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Private Listening is excellent! It’s my favorite feature of Roku…using the iphone App as the remote, I have the option to stream audio wirelessly to my Bose 700 headphones for superb sound and privacy.

Pickleball! If you are even of average mobility and athletic inclination, I urge you to seek out a local Pickleball community group. This is the fastest growing American sport and for good reason: it is very inclusive, friendly and popular among players ranging in age from teens to 80s, in my...

Watches are fun Mechanical watches are wearable art. Like art, you can find stuff you like for a few bucks in a thrift store, or you can spend millions.. My advice: don’t buy retail unless you somehow get lucky and a Rolex dealer offers you a new Submariner for list price (unlikely unless...

Surely there is SOMETHING we can sell you? ?

try Pickleball If you are even moderately athletically inclined, try the fast growing sport of pickle ball! friendly pick up groups exist all over the country, the demographic skews retirement age, but all ages and skills play together, rotating partners between games. The small court keeps...

Update My apologies for the delay. I did consult with a financial planning firm. Although I probably should not advertise their name here, they are a member of the Garrett Financial Planning network of fee-only advisors, they have an excellent reputation in California and their principals...

Hi, thanks for the comment. (Somehow it showed up under my profile, rather than on the board, so I'm quoting it here.) Your underlying math is, of course, correct but you are overlooking a key component of the strategy I propose, which makes all the difference to the ROTH's advantage. Simply...

1) Because I like to prepare by educating myself in all ways possible to maximize my understanding of the professional second opinion that my parents and I ultimately intend to seek. 2) Because as I continue to educate myself, I am not arrogant enough to assume that I have already thought of...

Well, since you refer to the original post I should point out that in that post I listed assets totaling $5.5MM. You apparently ran the report with $4.2MM in assets? I don't know what assumptions you used for my parents' other income, cost basis, home value, and various other options . I...

An excellent point; of course what the estate tax exemptions will be in the future is anyone's guess. As of now it is $5MM per person or $10MM for a married couple. So in my case, unless the exemption is drastically reduced in the future or we live in a state with lower exemptions, I don't...

Unfortunately your examples are full of both errors and omissions. 1) If you are claiming that the ROTH has doubled, then if growth rate assumptions are constant between the ROTH and the tIRA, then the tIRA would NOT have doubled as you suggest. It would have been reduced annually by...

Yes I'm saying exactly that. Once again, to be clear, I am talking about my parents' specific situation, so that "someone" you refer to is in this case me and my brother. I'm talking about a specific case here, which I've tried my best to be specific about. If I inherit assets (which I hope...

Again, this is just plain wrong. Tax deferred growth in the taxable IRA is just that...deferred. Taxes will be paid eventually. "Tax deferred growth in the ROTH" simply doesn't exist. Taxes will NEVER be paid on the growth, so even the term "tax deferred growth in a ROTH" makes no sense at all.

I do respect your question about whether I have handicapped the tax payment fund. Fair questions to raise. Again, my view is that the correct answer varies from situation to situation. In my parents' case, I have done the math and I feel that the assumptions I have made for the entire 15...

thanks for your reply. I am with you, and actually have already built that fine print into my models, for example with assumptions for high net worth Medicare penalties, etc. As you astutely indicate, there are just so many factors one must build into these projections!

I am sorry, but your assumptions are the ones that are incorrect. Average taxes on taxable assets over 15 years will not be close to zero as you imply. First, if my parents invest in individual munis, holding all of them to maturity, then yes the tax would be zero. However, the long term...

Yes, I can explain. There can be a benefit to paying more in taxes now, depending on the period during which the ROTH can grow tax free. If a ROTH could be left to grow tax free for a very long time (such as over the lifespan of a young beneficiary) the value of the tax free growth will...

Thanks for the thoughtful replies all. Although I am a finance geek and hence can't help diving into the numbers myself, my folks of course will run my analysis past both tax and estate planners. A couple points of debate I would raise for certain responses: 1) In a way I disagree that...

Hi, I'm 39 years old, and financially independent after many years of 1) working as an investment analyst and 2) living like a hermit with a tightwad complex. My main interest at the moment, as I have posted in more detail on the FIRE & Money board, is in comparing notes with others who have...

I have been developing custom spreadsheets to try to determine rules of thumb regarding whether it is advisable to do a ROTH conversion, given certain factors. I am targeting the same kind of conservative "rule of thumb" as is used for withdrawal rates, i.e., "it generally makes sense to...