Recent content by kjpliny

This pretty much happened to me last November. I had been mulling retirement and the company had a surprise RIF, with most of my group being let go. This included my boss. I'd hate to still be there without my old boss running the group since the stress would have increased substantially. I'm...

My MIL received two years of severance pay after retiring, but only because she was privy to highly confidential company information working directly for the CEO and they gave her a special package. I wouldn't expect any kind of package from your company, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to ask...

Felt it here on Long Island. Was watching one of the news stations and the weatherman said this quake was relatively close to the surface (within 3 miles) and because much of the Northeast is on bedrock, the vibrations were felt further away compared to places where quakes of similar magnitude...

I downloaded our credit card activity for 2023 and filtered for grocery and dining places we frequent. Looks like around $1500 per month for the two of us. About the same as our property taxes but less than health insurance. NY ain't cheap.

My old company 401k at Fidelity had a stable value fund as the only conservative choice but it was only paying around 2%, so I moved the money to the brokeragelink option and put into a money market fund paying 5%. Without the brokeragelink option, I likely would have left it in stable value.

Thanks all! Looks like anything over the 7.5% limit will be deductible, but we will check with NYSTRS once the pension checks start coming. I finally retired in November after 31 years with the company. This was part of a RIF, so I'll be receiving 6 months of severance through June and then my...

I've been searching for an answer to this everywhere but can't seem to find what I'm looking for. My wife will be retiring from teaching in July and the cost of family health insurance will be close to 12k per year out of pocket. This is in NY. We currently take the standard deduction and don't...

The indexes look OK but they are essentially being propped up by like 10 mega tech stocks. It's not healthy. Looks a lot like the dot com bubble era to me.

I like Verizon for their high speed fiber optic internet service. It's very solid and dependable. I don't own the stock, though the yield looked enticing before interest rates went up.

Ours are $16,744, up about $120 from the year before. Won't get the 2023 tax bill until next May. Most of the property taxes in NY go to school funding, and there is an annual 2% cap on that unless voters approve a larger budget.

I think over the past 25 years or so, the stock and bond markets have benefitted from money printing more than anything else. I don't know if that qualifies as a Ponzi scheme, but it sure doesn't seem right that each time the "market" corrects, they have to print more and more money to reverse...

I'd rather make little than lose most. I've always been an extremely conservative investor. Sleeping well at night is more important than money to me. Perhaps your asset allocation is too high, but the risk was masked by all of the excessive CB intervention over the past decade. If a 22% loss...

3 BR, 2200 sq ft Ranch built in late 1960s on 1/2 acre in NY: Property taxes: $16,744/yr Insurance: $2087/yr Total: $1569/Mth

Congratulations, you have won the game. This is an individual decision based on risk appetite. If preserving what you have is more important than growing what you have, then I don't see a reason to keep playing the game. I'm similar minded, and a similar age. Holding cash or short term...

For what it's worth, I purchased the Honda EU7000IS, which plugs into an L14-30P 240VAC input box on the side of the house. It powers the whole load center using a 2-pole 30A breaker and interlock kit. I can't run the main HVAC unit, but it takes care of the rest of the house with no issue. I...