Bogleheads.org

10 people in a team 12 sounds really bad, but why did they cut 10 people out of 12? Why not you also? Maybe you are considered too important to let go and can expect significant pay increases in the future. Maybe this is the start of a complete shutdown where very little work is expected in the future. How many people work for the company? Can you put the situation in a more detailed context? Obviously you want to quit your job, so what? Not an unusual situation except you now want the retire at 38. Did you want to retire last year or even the year before? Many bogleheads take years of planning to get to the point where they feel comfortable pulling the trigger.

I don’t really care for autopay using banking numbers and I try to avoid. I would rather use a credit card. I worry that if there is a problem with a overpayment or fraud it might be a bigger hassle after all money is no longer in the account and you can’t fight the charge with the credit card company.

anon_investor wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:04 pm

hoops777 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:01 pm

UpperNwGuy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:48 pm As best as I can figure it out as a T-Mobile customer, they still accept credit cards for payment of monthly bills. What seems to have changed is that they no longer give the 5% discount for using autopay if you pay with a credit card.

That is correct starting in May.

I guess that is how they can afford to buy Mint Mobile...

I going to say you might want to try Mint Mobile instead since you probably could save more than 5% and use auto pay on your credit card.

retitling involves creating a new account, with a different account number. All your automated transactions both push and pull will have to be set up again. No, not necessarily. We have been able to retitle both our Fidelity joint brokerage account as well as our Bank of America checking account. Interesting. We went through this last year, and we're told by Fidelity that it required setting up new accounts in the name of the trust. I have no experience with retitling the CMA account, but I was able to retile our joint Fidelity account brokerage account without changing banking numbers. We also created a CMA account under our RLT. We had some issues with the wording on the first set of free checkbooks, we wanted our natural names on the ch...

retitling involves creating a new account, with a different account number. All your automated transactions both push and pull will have to be set up again. No, not necessarily. We have been able to retitle both our Fidelity joint brokerage account as well as our Bank of America checking account. Interesting. We went through this last year, and we're told by Fidelity that it required setting up new accounts in the name of the trust. I have no experience with retitling the CMA account, but I was able to retile our joint Fidelity account brokerage account without changing banking numbers. We also created a CMA account under our RLT. We had some issues with the wording on the first set of free checkbooks, we wanted our natural names on the ch...

I have no idea. I didn't prepare our bond portfolios prior to retirement for retirement spending needs. At retirement, I had about 60% bonds, most of which were in stable value funds. Since then, 4 years later, I have a rollover-IRA created with some of the stable value funds into two separate duration TIPS funds. The TIPS short and medium-duration funds will be sold and rebalanced to form a "near-term LMP". The near-term LMP portfolio is probably more than what we need so much of the funds will continue to be reinvested in medium-duration TIPS funds. The TIPS money sold in the Rollover account with be invested in stocks and the same amount of stocks with be sold in our taxable account to be used for spending with needed. I have b...

I think it is okay to be irrational about social security decisions sometimes life gets way more problematic. Some life decisions could be much more impactful.

sqrt(2), sqrt(3), e, pi ..... pi+e^pi

I walk, jog, cycle, erg row, do weights, stretch, and do core strengthing. I try to get an hour and a half of exercise every day, sometimes a lot more (3+ hours).

Before I retired, I was recognized as being the "brains" of the organization. In order to achieve that level I solved some very difficult problems in my field at megacorp. It was never easy but I mostly enjoyed solving complex problems. I didn't care for office politics, especially over the last several years I was working. That extra stress did lead to a reduction in physical activity and a gradual increase in body weight. Since I retired I have found that I have greatly enjoyed increasing my activity level and I changed my diet. I am now at the same weight I was in high school. Retirement has been a journey in many good ways that includes travel, hobbies, family, and friends. There are some very good retirement podcasts that can...

I am sorry for your loss. What would be the best path forward? It is unfortunate that your mother was not aware of most of the details of your father's investments. It seems she would need to be careful about what she does next. Find out what overall asset allocation she would be comfortable with her. A very simple approach would be to consolidate them into a Vanguard LifeStrategy Fund such as LifeStrategy Conservative Growth Fund if she desires to have 40% stocks and 60% bonds or the LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund for 60/40 stock and bonds. https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/life-strategy-funds No reason to get more complicated than that for now. There might be ways to be more tax efficient but that would req...

Have a discussion with them then. Do you want to exercise that option to purchase? Does your spouse?

So if she dies first you live the rest of your life with the benefit of two full pensions. If you die first she doesn’t. Your “affordability analysis” was an odd way to approach this. It isn’t affordable at all for your surviving wife. SMH Cheers My initial plan was to not take any of her pension. That way if one of us died, the other would be left with about 100k in pensions. In addition to that we would have social security. (I will wait until 70 to collect and the benefit will be in the 40K range), a decent 457 account and home equity. What made me rethink that plan a little bit is how cheap her reduction is. I lost 7% of my pension to give her 50%. she will loose 7% to give me 100%. and 3.5 to give me 50%. it cost me $600 to give her 5...

Silk McCue wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 6:05 am So if she dies first you live the rest of your life with the benefit of two full pensions. If you die first she doesn’t.

Your “affordability analysis” was an odd way to approach this. It isn’t affordable at all for your surviving wife.

SMH

Cheers

+1, seems strange since OP said:

2ball wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 9:40 pm My wife has longevity in their family. Grandparents lived to their 90's, parents doing good in their middle 80's.

...but maybe the OP wasn't thinking about it when he was in the batter's box when she was on deck. I look at a pension as buying longevity insurance. He could have bought more longevity insurance for his wife and less for himself. An option to get an equivalent pension/annuity monthly income for her is to buy SPIAs for the wife.

I am in early retirement and look a Cash, Bonds, and Stocks like this: Cash -- short-term spending needs 0-2 years Bonds -- intermediate-term spending needs 3-8 years Stocks -- long-term spending needs 9+ years Place your assets in each category depending on future spending needs, short, intermediate, and long-term. I never really understood long-term bonds, maybe if I had more money and if I didn't have a future social security income but I would also then would consider purchasing "enough" immediate annuities to stay happy. It seems to me that intermediate-term bonds are the "most" appropriate for a portfolio. If one has a need to fund intermediate-term spending, short-term bonds can have a risk component to them if in...

I used 2022 TurboTax Deluxe desktop version. I had no issues with Form 1116 this year.

I did so to better position the last one standing. The impact was mostly to stay out of a higher IRMAA bracket. We are currently IRMAA-0, the survivor will be IRMAA-1, and I converted to stay out of IRMAA-2. Although the survivor's tax bill will greatly increase, due to lower $ start of brackets, our incremental rate will remain the same. Interesting thanks for sharing. The interesting thing was when I used a mortality table provided by #cruncher for us (63 yo male and 61 yo female). The odds of only one person alive is about 10% in 6 years. 61 yo female at 99 yo odds of only one person alive is about 9%. This is significant at least something that should be considered in planning and tax arbitrage. Things that come to my mind are determin...

Could someone summarize the disclosure slide for me? The fine print was waaaay too small and the video didn't stay focused long enough on that slide for a slow reader like me.

^ Yes I had the same issue, didn't import my CMA account dividends and interest (<$10). I had to enter them manually.

Do you want to produce more capital gains now (produce additional taxes now) or more later (produce additional taxes later)? If you expect to see additional income in the future years (prior social security and required minimum distributions) maybe you want more capital gains now to avoid getting bumped into higher marginal tax brackets.

I don't think you are in a category where a Roth conversions would help. Generally Roth conversions are recommmended in early retirement, prior to social security and RMDs during a period when income is lower than expected in the future or if you are estate planning when the expectation is the hier will be in a higher marginal income tax bracket. There’s also the increase in tax rates for the surviving spouse as a factor. It’s very hard to recommend specific levels of conversions. We’ll probably only end up with about 20% of total tax-advantaged accounts being in Roths. But we are putting those Roths all in equities. I haven't seen anybody do a study on higher tax risk amounts and on how likely a situation is when a spouse dies early and t...

I don't think you are in a category where a Roth conversions would help. Generally Roth conversions are recommmended in early retirement, prior to social security and RMDs during a period when income is lower than expected in the future or if you are estate planning when the expectation is the hier will be in a higher marginal income tax bracket.

Your social security statement is an estimate based on expected income in the future, i.e. it assumes you keep working. I think that the https://ssa.tools/ web page is an excellent tool for creating a customized estimate based on future income (i.e. zero income in the future).

It's having balances >$1 million (not including workplace plans like 401ks). I still have PCG status if I call and ask the customer service rep, it just doesn't say it anywhere on my account or statements any more. Still no free Turbo Tax? Some people get free Turbo Tax, some that aren't PCG status as well. What the secret is to free Turbo Tax is still a mystery (aside from a few things like "active trader" status which is advertised as getting it.) The free Turbo Tax would seem like a tangible benefit of PCG. But I guess all you get is a special phone line. It would be nice, but they don't even seem to promote or even explain what PCG is anywhere anymore, so doesn't look they're at all concerned about it being of any particular ...

Why does it even matter? Do whatever floats your boat, if it doesn't do something else.

Thank you HomerJ for your contributions,

When I see that HomerJ has written something in a thread I am interested in, I always spend the time reading it. Most likely it will be a good read and sometimes I learn something new.

Huh? It’s been awhile since I read the book but, McClung’s preferred approach is far from the BH recommendation of simply spending and rebalancing from a portfolio. Of important note, there is NO TARGET AA . It’s a great read but it’s not an approach I can execute with conviction. WoodSpinner HUH? McClung address "Target AA" at length. It address at length, again, traditional annual rebalancing as well as other harvesting methods. It reviews 50/50 through 90/10 with supporting MSWR for each based on his backtesting. It reviews 6 or so basic portfolios, including sp500/bond, with MSWR with various harvesting methods as well. I have had to reread this book several times over the years. It is a heavy read for me. It is not a book of...

In my experience, Fido has been slightly more aggressive than in the past. For the past few years the gentle push has been to get me to sign up for a separately managed account and listen to "an advisor" by meeting with them. Each time I politely decline. I have had accounts with them since about 1983. Almost never called before the great recession, now I get two or three call calls per year. I don't expect by changing numbers to fake on their online tools will change their approach. They can't ever seem to explain why I do or don't get free TurboTax, but I have been told I have enough invested to qualify.

Sorry if this has already been asked earlier in the thread, but I have nearly all of my liquid funds at Fidelity in FZFXX (Fidelity Treasury Money Market Fund) . And by nearly all I mean 99+%: I have easily six figures in the fund and use it to pay my bills and act as my emergency fund. I have exactly $500 elsewhere. Needless to say, if FZFXX became insolvent or restricted I would be completely unable to pay my bills or sustain myself. Should I be doing something about this situation? Should I open a bank account somewhere? Withdraw a few thousand dollars in cash and hold cash? You have credit cards right? How many months will spending on those buy you? Interesting point, I forgot about those. I guess they could last us 6+ months if I maxe...

If you have liquid emergency funds you can buy the IRA and sell the taxable account to replenish the ER funds the same day.

A tool similar to this might work.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/GrabEasy-24 ... /202505170

You may also need a snake inspection camera (borescope) to find the watch. If you have the right tools you might not have to destroy the sofa.

I used unix mainframe based computers for years as an engineer. Using Linux is just second nature for me now. I really like the ability to use shells. It can really save a ton of time writing shell scripts to do tasks. I can customize shell scripts when writing Perl and Python programs. Not hard for me to do and when I have some challenging tasks the programming documents are readily available online.

Ages 63 and 61, spending from +0.30% to 2.4% so far. It took a lot of home improvement spending to get past the 2% mark last year so that was definitely a one-time thing. Much of the spending is now covered by a non-COLA pension that will cover less real expenses over time with social security income kicking in later. After 70 and delayed SS, I don't expect to be spending much or anything from savings except for some occasional lumpy expenses or if we decide to move to a different location or locations. We are always careful about what we spend money on. I have tried to encourage myself and DW to spend more but that can't really be changed. Spending more than what makes us happy abhors us, like the noise of scratching fingernails on a chalk...

Perhaps the doctor was trying to encourage you to do something about it and provide some sort of support. I know many states have rules and doctors will revoke driver's licenses through the DMV. Did the doctor want to do that but wasn't willing to pull the trigger yet? Can this be discussed more with your parent's doctor?

https://www.agingcare.com/articles/taki ... 112307.htm

the Explorer has concluded that 22 conversions it recommended (a detailed conversion plan - with schedule - was included as well) would result in ~ $736K more dollars in my estate and saving ~ $99K in projected taxes over the course of my life. I would much appreciate your clarifications on the following aspects and questions. From what I understand here you are single and plan of retiring at 70. Roth conversions generally work well for: 1) Folks using married tax tables may end up using single tax tables later. 2) Retire early and have many years of low income before age 70. Annual partial tax Roth conversions can be used to level off and top off the lower tax brackets. Neither one of these things apply to you. I don't believe the numbers...

5050.15

I am not sure how people can or will adjust to Merton's concept of looking at securing monthly income for planning for retirement. I am surprised at how many of my healthy colleagues who have recently retired from a megacorp elected to take the lump sum. To me, they seemed to be significantly devaluing the defined benefit plan for a lower value than one could buy with an SPIA. These folks were quoted DB monthly income amounts for most of their working careers, i.e. you get $x,xxx/mo if you work until age 6x. Only recently were they offered the lump sum in lieu of a pension. Could it be that unless you are or have been retired for a while most people are biased to wanting a lump sum rather than income? They have been receiving a generous in...

I am not sure how people can or will adjust to Merton's concept of looking at securing monthly income for planning for retirement. I am surprised at how many of my healthy colleagues who have recently retired from a megacorp elected to take the lump sum. To me, they seemed to be significantly devaluing the defined benefit plan for a lower value than one could buy with an SPIA. These folks were quoted DB monthly income amounts for most of their working careers, i.e. you get $x,xxx/mo if you work until age 6x. Only recently were they offered the lump sum in lieu of a pension. Could it be that unless you are or have been retired for a while most people are biased to wanting a lump sum rather than income? They have been receiving a generous inc...

Porch pirates are a problem in my area. I always try to send packages to an Amazon locker and have been doing so for a few years now. More and more lockers are available in my area.

Not much difference. One thing I have experienced in the past is TurboTax seems to handle Form 1116 better than H&R block...but both were not without snags, for some situations.

Nothing but tears of emotion reading through this thread. Thank you Taylor.

nalor511 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 2:33 pm Yes, when I got a rep, they said if I didn't have the offer they would reimburse me the cost, so at the very least you can get it that way

For this year? They didn't originally give it to me last year, but when I asked they provided a link, no such luck for me this year.

Log into your account Click on the "summary" tab Confirm that your UI is set to "Beta" Scroll to bottom of page Look for TurboTax offer The TurboTax offer is not there on my summary page, in Beta or not. Sounds as though I'm not alone. My account value is more that 10x the 500k that was mentioned a few posts back, and my statements say I'm PCG. You also need an assigned rep. You can get one, they're free, and you can tell them not to call you (and they won't, I didn't even have to tell mine) Has the ship sailed already? Is this even true anymore for the 2022 tax year? Do you know anyone that didn't get the offer got an assigned rep and then proceeded to get a TT free/$5 for 2022? When I contacted Fidelity they clearly s...

I love the Superfeet Adapt Run Max insoles. For me without them, any running shoe isn't that great.

Having a rep costs nothing, and gets me TT, and sometimes able to escalate issues to the right contact point. I don't see the issue 100%. I don't understand the aversion to having an assigned rep. I have one, and she never tries to sell me anything, and she's actually taking my wife and I to lunch tomorrow since the branch isn't having a holiday party this year. And candidly, I don't understand the appeal of having an assigned rep... Several in the thread have reported their rep has been unable to help them get the TT offer. But that's what makes the world interesting - different perspectives! :sharebeer I am sure some reps are great and others not so great. Just be aware that they do have an incentive as disclosed and structured here: Rep...

I do not see the free TurboTax link or the discounted link. I wonder what that means. I've been getting the free for a number of years. I think Fido rolls out the promotions a little at a time. You can call and ask why, it seems to me they are not as generous in passing out the links this year. I had a free TT link for several years but not this year (yet), but when I called the PCG call center said, I didn't pass the test this year and wouldn't get one unless had agreed to an assigned financial consultant. Fidelity automatically dropped mine this year. Years ago, I didn't ask for a rep and got one automatically for years, I didn't ask to be dropped and then lost my rep, and now must ask to agree to have a rep to pass the rules for the TT ...

I called fidelity today and they said they have a set of rules. They understood that my investments are buy, hold and self directed. I passed the large enough investments rule but failed the having an assigned financial consultant rule. I was then offered a financial consultant, if I though it would be helpful. I said it wouldn't be helpful so I still didn't qualify. I didn't really want too many future up sells for a free/ $5 TurboTax offer that I may or may not get every year. The mystery continues... No - I don't have a rep, and have never had a rep Yes - I probably pass the "large enough" assets ??? (wasn't clear if this is a criteria) - my investments are buy/hold/self-directed Yes - I'm tagged as an "active trader"...

Thanks everyone, I am going to purchase TT this year, since this seems to be the best of the "incorrect" options. It sounds like 1116 might still be more problematic using H&R block in 2022, but I would be interested in how it turn out for 1116 filers for the 2022 tax year.

The "future upsell" is mostly fear mongering. I have had an assigned rep for many years, met with him a few times to review portfolio and plan. He understood I am a DIY person, never tried to sell me anything. He has also been very helpful in chasing down answer to a couple of tough questions I had, and fixing an issue with my credit card account. Many people on this forum who actually have Fidelity reps have reported similar experience. The "future upsell" seems to only be brought up by people that have no experience with Fidelity reps. But, yes, if I really feared that, I would not do it to save a few bucks on tax software. That has been my experience as well, but this year has been different for me for some reason. I...

The "future upsell" is mostly fear mongering. I have had an assigned rep for many years, met with him a few times to review portfolio and plan. He understood I am a DIY person, never tried to sell me anything. He has also been very helpful in chasing down answer to a couple of tough questions I had, and fixing an issue with my credit card account. Many people on this forum who actually have Fidelity reps have reported similar experience. The "future upsell" seems to only be brought up by people that have no experience with Fidelity reps. But, yes, if I really feared that, I would not do it to save a few bucks on tax software. That has been my experience as well, but this year has been different for me for some reason. I...

^ Thanks but I don't qualify this year because I don't want an assigned financial consultant.