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eddot98

A few random thoughts on your proposed trip from someone who has dealt with similar circumstances. DW had a lot of difficulty walking until she had her hip replaced this summer and we took several European trips with those restrictions. I suggest that 7 days is too short for a couple of reasons. Fir...

eddot98

We thought Ostuni was a great base for visiting Puglia, but (a) we mostly did day trips to places like Alberobello and Polignano a Mare and then had dinner back in Ostuni, and (b) we were there in peak summer season so the town was very lively. Did you get to Matera? We liked it a lot. We used Fasa...

eddot98

One last note: I thought that after several trips to Europe over the last 20+ years we had the electricity thing solved. DW has a dual voltage hair dryer, hair curlers, curling iron, I have a dual voltage electric shaver, and our phones, iPad, and laptop are all dual voltage. We have several Type E...

eddot98

Third, I feel like they are bullying me into a lousy commitment or that they are trying to make me resign. You have mentioned this a few times. We don't know what management is thinking. From my side of the internet, I can see it differently. I'll give an example from my own experience. Decades ago...

eddot98

One last note: I thought that after several trips to Europe over the last 20+ years we had the electricity thing solved. DW has a dual voltage hair dryer, hair curlers, curling iron, I have a dual voltage electric shaver, and our phones, iPad, and laptop are all dual voltage. We have several Type E/...

eddot98

Thanks for all the replies. First, I currently only work for this company and that’s all that I want to do mostly to keep myself sharp and connected with my profession, but not under these new terms. Second, I do not need the money. Third, I feel like they are bullying me into a lousy commitment or ...

eddot98

LookingForward wrote: ↑
Fri Dec 06, 2019 10:59 pm
Thanks for the update. I appreciate your taking the time to let us know what you liked and didn’t.

You’re welcome. I thought that I would update the post as a few people were planning similar trips.

eddot98

I turned 50 in 2000 and joined that year because Marriott had an AARP discount and I didn’t qualify for the Senior Rate. That is no longer the case. I paid yearly dues for DW and myself for a couple of years and then learned about a Lifetime Membership for $70, so I paid that. No more yearly bills, ...

eddot98

For the past 9+ years, I have worked part time for a contractor after a 36+ year engineering career in a State Highway Agency. I am a licensed Professional Engineer, the only one in the company. I started as a half time employee with the contractor and, since 2014, my hours were reduced to a guaran...

eddot98

What are your goals? How flexible would this "on call" be - as in, if you were given a task, could you complete it when convenient for you within a reasonable time (like a week or two, not immediate or urgent). If you could sort of take it or leave it, enjoy the work and don't care about the money,...

eddot98

How is your relationship with them like? What kind of leverage do you have? How replaceable are you? I have had a good relationship with them until now. There are very few people with my level of experience in my field, but it appears that management doesn’t want or need it. My position basically i...

eddot98

OP here, we are back. We pretty much stuck to our intended itinerary. Caserta had nothing to offer except the Royal Palace. The Palace was great, but the town was noisy and a little grungy. The Amalfi Coast was a little disappointing as it rained most of the time that we were there. Sorrento was goo...

eddot98

For the past 9+ years, I have worked part time for a contractor after a 36+ year engineering career in a State Highway Agency. I am a licensed Professional Engineer, the only one in the company. I started as a half time employee with the contractor and, since 2014, my hours were reduced to a guarant...

eddot98

In 2015 (the year that I turned 65 and filed for Medicare), I had an outside consulting job where I wasn't sure how much I was going to make during the year until the year was over. As it turned out, when I went to do my taxes in 2016 I found that I was going to be slightly into the first married fi...

eddot98

I have an older desktop that came with Windows 7, but met the Windows 10 requirements. The upgrade to Windows 10 was easy enough, but after a few years I have not been able to install any of the major updates. I am stuck on version 1709. Windows tries new updates, namely 1803, 1809, and 1903 and the...

eddot98

I appreciate all the advice so far. A couple points that might be clarifying: I don’t want to work in 2020 unless some great consulting job falls into my lap, so I will resign from the part time job with the 401k by the end of 2019. The Company match doesn’t get deposited until the end of March 2020...

eddot98

I believe your understanding is correct. The 401K RMD cannot be withdrawn from another account. Subject to some conditions, you don’t need to take RMDs from a 401K If you are still working for the employer. After you retire you can rollover the 401K to simplify RMDs. Kitces has a post on the subjec...

eddot98

RMD's are going to be required for 2021 for DW and me. We are thinking ahead. DW's RMD's are easy - she has one 457b account and one Roth IRA account, so RMD's from her 457b are straightforward. For me, they are a little more complicated. I have: 1. one 457b account 2. one Traditional IRA account 3....

eddot98

I am 68 years old, semi-retired with a odd question on Roth IRA contributions. We are comfortably under the Roth IRA income limit for a full deduction of $7000 for both me and DW. My part time job will pay me $28,800 this year. Due to some one time income this year we needed to shelter $18,900 in m...

eddot98

It is your gross earned income of $28k that supports the contribution to the Roth IRA not that those dollars actually are used. You can absolutely contribute to Roth from your savings to the full $7k each if you wish. Cheers Thanks, but I’m confused. Even if I contributed $18,900 of my $28,800 of g...

eddot98

I am 68 years old, semi-retired with a odd question on Roth IRA contributions. We are comfortably under the Roth IRA income limit for a full deduction of $7000 for both me and DW. My part time job will pay me $28,800 this year. Due to some one time income this year we needed to shelter $18,900 in my...

eddot98

One last piece of advice from my experience as an Engineer in Charge of several state highway projects constructed by private contractors: submit your claim of damages in writing to the Engineer in Charge of the project for the Water Company with a copy to the person in charge of the Water Company. ...

eddot98

Who owns the area where the water line was installed? My guess is that area is owned by the municipality. In that case, you may have very little say in how the repair will be completed. If it is owned by you, the municipality should have had to get you to sign a release in order to install the new w...

eddot98

If he owned property in Brooklyn, he is familiar with NY real estate taxes. While they are probably astronomical there, they are still quite high in the upper Hudson valley, even as far north as Saratoga. Also, NYC second home owners have driven up house prices over the past 20 years as a 2 or 2.5 h...

eddot98

Check out Rick Steves, see if he has any suggestions for your trip. www.ricksteves.com Thanks, we have been all over Rick Steves, watching his Sicily show from earlier this year at least twice, buying his new Sicily book, and watching one of his guides talk for an hour about touring Sicily on YouTu...

eddot98

I rode a bicycle from Sorrento to the Sicily Ferry. If you like the Amalfi Coast, don't miss the coast from Sapri to Maratea. Since you are splitting the drive from Sorrento to Villa San Giovani into 2 days, you might add the drive from Palinuro to Sapri with nice views of the coast as you climb ov...

eddot98

Happened to me as well. If you call Hilton they'll open a fraud case and eventually refund the points. Potentially give you a new membership number as well Update: I called Hilton Honors customer service and found out that I did lose 30,000 points. Someone used 10,000 and then 20,000 points to stay...

eddot98

I haven't been for a few years but I was never really wild about Palermo: I would probably find somewhere else, even if its just a base for day trips. And I hope you are not going to miss Agrigento? Thanks for the response. Palermo will be a base for a few nights. Maybe a late afternoon and evening...

eddot98

DW and I will be traveling to southern Italy from November 16th to December 4th. We have been to Italy several times and have seen many of the major sights. The focus of this trip is to spend some time exploring Sicily as we haven’t been there yet, but we will only spend about half of our 17 nights ...

eddot98

I just discovered that my Hilton Honors account had an incorrect address, email addresses, and phone numbers. In researching this l found that Hilton Honors members have had hundreds of thousands of points stolen in some hack that allows linking to Amazon and spending the points like cash. I searche...

eddot98

As part of their spend down in order to qualify for MassHealth, Medicaid in Massachusetts, for their nursing home stays, we were going have to liquidate any cash value life insurance that my MIL and FIL had. A permissible use of those policies was to make the funeral parlor the beneficiary of the po...

eddot98

I have a Motorola MOCA setup for using our Apple TV and a connected Blue Ray player. It works very well, never buffers, and never has had to be rebooted in the 5+ years that we have used it. It came with special splitters and it was easy to set up. I added a switch after the MOCA unit to feed both t...

eddot98

You seem to be Marriott folks and you said that you didn’t need to be actually in Cambridge, so why not consider the various Marriott properties right around Copley Square? Great location right on the Green Line, lots of shopping, lots of restaurants, and an Eataly in the Prudential Center. We have ...

eddot98

I need some ideas of small, packable gifts for people I don't know at all! I have frequently packed gifts overseas due to a cultural requirement to do so. The most popular gifts I take are usually the leatherman type multi-tools for the guys and American chocolate like M&M's or Nestle Crunch, etc. ...

eddot98

Here is how NY does it: “Pay Basis Code ANN (10 day basis) Annual Salaried employees paid on a biweekly basis over the full calendar year 365 Day Year = 14/365 = .038356 Biweekly Rate = .038356 x Total Annual Salary Work Day Rate= .10 x biweekly rate 366 Day Year = 14/366 = .038251 Biweekly Rate = ....

eddot98

Yes there is. You want to check out the Medicaid Waiver Program for your particular state. The impetus for this program is that it's cheaper to keep a frail elder in their home than at a nursing home. In Massachusetts, this is called the Frail Elder Program and it aims to deal with this type of sit...

eddot98

Please do not post about, talk about, or even think about the Mobile Passport app. Help keep it a secret.

eddot98

I am not even sure how that would work with an account that had two factor authentication turned on where you get a text message to your cell phone with a verification code. If you do not have that enabled for your accounts it would also be good to turn that on even though that is not perfect. I ha...

eddot98

I don't blame your concern with all that goes on in the world, but I don't think there's too much to worry about in this scenario. The breaches you hear about in the media are due to lax security standards and passwords stored in plain-text. But login credentials for responsible finance websites (i...

eddot98

I have kept track of my and DW’s retirement and taxable funds through a rudimentary spreadsheet for many years. I would have to update the spreadsheet by signing in to several different accounts for balances: two Fidelity accounts for regular and Roth IRA’s, two different 457b accounts, one current ...

eddot98

Arethusa Farms ice cream shop in Bantam has wonderful homemade ice cream. Their sit down restaurant next door is top notch, but pricey. Mockingbird across the side street is less expensive, but the menu is somewhat limited. West Street Grill in Litchfield is good, but not as good as it used to be. S...

eddot98

I would think that if finding respsonsible and responsive contractors is as severe a problem as it seems to be that one would have second thoughts about owning a home at all. That’s one of the reasons that why I always did as much work in and around our house as I could. I learned how to wallpaper,...

eddot98

OP here. I appreciate all the replies and the advice, especially since I don’t have a lot of experience with some of these systems, While cost wise replacing some of these items may not be that expensive, where we are (New England) it has always been difficult to get tradesmen to do any work except ...

eddot98

In our search for a new home, we are considering viewing a 16 year old house that is all original: oil fired boiler and hot water heater, central air conditioning system, private well, septic system, asphalt shingle roof (30 year shingles), and in ground pool with its associated pump, filter, etc. S...

eddot98

Double cream over meringue. Sinful, but delicious. Never seen it anywhere but Switzerland.

Another suggestion to rent a car.

eddot98

Prudential Center Observation Deck. Eat at Eataly in Prudential Center just around the corner from where you go to the top of the Prudential Center. If you have never been to an Eataly, the whole place can be an interesting place just to experience it. Or, skip the Prudential Observation Deck and ea...

eddot98

We have the Empire Plan, but cannot answer your question exactly. About 10 years ago, I had a health issue that caused me to go to a hospital in Rome, Italy by ambulance. I spent the night in the emergency room, had numerous tests (EKG, etc.), and left the next morning feeling fairly normal, but I d...

eddot98

Pardon me if I missed a post mentioning this, but at your father’s age I would be very concerned about the possibility that he may end up in a Nursing Home before he passes away. I didn’t see anything about Long Term Care Insurance. Without qualifying for Medicaid, the $130,000 per year that would c...

eddot98

For $5 a month, plus tax, they would only give me the car plan. What did I do wrong? They actually are billing me monthly. Right now I’m on the 3 month free trial until September when the new plan begins.

eddot98

I realize that this is a little off topic, but I haven’t commented on a tipping thread before. There is a new law being touted in our state that would require all restaurant servers to be paid at least minimum wage and then they get to keep their tips. I’m not sure what I think about that. The curre...

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