Bogleheads.org

I've been with State Farm for auto for a very long time, and had Amica for home owners insurance until they had a huge rate hike and then have been with State Farm and added an umbrella policy. I stopped shopping a long time ago as no one can come close. State Farm is my home and auto insurer. Some companies may be cheaper, at least on introductory rates, but actual service trumps that. Example: Someone rear-ended my van. The responsible insurance company would only authorize re-furbished replacement parts. The repair shop said the paint job on thise parts was so bad they would not install them as they could not guarantee the work. A second parts delivery was just as bad. State Farm stepped in and authorized factory-new parts. It would tak...

You say you started PAS with an existing allocation. It could be PAS took that into consideration and made additions and changes in a way to minimize tax losses. In other words, you are where you are due to history and tax considerations. Have you talked to your PAS contact to ask about this?

How do I know if I am or how do I become an accredited investor? What "opportunities" does that open for me? I am happy with the risk/reward balance of stock and bond market index funds so I'm just asking out of curiosity. Plus, I like having the opportunity to make mistakes! It makes me feel good when I decline them. It's a pretty low bar, actually: Net worth over $1 million, excluding primary residence (individually or with spouse or partner) Income over $200,000 (individually) or $300,000 (with spouse or partner) in each of the prior two years, and reasonably expects the same for the current year https://www.sec.gov/education/capitalraising/building-blocks/accredited-investor#:~:text=Financial%20Criteria,same%20for%20the%20cur...

How do I know if I am or how do I become an accredited investor? What "opportunities" does that open for me?

I am happy with the risk/reward balance of stock and bond market index funds so I'm just asking out of curiosity. Plus, I like having the opportunity to make mistakes! It makes me feel good when I decline them.

A dividend is a withdrawal from a company's NAV. I believe, even if imperfect, the dividend payers are better at determining what is safe than I am. Seems like your approach works well for you, which is the most important thing. Especially because withdrawing only dividends is a reasonably conversative strategy with current yields on a balanced portfolio. One big reason it has no appeal to me is that corporate directors selecting dividend payouts have different motivations completely unrelated to an individual's retirement income needs or strategy. Some keep them to zero or very low because they believe in their own capital projects. Some keep them artificially low because they prize consistency of dividend payout over maximizing dividend ...

My safe withdrawal rate is determined by whatever dividends my portfolio pays. A dividend is a withdrawal from a company's NAV. I believe, even if imperfect, the dividend payers are better at determining what is safe than I am. If I had to spend more than the available dividends, I think it would be difficult to come up with a SWR, but I would subtract out the dividends from whatever I needed to cover expenses. That might make the calculation easier in that there was less at stake. The amount of your dividends has nothing to do with Safe Withdrawal Rate. SWR is the constant dollar number you can safely withdraw inflation adjusted based on historical data. If you are withdrawing dividends, you are using a variable method which may be safer ...

Just finished season 1 of The Outlaws. Somehow, I got distracted a while back and forgot I was keeping up with this show. I just remembered and watched the last two season 1 episodes. I now see there is another season. That's good news!

It is a very engaging show. As has been mentioned above, it has Christopher Walken as a series regular, one of about 7 or 8. They are ALL great. I have an observation about both Walken and William Shatner. They are each famous less for any particular role, but more for being who they are! Neither one ever disappoints.

sycamore wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:46 am
What is the URL for "Download center"? It looks like there are two different pages that look similar.
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/OfxWelcome
https://personal1.vanguard.com/ofu-open ... fx-welcome

The second one is the one I end up at after logging in and navigating to the download page. I suspect this is a newer page as it just looks more modern. The login page I start with is https://investor.vanguard.com/my-account/log-on.

Do you use a different starting page to get to the other download page?

In any case, it was only a temporary problem for me as it all works fine now, and has for a while.

My safe withdrawal rate is determined by whatever dividends my portfolio pays.

A dividend is a withdrawal from a company's NAV. I believe, even if imperfect, the dividend payers are better at determining what is safe than I am.

If I had to spend more than the available dividends, I think it would be difficult to come up with a SWR, but I would subtract out the dividends from whatever I needed to cover expenses. That might make the calculation easier in that there was less at stake.

RonSwanson wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:13 pm If you enter an invalid pin more than some set number of times, it renders the key useless. This reduces the risk of somebody else using your key to access your account.

Great feature!

duplicate

I wondered about this a while back. I was told there are scenarios it protects against -- I don't remember what, but it seemed reasonable at the time. I accepted that proper security involves some inconveniences, and this is one of them!

Wondering if anyone has experience with this. We gifted some shares to a family member today. In the online process, Vanguard asked if I wanted the preferred method I had previously selected, which was specific ID. I checked the box and moved on, expecting to see a page where I could select the specific shares I wanted to gift. Never saw that page. I wonder if and when I'll hear from Vanguard about selecting those shares. Or if it can be done later. Thanks to anyone with experience with this. Seems like you should have been given a chance to select which lot to sell from. If that didn't happen, I'd do one of two things: Try again. Be sure to check pending activity to see if something is already happening. If so, cancel it if you can. Call ...

sycamore wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:17 am

bertilak wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:02 am Yesterday PM, when attempting to download CSV data from Vanguard, I got a message apologizing for not being able to download data at that time.

This morning there was no apology message, but the downloaded data was old, from the day before yesterday.

Is anyone else having this experience?

What kind of data: transaction history or asset/account balances or something else?

The data you get when you download from the "Download center." One's choics are:

• format: CSV vs Quicken
• date range
• account list

Yesterday PM, when attempting to download CSV data from Vanguard, I got a message apologizing for not being able to download data at that time.

This morning there was no apology message, but the downloaded data was old, from the day before yesterday.

Is anyone else having this experience?

e-filed 3/7. Still waiting 3/13. Seems reasonable so far.

CAsage wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2023 1:25 pm What exactly is your goal?

My goal is to protect myself from the bad things that can happen if someone successfully pretends to be me. This happened to my neighbor. The perpetrator did lots of nasty stuff, like changing her address with the post office, changing passwords on bank accounts. She has Lifelock and that still happened. LifeLock took action to correct all that.

Turns out I already have an identity protection plan called Protect My ID. It is from Experian. I was signed up to it via my AAA account. It was set at the lowest level of monitoring, but I upgraded it to the highest, which includes monitoring of ...

Email Address
Social Security Number
Phone
Driver's License
Passport
Credit/Debit Card
Court Records Monitoring
Dark Web Surveillance
Change of Address Alerts
Sex Offender Monitoring
Alternative Loan Monitoring

It includes insurance up to $1M for various expenses. I don't see anything about recovery of loss of money. I think the idea is that the protection is against identity theft occurring, but not the damage that might result from that theft. (Just hypothesizing -- I know nothing, yet!)

One possible example is Aura.

Is anyone familiar with this?

Anyone have another suggestion?

Get Capone (2010) by Jonathan Eng 400+ pages of text and 60+ pages of notes and index. This is a thorough, and interesting, discussion of Alphonse Capone from about 1920 (age 21) to his death in 1947. Eig is a good writer. He does justice to the telling of a very interesting story. Having piqued my interest, I now have three related books sitting on the end table next to my reading chair: A killing in Capone's Playground (2014) by Chriss Lyon 366 Pages plus index Deadly Valentines The story of Capone's henchman Jack McGurn and Louise Rolfe, His Blonde Alibi (2012) by Jeffrey Gusfield 200 pages of text and 46 pages of notes an index. Images of America THE CHICAGO OIUTFIT (2003) by John J. Binder This is a book of contemporary photographs re...

Kagord wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 10:34 am

Random Musings wrote: ↑Mon Mar 06, 2023 9:12 pm Since my better half went to bed early one night, I decided to watch This is Spinal Tap since it has been a while.

7.9/11 on IMDb.

RM

Why not just make the rating scale 1-10 and reduce your rating to 6.8?

That's not the Spinal Tap way!

What I did was order one, with all the specs I wanted, and wait for my ship to come in, which it did just a few days ago. It took a few weeks, including time to build then ship the car. I paid list price. I asked about a discount for financing through them and was told they no longer do that. While I was waiting, I was able to amuse myself with https://www.vesselfinder.com. The dealer told me what ship the car was being transported on and, with that web page, I could track the ship's changing position (on a world map), movements and ETA. Vesselfinder.com had lots of interesting info about the ship and its journey. They gave its draught (how deep into the water it went). It was interesting to see how that changed after the cars were unloade...

What I did was order one, with all the specs I wanted, and wait for my ship to come in, which it did just a few days ago. It took a few weeks, including time to build then ship the car. I paid list price. I asked about a discount for financing through them and was told they no longer do that. While I was waiting, I was able to amuse myself with https://www.vesselfinder.com. The dealer told me what ship the car was being transported on and, with that web page, I could track the ship's changing position (on a world map), movements and ETA. Vesselfinder.com had lots of interesting info about the ship and its journey. They gave its draught (how deep into the water it went). It was interesting to see how that changed after the cars were unloaded...

I just finished "Key West Normal" by Laurence Shames. Its a light read and entertaining. A couple of happy go lucky homeless guys decide to take an abandoned hot dog vendor's trailer to live in. Turns out the trailer was a front for an illegal activity and people come looking for it. Back in the early '90s, every time I went to Borders or Barnes & Noble, I'd head straight for the mystery paperback section to see if there was a new Shames. I think I got them all up through the year 2000 when they mysteriously stopped showing up about every year. Then in 2013 they started coming again but I had new and different interests by then, so I haven't read any of the new ones. I wasn't even aware of them until a little while ago when s...

Sandi_k wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 12:53 pm My favorite Peter Sellers:
...
- And a hilarious cameo in The Wrong Box

Among many performances in that movie, so you don't need to watch it only for the Peter Sellers cameo.

Perhaps if you do this online it will go smoother. Use the online forms capability. You fill in the form online. I think it will get partially populated for you. I think it can be submitted online and/or printed and mailed.

Try this link (after logging in to Vanguard) https://personal.vanguard.com/us/litera ... nput=S258A

muffins14 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 8:10 am We just do the tap here in New York. I imagine in your case if the town water is not potable, then some home-centered system would be more sustainable long-term for you.

Some minerals in water are healthy though. Doesn’t need to be 100% pure H2O

I used to live upstate from NYC so am somewhat familiar with the area. NYC gets its water from reservoirs in the Catskills. NYC has long been known for having excellent tap water.

If you wander around the woods and mountains (which I have dome in my youth), you will run into long stretches of cleared ground where the pipes run underneath. Somebody, I presume NYC, maintains those pipe routes and keeps them cleared.

Squirrel208 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 4:26 pm
The anti-siphon air gap is built into the faucet supplied by Culligan. The RO system drain originates at the RO manifold above the filters, connects to the air gap at the faucet, and then routes down to the sink drain as shown in your photo. More on how that works here, if interested.

The lower righthand branch of the Y attached to your garbage disposal is connected to the corrugated tubing of your dishwasher drain.

Right you are!

Thanks for the explanation. For my installation (feeding the refrigerator) how can I tell if there is an air gap involved or not? Does it even make sense for a refrigerator setup?

<r><QUOTE author="PhoebeCoco" post_id="7139405" time="1677448950" user_id="146900"><s>[quote=PhoebeCoco post_id=7139405 time=1677448950 user_id=146900]</s> <I><s>[i]</s>The Hustle<e>[/i]</e></I>, free on Amazon Prime Video.<br/> <br/> Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson play lovable con artists getting into and out of various humorous situations. Fun, if kind of trashy at times.<br/> <br/> Supposedly a remake of <I><s>[i]</s>Dirty Rotten Scoundrels<e>[/i]</e></I>, which I've never seen. I'll have to watch that next.<br/> <br/> Recommended. <e>[/quote]</e></QUOTE> DRS (1988) is a favorite of mine, so I will have to take a look at <U><s>[u]</s>The Hustle<e>[/u]</e></U>. Per IMDB, writing credits for both movies are the same: Stanley Shapiro and Pa...

Your Culligan RO system should be connected similarly to the image below from the user manual. (I added the arrow pointing to the drain line for emphasis.) https://i.servimg.com/u/f91/19/19/22/19/2023-014.jpg Ah! I see it. Since I don't have the Culligan faucet, things are a little different. The line coming from the manifold labeled "to Faucet Air Gap" goes, from the upper right, to the garbage disposal unit via that Y-shaped white plastic fixture. The other branch of the Y looks to be the "air gap." Here is a picture: (Things are pretty busy in there!) I have something that looks like the "post filter," but don't see anything like a "monitor" or "monitor sensor." Perhaps that kind of stuf...

I (mostly) drink tap water without additional filtering. I've drawn a correlation to the mineral content in the water, and a lack of need to supplement to avoid some leg cramps I otherwise get more frequently. In many situations, people have unfounded beliefs that there is a benefit (health or otherwise) to additionally purifying or other filtering of their water... but, there are situations where it is needed, so it's not a situation where all cases are the same. If my water is otherwise safe to wash food, cook, and bathe in... :confused I grew up with lots of kids that thought nothing of drinking water out of an old left outside garden hose and somehow survived. I can still remember that you could taste the rubber from the hose on a warm...

Reverse osmosis generates a tremendous amount of waste water, usually 3 to 20 times the water produced. In parts of the country where there's a drought, RO wouldn't be a good idea. Can you explain? We have a Culligan under-the-sink RO system, and I don't see any wastewater output to the drain. I think it is entirely a pass-through system. There are 3 filters that get changed about once a year. They are much darker at the end of the year. The filtered water we get is just what comes out of the the pressurized tank. It is set up to go to the refrigerator's ice maker and ice-water tap. (We don't use the supplied faucet.) I assume if that tank runs out, we don't get RO water until the tank fills again. I think I was told this takes 20 to 30 mi...

Can I create Uncle Joe Cousin Duke Little Lotte etc... (I have six plus myself) Any of those can have one, two or three accounts (taxable, tIRA, Roith IRA) to include in their group. Yes, if you can see the accounts and investments when you login to Vanguard, then you can do that. If you cannot see the accounts when you login, then you can add the investments (including Vanguard accounts) as an "Outside Accounts", but I do not believe the number of shares will be automatically updated. Then you can pick and choose which investments in the Outside Accounts go into a group. Of course, Vanguard.com does not have instructions on how to do all this, so it is something that clients have to figure out. I did not know that! I like it. Th...

My point was that you can only select one grouping at a time. It is cumbersome and mistake-prone to keep switching around. My point is that there is [at least now] a way to create logical groups of accounts, name the group, and select them separately for analysis. For instance, you have 10 different accounts, some with international funds, some with US funds, some with bonds, some Roth, some tax-deferred, some taxable. And these designations are persistent. One could create various combinations of all these investments. Some examples: All Roth accounts All tax-deferred accounts All taxable accounts All foreign funds in all or some accounts All US funds in all or some accounts All bonds All short-term bonds .... Any particular investment ca...

livesoft wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 7:33 am

bertilak wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 7:00 am [*] My spreadsheet has the ability to hypothetically add and subtract money from various assets (per account) to help with AA changes, rebalancing or gifting. Even if I don't actually do anything, it is interesting to see how far off things are from their targets and the results of hypothetical actions.

So does Vanguard Portfolio Watch!! Were you a consultant for Vanguard, so that's why they have had that for a long time?

Also Vanguard Portfolio Watch now lets one select different groupings of accounts to run the Portfolio Watch analysis on.

My point was that you can only select one grouping at a time. It is cumbersome and mistake-prone to keep switching around.

Are all your investments in one place, e.g. Vanguard? That makes keeping up with things easier. I download a CVS file from Vanguard then cut and paste it into my spreadsheet which calculates the AA for me. Go to Vanguard's download center and download the spreadsheet compatible CVS file. I use Excel which directly opens CVS files giving me a table I can drop right into my spreadsheet. I got fancy by adding some columns to allow me to make hypothetical adjustments to project the new AA if those adjustments were carried out. :greedy Any reason you dont use the Portfolio watch? It slices and dices all you holdings. You can also quickly see a summary and if it is on target. I am stuck with a lot of cash now with TLH. I am investing every time ...

dbr wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 9:56 am There is nothing like knowing how you should be allocated and then conjuring up reasons not to be allocated that way yet.

I will agree anxiety over investing is real and needs to be mitigated however possible. I am not sure attempting market timing is one of the best ways to do that. Probably understanding why you have decided on that allocation and knowing the range of what to expect is helpful.

In general DCA questions are really about asset allocation fears and doubts.

Ther MUST be a magic bullet somewhere!

an_asker wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 7:40 am

bertilak wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 12:50 pm If you put your windfall into cash (aka money market), then you have lump-summed into cash.

Why is this better than lump sum into an 80/20 allocation?

Like I said in my previous response, if this decision was made on 1/31/2023, OP would be looking back and appreciating his/her decision.

Ah! Market timing is a viable strategy! Did not know that.

I guess it works for the past. Too bad we don't get to implement any strategy in the past. We can look back but we can't go back.

Yes, sometimes if you take certain things too seriously, you'll miss out on all of the fun. And can sometimes even miss out on more than just the fun it has to offer. An example is Felix the Cat. That was my favorite cartoon at age 10. Naturally I knew, even then, that there was no such thing as a "magical bag of tricks" such as the one he had. But I still enjoyed watching it, and have come to realize that his bag of tricks, that always "magically" got him out of every fix by adapting to whatever was needed in that moment of danger, is a metaphor for something else. So not only was Felix the Cat fun, it was "educational" too! :happy That’s a good point about Felix the Cat. When I watched Popeye cartoons it nev...

Re-watched the 1949 British black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets mostly to again see Alex Guinness play eight roles. I saw it many years ago and now enjoyed the twists and turns just as much, although the ending seemed less convincing this time, maybe one too many twists. An early FUN movie. I remember enjoying it several years back. Everyone should try to fit this one in sometime! I just watched Kind Hearts and Coronets on YouTube. It was as I remembered -- charming, fun, unique, outstanding acting, and not just by Alec Guiness with his eight roles. Dennis Price, as the main character Louis Mazzini, was superb. Dennis Price was also one of the characters in Ten Little Indians (1965), an Agatha Christie story. Some clever dialog. My favor...

Taylor Larimore wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 4:41 pm Bogleheads:

Many years ago my mother-in-law took us to see "Sound of Music." I have seen it once or twice since. It remains one of my all-time favorite movies.

Best wishes.
Taylor

Jack Bogle's Words of Wisdom: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

Another 1962 musical worth watching is The Music Man, one of my favoritres.

If you put your windfall into cash (aka money market), then you have lump-summed into cash.

Why is this better than lump sum into an 80/20 allocation?

Fallible wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 8:29 am Re-watched the 1949 British black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets mostly to again see Alex Guinness play eight roles. I saw it many years ago and now enjoyed the twists and turns just as much, although the ending seemed less convincing this time, maybe one too many twists.

An early FUN movie. I remember enjoying it several years back.

Everyone should try to fit this one in sometime!

Silverado wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 5:34 pm I don’t understand the use case.

I don't rely on it; I always look before changing lane. I do use it as an initial indicator (AKA sanity check) to see if it's even worth the trouble of looking. If the blind spot indicator is lit, I don't even think about changing lanes.

This reduces stress when in traffic, a big plus.

Are all your investments in one place, e.g. Vanguard? That makes keeping up with things easier.

I download a CVS file from Vanguard then cut and paste it into my spreadsheet which calculates the AA for me. Go to Vanguard's download center and download the spreadsheet compatible CVS file. I use Excel which directly opens CVS files giving me a table I can drop right into my spreadsheet.

I got fancy by adding some columns to allow me to make hypothetical adjustments to project the new AA if those adjustments were carried out.

xlogan777 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 8:13 am Why UTMA instead of a 529?

I agree with your reasons.

I made the same choice for my grandsons thinking in terms of future flexibility. My theory is the parents (my son and his wife) can get them through school and these accounts are to kickstart their retirement savings. My daughter-in-law's parents are concentrating on school funding. They have set up 529s.

Be aware that taxable activity in a UTMA hits the parents' taxes.

For those who have "more than enough" there are two plausible strategies: a) invest conservatively because you can b) invest aggressively because you can Those who choose one option sometimes can't understand why someone would choose the other. ;) Agree, sorta. I think "enough" is an attribute of income vs expenses, not the of size of a nest egg. Income can come from a variety of sources. Important examples are: Pension Social Security Annuities Income producing real estate Invested nest egg (dividends, periodic liquidation) It is number 5 that a) and b) above address. Depending on how far you lean one way or the other may affect the size of any legacy, although it is hard to predict. If you have "enough," lea...

rocket354 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 1:54 pm And how does one quantify one's current situation and what could be considered an adequate safety margin? I gave an example of one analysis I did towards quantifying my own situation and safety margin in the OP.

Good questions. They need to be addressed no matter what else you do or don't do. Tacking on "one more year" before retirement doesn't answer that. The questions remain.

One more year?

I've already done that when compared to someone who retired one year earlier. Why should I wait another year? Why not just "promise" not to retire a year ago? I can take credit for what has already happened!

Yes, working and investing longer will always improve one's situation (except, perhaps, for health). There is nothing earth-shaking about that. When making the retirement decision, one needs to take into account the current situation. If that means you don't have enough to retire on (including an adequate safety margin), then keep on keeping on until you do.

If you want to divest yourself of holdings with significant gains, I say realize those gains when you have offsetting losses.

If the unrealized gains are not significant, you might want to avoid realizing them so the accumulated losses can be used against earned income instead. The key word is significant. You need to compare how much you will save in taxes in the two scenarios. You might also want to take into account the value to you of a clean asset barn! That kind of thing does make a difficult-to-quantify difference to me. If things are objectively close, a clean sweep may just tip the scales a little.