Bogleheads.org

phositadc

Edit: And of course, after I posted this, I decided to do a google search and found https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=158250. So I guess I have all the info I need. If anybody wants to have a new discussion about it please feel free to respond here :) I have a baby on the way (my firs...

phositadc

I'm not sure of the timeframe, but any improvement you made the first 6 months(???) or last 6 months(???) can be added to your basis . It looks like you did that for fixing it up to sell. But did you fix/"upgrade" anything before your sons moved in? Why do you think the title and fees should be con...

phositadc

Are there any legitimate microwave alternatives out there? I see things like this: http://www.goo.gl/pnpZy0. But I'm not sure exactly what it is other than a fancy toaster oven. Anyways, long story short, I'm in the market for a new microwave. To free up some counter space, I'd like to get something...

phositadc

Thanks to both of you for the replies!

phositadc

Any NoVA / DC area folks have a particularly good experience with a building contractor that you would like to recommend? I'm thinking about having a detached 2-car garage with a finished upstairs built on my property and am in the initial stages of trying to put together a potential list of contrac...

phositadc

Does anybody know if sites like CreditKarma show "soft" credit inquiries? Or do the only show "hard" credit inquiries? I would assume they only show "hard" inquiries, but I'm curious if anybody knows. I assume the only way to see "soft" inquiries is to get a full credit report for yourself from annu...

phositadc

Thanks again for all the replies. The company who provided the quote is a well-known Generac dealer in my area, located on Generac's website. It has outstanding reviews. From the feedback I'm getting here, it sounds like the quoted prices are in the ballpark. I will go ahead and get another quote or...

phositadc

Thanks to all for the replies. Would love to hear from others, too.

phositadc

I am looking into having a whole-house standby generator installed. Unfortunately, I know nothing about it beyond what I've learned from doing internet research. I had a reputable company come out and give me a quote yesterday, and based on what I've seen on the internet, it's about 25%-30% higher t...

phositadc

The Impreza and Crosstrek do not yet have Eyesight though, do they? I've driven an Outback with Eyesight (though I do not own one myself) and I loved it. Really revolutionizes highway driving, if you do much of it. Can't wait to see it makes its way to some of the other Subarus, like the Impreza and...

phositadc

I work for a company that has a single office in state X. Employees often travel to NY (and other places, but I'll stick with NY for this example) for work; i.e., meetings with clients, etc. Because employees so often travel to NY for work, my company has determined that it has a "nexus" with NY, an...

phositadc

Yep, there are Form 8949s created by TT. Thank you for the help!

phositadc

Quick question. In the past, I have manually entered items from my Vanguard Brokerage 1099-Consolidated into Turbotax. I would enter each sale of an ETF individually by lot. I never had very many, but it was still rather time consuming. So this year I chose to electronically import my 1099 from Vang...

phositadc

Could you link to the 2% back on the Capital One Venture? All I'm seeing is this http://goo.gl/aqgZhX. And it seems to be a travel thing (2 miles per dollar), not a cash back thing.

phositadc

Rent: $2,500/mo = $30,000 annually Heat/Electric: $720 Are these real numbers? Have you found 2 bedroom homes in areas you'd want to live in for just $2500? Are those utility costs researched? They seem very low. $720 per year is just $60 a month. Do you know someone in the area and can see their u...

phositadc

Congrats. If you have the time and energy to put the effort in, I think most motivated people can navigate real estate without a broker in most markets (placed like NYC probably much more difficult). I bought my first home ~3 years ago and didn't use a broker. The seller had a broker, so the transac...

phositadc

I'm no expert, but you may have already had it long enough that it's worth keeping. By how much does the cash value increase per year? My wife has a whole life policy that her parents purchased for her when she was a child, and we now use the yearly dividend to pay all the fees and to increase the c...

phositadc

Our house maintenance costs, which included remodeling and a new roof, in this 14 year period totaled $50,442 or $3,603 per year. That annual average comes out to be 10% of my original cost, or 2.6% of my approximate present home value. Does remodeling count as a maintenance cost? It seems to me th...

phositadc

The problem is that rebalancing back into gold and long treasuries right now would take nerves of steel. If your total capital is piddly, no big deal. But if you're talking bigger bucks and/or your entire portfolio it's something else. Frankly, I'm thinking that there are only two people in the wor...

phositadc

I have two. Got them because I have a bad back and needed good lumbar support. I like them and would buy them again, but I'd look around to make sure there wasn't anything cheaper that I liked as much. Last time I bought, there wasn't, so no regrets here, but do your homework before you buy.

phositadc

I strongly considered a portfolio of this type for awhile but ultimately rejected it. Although I love the idea of minimizing the fat downside tail, I know myself well enough to know that I could never maintain the asset allocation in a period like 1984-1999 which large caps are outperforming small c...

phositadc

wife is a veterinarian currently staying at home (since our move), but interviewing for jobs right now that will probably pay around $80-90k for full time work. How much she works will determine our child care costs. Sorry this is not a response to your question. But just out of curiosity, is it no...

phositadc

At least in Massachusetts, if you are getting a LTE phone, make sure you can get one that can switch back and forth to 3G if needed (e.g., an Iphone). My wife and I both got Samsung Galaxy S4 (on Verizon), which only uses LTE and can't switch back to 3G ; our service is horrible where we live (in B...

phositadc

I also recently got a Nexus 5. I think 5" is a little too big for a phone that sits in my pocket for much of the day, but otherwise, it's a fantastic device. I'd say it compares favorably to the other "flagship" android phones on the market, especially when you consider its price. There do seem to b...

phositadc

Hyperion, did you ever look into the cost of that? It's also something I've pondered but never looked into seriously.

phositadc

Thanks for the feedback. I'd definitely try multiple times before I buy. I don't even have room where I live currently for a pool like that, but hopefully will someday soon. I'm more of a swim for 30 minutes 3x per week person, but I currently live somewhere that doesn't really have convenient lap p...

phositadc

I generally find the opinions of Bogleheads to be useful on just about any topic.

Anybody here have an Endless Pool for swimming "laps"? http://www.endlesspools.com/

Everything I can find on the internet seems to be positive, but I'd value any input if somebody here owns one or has used one!

phositadc

Thanks to all for the helpful replies. I will read more closely and digest, but it sounds like the 1099-R is generally the proper procedure. In response to the last post, I will note that the Box 7 distribution code is a "2" and not an "8." I have currently input everything exactly as it appears on ...

phositadc

My wife changed jobs in 2012. Before she started her 2nd job, she maxed out her $17,000 401k contribution at her first employer. She correctly told her second employer to contribute nothing to her 401k from her paycheck. Unfortunately, her employer screwed up and accidentally did take 1% out of her ...

phositadc

If you really only plan to be here 2 years, buying sound like a bad idea. Even if you do break even, there's a lot of hassle involved, and then you have to figure out what to do with it when you move.

phositadc

Check out this thread:

http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtop ... 1303924038

phositadc

To me, the risk free rate is the equivalent rate of return that I get by paying down my mortgage early.

phositadc

Yes, thanks for the advice. The purpose of changing it is actually to increase anonymity

I PM'd Alex already and he mentioned he would hopefully get to it tonight. If I haven't heard from him in the next day or so, I will send you a PM.

Thanks again.

phositadc

I prefer android. It is good to see that Apple finally added a bigger screen, turn-by-turn navigation, panorama mode for camera, and a few other things that previously held me back from getting one. Unfortunately, I think it's too little too late.

phositadc

I've messaged several forum administrators, and I'm not sure if they are not getting my messages, or if they are forgetting to respond to them -- but I haven't gotten any responses. I would like to change my username in order to standardize it across the various forums that I visit. Could an admin w...

phositadc

Is PCRIX still the commodity fund of choice?

phositadc

Not directly responsive to your question, but if you are looking for the safest muni bond fund available, you might check out BMBIX. Most of its holdings are pre-refunded, which means that those holdings are essentially just as safe as U.S. treasuries. I imagine you are trying to avoid NY state tax ...

phositadc

Taking my dad's advice at age 25 (right after graduating from grad school) and reading Bogleheads Guide to Investing. Thanks to my dad (and that book), I have been and plan to be a Boglehead for my entire investing career. Which will hopefully mean that I never have anything to contribute to the "Wo...

phositadc

Does the borrower have any say in when the property taxes are paid out of the escrow account? In other words, if we - as borrowers - wish to pay our property taxes every other year so as to quickly hit the minimums for the itemized deductions those years (and use the standard deductions during the ...

phositadc

10% of your AA to high yield corporates seems like a bad idea to me. Your portfolio will exhibit a volatility more similar to 90% equities, 10% stocks. With 80% equities as your goal, I would probably want the 20% bonds to really be safe... something like the entire 20% in intermediate-term treasuri...

phositadc

Those of you who are interested in muni funds but concerned about the credit quality of VWIUX should check out Baird's Intermediate-Term Muni fund, BMBIX: http://www.rwbaird.com/bolimages/Media/PDF/CI/Asset_Management/Fixed-Income/Bond-municipal-fund-fact-sheet.pdf. Short summary: 68% AAA, 95% AAA o...

phositadc

double post

phositadc

Option 3: xeriscape. Put in plants (preferably native) that can tolerate the local conditions, and save water. We actually have considered this, as a handful of our neighbors have done it. We just don't really like the way it looks. That being said, I guess about half of our front yard, and a decen...

phositadc

Thanks to all for the feedback.

phositadc

I'm a relatively new homeowner. We moved in last August, and I quickly learned that I'm not much of a yard-work man. I also learned that in July/August, if you don't water your lawn every single day, your grass dies and you get ugly bald patches everywhere (not to mention the dead flowers and bushes...

phositadc

Yeah, I guess I don't really mean "lie" in the sense of purposefully misleading. I more meant it in the sense of comically inaccurate.

phositadc

I was just poking around, and I noticed that the duration of long-term is 6.1, and the duration of intermediate-term is 5.1. Long-term has an SEC yield of 2.55, over 60 bps higher than intermediate-term's SEC yield of 1.92. Credit quality of the holdings is nearly identical. Any thoughts as to why V...

phositadc

I'll just weigh in on #2. Refinancing inevitably involves a credit check, and theoretically credit checks can hurt your credit score in a minimal, insignificant way. So although it's possible your score could drop a tiny bit as a result of refinancing, my opinion is that this should not influence yo...

phositadc

Do you have to pay a monthly fee in order to be able to monitor the camera over the internet? Or is it just the one-time cost of buying the camera, plus the electricity that it sucks down by being left on 24/7?

phositadc

Thanks for all the replies.

Search found 385 matches