Personal Consumer Issues • Re: Washable furnace filter ok?
They really make the air cleaner. The higher the MERV, the more effective the filtration.If you live in New York City, then you may have experienced the Canadian wildfires last year. Without a...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Re: Stay in Downtown LA or?
I am not a Los Angelino but my son is (lives in Santa Monica). I don’t think downtown LA is worth more than a 1/2 day or full day maybe. My wife works in a library and we did enjoy LA public library....
View ArticleInvesting - Theory, News & General • Re: How much portfolio loss can you...
Gavinsiu, I don't see the answer to my two questions. I'm asking about the specific plan of Gavinsiu.My first question is what is the plan of Gavinsiu? I want to understand why that plan might let the...
View ArticlePersonal Investments • Re: IRA-poor?
Diligent savers can often accumulate higher after-tax level of assets by avoiding tax favored accounts (except for Roth). Tax deferred accounts rob you of the capital gains tax treatment of stock...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • Re: Fidelity as a one stop shop
1) You understand the problem, as evidenced by your statement about HMBradley, but Fidelity gets a pass? Why? You either are ok with your money being shuffled to middleman companies or not, but to...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Re: Thinking of Getting a Mac
My wife initially selected a Mac because someone convinced her it would be the way to go to store and organize photos in iPhoto, at the time not iPhone photos.Ever since then I think we might have...
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Personal Finance (Not Investing) • Re: Talk me out of buying a 30k sports car...
Age: 43, married (happily!), two kids (4 and 2). Family income of 280k/yr, family expenses 80k/yr, and family net worth of 1.5M (300k real estate, 400k taxable). Pensions of roughly 100k, indexed to...
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Investing - Theory, News & General • Re: Variable Percentage Withdrawal...
Ah, it was as simple as updating the growth trend in cell I94 . As suspected, it increases VPW % a tiny bit. And in the Reteriment tab I changed cell b52, so the higher risk will also be reflected in...
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Personal Finance (Not Investing) • Re: VUL “keep it or lose it” advice needed
Cost of insurance (sorry couldn’t figure out how to display it here):https://tinypic.host/image/IMG-1765.DZkjOHWhat you posted here is the maximum cost of insurance rates. Most UL and VUL policies...
View ArticlePersonal Investments • Re: after tax contributions with preexisting earnings
Thanks for the responses. I will start the process of trying to clean out the after tax bucket so I can direct after tax contributions to the Roth without any pro-rata issues.Statistics: Posted by...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Re: Irrigation Service Bill
That price seems reasonable to me. You can DIY this stuff… it’s pretty straight forward, just messy. In my experience, if you buy better heads, they last longer and have less issues. I prefer the...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Re: IRMAA Part D Catch-up
Not necessarily. What if you are in your 70s and collecting social security, RMDs, +/- pension? It could push you into IRMAA range and there's nothing you could do about it (with exceptions of...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • Re: CPA recommendation for SF Bay Area
What’s your tax needs, sources of income, run a business, any unusual tax forms?I find that most CPAs (myself included) move more towards providing services to businesses and advisory work as opposed...
View ArticlePersonal Investments • Re: Fidelity Transfer Mistake
Mistakes happen and customers need to be vigilant. When I retired I moved my Roth from Lincoln Financial to Vanguard. Instead of putting the funds in a Roth they put them in a traditional IRA.I...
View ArticleInvesting - Theory, News & General • Re: TSP G Fund
What you don't want to do is unnecessarily move funds between the TSP and an IRA because you'll be out of the market during the transfer process (usually done by a check mailed to the TSP or from the...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Re: Need Help Unclogging a Drain
If the drain is clogged well past the P-trap, then coming from the vertical "vent" pipe that it attaches to is something to try. I reached ours through the attic (not the roof top) by just cutting the...
View ArticlePersonal Consumer Issues • Re: The EV Life Cycle?
Especially with Tesla price reductions and the ability to get both federal and state money when buying a new EV, it makes a battery replacement senseless out of warranty. My own thought would be to do...
View ArticlePersonal Investments • Re: Figuring out where to park "backup"...
I'm sure this sounds very stupid to some of you but this is the situation I'm in.Splitting an emergency fund between banks or other financial entities is good practice, and I do this with two banks...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • Re: Did IRS just rejected my Form 5329...
I received a letter recently indicating that my request for waiver of penalty had been approved. It appears that when you first file a waiver, the system will show on the website the 50% penalty and...
View ArticlePersonal Finance (Not Investing) • Re: Looking at this graph, what % can I...
There are some tricky tax issues, such as adjusting cost basis for ESPP and RSUs, but really the hard part of filling out your tax returns is gathering all the information in the first place. And you...
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