Bogleheads.org

I’m strange as a find completing my taxes oddly satisfying. Then again, we’re both w2 employees with simple investments aside from the whole backdoor Roth thing x2. But even that is pretty straightforward once you’ve done it once. The hardest part in TT is learning that they ask for the Roth conversion info before the non-deductible IRA contribution.

Jade A.B. wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 6:15 pm Retire@50

Thanks for the link. I was actually calculating more. I'll have to play with this. We're in a low bracket for last year, sure won't be next

Jade A.B.

There are surely better ways to fund this home than pay six figures in taxes. Any mortgage rate offered would surely save you a significant sum.

Hello, brand new here so please go easy :D I have over $300K sitting in a BOA savings account earning just piddly interest. What would you recommend I do to have my money work better for me? Does BOA have other accounts I should look at? I'd also like the account to be somewhat liquid as I deposit and withdraw frequently. Thanks Step 1: Move it to somewhere that will pay you interest. Best choice today is probably the Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund. You can link it to your BOA checking account and move money back and forth easily by putting in buy/sell orders on the Vanguard website. Allow 1-3 business days to move money back and forth. Step 2: Figure out what you actually want to do with this money. If a portion of it is for retiremen...

One total market index will get you the same results. Can you explain? My portfolio is very different than a total market index. I am tilting towards small cap and value, which over the long term have outperformed the total market significantly. Yes, put your portfolio on portfoliovisualizer.com and backtest it. I’d be willing to bet the results are almost identical to a total market index. If your wanting a small value tilt, then use two funds. One total market index and one small value index. The number of funds you have is just complicating your life, and not giving you increased returns. Over the past 100 years, small caps have outperformed large caps 4 million % to 800k%, and therefore also have huge outperformance compared to total m...

tvanzo wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 1:24 pm

Brianmcg321 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 12:47 pm One total market index will get you the same results.

Can you explain? My portfolio is very different than a total market index. I am tilting towards small cap and value, which over the long term have outperformed the total market significantly.

Have you compared your portfolio against a more typical three fund portfolio in portfolio visualized? Even if you were convinced the risk/returns were better with your AA, I’m sure you could recreate by consolidating mainly within VTI and adding a small cap value tilt with a single ETF along with some international exposure in another fund.

Pretty soon the pleated Dockers will be back in style and those who had them in the 80s and 90s can bring them out of their closets. They have been out of style for at least 25 years so its time for a new generation to discover extra, pouffy fabric around their lower torso and thighs. I have pleats on my trousers. The dressier the trouser, the more likely they are pleated. Suit trousers? Yes. Flannel wool trousers? Yes. Cotton-blend chinos? Sometimes. (They might even be cuffed, too) Pleats are not poofy. They are no more about providing room, than ties are about keeping your shirt collar cinched. Pleats (and creases) visually reinforce the verticality of trousers. Cuffs adds weight so they hang better. Both give a sharper appearance. I mi...

It’s one thing to live on 40k. It’s another to HAVE to live on 40k. To me, both scenarios sound terrible (though maybe less so in a LCOL) but the latter is ripe for disaster. One medical issue or sudden home repair and you’re out 25% of your annual spend. *unless we’re talking MMM 40k, which is 40k except for…. FYI MMM stands for Mr. Money Mustache which is a popular website based on retiring very early with a frugal lifestyle. If I recall correctly his "except for" was that his spouse was still working and he had significant income from his web site. :oops: I don’t fault any income he generates but am more thinking about the headlines featuring his “27K budget” but then not counting the expenses to build his house or his tropica...

midhandicapgolf wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:01 pm

canderson wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:03 am I threw out every pair of pants I own for Lululenon ABC pants and their commander pants. They cover every event - lazy lounge days to business dress.

+1 Lululemon ABC pants are now the ONLY pants that I wear. Try them and you'll be hooked!

I’m intrigued by how much positive feedback these are getting. Admittedly I was unaware lululemon sold men’s clothing. But how is the material? It looks polyester with other man-made materials which in my experience (eg bonobos) feels thin/cheap and retains heat. Bonobos fit is also super tight and low rise so trying to avoid those

My current go to is banana republic straight fit chinos but keeping an eye into for other options.

It’s one thing to live on 40k. It’s another to HAVE to live on 40k. To me, both scenarios sound terrible (though maybe less so in a LCOL) but the latter is ripe for disaster. One medical issue or sudden home repair and you’re out 25% of your annual spend.

*unless we’re talking MMM 40k, which is 40k except for….

It’s puzzling. With a leased car, OP should have collision coverage. In that case, I’ve never heard of a reputable carrier not paying my for all damages net of deductible and then pursuing subrogation from the at fault carrier. That’s the whole point of collision coverage.

Perhaps the MA DOI would be interested in this.

ThankYouJack wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 7:00 am Would you upgrade an iPhone Xs for an iPhone 11 for about $100?

Specs seem similar, I would like a slightly bigger screen, newer phone, faster chip...but Xs screen may be better (OLED vs LCD) and the Xs has 2x optical zoom

I actually just tried this and returned the iPhone 11 after a week. I found it much too bulky but most significantly, the screen is at a lower resolution than the Xs.

I’ve never had that on any of my mortgages or refinances, however I just have experience with standard 30 year terms.

Not really. Ours was relatively modest at 15K 11 years ago. It was a lot of money for us at the time, but place was nice, food was good and people had fun. However I’d have been fine with something much smaller. I certainly would have regretted anything more expensive as any additional component would have been frivolous. Honeymoon was 5K additional and was awesome.

What I regret more was going the traditional route for the registry. A massive China and wine glass set then required a massive China cabinet in our modest dining area. Honestly can’t remember much else on the list.

I get the sense i have a different career path than most Bogleheads, at least those that post. My gross total comp target is about 390K, split between salary and bonuses. This is at a mega corp financial services company that I started with out of school 15 years ago. Career path is analytics and I’m a middle manager/low exec

My parents had me take stafford loans each year to have “skin in the game.” Throughout college, I never once thought of these loans nor had them in anyway affect my academic performance. Upon graduation, they were just an annoyance.

If a kid wouldn’t otherwise take school seriously, a small loan that they don’t have to worry about until they graduate is not going to make a difference.

My plan is to pay 100% of college costs and I will instill the expectation that their job is to do well. Similarly, I won’t have them work minimum wage in high school to teach “work ethic”. They will demonstrate work ethic in many ways without receiving a paycheck, particularly a tiny one.

hq38sq43 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2014 12:24 pm Our pool pump has died and we are shopping for a replacement. Hayward has two we are considering, one very expensive touted as energy efficient possibly eligible for rebate or tax credit, the other "regular" about half as expensive (ca. $600). We live in SW Florida. Advice/recommendations very welcome.

The variable speed ones are worth it. We run ours on low speed for 23 hours, medium speed for 1 hour each day. The electrical usage is minuscule. Single speed pumps run at 3500rpm and several hundred watts.

Just to add that recasting doesn’t really make sense to me In the above scenario. Why wouldn’t the fictitious investor just keep the cash for flexibility and ensure monthly payments are made. There are no real impacts to monthly cash flow if the windfall is designated to supplement monthly income. If the mortgage rate is higher than what you could get by investing, then recasting does save money and cash flow. It is exactly the same as buying a CD whose yield is equal to the mortgage rate and term is the remaining term of the mortgage. It is almost always the case that the current mortgage rates are always higher than the current rates on CDs or treasuries. Therefore if you find yourself with a windfall and want to make sure you don’t squa...

Of course it’s possible however it’s no surprise that those that are the most wrong are also the most confident.

Just to add that recasting doesn’t really make sense to me In the above scenario. Why wouldn’t the fictitious investor just keep the cash for flexibility and ensure monthly payments are made. There are no real impacts to monthly cash flow if the windfall is designated to supplement monthly income. That’s a lot of lost flexibility to play mind games and/or pay to prevent behavioral errors.

Now, recasting would be cool if you could keep mortgage terms but change properties.

Hi all, I've tried Googling this topic, but my normally adequate Googling skills are falling short here. Is it possible to get a wire(less) signal to 3 to 6 pairs of headphones from one source in any vehicular entertainment setup? We have 4 kids (going on 6) and when we take long (1,000 mile) road trips they like to watch a couple movies. On our most recent trip we just setup the iPad in a cupholder and used its speakers. Kids could hear fine. However, it severely interfered with our (wife and I) conversation up front. We value our road trips as a time to chat together. Current car is a 2016 Honda Odyssey w/o the read entertainment system. Thanks! You can get a Bluetooth receiver that plugs into your cig lighter. It outputs your iPad as a ...

Not unexpected. Teslas cost a lot to repair after an accident and often need a specialized shop. As a result, many Teslas get totaled after accidents that would be repairable on an ICE vehicle.

It’s hard to argue against either putting the money in risk free treasuries earning 4+% or paying off the mortgage. Putting it in cash is not really a decision, it’s inaction.

prettybogle wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 5:27 pm After a quick read of this thread, it appears merrill edge is no-brainer for balances over 100k. I am now wondering why I should stick with big brokerages like Vanguard or fidelity. Anyone in the same boat ?

I have 100k in ME. Everything else is at Fidelity. A few downsides

1) no partial shares of ETF
2) poor 2FA. While BoA supports Yubikey, ME only allows SMS 2fa
3) slow transfers and customer service that isn’t as good as Fidelity in my experience
4) doesn’t support tax loss harvesting well. You can only select 4 lots and if they don’t add up to a whole number of shares, they FIFO partial shares.

My Walgreens has one employee do ask x pharmacy functions. It’s rare the cashier is anywheres near the register. I wish they’d adopt self checkout kiosks.

*my area is very low crime

supaflyjae wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:38 pm I've thought about it, $20k personal loan plus $20k cash but with today's rates I'm looking at $600/mo. for 3 years, which I'm not too keen on.

Most of that is principle but also the minimum you have to pay back. You might not be able to pay 40k, but can you pay a personal loan faster than 600 a month?

Of course. I have limited free time and don’t want to spend 3 hours of it each week pushing a lawnmower. For 150 a month, it’s pretty cheap and buys we time AND a tidy lawn

I scan everything using the Microsoft one drive all which is uploaded to the cloud.

However, I believe most things people keep can be trashed. I’ve never kept nor had a need for old electric bills, property tax bills, landscaper bills etc. I do categorize every expense in quicken however.

Since when is the “Boglehead way” to own a car equal to buying a 8 year old base model? Certainly frugal, but this isn’t mrmoneymustache.

I’ve routinely seen posts here about 90K luxury cars or ones pining for the latest safety features. Are those not “Boglehead”?

Though I will say I’ve observed an uptick in posts recently like “no spend November”, “switch to tea to save 75c a day!” Etc. which is fine too.

About a week and I had to mail in form 8949

I got pretty transparent a few years ago with my father when I was considering buying a second property and wanted his opinion. I probably won’t again and wouldn’t with others. My kids are young now but I might share details in several decades, though they’ll obviously glean stuff as they get older. Not a bad problem to have, but my main deterrent is the awkwardness of sharing numbers that are substantially higher than they’d expect. For instance, I used to share my bonus amount since celebrating an additional 10K is relatable. Sharing details when that number is 140K would come across like a classless braggart. I don’t have any concerns about relatives asking for money all the time, close family is pretty normal. I’d also be willing to hel...

toddthebod wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 10:15 pm

riverant wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:25 pm Money is fungible and I’m not sure how any gifts between you and your parents are relevant to 529s. If you gift money to your parents, they choose to provide a 529 for your kids and also gift money to you, what’s the problem? Those 3 separate events could even happen in any order. I’m not sure the mental gymnastics used when rationalizing any of those events would affect taxes

Textbook tax evasion.

For the sake of discussion, how is it different than my parents giving me cash at Christmas while I also contribute to a tax deferred 401k?

Hi I called Fidelity to move my after tax contributions to a Roth IRA and realised that my contribution amount is greater than the current value of funds. This means I will be locking the loss forever. I asked the rep if it makes sense for me to wait till the market bounces and I have some growth in my account before I roll over but the agent said that I will be taxed on the growth. I think it is better to wait and pay the taxes on growth than lock my loss right away. What is the general advice? I usually call Fidelity every pay cycle to avoid too much variation but this time I missed the window and looking at taking a loss of over $1200 If I understand. You’re worried because you contributed say 5,000 but will be rolling over a lesser amo...

Money is fungible and I’m not sure how any gifts between you and your parents are relevant to 529s. If you gift money to your parents, they choose to provide a 529 for your kids and also gift money to you, what’s the problem? Those 3 separate events could even happen in any order. I’m not sure the mental gymnastics used when rationalizing any of those events would affect taxes

Target2019 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 8:13 am
You're paying Raymond James about 1% AUM fee. Definitely sift through the activity statements to get a better understaning of other fees.

Your fee is paying RJ for rebalancing and maintaining an asset allocation (can measure this with Portfolio Analyzer, etc.).

When you transfer these ETFs to Fidelity, then it becomes your job to rebalance.

The caution, which you already understand, is that when YOU do this, YOU become the focus in the household for performance.

Rebalancing shouldn’t come up too often. With 5% bands, I haven’t rebalanced once in the past 3 years.

I personally don’t think an AUM model is ever an acceptable option and questionably ethical (why does it cost 2X more to put $2m in a passive index fund than $1m?). Note- I also feel the same way about tip culture with waitstaff.

However, if i were to pass and my wife needed to take over the finances… I would love for her to have an advice-only advisor to help her consolidate and manage existing accounts and investments. To me, this would easily be worth 5K a year or 10K every 2. The problem is finding one that I trust. Might be easier teaching her!

I’ve tried Moneydance, moneyspire, and GNUcash but always come back to Quicken (windows). However I too have found that no single tool does everything I want. For Quicken, The transaction downloading and interface ease can’t be beat in my experience. I find the reporting dashboards pretty useless (and the tax planner is awful), but I have several reports that I export and plug into a comprehensive dashboard that I built separately.

Two years ago you were burnt out and FI. Rather than quitting your job, you started working more hours and suddenly it was TWO years later. I suggest OP aggressively transition their career to jump start actual change.

No, but I’ve thought about starting a stock picking club myself and charging people $10 a month to hear my nuggets.

Keep in mind that "Backdoor Roth" is just slang for what is legally two independent tax transactions. If you follow the TT interview in order, you're inputting the conversion before you input the contribution so when you first enter the conversion, it knows nothing about any basis you have in the IRA so it assumes it is taxable. Once you enter the contribution, it updates everything and then you see the taxable amount go down. And note that on a 1099-R which has "taxable amount not determined" checked, the taxable amount on the 1099-R means nothing. This always made me nervous, at least the first few years. My strategy recently has been to input the contribution first, so I can be sure the tax calculation is unchanged. ...

Hello - first time poster, long time reader. As I'm working on my taxes and reviewing my 1099-R that was input into Turbotax, box 2a has a taxable amount of $6005. Is this what I should be expecting? This amount then appears initially as taxable when I input it in Turbotax, however, once I go into the deductions section and enter the $6000 contributed to the IRA it appears to offset the tax impact from when I initially entered the 1099-R information. Perhaps I'm being overly paranoid, but I wanted to see if this appears to be appropriate? I had completed the transaction in 2022 as my first backdoor Roth, but want to make sure this is in line with others? If not then I can certainly reach out to Vanguard to discuss further. Thanks Sounds no...

shess wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 6:26 pm

riverant wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 8:01 am

• Realized 10k capital gains as I cleared out my after-tax 401 to make room for mega-backdoor roths. This is due to early in my career assuming my "after tax" 401K was a Roth account

I sure hope you reported that 401k outcome as taxable income, not as capital gains, because if you reported that as capital gains then you should amend your return (which will likely increase your payment amount).

good call, yes. This was reported on a 1099-R from my 401k

I was following until the parts both buying individual stocks based on a system of internet lists and assuming they will go up.

1. Don’t mistake lists on the internet for “good stock picks”. If it was that easy, everyone would do it.
2. Do you really want this complexity hanging over your heads? And also the stress of keeping a close eye on individual stocks?

If you want to invest and generate long term capital gains, a broad index fund like VTI is the best of both worlds. The wiki here explains more.

For asset allocation I track

% large cap
% small cap
% international
% bonds
% cash
% other
% pretax/taxable/roth
$ total investable assets

I also track home equity but don’t care about the % my home equity is of my net worth. I also don’t care about the dollar values of the above categories, just total investable assets. I don’t consider cars within my net worth, just like I don’t include my clothes, electronics, and furniture.

Freefun wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 2:09 pm Hi all.

I ended my crypto experiment last year and sold everything. I've tried to figure out how to get transactions into TT (Premier desktop version) without success. I have around 100 transactions and no gains- just a loss.

I've downloaded the transactions from Coinbase - have both PDF and CSV versions. Lots of TT links on the web about importing CSV but they seem to relate to the TT online version.

Thanks!

I just Grouped under crypto for both short and long term and summarized. I could efile but then needed to mail a supplement with a printed out csv of my trades. TurboTax walks you though it after you select “basis not shared with IRS”

How much does the bank charge you for this management? What are the investments and what are the costs to hold these investments? The bank charges us 1%. Investments are mostly mutual funds and the bonds. 100k of the 1.5 is in a fund that charges 1.3%, but 1% is a good overall average. Part of why I wanted to split the remaining 1.385 up into the Vanguard funds is to lower the cost of management. Looking at time tables over the next 40-50 years that 1% makes a huge difference. We did look at a company to manage the entire 2.9m and they said they could do it for .8% but even that comes to 24k a year. That seems like a lot of money to me when the results from investing and holding large index funds are similar. Why not move the entire balanc...

vaylie wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 8:32 pm For those of you who use spreadsheets to calculate your taxes, do you happen to have any templates or formulas going around? I'd be interested in doing this for myself too, but wouldn't know where to start.

Based on advice of this thread, I created a simple one yesterday and found it fairly straightforward and informative to figure out. I didn’t previously know the difference between Medicare wages and “box 1” for instance. As a template, I just typed in the relevant rows on my 1040 form and figured out what I needed to enter vs what needed to be calculated. My actual 1040 for this year was what I compared against for accuracy.

I’m 38 and have funded the max ever since my plan became eligible. I will keep doing the same because even if it grows to a ridiculous amount and far beyond my medical expenses, it is at worst deferred income (like a traditional IRA) as long as I withdraw after 65. There is still benefit even if not used for medical expenses.

It is never time for Raymond James. I understand you’re nervous about losing money, but guaranteeing a huge drag from high fees will do nothing to help you. If you need an impartial eye, use vanguard PAS or Fidelity robo advisor.

It is never time for Raymond James. I understand you’re nervous about losing money, but guaranteeing a huge drag from high fees will do nothing to help you. If you need an eye, use vanguard PAS or Fidelity robo advisor.

Due to lumpy RSU income 2x/year including one in late November, it can be hard to estimate correctly and safe harbor helped as the market climbed. Usually we owed a bit and I was continuously increasing paycheck withholding to try and cover under withholding on those vesting payouts. In 2022 with the market drop, we ended up over withholding and will get our largest refund ever. Because of that late year vest I have to be sure to cover it and don't have time to adjust by end of year. In 2023 we were finally allowed to adjust the withholding rate of the RSU vest, so I've been able to dramatically cut paycheck withholding and should be able to get much closer on future years. I don't really stress about it, just make sure to keep enough cash...

TomatoTomahto wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 1:42 pm I don't understand how so many of you have the answer already. I haven't even gotten all my 1099s yet, much less a K-1.

We generally aim for safe harbor, which is easy enough when incomes go up.

Yeah, things came earlier than I’m used to. It helps that everything is consolidated with fidelity and I don’t have 1099-INT or K-1 forms. So I just have two 1099-Rs for backdoor Roth’s, a single 1099-B, and a 1099-DIV. There’s also a 1099-MISC for solar production incentives.