Bogleheads.org

When my wife and I were first married, we kept our money separate. After ten or so years, my wife suggested we should commingle our assets. Forty years later, when my mother died, I automatically put OUR inheritance into OUR joint Vanguard account.

I'm not saying this is right for every couple, and it sounds like the OP has not been long married. But the idea that the global male hegemony wants to control female assets is tiresome. I don't like to support lawyers, but you could argue that commingling assets actually helps women suffering from the gendered pay differential, if the marriage breaks up.

This newsboard is full of thrifty people. Is keeping assets separate a successful fee-free pre-nuptial agreement? I don't know.

Zso wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:51 amThe worst was that i paid one $500 for their review and they proposed an annuity.

I can understand why this was disappointing. But you spent less than 5 ten-thousandths of one percent of your assets on the loser advisor. You are already spending 100 times that per year at Vanguard. (Expense ratios, not advice.)

You need a reliable referral.

Zso, there are many complex issues involved. One that has not come up is whether an IRA (that you would have to roll over to [?]) has different lawsuit or marital protections than a 401(k). Another is whether you "like" the 401(k)'s prices and options. If you learn more about investing, you may find the options and Expense Ratios you have at Vanguard are much better. (Not sure, of course.) It is much easier to find customers that dislike TIAA than those who dislike Vanguard. OTOH, Vanguard's technology is so much better that they accomplish something like 97% of their customer interactions fully online. TIAA can only dream of that right now. But you "sound" like you want someone to hold your hand. (Sorry if that sounds c...

OP here. I am registered and did log in when reaching the blank TIAA discussion page - still blank after logging in. Just tried again, same result. Do you have a good link for the Forum page? These were kindly posted by Yogi Bear at the site in question: M* Discussions – Forum Links (Alphabetical) Investing Forums (no longer a full index) https://community.morningstar.com/s/topic/0TO3o000001yV0JGAU/investing-forums Allocation/Balanced Funds https://community.morningstar.com/s/topic/0TO3o000001yV0SGAU/allocationbalanced-funds Bond Squad https://community.morningstar.com/s/topic/0TO3o000001yV0FGAU/bond-squad CEFs https://community.morningstar.com/s/topic/0TO3o000001yV0VGAU/closedend-funds ETFs https://community.morningstar.com/s/topic/0TO3o0...

So, based on the previous reply, I checked into annuitization and was pleasantly surprised! TIAA projected an income stream that totalled 3x the starting amount for the next 30 years (I will likely not live that long- I am 70. And still employed). [text moved:] If I pull this trigger, it's a substantial part of my retirement and it is irrevocable. However, it seems like waiting longer just means fewer years to collect. But they state that 42% of this annuity is not really guaranteed- it is based on TIAA's annual determinations of the "loyalty bonus" and "additional interest amounts". I could not get an answer on how often these numbers go UP vs DOWN. I am actually pessimistic about the financial future of the US (I just...

It appears that Morningstar will now show posts only to registered and logged-in visitors. Not just writing a post requires login, in other words. It is a big problem.

It seems to be a change in M*'s business model.

EDIT: Because I have posted some links to this thread, I want to note that this post contains IRONY. Some say this is not always evident "over the internet"! It does appear from that article that Traditional is just a low cost, managed bond fund. (Although who actually knows if it is low cost). This is incredibly incorrect. If TIAA Traditional is like anything else, that would be a Guaranteed Investment Contract, or a Stable Value Fund. But it is not, in fact, a fractional ownership (like a mutual fund) product at all. The 105 year old NY State regulated insurance company, TIAA, promises to pay you a minimum annual interest, a certain lifetime pension, and an unspecified additional amount of income, or additional pension (note tha...

It is common (but not certain ... ) for TIAA Traditional, all flavors, to be completely cashable, without fees, for a certain number of months after the death of the owner. Executors and children should look into details promptly. It is also possible for the Primary Beneficiary to take over the account, with the opportunities and restrictions that it had before, if desired. Note that TIAA says that the various guarantee periods are actuarially equivalent. So absent need or lifetime history in the family, this is a matter of purely behavioral investing. Also note that TIAA has a two-income option that most insurance companies do not offer: That is, Half-Benefit (or whatever you choose) to Second Annuitant, as opposed to Survivor. I have alwa...

I see some virtue in TIAA being responsible for the amount and the work. What's actually wrong with proportional from all three accounts? That makes no change to your TIAA asset allocation. Do you have an IRA with your equity allocation? The IRA RMD is calculated separately anyway. I.e. non 403(b).

Illiquid TIAA Traditional is not a factor in the paragraph above.

I'm suggesting that you start simplifying your financial life at age 73 and reduce trading decisions, too.

I have never reinvested dividends from an ETF, but you may wish to check whether there is a special detail at Vanguard for doing that. It is not mechanically the same as reinvesting in a mutual fund, with unlimited fractional shares available.

Make sure you collect your adjusted basis information while it is available, in case you sell the BND in the future. If it's all covered purchases, Vanguard may have the information for you already. But I'd make a note of it, or print it out.

Who would be buying it? A bond market partner selected by Vanguard? In that case, their Bid price will reflect a profit above any price fluctuation for the bond-market buyer. I don't know if Vanguard charges a commission for T-Bills, but they do for most corporate bonds. After all, you are not an institutional dealer; You're a day trader. Wait for it to be redeemed at no net cost to you.

bmcgin, did that pesky K-1 always arrive before April 15, and was never "Revised" after April 15? Just asking.

It is normally unsound to arrive for a group tour or cruise departure on the day of the tour. You don't say how far the German city is from there, whether you've ever taken a train in Europe before, and whether you have been to Europe before. Are there train changes? Does the train end in the actual city of the tour? Those are factors in the wisdom or folly of your idea. I would have bought a two-segment flight ending near the city you want to be in, but it's too late for that, I think. Have you experienced jet lag from travel before? Anne Frank house requires timed advance tickets bought weeks or months in advance. The major museums are very crowded for much of the year. I admit that I travel a lot, but I've been to Amsterdam at least four...

You should model your RMD payments and associated taxes on a spreadsheet as soon as possible. (This spreadsheet should have IRMAA amounts after each of you goes on Medicare.) That will help you decide in favor of paying annoying tax levels from Roth Conversions now. It is very likely that you will not be paying a lower tax rate in the Roth conversions than on post-73 RMDs, but at least you will be reducing huge tax amounts once you start RMDs. You also have to model Net Investment Income tax surcharges. IRAs don't count as that income, but they can push other income over the threshold. I have no personal experience, but some people have had trouble doing Roth conversions directly from a 403(b). Some providers with elderly software work bett...

And do you understand that dividends and CG that are reinvested (say, in a a mutual fund that distributed them as required by law) are taxed as if they were delivered to your wallet?

Beware of the tax tail wagging the entire dog. As they say, taxes are among the certainties in life. I prepared a 20-year income spreadsheet, necessarily with some guesses for the future.

I agree that Toyotas are reliable. But my (new) Prius infotainment screen (just the LED screen-I was still able to run things when they had hard buttons on the steering wheel and the dash) failed after a few years. That was a high-ticket tech item that paid for the Extended Warranty. I should note that with my second Prius, the service-writers started saying "I will put in for the insurance claim ... " when I dropped off the car - as if it was beyond their control whether I got a penny from the plan their finance office had sold me. That did not inspire confidence. A hybrid, and my current Chevy Bolt EV are special cases. But it's clear that my Bolt has, literally, HUNDREDS of networked sensors reporting to the central computer. E...

I carelessly ended up with option two, and was issued about half the bond's value in cash, and about 14 tiny holdings (below minimum lot size for Vanguard brokerage bond sales!) with much longer maturities. Very unpleasant result. They are all trading well below face value. Note that even though the "face value" and the cash distributed add up to roughly the value of the bond that disappeared, there is no assurance that the new bonds will actually deliver all of their face value in my lifetime (or even when my executor tries and fails to sell them to get rid of the annoying holdings.) I'm referring to the 2022 "Restructuring", which is not the first plan, which might have been called PROMESA. https://www.bogleheads.org/f...

There seems to be no doubt that the account is taxable, although I've never met someone with a taxable TIAA account. Did they work at the company? I don't see how it's relevant whether the dividends are invested or not. They are taxed in the year declared. Has anyone kept track of the basis of the account? (It's actually easier to do that if you don't reinvest, but it's a good strategy earlier in life to reinvest ... ) With no information about the actual capital gains, it's hard to formulate a plan. Turning off reinvestment makes tax filing slightly easier after a year passes-only LTCG to count. You have not given the relative's age, health, or need for this income. Printing the ERs on a Boglehead newsboard is like waving a red flag. But i...

I don't know, but I've never heard of SIPC insurance for something that isn't held in a brokerage. Correct, there is a recent thread on that very (mutual fund, and non-SIPC) topic. Edit: Link added- https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=399989 Perhaps more importantly, the Mortality risk of an annuitized account falls on the annuitants themselves (that is a sort of insurance term ...), so there is no Expense Ratio charge (as there is with Vanguard-related annuity payouts) to insulate the insurance company from such an error. That's why a surge in deaths during the pandemic resulted in a modest part of investment experience in the VAs for annuitants. Note that TIAA has a LOT of experience with actuarial calculations. If you (as w...

I'm no interest rate expert. But I'll note that the Treasury yield curve is currently extremely inverted. It is the 2-Year area that is moving the fastest. But since an inverted curve is not "normal", you have to consider reversion to the mean, as well as interest-rate bets.

I'm not arguing for or against buying the TIAA Real Estate Account. But some of the differences are: With TIAA RE, You have an annuitization OPTION in retirement, exchangeable to some other accounts if desired. You have (and pay for ... ) a liquidity at any time guarantee. You can only sell four times a year, in calendar quarters. TIAA the insurance company has vast real estate experience. You're paying for an Independent Fiduciary to watch conflicts between your interests and the interests of the TIAA General Account. The account has geographical and business-type diversification, which varies over time. You have a recent but substantial record of NAV history to consider before investing. You have duuudes who intend to "time" the...

I'm not slamming Vanguard, but I'd remind you that during the Lehman Bros. crisis, Vanguard Investment Grade Bond Fund was forced to sell some Lehman bonds at a time when there was little market for them. (Because they suddenly did not meet the requirements for inclusion in the fund!) That was a loss for fund-holders, and a performance of Vanguard's duty under the documents of the fund.

It's interesting how many people do not read (at least once) the long form Prospectus for their investment, and then decide to worry about it. As noted, worrying about whether the SIPC has jurisdiction is like worrying about whether the FDIC has jurisdiction. The Prospectus explains that Vanguard doesn't have possession of the securities in the Mutual Fund (and that the much reviled Expense Ratio pays some bank to hold them.) The only slight risk is a brief delay in getting control of your share, should Vanguard go out of business.

Like he said,

your assets in the 403b are likely held in trust with a third party custodian. If the company that manages your 403b goes out of business, your money would just move to a new third party custodian.

Your investment company exposure is microscopic. Save for retirement. Your exposure there is huge!

Dregob wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:21 am Excellent point about RMDs increasing with age! I
I assume RMs would increase and yes the annuity does not have a COLA.
Thanks!

I don't get it. Are you saying the payout annuity not increasing, even if you die in three years, is some kind of advantage? Or that the expected increase in RMD amounts is a disadvantage?

Have you heard of letting the Tax Tail wag the entire Dog? Are you proposing to give your money to the other TIAA annuitants, so the government doesn't get any of it?

JohnDoh wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:56 am Is it possible to annuitize TRAD and have the payments go into an IRA rather than a taxable account? This would seem an ideal solution because it would separate the annuitization issue from the taxation issue.

I presume you know that annuitizing a balance in a Qualified account eliminates the amount annuitized from your RMD calculation. That's because the payout annuity get taxed. I imagine that the reason 403(b) accounts were originally referred to as Retirement Annuities (without reference to the actual investments inside the 403(b)) is that they were designed to pay out taxable money in retirement.

Your question is interesting, but on balance, sounds like wishful thinking to me.

Just FYI, my town Committee declared in a zoning rule that "pavers" no longer counted towards (regulated) impermeable lot coverage. As others have noted, that is false. I believe they are encouraging redevelopment to increase tax collection without raising the tax rate!

The key question is your need for income. Many TIAA Traditional owners would get a higher monthly payout from an annuity, but would of course leave no estate from TIAA Trad after their (or the second annuitant's) death. If you don't need the income, or if you want to keep your income down, you can always annuitize (or partially annuitize) later. It's reasonable to guess that your payout might be higher later because of your (alas) reduced life expectancy. But that's the way actuarial math goes! I'm not "warning you" about "making a bet with a big insurance company". I'm just saying that your needs are the deciding factor. Have you asked TIAA for an estimate (which is binding on them for a month or so, but not binding on ...

Assuming the small plan is not "self-insured", and sometimes even if it is, but with a "big" administrator company - have you looked into whether "Medicare will be the Primary coverage for all employees over 65"? This is a very common rule, and it could affect your total out-of-pocket, as well as your amount of paperwork. (I once encountered a NYC hospital that simply refused to process secondary insurance claims!) I see that "family" is involved, but what happens when you stop "working"? Will you still have the insurance? Will you pay a non-enrollment penalty forever if you do lose the coverage, if the company goes belly up or there's a family dispute? There are many forms of "optimiza...

I put the link, and some comments, into my recent earlier post.

psteinx, your question is accurate and very appropriate. It makes me look naive if I answer (accurately) that TIAA tries very hard not to reduce actual net payments to a TIAA Traditional annuity that is already in payout. When TIAA was the 1000 pound gorilla of NFP retirement investing (until 1989), that was an article of faith, that did not appear naive.(Ironica typeface) I don't have the link on the road, but I will edit this to show my mother's lifetime results. In fact, she is the only person I know who DID have a drop in her TIAA Traditional payout! But the usual reason I post this link is to show (past performance is no guarantee of future results ...) that VARIABLE annuity payouts are not wrong for every "little old lady." ...

I (still) find myself asking why the bond fund for instance (assuming your math is the way to look at this) shows no change in value OTHER than the dividends Getting into the weeds here (for me) .... Dale, this statement is incorrect. Although the previous quarterly price is not shown, there is $57.34 increase in total Vg Bond value shown. BTW, do you know that Vanguard does not distribute LT/ST Capital Gains every quarter? They are reflected in the NAV until they are distributed. And, those distributions are only for sales the managers made. Increases in bonds not sold are simply reflected in the NAV. In most retirement accounts, Capital Gains are eventually (not "now") taxed as Ordinary Income when you take the money out to spe...

dale, note that "10 years" applies only to RC/RCP plans. In other plans, once in the plan, the guarantee is forever.

Twice in 105 years, a guarantee was lowered, but only for "new money." New Money is an important concept in TIAA Traditional.

The OP did not give the age or model of the okd car being replaced. We're comparing apples to oranges. In my state, NJ, the whole market is distorted by customers forced into Assigned Risk pool but with no accidents-only bitter industry resistance to things like No Fault.

student wrote: ↑Wed Mar 08, 2023 11:10 am For me, they were listed in the "other gains/loses" section with the amount and the number of shares.

That's what I see too, on my 2022 4th Quarter statement. The Vanguard funds have abbreviated names given, not ticker symbols.

You did not ask about Plan Servicing Credits/Plan Servicing Fees, but most plans with Vanguard micro-ER funds make a small charge, typically to bring up the ER to 0.09% or something like that. If you have other products, especially CREF and TIAA, you get more than that amount back in Plan servicing Credits, so it's not a bad deal. Just wanted to mention that, since ERs are so important to the typical Boglehead poster.

My basic question is... for a buy-and-hold investor, are cap gains taxes meaningfully lower with index funds or ETFs? Another way of looking at it: There are ETFs that have been set up with an eye to reducing distributions as low as possible. But there are mutual funds that have that criterion as well. There are ETFs that are designed to produce current income (which is taxable) or that have frequent trading (although there are not as many actively-managed ETFs) that produces capital gains. As also noted already, no transactions of any kind inside an IRA are immediately taxable . That also has the effect that Qualified Dividends and Capital Gains (or losses) in an IRA have NO preferred tax rate when you take the dollars out. That is, all d...

I don't mean to berate you westie, but agencies that collect tolls deserve to get paid. Many of them have bond covenants that prohibit them from directly accepting credit cards for exactly this reason. That's why transponder agreements tend to take periodic larger deposits of cash, to deliver instantly in smaller amounts, to the road agencies.

Nobody likes paying the government (or a quasi-government agency) money. But the roads/bridges/tunnels have to get built and maintained somehow. A deadbeat is a deadbeat. (Said politely ...)

I don't know if this figures into your thinking, but do you understand that CREF is (at least for the moment ... ) a NY State not-for-profit that does not participate in either the market experience or the mortality experience of the CREF accounts? That's a good thing, because it means, unlike at Vanguard or Fidelity, you do not pay an expense (or face a cap on returns) to insulate them from such risks.

I mention this in case you are, to any small extent, worried about CREF treating you unfairly.

I personally believe that within ten to twenty years, CREF will be absorbed into TIAA. But I do not expect the annuitants to suffer very much.

EDIT:
Look in HERE:

https://www.tiaa.org/public/pdf/c/cref_ ... e_fund.pdf

I'll answer after I've read it! The investment strategy and expense ratios have changed, and there's now more than one (!) CREF account, certainly. But this company is actuarially driven, and changes very slowly.

Apologies, it's not in the Prospectus but in the Statement of Additional Information. Both of those documents (most recent date only) are on this page: https://www.tiaa.org/public/prospectuses In the current SAI, look at the discussion starting on page 82. But you already got pretty good advice here. I just think it's best to use the primary source if that is available. (I know that an NPV calculation without all the input parameters is not very useful! [ironica typeface.]) Also note that the discussion takes into account the less-known opportunity to move funds between annuities that are IN payout phase. Not that I'm advocating that, since most non-professional market-timers lose money by selling low and buying high. I am going to look for...

We know that equities are a useful hedge against inflation, but whatever calculation you apply, they do not guarantee to meet or beat inflation for any one or more specific years.

CREF calculations are described in the 100-page Prospectus.

I forget the exact date, but in the 1930s, TIAA found itself unable to maintain their guaranteed rate of 4%. They borrowed money, and asked their (charitable) founding donor for more money. But they kept their promises to EVERY customer at the time. And they changed the (pay-in period) guarantee to 3% for "new money" from then on. Who paid the interest on the borrowed money? I'm sorry, but you are looking for ER thieves under the bed. TIAA Traditional is, and always has been simply a contract with an insurance company. It is not a fractional-ownership product like a mutual fund, and it does not have an SEC-regulated Expense Ratio. It is a very opaque product. Since interest rates were very low at the time (1935-1940) that TIAA ra...

Well, if you were to say, for the sake of argument and on-your-question, "I will never annuitize this asset", then CREF is not any different from a bond or equity mutual fund. So CREF Bond VA went down about as much as BND during the recent bad year for bonds. Note that R1 unit class expense ratios are rather high. R3 and R4 are a bargain, but still not as good as Vanguard index funds, if that product suits you.

CREF has just issued the December, 2022 CREF Annual Report. For years that have a [... not so ... ] Annual Meeting, the CREF Annual Report includes the final, detailed voting results . CREF 2022 Annual Report : https://fundcompli.rightprospectus.com/documents/TIAACREFVA/CREF_ar.pdf also on this page https://www.tiaa.org/public/prospectuses There were three elections: 1)The slate of Trustees was elected with roughly 82% of votes for each. 2)The Management Proposal, to change the "diversified" classification of CREF Growth VA did not achieve a quorum, and did not pass. 3)My unwelcome proxy proposal failed to pass, with these results: 33.535% Dollars For 45.628% Dollars Against 20.837% Dollars Abstain My proposal (to refresh your mem...

I can imagine consolidating pharmacy (drug prep & sale) operations because of the employment crunch. Workloads and complaining customers have increased, while pharmacy staffs have not kept pace, even if Walgreens were willing to hire more of their MOST expensive per-hour employees. In fact, my suburban town has TWO Walgreens; I think they rented a mini-mall space by the highway to prevent Rite-Aid or another company from moving in there (?) I also see that, because our two Walgreens have not provided Covid Testing or free government Covid Tests, we all made a mistake in thinking a giant chain would provide better service than the local pharmacies we have allowed to die out. Clearly, big corporations want higher-income businesses without...

My EZPass office has pro-actively replaced transponders before the batteries failed. (NY-NJ Port Authority.) Are both your transponders mounted away from windshield tinting and "horizontally"? My new transponder did not work when I put it vertically, to be less visible to the driver. In fact, there are subtle (not colored) double arrows molded into the case showing the "UP" direction - so the printed label is readable. Other posters told me that the signal is horizontally polarized, partly to prevent a reader from reading a car at another toll lane.

Your comments are pretty thorough, but I would move $250 to TIAA Traditional now, to make sure it's not a "legacy" holding, with exit-only liquidity.

Your online account view should soon answer your blended rate question. Click on the View Interest Rates link under TIAA Traditional.

neurosphere wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 12:13 pm
I have not added new money in over a year. In my RC account the additional amounts are being added into the original vintages even though there are several newer vintages with higher rates.

But in my GSRA the additional amounts get added into new vintages

This sounds wrong. Could you please check your calculations, allowing for different Vintage dates and different Guaranteed interest rates? Also check if your RC or RCP Guaranteed interest rate has changed.

Well, for a 403(b) at a commercial insurance company, those ERs are not confiscatory at all. Are they more than a Boglehead believes an index fund should cost? Well, yes. What are the two of you paying in your other current plans?

You didn't say if any of the investment options are attractive to the two of you. Will withdrawals after 59.5 age be tax-reduced in your current state of residence? Are there actually different ERs for different investment options in the plan? How many investment options does she have? What do the Money Market and Stable Value funds currently pay in interest?

I'm not saying you should rejoice, but I paid much more at some not-for-profits I worked for. And 403(b)s have a lot of compliance and reporting expenses.