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kDictavissent

Question for those of you with interests in real estate. We have relocated but my spouse's job is still requiring that they are back in our home city, 125 miles away, currently about 50% of the month. That will drop to 25% of the month in the near future, but ongoing for the foreseeable future. As w...

kDictavissent

At one point in the 2000s, in a certain state, I was told that landlines had to remain provisioned to the local central office even if service was not active so that emergency 911 calls could be placed. I do NOT know if this is the case anymore or in all states (and I certainly wouldn't test it by t...

kDictavissent

On a work trip to East Africa earlier this year, both the home where we stayed and the organization we visited would boil water in an electric kettle and serve a Tanzanian instant coffee called Africafe. My first reaction to the idea of instant was memories of awful crystalline instant coffees like ...

kDictavissent

Metacritic -- just wanted to stop back by and say THANK YOU for the advice! We took the excursion and it worked out great. Had absolutely plenty of time and loved the park. Having a great driver/vehicle helped. Little traffic to deal with, and international arrivals in the SkyTeam terminal of NBO wa...

kDictavissent

Metacritic, thanks for this helpful reply! Great advice, will take you up on it!

kDictavissent

O knowledgeable Boglehead types-- In a few weeks I am traveling to Tanzania and Kenya on business. It's a fully-packed ten day agenda -- except for one travel day, where we have a flight from Tanzania arriving at Nairobi at 10:00am, then another flight departing at 6:00pm heading elsewhere in Kenya....

kDictavissent

A second suggestion for Park Avenue in downtown Winter Park if you want something non-touristy. (Well, kinda touristy, but it's where the locals go.)

kDictavissent

Early in my marriage (i.e., mid/late 20s), we never lived beyond our means, but we fully lived into our means. Funny, as our means grew, our living did, too, for a while. (Ironically, my wife read Bernstein's Four Pillars in 2000, at age 25 while briefly out of work, and suggested we LBYM. We do fin...

kDictavissent

Cricket subscriber here. As a rule, I would bring an unlocked phone vs buying from them, since version and security upgrades have been limited. Have previously used a 1st gen Moto G (Cricket locked) on Cricket. From a specs perspective, I definitely concur with going 3rd gen on the G and would buy u...

kDictavissent

My experience is tangentially related to yours but thought another data point might be helpful. We had long had USAA insure our primary home, cars and personal property. When we renovated and moved into a 1920s home, we thought some of USAA's assumptions and estimates were high, but we stayed with t...

kDictavissent

Count me in the group of folks very pleased by this change. I went to Cricket eight months ago. Great carrier and service. Only issue is that a vacation place we have out in the mountains has a U.S. Cellular tower on which Verizon roams but others don't. Assuming we BYOP, 3 GB of shared data plus tw...

kDictavissent

I've had great meals in many places, including a 15th-anniversary lunch at Chez Panisse, but these two stand out the most: 1) 5th-anniversary dinner at the late, great Magnolia Grill in Durham, N.C. A real gem that made Gourmet's top-ten US restaurants several times in the 1990s/2000s. Gone a few ye...

kDictavissent

Saw this on the WSJ today: http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2015/06/30/loose-car-lending-practices-trouble-a-regulator/ If you're not a subscriber, Google "Loose Car Lending Practices Trouble a Regulator" and follow the link to get around the paywall. I didn't know this was a thing, but a...

kDictavissent

IF you decide you want access to data/voice at other times with your phone, an American iPhone will work fine in Canada in re frequencies. One option is to buy a SIM card for your use in Canada while you're there. The 7-11 convenience store chain sells SpeakOut prepaid mobile service that runs over ...

kDictavissent

I'm going to resurrect this thread in hopes that it catches someone's eye who can shed any light as to whether WGU would be a worthwhile investment for someone looking to pursue a reasonably priced MBA program. Any thoughts or experiences on Western Governors University? Between the cost of their d...

kDictavissent

If you make it over to Durham, check out a Durham Bulls game and the revitalized American Tobacco Campus across the street. The Sarah Duke Gardens are beautiful, as is Duke University's West Campus. Downtown and near it, there are amazing restaurants and bars that explain why Durham (and the broader...

kDictavissent

Last year I spent two weeks in England and Scotland. Upon arriving in London, I found an 02 store and picked up a sim card and a one month pre paid plan for my Nexus 4 smart phone. I think I paid 29 pounds for the sim and the one month plan for 2GB of data. We mostly used the data plan for Google m...

kDictavissent

OP here. Thanks for your suggestions. Wow. I didn't expect to hear an unanimous ‘no'. The reason why we even thought of going around Christmas time was to avoid the crowds and hot weather during summer months. Though we can visit at other times of the year, we have a kid in school, and were not rea...

kDictavissent

HYPS graduate (about 20 years ago) here; met my wife there. I came from an upper-middle class family (though the S&L crisis had caused a brief interruption in my father's earning potential, though not much and not for long.) Still received plenty of aid, and graduated with about $25,000 in stude...

kDictavissent

FYI: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/do-you-really-need-2-5-million-retire-well-n321466 It seems like a large number for most people. If true, it sure seems like Bogleheads are best equipped to reach - and help others reach - that goal. If every American family were able to earn enough, to...

kDictavissent

On my last trip to the Shanghai area, I brought a "burner" cell phone -- unlocked Global GSM Moto E phone with 2G/3G support. Got a SIM through China Unicom, had plenty of data for the trip and a local in-country number. Reportedly, Internet access is freer within a certain radius of major...

kDictavissent

My son will be glad to hear this. It's fairly common knowledge that Verizon is really the only carrier option for many of us in rural areas. A $35 plan isn't a good deal if you can't send and receive calls. :) Generally speaking, in rural parts of North Carolina anyway, I can pick up AT&T almos...

kDictavissent

Yikes... I get exactly the same voice, SMS and 2.5 GB of data with AT&T prepaid (Cricket) for $35 a month. Plus, our phones can go on any GSM network giving us more market power in the future. And that's wiithout the trade offs in network quality and coverage that come from T-Mobile and Sprint a...

kDictavissent

I would echo what a previous poster said about Cricket Wireless. Ported two numbers over from Verizon and have found no diminution in coverage on AT&T versus what I had with Verizon. In my area, in fact, I have found much better indoor coverage; in my local supermarkets, VZ died out near the bac...

kDictavissent

My mother, who passed several years ago, hid 45 ounces of gold inside the compartment of a game table. Fortunately, she let me know about this when she was ill and consented to have it locked in a safe deposit box for safekeeping. She swore there were no other surprises, and I found none when going ...

kDictavissent

Longtime Apple user -- lightly in the OS 7/8/9 days, converted full-bore in 2001 to get a FreeBSD-based OS with all the visual goodies. Had a first-gen iPod, first iPhone... heck, even had the Newton-based eMate 300 in college. So, a dyed-in-the-wool Apple fan here. While I still have and love my iP...

kDictavissent

Here's another not-typically-cross-shopped option to consider: the Mazda CX-5. We're on the verge of purchasing a small SUV ourselves to help out with trips to a place we have out in the mountains (200 mi. round-trip drive.) AWD, comfort, and sportiness were all requirements, as was a small-size sin...

kDictavissent

There are some scenarios in which an LLC isn't usable. For instance, we have an accessory dwelling unit on our property -- a detached garage with a 700 sq. ft. apartment above. Family lives there now but we'll be renting it out for $1,000/mo. next year. We thought about ways to us an LLC LLC, but tr...

kDictavissent

My mother passed after 18 months' care from a live in caregiver and a close friend who had helped her with her retirement property. She asked that they be left $5,000 and $10,000 respectively, which I honored. Had she not been inclined to leave such, I would have on my own volition (as sole heir) le...

kDictavissent

Another option is to rent a timeshare unit in a large timeshare resort. Take a look at Orange Lake in Orlando. It's a huge timeshare resort, with several swimming pools, mini golf, kids activities, etc. You can rent a 2BR unit for a week for probably $1,000 to $2,000 for the week. From there, you c...

kDictavissent

The Durham Jaycees have been doing a haunted house for about 40 years now. Before the American Tobacco project's basement was renovated into space for high-tech startups, they held it there a year or too (an old factory is an appropriately creepy place!) This year, I think they were at Northgate Mal...

kDictavissent

If the above is not enough, imagine going home to your spouse and saying "well, we had $250k in the RSU account yesterday, but the SEC/FBI/DOJ/State Department of Whatever, just launched a major probe of our accounting and the company is going to likely have to restate 5 years of earnings. The...

kDictavissent

You're getting very good advice here in the thread. I've been an iPhone user since the first-gen. Have liked it very much and it is an easy adjustment for a non-smartphone user. At the same time, I went abroad earlier this year with a cheap ($130) Moto E phone and was surprised how fast and powerful...

kDictavissent

Another vote for APMEX. When I was executor of an estate I used them to sell AGEs, junk silver and silver rounds. They were terrifically professional and their pricing was the best I found.

APMEX is definitely where I would start.

kDictavissent

My late mother required in-home care the last eighteen months of her life. She had enough assets that she could afford to pay the expense herself, and while you could have looked at it as "eating up" her assets, she and I both felt very fortunate that she could afford to be a private-pay p...

kDictavissent

If you've been looking to invest some "play money"/"gambling money," then this is a great opportunity. The most likely scenario is you lose it all. The other (much less likely) scenario is that it will be worth a lot of money. I'd give it no more than a 10% chance of success. I'...

kDictavissent

My mom/stepdad's Edward Jones scumbag showed up at my grandfathers funeral...he knew my mom was about to get a mid 6 figure inheritance...Luckily I think I convinced them to keep it out of Edward Jones' claws by showing them what the 5.75% front load would cost them. Okay I agree there is no point ...

kDictavissent

In our 20s, the wife and I bought a kitchen table and bedroom set from Pompanoosuc Mills up in Vermont. Not inexpensive, and in fact probably a bit rich for us at the time. On the other hand, it will be the only bedroom set and kitchen table we will ever buy for our entire lives, and is good enough ...

kDictavissent

My mom/stepdad's Edward Jones scumbag showed up at my grandfathers funeral...he knew my mom was about to get a mid 6 figure inheritance...Luckily I think I convinced them to keep it out of Edward Jones' claws by showing them what the 5.75% front load would cost them. Okay I agree there is no point ...

kDictavissent

If you travel internationally frequently, you might take a look at T-Mobile as an option. It's slightly pricier than where you are now ($50/mo.), but at that rate their Simple Choice plan includes unlimited (2G or 3G) data and unlimited SMS messages in 120 countries around the world, including Franc...

kDictavissent

My wife and I never planned to own a second home, but ended up with one in the North Carolina mountains, a few hours from where we live. My Dad loves that area and found a foreclosure home available there last year. He's just retired and wanted a place to go to several times a year, where we could j...

kDictavissent

You're getting good advice on the AppleTV -- though I would add that while we are an Apple household (everyone has a MacBook Air and iPad and we use Apple wireless networking equipment), I find the Roku 3 far superior for everything except projecting from the iPad/Mac to the TV, which we never do a...

kDictavissent

We do something very similar to what folks are sharing here. We started with a simpler version of this last year (routine savings accounts for property tax and major household expenses) but have modified it significantly this year. We use USAA for our main checking account and for clearing all direc...

kDictavissent

You're getting good advice on the AppleTV -- though I would add that while we are an Apple household (everyone has a MacBook Air and iPad and we use Apple wireless networking equipment), I find the Roku 3 far superior for everything except projecting from the iPad/Mac to the TV, which we never do an...

kDictavissent

... Stocks do have greater average returns but also higher volatility. And, importantly, it's historically been the case that there is a low correlation between stock and bond performance. That is, in years when stocks do well bonds don't do as well -- but when stocks do badly, bonds do better or a...

kDictavissent

First, welcome and congrats on coming here and asking for advice. This is one of the sanest forums you will find on the Internet -- that sounds like I'm damning with faint praise, but I'm not! As others have said, it's crucial that you figure out what the right asset allocation is for you, and then ...

kDictavissent

Not sure if you are an executor as well as an heir, or just an executor trying to do your fiduciary duty. I was in the former category with my mother a few years ago, and essentially the sole heir to boot. Some of my advice therefore might not apply but you may find relevant. First, it sounds like y...

kDictavissent

You have a net tax rate of almost 40% so using Roth 403b makes no sense. Thanks for the feedback. I wrestled with this and in fact initially wasn't thinking about exploring the Roth option for this reason. But, a couple factors were swaying me in the other direction: * I have a 15 year head start o...

kDictavissent

A quick thought about "her" investments: Normally, I like the idea of one fund per account and filling up a 401(k) with a bond fund, so your suggestion of F fund is great and her 401(k) with a bond is great, too. HOWEVER, since you would have no fixed income in his accounts, it would make...

kDictavissent

I’ve enjoyed reading this forum and getting up to speed on better approaches to managing my investments. Although I don’t think we’re in a horrible place at present, I want to move towards an index-oriented approach, rebalance where I’ve gotten out of whack, lower fees a bit, and try to bring some o...

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