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Gamma Ray

If I go this route, the Nevada 529 plan run by Vanguard looks appealing primarily due to the convenience of having all of my investments in Vanguard. I'm planning to get a CPA soon and will discuss this with them, but I'd also very much appreciate this community's thoughts as well. Good luck gettin...

Gamma Ray

Well, you can beat inflation with TIPS, but you have to take some term risk. Five-year TIPS now are just barely beating inflation, and 7-year TIPS yield is about 0.25%; I already mentioned that 30-year TIPS yield is 0.92% (and has recently been a little over 1%). Daily Treasury Real Yield Curve Rat...

Gamma Ray

But aren't we all a little nuts sometimes. But you are correct I should leave my emergency fund as an insurance policy and insurance should cost money. I guess I feel I should be seeking to get at least a 3% return so that my fund stays the same with inflation. Check out I-Bonds. Guaranteed to keep...

Gamma Ray

Kevin M wrote: Many on this forum will argue that stocks are safer for long periods, but many others on this forum disagree.

Kevin

Kevin, those who argue stocks are NOT safer for longer periods, what is their argument/reasoning, and what alternative do they present?

Gamma Ray

Hi All, Any safe investment that give 4-5 Percent? Money is savings currently at 1.25 percent. My risk tolernce is about 2 out 5. Thanks! Where are you getting 1.25 and what amounts? There is a bank offering close to 5% for smaller amounts $20k, means [you+so] = $40k will get you roughly 4.6% once ...

Gamma Ray

Gamma Ray, I can use the funds for any qualified expense if I enroll as a full time student at any accredited college. She can use the funds for any graduate school program if she wishes. A more likely scenario is that she will use the funds for her kids. I ended up with the large surplus in her Co...

Gamma Ray

In 4 years, the estimation for a 4 year public school in my state is $130K. Which state is that? Ohio State is $20k/year. I know people who paid less for college than they did for a private high school education. I suppose that's including room & board? I ended up with a 60k surplus in my daugh...

Gamma Ray

I have 2 kids, 12 and 14. Each have $100K in their 529 plans. In 4 years, the estimation for a 4 year public school in my state is $130K. Wow, which state is that. Even NY colleges cost under $10k/yr. Even state universities are under $10k, and medical schools are about $35k/yr. Am I being naive th...

Gamma Ray

Neither of those is true, at least in the USA. Otherwise the various discussions of tax-loss harvesting and tax-gain harvesting wouldn't make much sense. All that would be happening automatically. Unrealized gains and losses do not have a tax impact until they become realized, meaning you sell the ...

Gamma Ray

Thanks livesoft, maybe it's just my thick head, or I am getting ahead of myself with my limited knowledge, but I appreciate the patience. Fundseeker, I don't know,I thought you deduct the losses at the end of that year, without having to do tax loss harvesting. Sort of like depreciation deduction? I...

Gamma Ray

Fundseeker, Thanks, since I am not planning to touch this (as supplement to my retirement planning) I don't think I would make drastic sales just because market lost %10. My cash reserve is at $250k right now so this 100k (with 25 years to retirement) would be strictly to supplement my retirement. T...

Gamma Ray

What have you decided? And when will you act? Based of the information I got here so far, it's inconclusive. All I really wanted to know if it was better to invest in ETF or Index Fund (if both versions are available for same fund class) in terms of tax efficiency. I thought you guys encouraged lea...

Gamma Ray

livesoft, I'd love to try and learn for myself, but I don't want to waste time while I could be investing, and at the same time I don't want to make a mistake since I plan to invest over $100k that has been sitting as cash for many years. It was already a mistake not investing my savings so I don't ...

Gamma Ray

Thank you veyr much.
Based on above, does this mean it's equally tax advantaged to invest in Vanguard MF/ETF or is it equally disadvantaged to invest in those?
Or am I making a too big deal out of the tax advantages of ETFs vs MF?

Gamma Ray

Not sure what you're asking here. There are no income limits to contribute to a Traditional IRA, but there are limits for deducting the contribution on your tax form. You use form 8606 to keep track of deducted and non-deducted contributions to your Traditional IRA, which also separates them from t...

Gamma Ray

I was also told I can't do auto invest (buy x amount every x number of days), is it still like that with VG? It's true that you cannot do auto-investing with ETFs. However, if you have at least $10,000 to invest in each fund, you can buy Admiral shares of mutual funds at Vanguard instead of ETFs. T...

Gamma Ray

I've been advised to go with ETF instead of Mutual Fund (just index funds, nothing fancy) in my taxable accounts so that I don't have to worry about so much paperwork and annual taxes of the MF. ETF would not raise any capital gains taxes since I wouldn't owe any taxes until it's sold, but then when...

Gamma Ray

I've had a new Chase card had fraudulent charges, so they sent me a new card. And that new card had fraudulent charges before it even reached me. How this happens was explained in news reports. Do you have any links to those news reports? Same thing happened twice with Banana Republic card we had. ...

Gamma Ray

People who haven't run the numbers might invest in the non-deductible Traditional IRA without knowing better. The OP in https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3363475#p3348860 didn't seem to know. Livesoft, a very savvy investor, in the next post said that they did so a number of years ag...

Gamma Ray

See the second table in https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Non-deductible_traditional_IRA, which shows explicitly that taxable investing can be better than non-deductible Traditional when the latter is not converted to a Roth. Replicate the table for your own tax situation to see which is better for y...

Gamma Ray

How much will one actually in real life save by using a Coverdell? Really. One might suspect they could save even more by using a taxable account and doing the TLH thing along with the gifting appreciated shares to the student who sells and stays under the kiddie-tax limit. $2k/yr for 12 years at c...

Gamma Ray

In reference to over-funding the 529, I know you can change the beneficiary to another kid or relative, or even yourself, but can you do that with the remaining amount after paying for 1st kid? If there is money left over, can the beneficiary be changed so that a 2nd person can use the left-over fu...

Gamma Ray

In reference to over-funding the 529, I know you can change the beneficiary to another kid or relative, or even yourself, but can you do that with the remaining amount after paying for 1st kid? If there is money left over, can the beneficiary be changed so that a 2nd person can use the left-over fun...

Gamma Ray

In reference to over-funding the 529, I know you can change the beneficiary to another kid or relative, or even yourself, but can you do that with the remaining amount after paying for 1st kid? If there is money left over, can the beneficiary be changed so that a 2nd person can use the left-over fun...

Gamma Ray

Thanks whodidntante, I know VG doesn't know my tax situation, but if we tell VG we file married joint, VG should know that if we had $6000 losses in this year, we will report $3000 and carry $3000 next year. With loss harvesting each year, this can get very confusing if VG gives us a loss statement ...

Gamma Ray

With only $3000 in losses that's allowed to be reduced from taxable income, if you have $6000 in year 1, I assume you can deduct $3000/year from income for 2 yrs, but if you have more losses/harvest each year, do they get added to the total so you can keep deducting until you use up all your losses,...

Gamma Ray

I realize that I can put $50k in a year to the 529, but that will eliminate the state tax benefits, unless by depositing $50k now, if I can deduct $10k from my income for state tax purposes for next 5 years, I will call 529 help line Monday and ask, because I think we could have a much greater impac...

Gamma Ray

I meant the percent of stock is a bit high. Perhaps set the target allocation at 75% stock / 25% bond. Purchasing a new US bond fund in the retirement account should be fine. Your target retirement funds already contain international bonds. Right. Avoid holding BND in the taxable account. https://w...

Gamma Ray

Desired Asset allocation (for investment): 80% stocks / 20% bonds with about 25% of total in International. You have a large cash position, which may be an indication of over-aggressive. Maybe you want to dial down a bit of risk to 75% stock / 25% bond. Our plans of buying a house changed, so we pr...

Gamma Ray

Emergency funds: Everything is emergency fund since I didn't set anything aside. Debt: $511k mortgage ending in 2042, 3.875%, Paying $3400/mo. About $1000/mo in various maintenance/utility related expenses (This makes my monthly fixed expense roughly $4500 for housing and major routine expenses like...

Gamma Ray

The annualized dividend from total stock market VTSAX is generally greater than 1.05% and is taxed more favorably. Boo to savings accounts! Some people, like me, don't have the guts to put it all on market and hope that it makes some money at the end of the year. If it will keep me up at night, the...

Gamma Ray

Thank you FiveK. I got really excited when I saw that excel sheet, but then I got lost quickly. I don't see a column for Mortgage Interest in there for some reason. There is a column for Mortgage, but I don't see that we deducted mortgage on my itemized. From my '16 returns: My Itemized is showing $...

Gamma Ray

I used $60k to help simplify things and not to make it sound like I needed specific answer, it was just a general question. My W2 gross income was $150k. $6700 Cafe Plan and $12500 SIMPLE IRA. Wife had $5000 cash income which we also reported and paid taxes/social security on, and some rent income o...

Gamma Ray

Hi everyone, Income of $60k, did not get any interest income and did not donate, vs Income of $60k, donated $1500 and had $1500 in interest income. Would the end result be the same (regardless of the other factors that may affect the final tax obligations) in terms of taxes? In general, no. They wo...

Gamma Ray

Hi everyone, Just a quick question. Income of $60k, did not get any interest income and did not donate, vs Income of $60k, donated $1500 and had $1500 in interest income. Would the end result be the same (regardless of the other factors that may affect the final tax obligations) in terms of taxes? I...

Gamma Ray

carolinaman wrote:Andrews is still offering 3% 84 month CDs. I just bought some last week.

The interest rates went up, but Andrews dropped the Share Certificate yields. It's now 2.2% for 84 months. Why would anyone do 84 months at this rate? I thought 3% was perfect, and with only 6 months of EWP - at the time.

Gamma Ray

Is there a discussion thread on high yield checking accounts here in BH? I'm not into account churning, but you can check out https://www.depositaccounts.com/. Thanks, the link was given by few people already but I wanted to hear from other bogleheads and their experiences, maybe people open thread...

Gamma Ray

Ally works fine now, thanks for the info. There's a lil slide meter above the listing that shows increments of 5k, then tells you what you'd make annually from each institution. FWIW, I bank w/ Coulee Bank in St. Paul, MN and have nothing but good things to say. They pay 2.65% up to 15k, then 0.01 o...

Gamma Ray

You guys work with online banks, is this type of situation normal where you cannot access your account for random reasons?

Right now I am getting this after logging in once, there were no messages about outage/maintenance/etc..

Gamma Ray

Thanks. I see, I thought they would send a message when this type of outage/service is scheduled with timeframe. I didn't login earlier today so I wasn't aware. Mobile banking is not working either, but mobile banking error message looks better.

Gamma Ray

Does this happen often (9:43PM Pacific 4/14) ?
Right now: https://secure.ally.com/upgrade/bank/

Gamma Ray

There's more than a few that offer a max up to 25k with a better rate than my 2.65. Like I said, I chose mine for the local factor. Check out http://www.depositaccounts.com if you haven't already. The way that I look at it, a "traditional" checking account pays nothing and the best online...

Gamma Ray

And if your local bank sucks, vote with your feet and switch to another one, or a credit union. Best thing I did years ago was to switch to a small local bank unaffiliated with a national chain - they just treated me right. When I relocated, I joined the local credit union. Happy as a lark with the...

Gamma Ray

Hopefully my answer clarified that I have many savings accounts with different ownerships. This will be based on your particular needs. Another reason might be one for scheduled transfers into checking and one for overdraft service, to minimize the chances of exceeding the monthly limit of six with...

Gamma Ray

It sounds like you mean savings accounts at other banks. I've opened savings accounts at other banks to get bonuses, but once I get the bonus I move the money back to Ally. You can get higher rates elsewhere--I see a few 1.25% savings accounts on DepositAccounts.com. I've been too lazy to worry abo...

Gamma Ray

I'm curious of people that have gone completely online like Ally. What do you do if you need a lot of cash quickly? Like $5K today or in the next 48 hours? We have an ally account, but keep a local account for those instances mainly when we need a big chunk of cash quickly. That rarely happens, but...

Gamma Ray

I will reconsider this bank when their 2 physical NY branches open, and if Ally doesn't bump their rate by then. Too bad they don't offer checking, it's another inconvenience.

Gamma Ray

Thanks for all the help, called them and they said try applying again, they couldn't help with the reason why it was denied, so I applied again, this time I didn't list my wife in there. It worked. I was expecting funds to be transferred quickly, but it looks like that's not the case it will take fe...

Gamma Ray

So I got a letter from Ally telling me that they couldn't verify my identity. My wife, who I wrote as cosigner, got a letter saying ineligible coapplicant. We've had join accounts at Citi and Chase since 1999. What is up with Ally? Couldn't they ask for more info at the time I applied? To be honest,...

Gamma Ray

Did anyone request a report from ChexSystems? I didn't even know there was a such a thing until I started checking if anyone else got a message from Ally saying it will take 3-5 business days for a decision. I am still waiting. It's very likely that I mistyped something since I opened the account af...

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