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Bfwolf

I think your likely worst case scenario (with trading with other passengers) is your 2 kids being in the middle seat in 2 consecutive rows, i.e. one directly in front of the other. If this is acceptable, go ahead and save the money.

Bfwolf

I think in the area of business there's been a lot of saturation of degrees being available. Anyone in a city of significant size can get an MBA or Executive MBA from a part-time program at University of Phoenix or similar if they're (or their employer) is willing to pay for it. A lot of the same t...

Bfwolf

I think in the area of business there's been a lot of saturation of degrees being available. Anyone in a city of significant size can get an MBA or Executive MBA from a part-time program at University of Phoenix or similar if they're (or their employer) is willing to pay for it. A lot of the same t...

Bfwolf

There’s two types of MBAs - go to an elite school and get a job in something you could not have without it (think IB / PE / Consulting). It’s quite obvious which schools people are doing this at. The key is these jobs are not obtainable for people without the degree. Many are seeing salaries go fro...

Bfwolf

OP,

Here's what will answer all questions you have on the subject from now on:

Step 1: Call Amica and ask them the question, and what you should do to ensure you get paid and your rates don't go up.

Step 2: Do what Amica says.

Bfwolf

I will go on record as saying I hope this DOESN'T work, as Hedgefundie can afford to lose 15% of his portfolio, but the dozens of copycats that would follow won't. This strategy may work for a limited period of time. But it will fail at some point.

Bfwolf

I spent 3 weeks with friends in East Africa last February. Some thoughts: 1) It was my first safari but one of the other folks on my trip had done several. She said 4 nights is about the right amount of time, and so that's what we did. I think she was spot on. 4 nights would be considered a very sho...

Bfwolf

I'd put this under the category "doesn't really matter," but I think I'd go with the 401k fund choices. It'll be simpler and very slightly cheaper. You're covered in the 401k except for emerging markets and bonds, which you can hold in your IRA. Speaking of which, you have a very high risk portfolio...

Bfwolf

The inflation-adjusted SPIA market seems thin and overpriced. Why do you think it is overpriced? I guess I don't know that it is. Insurance companies are good at gauging risk I suppose, and perhaps they are better equipped for that than the US govt is. But they do seem like poor deals on their face...

Bfwolf

Presumably companies selling inflation adjusted SPIAs are making a profit, despite how thin the market is. I'm wondering if the government could undercut them and break even and widen the appeal of the market, while also achieving something good for society (reducing risk people run out of money).

Bfwolf

The inflation-adjusted SPIA market seems thin and overpriced. The US government has a huge Social Security department which carries out the disbursement of inflation adjusted annuities. Would it be so unreasonable for them to simply sell additional Social Security benefits much like one purchases an...

Bfwolf

Does anyone keep a spreadsheet of their cards? Is there any existing spreadsheet someone created? What I am thinking is it would list all generally available reward cards with bonuses. You enter your start and stop date, and when bonus was received. It would tell you when you are next eligible. As ...

Bfwolf

Here's a current comparison of brokered CD options at Fidelity vs the t-bill rates. They are very similar. Unless you guys are dealing with millions of dollars here, this doesn't sound like a good use of anybody's time. Do what is simplest that gets similar returns as listed below. https://www.fidel...

Bfwolf

I don't pretend to be a very sophisticated credit card strategist but sometimes offers seem to make sense to me. I have business expenses to pay with a CC and love to travel for pleasure and do so frequently and for work occasionally. I have a Chase Sapphire that I will cancel when it comes up agai...

Bfwolf

If it was FBA then I agree with the seller. It's not their fault Amazon didn't fulfill properly. They refunded your money which is all they could be expected to do in this situation.

Bfwolf

In my uninformed opinion, I think 15 to 17 is probably "normal" as a price to rent ratio so I'd say you're probably not getting a steal nor getting screwed. The 28 P/R ratio mentioned above....man I don't know why people just don't rent. The only thing that can support such a ratio is expectation fo...

Bfwolf

I agree with Livesoft. I understand the desire for simplicity, but the S&P 500 fund you have is perfectly acceptable, and there's no need for you to pay what I'm guessing are thousands of dollars in capital gains taxes that you may NEVER have to pay (if you die before you sell them). Just don't rein...

Bfwolf

I am confident that if I made a cocktail with Tito's and made the exact same cocktail a few more times with bargain vodkas, very few of you would be able to identify the Tito's more often than chance dictates.

Well vodka. Always.

Bfwolf

I finally pulled the trigger to renew my CDs on1/22 at Penfed to their 5 yr 3.4% IRA certificates. 5 and 10 yr treasuries are in low 2.70% range so this seems like a pretty good deal for fixed income money. Thanks to everyone who responded to my post. It may be too late, but Navy Federal is offerin...

Bfwolf

I moved cash to TDA and then transferred in kind (ETFs and cash) to Fidelity, and had no fee charged. It was all done online. I think transferring from HSA Bank would be a more manual process. I had a -$2.50 balance from the Jan fee at HSA Bank when I called to close my account a few days ago, they...

Bfwolf

At Berkeley, we see: Econ: Average starting salary: 71K - 16% seeking employment, 7% grad school https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/Survey/2017Econ.pdf Business: Average starting salary 77k, 8% seeking employment, 3% grad school https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/S...

Bfwolf

I have a 3% APR IRA CD at Andrews Federal Credit Union with something like 55 months remaining...current balance is somewhere in the $107K region. I am pretty sure it's a 6 month EWP for breaking it. Would you guys break it and move the money to this CD? I'm 42 so many years away from accessing thi...

Bfwolf

I have a 3% APR IRA CD at Andrews Federal Credit Union with something like 55 months remaining...current balance is somewhere in the $107K region. I am pretty sure it's a 6 month EWP for breaking it. Would you guys break it and move the money to this CD? I'm 42 so many years away from accessing this...

Bfwolf

For sure true marginal rate of the earnings withdrawals will need to be considered including SS taxation. But my understanding is that non-qualified annuities do not step up in cost basis upon death so it seems like 1035 exchange and then leaving it is a bad option, so those earnings have to come o...

Bfwolf

For sure true marginal rate of the earnings withdrawals will need to be considered including SS taxation. But my understanding is that non-qualified annuities do not step up in cost basis upon death so it seems like 1035 exchange and then leaving it is a bad option, so those earnings have to come out.

Bfwolf

My friend's mom who lives in CA is 83 and was unfortunately sold a couple of variable annuities years ago. Account #1 has an annual cost of about 2%, a cash value of $467K and a surrender value of $456K vs a remaining cost basis of $324K. Annuity #2 has annual cost of 3.6%, a cash/surrender value of...

Bfwolf

\ Edit 2: Or the bookmarklet could just run the search. javascript:(function(){ var str="./search.php?author="; str=str + $(".post").first().find(".username,.username-coloured").html().replace(/ /g,"+"); str=str+"&t="+$("#topic-search fieldset input[name='t']").attr("value"); str=str+"&sf=msgonly&s...

Bfwolf

Thanks LadyGeek! Much easier than CTRL F on multi-page threads. This is good enhancement. Thank you LadyGeek and team for implementing it! Question: is the way of searching through all of the OP's posts on a thread (as opposed to CTRL F) just scrolling down and looking by sight to see if there's an...

Bfwolf

I have a Roku Streaming Stick (NOT a Streaming Stick+). It's pretty great. As mentioned above, it can turn the TV on/off and control the volume which is a nice plus. It's "only" 1080p so if you want higher resolution, you need the +. The Roku user interface is excellent.

Bfwolf

The great news here is that you have spending under control so are not at dire risk of going broke. The good news is that your broker/advisor has put you in pretty reasonable, low cost funds, better than what 95% of advisors would do probably. It could be simpler and we have no idea what you're bein...

Bfwolf

How many people have actually disputed a charge in a case like this and been successful? All. The. Time. The vendors have little recourse because, what are they going to do, stop taking credit cards? It’s not like the banks are out the money because when you file a chargeback they pull the money fr...

Bfwolf

OP, what's a measly 5% more in stocks going to get you? You should probably start buying on margin and go 150% stocks.

Bfwolf

If you are going to retire to modest side gigs in 5 years, then it sounds like this solution is only needed for 5 years. After that, you'll have low enough income to contribute to Roth IRAs directly. It sounds like you may have some years during those 5 where you can contribute directly to a Roth IR...

Bfwolf

Victoria, I'm sorry you are going through such nonsense. I hope you ignore the "school of hard knocks" suggestion above. I'm reasonably confident that with some persistence you can get all your money back.

Bfwolf

Receiving the dividend before you sell is not a loss, because your capital loss is increased by the amount of the dividend (in addition to any gain or loss from market movements, which affects your taxes even if you sell one stock fund to buy another). I think it depends on what's personal capital ...

Bfwolf

I'm frustrated that apparently some of the forms are not available yet for Turbotax Home & Business because the IRS has not yet released them. I wanted to put in my 2018 numbers and see if it makes sense for me to do a partial IRA conversion with the new tax laws. I guess I'll have to do that estima...

Bfwolf

Don't keep more than $250K in any one bank and it's all FDIC insured--as close to 0 risk as you can get. It was my understanding if you are married or joint account could have up to $750k. Is this not correct? Q: Can I have more than $250,000 of deposit insurance coverage at one FDIC-insured bank? ...

Bfwolf

Why homebrew it? Just use the TD fund.

Bfwolf

If you know you don't need the money for at least a year, buy a CD at 2.65% interest. Don't keep more than $250K in any one bank and it's all FDIC insured--as close to 0 risk as you can get. Some options: https://www.ally.com/bank/high-yield-cd/ https://www.synchronybank.com/banking/cd/ https://www....

Bfwolf

Regarding your concentrated position in Megacorp, you may want to talk to a FA about prepaid forward contract. It may cost you about 6% in total but you get 1-downside protection, 2-you keep the dividends during the contract term & 3-you participate in any stock appreciation https://en.wikipedia.or...

Bfwolf

Of all your questions, the only one that REALLY matters is your 401k. You can make the wrong decision on all the other ones, and be fine. If your company stock goes into the toilet, so do you. Diversify now. Like on Monday. Do not wait another day. Sell ALL your company stock and buy a Target Retire...

Bfwolf

I agree with others--YTTV is a great service. I do find that just flipping through a guide to see what's on is not as easy, but they do tend to show you the shows you might be most interested in that are on live which is cool. I love that I can just plug my favorite sports team in once and it will r...

Bfwolf

The true bargain in Cathay awards is with Alaska miles. If one wanted, one could fly first class from USA to Hong Kong, layover as long as one wanted, and then fly to South Africa in business class for a total of 70K miles one way. :shock: Eh!?? :happy Are seats (er, beds) actually available? Does ...

Bfwolf

The true bargain in Cathay awards is with Alaska miles. If one wanted, one could fly first class from USA to Hong Kong, layover as long as one wanted, and then fly to South Africa in business class for a total of 70K miles one way.

Bfwolf

Would appreciate some advice: The 4 credit cards I have/use are: 1. Amex platinum 2. Amex gold 3. Amex blue cash preferred 4. Barclay mastercard (only use this when Amex is not accepted) As you can see, I am a heavy Amex user. I have about 580,000 amex points, which I am coming to realize might not...

Bfwolf

I don't there's a right or wrong answer to this. Except for the vanishingly rare people who give straight-ticket to GiveWell-recommended top charities, almost nobody focuses their charitable giving purely on maximization of positive impact to the world. There's always some mix of doing good and exp...

Bfwolf

If you think there will be an impact on financial aid for your own children if you are the owner, could your mother-in-law or father-in-law (grandparents of the beneficiary) be the owner? If they are not in FL, maybe they have the chance for a tax benefit from their contributions? With a third part...

Bfwolf

Something else that I'm sure a lot of people missed: for a few hours on Tuesday, it was possible to cash out Hilton Honors Points at 0.5¢ through Amazon. It was some kind of glitch and the second time it has happened. I cashed out almost 300K points for an Amazon e-gift card. The DoC post showed up...

Bfwolf

Would appreciate some advice: The 4 credit cards I have/use are: 1. Amex platinum 2. Amex gold 3. Amex blue cash preferred 4. Barclay mastercard (only use this when Amex is not accepted) As you can see, I am a heavy Amex user. I have about 580,000 amex points, which I am coming to realize might not...

Bfwolf

If you think there will be an impact on financial aid for your own children if you are the owner, could your mother-in-law or father-in-law (grandparents of the beneficiary) be the owner? If they are not in FL, maybe they have the chance for a tax benefit from their contributions? I like this idea ...

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