent at Deadhorse's Brooks Camp (https://www.brookscampak.com/ - a glorified dormitory for the oil field workers but open to all payers) was unforgettable. Especially the amazing grub. Eggs Benedict, fresh salad bar, prime rib special, dessert bar, ad infinitum. They feed those folks really really well, and it's included in the modest cost of the room. Met some interesting tourists doing the motorcycle pilgrimage of the Pan-American Highway which runs from Tierra Del Fuego to Deadhorse. The "tourist swag" I bought in the US Post Office / hardware store / giftshop still delights me.

It has been my observance with the HOA for the condominium which I own that prospective buyers have had much trouble getting a mortgage when the reserve account has been deemed by the prospective lenders to be too low. I have to assume that another problematic aspect of qualifying for a mortgage loan would be if the reserve account(s) had questionable investments other than predictable CDs or other cash-like vehicles. During a period when anyone but cash-based purchasers (who were few and far between) were not able to procure mortgage financing, property values dropped, a not-insignificant number of units sat unoccupied, and some absentee owners stopped paying their HOA dues. While this eventually got rectified it took some deferral of main...

My condominium's construction gave me few options for putting in an ensuite laundry so I chose the washer/dryer combo (in one drum, not the stackable kind). My first one lasted 15 years before it began to regularly throw an error code which was an involved repair so I decided to replace it at a pricepoint not a whole lot more than estimated repair costs. In both cases I went with LG and have been very pleased. As a single person my throughput isn't very large, but is consistent. I really appreciate its low energy usage, its thorough cleaning, the fact that I didn't have to run a dryer vent output nor dedicated dryer electric circuit, and that I can put a load in in the morning set the program press start and walk away...to come home from wo...

4285.55

I also came here to suggest Traverse City Michigan. It's a very special corner of the country which is still not on a lot of folks' radars beyond Chicago and Detroit.

This may be on the fanciful side, but if the insurance's liability concern would be solved by solely removing the trampoline & then use the remaining hole for a sunken greenhouse. If you're a gardener and if you're in a location which would benefit from having year-round growing capability. And depending on the diameter of the trampoline, you can reuse the metal frame as the top structure to make the covering dome - just some creative bolting or welding and putting in some stairs to descend.. I've seen this concept applied to older homes with dilapidated in-ground swimming pools, rather than pay to have them filled one utilizes the space and the thermal mass to advantage it as an earth-sheltered greenhouse. Some excellent videos can be ...

OP, anything is possible so long as your willing to pay for it. What is your budget? Who will receive the shipped items? Is the delivery place the final spot for the shipped items? Are you moving to said location? Time constraints? You don't have a car but can you drive? If its just a couple hundred miles and you like/able to drive- simplest is to just rent a car, put the stuff in with minimal packing and drive it over there- road trip! For me, I honestly think just renting a car is easier than going through TR to find a person, coordinate time and particulars- will you be present, if not- how will the TR person come in, who brings supplies, arrange for transport, decide on shipping company and options etc. I can spend too much time trying...

Do you NEED to raise the rents? Have the actual carrying costs risen to justify such a big ("30-40%") bump? I give a discount to my longterm renters, in the form of no or greatly reduced increases in rent, because it would be a huge headache for me to find new renters whose track record I do not know thereby greatly raising my risk exposure. Yes your current tenants will resent it. No easyfit answer but really consider the intangibles of having good established renters vs squeezing out more revenue in a frothy market via additional risk exposure. In this situation that which could be a shortterm marginal gain has greater probability of becoming a longterm albatross.

Taylor's posts were the first which hooked me as I was beginning my personal finance adventures in learning, saving, and experiencing market moves. This was when Bogleheads were largely on Morningstar forums but shifting to this standalone format. Happy to have met Taylor, however briefly, in person at more than one Bogleheads Conference over the years.
Happy Birthday, Sir, and thank you for 1) your willingness to serve our country in the European Theater in the 1940s, and 2) going on to serve our nation and our globe via your broadcasted example of a steady well-informed & confident hand on the tiller of the transoceanic voyage which is any one person's lifetime of investing.

2022 end = 5434.40

I poo-poo'ed it until I actually tried it but it's been a gamechanger for me: frenchpress overnight coldbrew. I put in the coffee (I grind mine just before I make it but you could buy it pre-ground to save time/effort), slowly add my water (usually distilled but also use spring or drinking or filtered, just never straight from the tap) while stirring with one of my metal chopsticks, then I place a saucer over it and put it in the fridge for the 8-12 hours until I wake. In the minute or two it takes to get from the bed to my first cup, I just take the plunger assembly from my dish rack, insert, press, and then pour. I can get two and half mugs from a standard frenchpress. I find that it's not the heat and steam of a cup, or cups, of coffee w...

How far are you from neighbors, how far are you from waterways, how large is the parcel, how many people will be living there, will it be part time or full time living, how squeamish are you about handling your own wastes, and will you be gardening or raising chickens? If reasonable to you for all the reasons, I suggest doing what I'm doing: draining your greywater (sinks, shower, washer) separately in to a Hugelkultur garden about 20' from my residence. Then handling the yellow/brown matters with a stream diverting C-Head system (easily found with a quick internet search) so that I can use the yellow on my other gardens and the brown goes in to a nicely designed (available on Amazon for under $200) bio-bin in which black soldier fly larvae...

Perhaps most customers are in my situation, I have not needed any customer service since joining in 2009. I just use the web page to buy and sell shares and do my taxes. Since that's all I need, I would rather not pay extra so that other users can dial in stock trades or always speak to a human at the first opportunity to do something that the web page or a bit of reading can do instead. These are my thoughts as well. Over 15+ years I've only had two occasions I can recall where I had to contact them directly and in both instances my needs were satisfied quickly and easily. I too would rather not pay more in fees to subsidize others' more nuanced needs and if/when I find myself requiring more sophisticated dialoguing I would forge ahead wi...

If I understand correctly, one can structure a self-directed HSA through Lively. I'm using Lively for their TD Ameritrade functionality and am pleased. Simple search terms of "self directed HSA Lively" yield seemingly positive return hits.

I'm on my third Allett in 15 years. They last a long time, are amazingly slim and lightweight, and very reasonably priced.

barnaclebob, This is not true. Starlink's satellite fly very close to earth and has very low latency to the Internet. It is as good as the conventional cable internet in terms of latency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink The linked Wikipedia page has a photograph of the Starlink consumer receiving system and of the dish antenna set up on a tabletop. I guess it's just my background, having worked for years with geosynchronous satellites, but looking at the Starlink receiving system, I have to wonder just how in the world one sets up a dish to point to a satellite in low earth orbit that is not geosynchronous. It’s a phased-array antenna that can steer the beam without any moving parts. It switches from one satellite to the next as the...

Late July to early August were going to test drive the Midwest/SE for possible retirement home. We'll be in the area for 2+ weeks. We need: 1. Close airport for international travel; 2. Good stores; Meijer, Costco, farmers markets; 3. 4 seasons of outdoor activity with mild winter and not terrible humidity; and, 4. Nice nature. We'll start in southern Indiana, Cincinnati, Lexington, Knoxville, Asheville and finish in coastal North Carolina. Never been to this area but interested to see if it would be a good fit for retirement. I'm a small town boy from Maine and wife is big city girl from Northern Europe. We've been living in north Midwest for years. We've had enough bad winters for a lifetime. We both like suburb living as compromise betw...

Hello Bogleheads ! I retired this year! I live in NJ. I am single. I have been in this state since 1990. NJ is expensive state with high property taxes. I do not like the weather conditions given 6 months of cold weather, spring seasons are allergy season for me and summers are hot and humid. Although Florida is a great state from tax perspective for retirees I find the humid weather not good for me. I am looking at Colorado as a potential state. I am not sure if this state is retiree friendly for taxes and its cost of living. From my research online I did see this state appears to have high scores for retirees. Did I miss any other states that could be a good fit 1) mild weather 2) low crime rate 3) low/moderate cost of living 4) liberal ...

Maybe the Wikipedia article on Classic X-Men...

I'm quite the layman about this, but am continually impressed by propane for on-demand water heating and emergency power generation. Propane doesn't "go bad" like gasoline/diesel and for a fossil fuel is relatively benign.

hirlaw wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 8:57 am Finding a rental car will be more challenging than any hike!

I unfortunately agree, unless something major happens within the rental car industry in the next couple of months. I've had to get creative on my last three rentals (two for work, one for leisure).
Good luck planning it all out! I adore Vermont.

Edited to add: OP posted simultaneous to me that they have a car secured. Right on! Enjoy. (Also, nothing wrong with Montpelier, it's a very beautiful setting and there are many great restaurants to be had.

I second (or third or fourth, ad infinitum) the notion of not replacing it and just plumbing the sink straight out. I've heard it said several times over the years, including by some contractors, that in-sink disposals are mostly for the benefit of plumbers. Really, if you're in to composting that's the way to go and if you're not then just scrape the leftovers in to the trash and use a sinkdrain basket to catch the larger chunks from your dishes as you wash or pre-wash/rinse them, to be tapped in to the trash when done with the washing-up. Turning organic matter in to a semi-slurry and sending it down your pipes is asking for eventual problems...and generally not small problems. It baffles me how this appliance is really seen as a convenie...

I fully see where you're coming from with an ice-maker in the fridge's freezer compartment. I've never had one and I don't miss it, although with a European background I am not one to have ice in every drink anyhow. My suggestion would be to forego the in-freezer ice maker. Less headache of the prone-to-leaking dedicated plumbed water line and of the finicky mechanism, as well as freeing up space in the freezer. Instead, look in to the several name-brand standalone countertop ice makers which can be had for just over $100. Then, in your listing, you can say "ice maker provided upon request". This may also reduce a bit of the yuck-factor because the guest can then make their own since these countertop models can produce ice cubes ...

I fully see where you're coming from with an ice-maker in the fridge's freezer compartment. I've never had one and I don't miss it, although with a European background I am not one to have ice in every drink anyhow. When I rent cottages via AirBnB, I'm generally seeking a bit of a hermitage and know going in to it that there is more of a basic or rustic aspect to it all. My suggestion would be to forego the in-freezer ice maker. Less headache of the prone-to-leaking dedicated plumbed water line and of the finicky mechanism, as well as freeing up space in the freezer. Instead, look in to the several name-brand standalone countertop ice makers which can be had for just over $100. Then, in your listing, you can say "gourmet icemaker provi...

I keep my parents apprised of my broad milestones achieved, such as when I paid off my mortgage early or when I hit a recent multiple-round-number milestone, mostly for their understanding that they don't have to worry about my nest-feathering nor to keep offering advice regarding various minutiae about which I am already ahead of the curve. I am named in their wills as the executor of their estate, so I also want them to be able to relax and take comfort that I know what I'm doing with regards to relatively conservative personal finance principles. Not borne of any expectation or solicitation on my part, they recently in reciprocity shared with me a very broad notion of their net worth as well. My siblings however, if I understand correctl...

One easy way to significantly reduce the time to cook steel cut oats in the morning is to soak them beforehand overnight.

If you live near a Trader Joe's, they have a powdered dishwashing detergent (look for the green box in the cleaners aisle) which is priced very fairly and works well because it is very simple. No fancy colorings or scents or whatnot. Basic and effective.

iudiehard1 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 05, 2020 7:49 am The fund I am looking at is DUALX...which holds high quality Alabama munis. Expenses are a little rich at .70...but the return overall return has been rock solid for years.

During my few years playing with holding some monies at Dupree (hq'd in my neck of the woods, so I told myself I was "investing locally"), I was not terribly impressed with their operations neverminding their high expense ratios.

atikovi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 2:59 pm I'm still waiting for the single unit washer/dryers to come out to free up some floor space. Until then, my '80's Kenmores are fine.

I absolutely LOVED my LG Washer/Dryer Combo (i.e. in the same drum, not the stackable types). I happily sing its praises. And I got ~15 years out of it before it finally gave up the ghost in multiple subsystems so I replaced it with its current equivalent and now rent that condo to my sister and she also loves the washer/dryer combo. Except in certain household circumstances, I think they work very very well and their relatively small customer base is rooted in unfounded selective squeamishness.

atikovi wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:52 am
If it's an open field, why do you want to change the natural appearance and turn it into a maintenance headache? I assume it contains many varieties of wildlife beneficial to the ecosystem that would be displaced if the grass was cut.

Agreed mostly.

Also, goats are browsers not grazers. Meaning, they will choose their eating from anything within their mouths' reach rather than just what's "underfoot". Sheep are considered to be grazers although I've seen them munch on a willow tree's lowhanging branches/foliage with seemingly gustatory gusto.

I have found my simple entry-level Brother b&w printer to have served me well for almost 10 years now. It appears, with a quick search, that its more recent counterpart still ranks highly in reviews and has scanning function with two-sided (duplex) functionality and wi-fi...all for about $150. With my satisfaction of my current simple Brother printer I would gladly buy one again.

Just as a bit of a thought exercise, consider Lexington KY. It's just barely over an hour from Cincinnati's airport hub, has about 15 direct flight destinations of its own all to major hubs, and is an hour from all which Louisville's major airport has to offer as well. The cost of living is quite low, and the urban growth boundary means you can drive 15 minutes from downtown to be in archetypal countryside. It's a city of approaching 350,000 population, functional metro area of over half a million, and has the state's flagship university as its main economic anchor such that the student body and instructor workforce impacts on the populace make it very accepting of "outsiders". Medical care is excellent, especially with the medica...

During my college years I worked a loading dock and the delivery trucks for a well-respected local furniture store. Good honest work, kept me in great shape, met all sorts of interesting people across the full societal spectrum from co-workers to customers. We had a "trick" to deploy if we unfortunately scuffed a hardwood floor during a delivery. First step was to ask the customer if they minded if we tried something first before our management would gladly escalate the response for them. Sometimes it was a flat-out refusal but usually they were interested in seeing what we proposed. Each truck's glove compartment contained a small bag of walnut meats (halves, in smaller bags such as one would find in a grocery's baking aisle) and...

I keep finding these "you don't pay the realtor" arguments to be a matter of mental accounting. Of course you are paying the realtor(s) - their services are embedded in the purchase price. You may not be cutting a check directly payable to their name(s) but surely they are being paid within the process and it will be part of what you are mortgaging.

Bogle7 wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 8:59 pm We also like the ventless condensing heat pump dryer.

I am a huge believer in the combo washerdryers. The condensing drying system takes longer but is SO much kinder to all the textiles and fits in places that many laundry solutions wouldn't. Best for a single person or a couple who lives lightly.

I have spent a few months of my life, off and on with work assignments over the years, working out of Lakeland. I am not a fan of Florida by and large, having experienced broad swaths of it, but something about Lakeland is uniquely appealing to me. It feels more like the Florida-ness of Florida, like what I envision Florida was before the 1940s perhaps in many ways. It's still quite agricultural (amazing strawberry milkshakes next door in Plant City) all around it. The downtown is compact and lovely, the city is quite bicycle friendly, as others have mentioned it's roughly 45 minutes in either direction to two different major airports. Lakeland's own airport hosts the annual Sun & Fun aviation fly-in/expo, and it's massive. It attracts ...

When my existing handsoap dispenser ran out, instead of disassembling and parsing it out to the recycling bin I simply reused it by putting a bit of the ol' standby Dr Bronner's soap (they have great scents and great quality) in to it and diluting it and shaking it to mix, maybe a 1:10 ratio.
The dispenser foams the soap as one presses the pump so it lathers immediately.
Dr Bronner's soap is quite widely found these days but I get mine from the local food co-op and on my weekly shopping trip they still have ample stock of it.

Being in a more rural area, as you say, consider leaving up as much of the tree as possible to foster wildlife with this unique habitat. Woodpeckers and wood ducks are two which come to mind as utilizing dead trees and they as well as others are fascinating to watch throughout the seasons.

If only they had saved more of an emergency fund and didn't buy lattés and new iPhones.
But seriously, I very much look forward to coal and oil companies being relegated, in my lifetime, to the conversational replacement for buggywhips as an example of obsolescence. We clamour for the latest and greatest medical tech, telecomm capabilities, entertainment modalities, etc...but we primarily burn rocks to power it all. Decentralized energy production makes huge sense to me.

Be prepared for a long haul - the pandemic may not be over until a vaccine is available, perhaps in fall, 2021. If it is over by mid-summer I look forward to visiting our children and grandchildren, and to a few New England vacations later this summer and fall. We have already cancelled a condo in Florida and trips to Europe in April and September. Right now we are in our house except for daily long walks and bi-weekly trips to the grocery store. I hate to say it, but this pandemic may be the first clear sign the human race has outgrown, or over-grown, its niche in the Earth's ecosystem. We have denied climate change, but we cannot deny this. I wonder if this will change the world economy as countries shorten and strengthen their supply ch...

Two days ago I moved ~9 months of usual expenses from my liquid Vanguard Prime Money Market fund in to my credit union, by way of a small ladder of CDs as well as in to my savings and my checking accounts.
This left another 9 months of expenses still liquid at Vanguard.
Nothing radical, I'm just seeing it as a broad brushstroke of prudence.

YES. I have been taking long walks each day this week and my mental state is remarkably tranquil despite peeking at headlines. Stay the course - carry on.

jebmke wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 8:21 am I use Irfanview for resizing images in Windows. Has been around for a long time.

+1 for Irfanview. A very excellent free light-on-system-resources raster utility. Been using it personally and professionally for almost 20 years now.

knightrider wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:11 pm Also consider the river towns, Hastings , Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, Tarrytown, Ossining, Croton etc..

Hard to explain, but I value the river views highly.. I would never see myself moving to a place without a view, regardless of how great it is on paper

Yes! In the past several months I spent a week in Tarrytown, several days in Peekskill, and a couple of nights in Mt Kisco. Was impressed by the situations of all of them, but especially was keen on the Mt Kisco feel, its real estate options, and its train commute.