Recent content by TallTim

Thanks @jldavid. That's a relatively decent/good approach. To the OP, I'd second much of what is already here above in terms of getting educated (OIC, CBOE, all the major brokerages provide free training) and using a papermoney account to get started and see if you enjoy/can make $ trading...

+1 to those suggesting long-term snowbirding. We've lived all over the country (GA, MA, NCal, SoCal) and finally ended up in SoCal for RE, more or less by accident. When DD and DS were small, we lived in ATL a well as Western MA and MIL/FIL lived in Orlando, which was great. DW took them...

+1 to spending the 529 $ earlier, net of the tax deductible amounts noted above. This gets you best treatment on those dollars and gives you the chance to allocate your brokerage assets to take advantage of the longer time horizon for DD2. FWIW, we set up a combination of small 529s and UTMAs...

Actually, this is one of the reasons we rent, believe it or not. IMO there is or shortly will be a big glut of 4-5 BR nice, suburban houses as the Boomers retire and look to liquidate their family homes to downsize and fund their retirements .. already seeing this in some HCOL areas of CA that...

We have both owned and rented over our lives ... started out renting a duplex in our 20s then moved into (and sometimes renovated) a series of 3-4 houses of increasing relative value, rolling the proceeds into the next one each time and stepping up our basis ... when we moved to SoCal, we held...

+1 to this analysis -- and don't forget the opportunity cost of not investing that capital in liquid assets that earn a higher rate of return than real estate. The NYT put together a pretty comprehensive make vs buy (rent vs own) analysis for this that we use periodically to assess the...

We have used AIG and Allianz in the past, and have actually had to make 2 claims - one for my wife for a trip to Myanmar following a death in her side of the family and another for our whole family for a trip to Maccu Pichu that was messed up by the sale of my former employer. We found there...

We have had good experiences with Orbitz and so-so with booking.com. Our issue w the latter was not flexibility but it was not getting reward points on reservations made with booking in hotels where we were members of their frequent guest program. It ultimately was fixed in one case and not...

Yes, many, many times. We are in NYC 4-5x per year for various things and always make a point of seeing shows and using TKTS to get most of them. As someone noted earlier, good to buy tix to your first night show ahead of time and then use TKTS for the rest of them. Three insider tips: (1)...

I think we meet your criteria .. was a senior exec at a mid- to large public company. Company was acquired which led to a nice windfall and put us well over the FI goal line; FWIW we were close anyway, and had been planning for sometime on RE @ 55-ish. But the accelerated windfall pulled that...

+1 to this. I RE'd with two teens in the house and got an extra 2 yrs with one of them at home and 1 year with the other. Even in near-term hindsight (coming up on 18 mos RE), it is 100% worthwhile to spend time in this way if one can afford it. Also, our kids are old enough to well...

I have had a Fidelity 401k and Rollover/Roth IRAs since sometime in the early 90s. Eventually added UTMA college accts for DD and DS as well as an IRA that I inherited from DM on per passing. I moved all of our personal brokerage to TDA b/c of issues w FIDO trading platform, trading...

+1 to this. We had a similar experience with DD who just started last week and with DS who is in the application phase now. If you have substantial assets (and most all here who are RE do), it's a near total waste of time. What I tell the kids' friends parents is that you have to make a...

I only have indirect experience with this, but do have some hopefully helpful observations about how to start looking at places. DW's GP's (on both sides) lived in independent living facilities from their mid-80s onwards. on FIL's side, they had means, but sort of UMC/MC $$ and opted for...

Thanks Scuba, it's a good question. We spent a lot of time working over the numbers, of course, but spent less time talking about the reality of me quitting my job. DW was 100% supportive of the whole enterprise, but we found there were some unstated expectations on both sides. - With 2 kids...