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John151

I think they must have known about I bonds. I just asked them if they cashed in “U.S. Savings Bonds,” and they were the ones who made a distinction between EE Bonds and I Bonds. They also said they don’t cash in HH Bonds.

John151

I have an EE Bond reaching final maturity, so I called my bank to see if they’ll cash in U.S. Savings Bonds. The rep I spoke with checked with another rep, and the answer is that they’ll cash in EE Bonds only. They won’t cash in I Bonds. Is this common?

John151

Some people posting on a related topic back in 2016 said that they’ve used FreeTaxUSA for four years, and one says he’s used it for eight or nine years.

viewtopic.php?t=185995#p2822176

John151

I was the poster who originated this topic over a year ago, and I’ve followed it with great interest. Last year I e-filed my federal return with FreeTaxUSA. My return included Schedule B (Interest and Dividends), Schedule D (Capital Gains and Losses), Form 1116 (Foreign Tax Credit), and Form 8606 (N...

John151

I followed the “age in bonds” approach, gradually reducing my stocks allocation as I got older. I’m in my seventies now, and I have about thirty percent of my investments in stocks. I’m comfortable with that.

John151

OAG wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 16, 2018 10:53 am
FreeTaxUSA is up an running NOW for advance use on 2018 taxes. Won't accept for filing until 1/2/19 and then will be held until 1/21/19 when IRS is scheduled to open the door for 2018 personal returns. All online system but works fine the past 2 years for me.

+1

John151

indexlover wrote: ↑
Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:16 pm
Original website: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/myacco ... esholdings
New website: https://personal.vanguard.com/my-accounts/holdings/

Thanks! This works.

John151

Opaque pricing and short-lived deals are why I stopped using TurboTax and H&R Block. FreeTaxUSA charges only one price: zero. If you want to e-file a state return, it’s $12.95.

John151

I collect a pension from the state of Illinois, which has one of the most underfunded pension systems in the nation. The state government tried to reduce its obligations by cutting the COLA, but the state supreme court ruled that state retirees’ benefits are protected by the state constitution, whic...

John151

I did my taxes by hand from the 1970’s into the late 1990’s. It was easy, because my taxes were fairly simple: salary, interest, dividends, and occasionally a capital gain or loss. I switched to TurboTax when Vanguard offered it at a discount or for free, depending on how much you had invested in Va...

John151

I like to keep five percent of my investments in cash, defined as a savings account, a money market fund, or short term CD’s. That’s my emergency fund, and it also serves as ballast when stocks and bonds decline. With today’s rising interest rates, bond funds can drop in value, but cash doesn’t drop...

John151

Does FreeTaxUSA support 1099 imports from Vanguard, Schwab and Merrill Edge? It didn’t last year, but if you have electronic copies of your investment information, it’s easy to copy and paste. And FreeTaxUSA easily handled my capital loss carryover, my Form 8606, and my foreign tax credit. I was ha...

John151

Does anyone know the reason?

John151

I haven’t sold any I Bonds, but I stopped buying them about ten years ago, when the fixed rate dropped below one percent. I’ve been investing in a tax-exempt bond fund instead.

John151

When she asks me if she should put more into stocks, I ask her how much she has in stocks already—not the dollar amount, just the percentage of her assets—and she’s vague about that, saying that she has “very little” or “not a lot" in stocks. I don’t know whether she thinks how much she has in stock...

John151

She’s a widow with two children who live out of state. I’ve encouraged her to talk to her children about her investments, since her children have a stake in what she does financially. One of her children isn’t at all interested. The other gave her a list of stocks to buy, most of which I’d never hea...

John151

Great suggestion! I have the impression that my friend is pretty well off. I think she’s just trying to squeeze the last nickel out of her investments, without really needing to.

John151

Many thanks to all of you for your advice. I don’t want to advise my friend to buy stocks in her nineties, and her aversion to investing online pretty much rules out Treasury Direct and online banks. She’s also averse to money market mutual funds. So I’ve scouted around and have found two local bank...

John151

I’ve inadvertently become someone’s investment adviser. A dear friend who’s in her nineties calls me up and asks me if this is a good time to buy stocks. I always tell her that I don’t know where the stock market is heading, and that anyone who claims to know is either lying, stupid, or crazy. She a...

John151

Thanks!

John151

My stock investments are all in taxable accounts, so I can’t rebalance within accounts that are tax-advantaged. Currently my stocks are about five percentage points above my target, but rebalancing by selling shares would cost me a hefty amount in capital gains taxes. So I’ve decided not to sell. I’...

John151

When I opened an account with Tax-Managed International back in 2011, all of my dividends were qualified. But now that the fund has morphed into Developed Markets Index, only 71% of my dividends are qualified, and the foreign tax credit has dropped as well. So I’m paying more in taxes than I was pay...

John151

I handle it somewhat differently. My preferred asset allocation is 5% in cash, 60% in bonds, and 35% in stocks. My cash allocation is my emergency fund. It’s invested in a money market fund, and it’s enough for me to live on for several years. It isn’t paying very much, but I like knowing that it’s ...

John151

Vanguard offers a couple of inflation-linked bond funds: Vanguard Short Term Inflation Protected Securities (duration of 2.8 years) and Vanguard Inflation Protected Securities (duration of 7.8 years). Their net asset values fluctuate and are reported each weekday. I Bonds are more like a stable valu...

John151

I’ve had a TD account for fifteen years, and I’ve never had a problem with it. The maximum purchase for I Bonds is $10,000 a year per social security number, and I’d invest more than that if I could.

John151

I’m very fortunate in that my pension covers all of my usual living expenses. If I need to buy something major, like a new car, I can draw on my investments, but I seldom need to do that.

John151

Now that Vanguard’s Prime Money Market Fund is paying around two percent, is there any reason to invest in savings accounts with online banks? Ally Bank’s online savings account is paying 1.80 percent.

John151

I think of my Vanguard money market fund as my emergency fund. My dividends are reinvested in it, and dividends from my tax-exempt bond fund and my two stock index funds are paid into it as well.

John151

I haven’t sold any stocks, but I’ve directed my investment income and any new money into a tax-exempt bond fund. This keeps me within my allocation bands.

John151

I’ve been investing with Vanguard for over thirty years, and I’ve never had a problem. Vanguard service, for me, has been great.

John151

sport wrote: ↑
Fri Jul 27, 2018 3:13 pm
I love Vanguard. However, when it comes to "staying the course", that is something they tell others to do, but do not follow themselves. I am still unhappy about the change to what used to be the Tax Managed International Fund. It is no longer tax managed, but I am locked in.

Me too.

John151

I’m a conservative retiree in my seventies. For many years I kept about 5% of my investments in cash, defined as my checking account and a money market fund. Then came the Great Recession. When the yield on my money market fund dropped to almost zero, I responded by moving money that I could have ke...

John151

I followed the “age in bonds” rule of thumb for many years, and that’s where I was when I retired. But with the huge run up in stocks, at seventy I now have 35% in stocks, and selling down to 30% would trigger major capital gains taxes. So I’ve decided to leave my stocks alone. My pension is more th...

John151

Condo board members are usually well intentioned but often ill informed. My condo association’s primary governing document is called the Declaration. It’s forty pages long, and in the thirty years I’ve lived in my association, I may be the only unit owner who’s actually read it. The board members si...

John151

I prefer Treasury Direct’s authentication method: they send you a one-time passcode via email. But Vanguard’s authentication method isn’t too bad. They offer you a choice: you can have them require authentication every time you login to your account, or just when you’re logging in from a different c...

John151

A Vanguard money market fund. For backup, I have a tax-exempt bond fund.

John151

When I was working, I usually went to bed around 11 p.m. and got up at 7 a.m. Now that I’ve retired, I stay up until 3 a.m. and get up around 11 a.m. I’ve never been a morning person, so I sleep through most of it. Sleeping late is one of the best things about being retired.

John151

A Vanguard money market fund and a Vanguard international stock fund: about 5% in each.

John151

Today at noon Central Time I was able to login and see my bond values. I didn’t try to buy or sell anything.

John151

At 8:52 pm Central Time, I entered my account number, my one-time passcode, and my password. TD then wanted me to verify my contact information. I did so. Then ten or fifteen seconds later, I got the “Treasury Direct is unavailable” message. I tried again ten minutes later with the same result.

John151

My Illinois condo is taxed at about 2% of estimated market value. There’s no cap on how high it can go. This year’s tax went up 12% to pay for improvements in local schools. State and local sales taxes are 9%. State income tax is 4.95%. Last year I spent more on federal, state, and local taxes than ...

John151

My international stock index fund has almost doubled in value, and my domestic stock index fund has more than tripled, so about 50% of my investments in taxable accounts are unrealized capital gains. I don’t expect to sell any of my stock investments. My pension and investment income more than cover...

John151

If your overriding goal is safety of principal, go for it. You’ll save a bit on taxes, since Treasury income generally isn’t subject to state income taxes. But I’d recommend that you keep your TIPS in a tax-advantaged account, because otherwise you’d have to pay federal income taxes each year on “ph...

John151

I usually login to Bogleheads around ten in the morning, and then again around ten in the evening. In the morning, I usually find ten or twelve posts that I want to read, but only two or three in the evening. Have you had a similar experience? Is it because most posts are posted in the morning? Or i...

John151

I wouldn’t want to have all of my fixed-income investments in TIAA Traditional, because it isn’t adjusted for inflation, and it isn’t backed by the federal government. But I have all of my 403(b) account in TIAA Traditional, and it makes up about 25% of my fixed income investments. The rest is in I ...

John151

targ wrote: ↑
Mon May 14, 2018 9:59 am

Tamalak wrote: ↑
Mon May 14, 2018 9:51 am
... All the OP is asking for is for the front page to be consistent with the professionalism of the sub-form pages. ...

Then might I suggest the OP load this as his bookmarked link:
www.bogleheads.org/forum/search.php?sea ... ive_topics

+1 That's what I use.

John151

When interest rates were at rock bottom, I kept only about 1% of my investments in cash, defined as my Vanguard money market fund. I don’t own bank CD’s, and I count my I Bonds as “bonds.” Now that rates are rising, I’m working toward having 5% in cash, again in my money market fund. I consider it t...

John151

About three months’ worth of expenses. If I need more, I can draw on my Vanguard money market fund.

John151

Would that be a problem if I’m using an average cost basis and there’s a loss overall?

John151

I’ve harvested tax losses a number of times over the years. Sometimes I’ve sold all shares in a fund and then invested the proceeds in a similar but not substantially identical fund. Other times, I’ve sold all shares, put the proceeds in a money market fund, and then, thirty-one days later, reopened...

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