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Godzilla

Hey everyone, Quick question. My wife has discovered she has a $800 balance in an old 401K that we forgot about. It is from an old job, 401K is administered by Vanguard. We called 401K Vanguard rep and he tells me that they must send us a check in the mail made out to Vanguard (we would be rolling o...

Godzilla

Thanks LuckytoInvest. You are correct, Vanguard will not deal with real estate. (It's also my understanding that neither will Schwab or Fidelity). The real estate will be handled outside of the corporate trustee - all assets the corporate trustee will handle will be in plain vanilla mutual funds. Go...

Godzilla

My wife and I will be updating our trusts very soon. Currently we have Vanguard set up as the corporate trustee but I am willing to change to another corporate trustee if there is a better choice out there. I am happy to have Vanguard choose investments as it sees fit but with the slow decline in cu...

Godzilla

I have the same problem the OP does. I'm just 6 feet but have a long torso. I have the same headroom issue in the Tacomas as well. I asked the salesman whether there is a way to adjust the seat down more - there is not. He looked at me like I was crazy and I still have a hard time not believing it i...

Godzilla

Ok. Great for clarifying it. Thanks!

Godzilla

Silk McCue,

Thanks for reply and input.

- GZ

Godzilla

Hi all, Vanguard wants me to change my inherited IRA over to their brokerage platform. OK, I have wanted to do so anyway but in past I believe they wanted me to hold off on doing so due to some sort of systems glitch. My concern is that Vanguard rep tells me that their computer system will not allow...

Godzilla

lakpr,

Thanks much for the information. I appreciate it.

Godzilla

Godzilla

Snowman,

Thanks much for that info. Very good news regarding financial aid!!

I will look into rules with Vanguard as far as ages go.

Hey, thanks very much, Godzilla

Godzilla

Hello all, I have a grandkid who earned, I believe, over $6K in 2019. She's 17, going to go to college, I have a 529 plan with about $28K for her and plan to simply pay rest of and undergrad degree from my assets - hopefully about $100K to 120K for four years (in state college, tuition and room and ...

Godzilla

I posted some of my experiences with Vanguard in another thread when I was considering moving my portfolio from Vanguard to E*TRADE. I started investing with Vanguard about thirty years ago and have personally been less than satisfied with the direction that Vanguard Brokerage Services (VBS) has ta...

Godzilla

Hey. I have bought from Cold Stream Farm at least a couple of times for bare root oak species. They are located in Michigan. They were good. I dont like buying from Lowes or other big box stores when I dont have to because i dont want to plant what everyone else is. Cold Stream has tree species you ...

Godzilla

This too is for reference purposes. These restaurants are all longstanding institutions in their areas. Nobody mentioned Shapiro's. Near football stadium in Indy. Get the potato pancakes. Rathskeller in Indy. German. Old. Lotus Garden in Greenwood. Does not look like much from the outside. Been ther...

Godzilla

Hi OP here, Thanks to retiredjg and megabad for helpful replies. My regular accountant has a valid excuse for absence. I had to walk the fill in accountant through the corrections and I will have my regular accountant double check through things when he returns to work. Yes, I had to pay a 6% penalt...

Godzilla

Hi everyone, The setup is that my normal accountant is out of their office for personal reasons. Another accountant in the firm is finishing up their work. I made excess contribution to my ROTH IRA in tax year 2017 (we did not have enough earned income in 2017 - my wife could contribute the full $65...

Godzilla

OP here, Thanks for all of the replies. Each and everyone was food for thought in different ways. I will take a couple of nights to sleep on the ideas given and discuss with my wife. Please know that your input is very valuable to me and I really appreciate it. Wishing everyone a happy new year. God...

Godzilla

Thanks iceport! That is good news. Yeah, I don't take specific values - even if averages - too seriously on these tools either, too many assumptions built in for much confidence in results.

Thanks much for your help.

Godzilla

Godzilla

Hi, I have followed Vanguard's advice and for equity portion of portfolio am 60% US total stock market fund and 40% Total international stock market fund. I don't want to change the portfolio allocations - I have no clue about what the "best" ratio would be and am content to simply follow ...

Godzilla

Hi all, I have a basic question about the cFIREsim and FIRECalc results I get on my portfolio value at the end of simulations I run. Say it quotes me an average value of one million dollars in thirty years time - Is that the value of one million dollars in today's dollar value or does that mean a on...

Godzilla

I just wanted to give thank yous to pkcrafter, alex686 and dbr for their help. I think I will veer towards keeping it simple and simply invest it all in the Vanguard index funds that are offered in her plan. I don't want to have to wonder if the fund will increase its expenses next year, any turnove...

Godzilla

Hi everyone, Well, I am trying to figure out investment options in my wife's new 401K plan (a new job). She is automatically steered to JPMCB SmartRetirement Passive Blend 2030 Fund, class A shares. I have no objection to that and appreciate it that employers are starting to steer employees to appro...

Godzilla

Thanks Alan S. I woke up this am and checked my account. Vanguard corrected it to the correct amount without letting me know and without taking responsibility for their initial mistake. I appreciate your input though - I thought I would need to have my vanguard rep advocate for me. Wow. Thanks.

Godzilla

Hello all, I had previously posted about this in the personal investment section but now have the hard figures, definite responses from Vanguard and feel it is more appropriate in this section. If I am correct and Vanguard is actually calculating gains on the excess contribution incorrectly I think ...

Godzilla

OP here, What was each spouse's earned income? Me - none. Wife - $10,590.75 for 2016. Confirm that high MAGI does not enter into this just in case. No it does not. Is each Roth invested the same? Yes, pretty much. All using Vanguard TOTAL BOND, TOTAL US STOCK MKT OR TOTAL INTERNATIONAL STOCK MKT IND...

Godzilla

Hi everyone, I over contributed to my ROTH IRA for 2016 due to not enough earned income for that tax year for myself and my wife (I contributed the max to both myself and my wife's ROTH IRAs for 2016 and we are semi retired). The excess was $2,410. So, I spoke to Vanguard yesterday and agreed to do ...

Godzilla

OP here, My responses to recent posts: It would help me make a decision if the trustee would have given me a quote on how much extra they intend to charge me in closing costs - if it is a small amount I don't know that I would pursue this any further. Yes, I understand that it seems like I was very ...

Godzilla

Hi, OP here. Just to add one thing - it is very important to me that I not cost the other two beneficiaries of the trust needless costs due to my actions. In the email the trustee sent me they stated that the other beneficiaries would not be charged extra closing costs. So at least we have that goin...

Godzilla

Livesoft, Yeah, that is what I assumed as well - until trying to get it from companies website. Thus far no luck. IF I should try to go up the chain of command I will put more effort into finding that information or sending requests to other company officials in hope they will forward it to corporat...

Godzilla

Hello everyone, I am posing a few questions on Bogleheads today regarding separate aspects of my experiences of being the beneficiary of trusts. This question has to do with a real time problem with the trustee. I am afraid it may initially seem more of a rant than I intend - I simply need to set up...

Godzilla

Thanks all. Mr. Kitces' article was great by the way. Yeah, I sussed out that what VPAS was offering was really hand holding services. I think I am more likely to benefit from having my hand held by Bogleheads rather than VPAS - if I felt that VPAS would offer a material advantage in hand holding I ...

Godzilla

Hi, This is a general question to clear up confusion on my part: I have used Vanguard Personal Advisor Services (VPAS) in the past. I decided to simply handle rebalancing myself after about a year with their service. I haven't used a roboadvisor from other companies. How do roboadvisors compare to V...

Godzilla

Thanks everyone, that is very helpful information. I can't believe I did not know this rule before now. One further question I have now - given that one response said earnings on the excess contribution has to be withdrawn and taxed - is how to identify those earnings , i.e. do I get a choice about ...

Godzilla

Hi, Yes. I looked it up. i will talk to my accountant about it come Monday as well. Not sure if there will be penalty if I withdraw the 2016 contributions before 04/15/17 or not. I need to get wife's employment W2's to figutre out how much I will need to walk this back. Thanks for reply. Godzilla

Godzilla

Hello everyone, I made roth ira contributions in early Jan of 2016 for 2016 tax year for myself and my wife for a total of $13,000. I was not working in 2016 - zero employment income for me in that year. My wife worked for a couple of months in 2016 - but not approaching the $13,000 i contributed to...

Godzilla

Being 'nice' is advisable as far as how you present yourself to BIL. I think the OP's approach of being nonconfrontational and pretending to know less than he does is the right one. The heavy hitting should be done by legal maneuvers, not yelling at people. Tamalk Sure. I don't necessarily disagree...

Godzilla

phatkev I am sorry to hear what has been going on in your world. For what it is worth I thought I would offer a few thoughts for you that come from personal experience: - It sounds like you are a very good person trying to do the best for everyone involved. But, it's very possible you will need to m...

Godzilla

Thanks for the replies. Sport - regarding setting asset balances within the inherited IRA to overall portfolio asset allocation - I don't have enough tax advantaged space to do so - in other words I am heavy on bonds in tax advantaged accounts and heavy in equities in taxable accounts. I am not perf...

Godzilla

Hi everyone, I wanted to run this past you all. I have an inherited IRA I have to take RMDs from. All of the RMD funds will be sent to our uncle sam for taxes this year. What do you all do in the situation where bond funds have lost some, small, money but international stock and domestic stock funds...

Godzilla

Paul, El greco, mike,
Thanks for your input. I opened an account with fidelity and will use them.
Thanks again.

Godzilla

Hello all, I will be receiving in kind assets (taxable) from a trust (a bank is trustee). All of our assets are held at Vanguard brokerage now. The last two times I received assets in kind from this trustee Vanguard made errors, lots of changes in personnel handling the transfers, delays - you get t...

Godzilla

Sorry for delay in responding. Thanks for all replies - it helps to see opinions and input. Regarding an active manager who picks individual stocks -it seems to me that the statistics are against it over the long haul - in addition to the unacceptable (to me) idea of intense manager risk in that sce...

Godzilla

Hello all, I have two questions I am embarrassed to ask - but I will because I have wondered about them for months and I hate to not get feedback on them. I have relatives who pay a financial advisor 1% fee. He invests in individual stocks, not mutual funds, for their stock portion of portfolios. He...

Godzilla

Thanks to all. Your advice and thoughts are invaluable.

Watty - I hear you and your concern has been my own.

Godzilla

Godzilla

Thanks for input. The attorneys have given me names of recommended CPAs. Taylor - Your opinion carries weight so I am responding to your post. The trust is managed by the trustee, the estate is managed by myself. They are intertwined by the need to have the estate taxes done before the trust can be ...

Godzilla

Hi, I am personal representative (same as estate executor) for my father's estate. I am wanting some hand holding and advice about whether to fire the accountant I have been using for the estate tax work or not. It comes at a bad time - I think I should have fired him months ago but I dithered. He w...

Godzilla

Yeah, again my question is a newbie question. I was just wondering since, I have heard from the media, that the world bond markets are at historically low interest rate levels, whether that could mean there was less of a safety cushion for bonds somehow. More of a question about whether the historic...

Godzilla

Aptenodytes answered my question in his last paragraph when he said the safety of bonds is simply due to the fact that governments repay their debts not that governments take monitory action to decrease interest rates (and thus drive up bond prices) in times of economic downturns. Again I don't know...

Godzilla

Hi all, I have a general question - does the very low interest rate environment have an effect on the safety of bonds/bond funds? Does the decreased ability of governments to lower interest rates, because they are already so low, have and effect on how bonds would react to a stock market downturn. I...

Godzilla

Hey, thanks for all the input and information, Lou 354, I have edited my original post to correct the cost of the advisor to read 0.3%. Thanks for input on keeping stocks in ROTH -I am weighing info about this. Grabiner - thanks for a clear explanation re tax brackets and tax efficiency of stocks in...

Godzilla

Hello all, Myself and my wife have insufficient space for the amount of bonds/fixed income assets we should hold. My target asset allocation is 60% stocks and 40% bonds. My goal is to use Vanguard index funds - VG Total Stock, VG Total Intl Stock, VG Total Bond and VG Total Intl Bond. I have an Pers...

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