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What is the recommended approach for finding a good, reasonably priced, experienced estate lawyer to handle probate? My elderly DF is in bad health, and I'd like to start the search sooner rather than later, since I don't want to pick someone in a rush when stress and emotions are running high...

As most of us are aware, many credit cards have been dropping their rental car insurance benefits. Only a fairly small handful of CCs now have any sort of traditional rental car coverage, and most of the cards that still do have annual fees. I just this morning found out about a program that...

Just got off the phone with Schwab, and I have to say I'm pretty flabbergasted. Turns out they don't offer a way to automatically sell a set amount of their premium money market fund (SWVXX) on a recurring, monthly basis. This seems like a very basic function that any full-featured brokerage...

DW and I will be heading overseas soon for a fairly short trip to several countries in Europe. I will be there for about two weeks and she'll be there slightly longer visiting some old friends. I'm leaning towards purchasing a medical insurance policy for us, as I would always do for any trip...

I'm thinking of putting $30k or so of idle cash in my elderly DF's brokerage account into this CD. I would go longer (say, 3-6 months) but don't want to in this particular case. Here are the details. Is this a good/reasonable choice for a one-month allocation of funds? Any concerns with this...

Currently I'm with two different insurance companies, one for auto, another for homeowners insurance. I want to drop one (or both) and bundle everything with one company. But the coverage dates are misaligned, so I'm wondering about how refunds will be handled when I cancel my coverage with one...

I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this, but wanted to get validation from this very wise, knowledgeable group. In reviewing my tax documents today, I've discovered two non-trivial mistakes on one of my 1099-DIVs. The first involves the mischaracterization of some proceeds as ordinary...

I recently found out that my elderly DF (who has dementia) did not withdraw his RMDs in 2021 or 2022, due to confusion about the changing requirements due to COVID, etc. He has been on Aricept since early 2021, and I have been doing his tax returns since then, as well. I didn't catch the "missed...

I just got this one: On average, I've been getting weird, random, "wrong number" texts like this at least twice a week (sometimes nearly every day) for months now. What is the spammer's strategy here? Are they just hoping for a response, any response? Do responses like "I'm not Lucy, you...

Today marks the 10th anniversary of my very first post here at E-R.org! Just wanted to mark the occasion by saying how much I've appreciated being a part of this community all these years. Even though I don't post nearly as much as some of you early retirees do, I visit the site almost every day...

I'm currently on a multi-week trip overseas and, until today, haven't had any inclination or need to log into my Ally account. I have checking, savings, and brokerage accounts with Ally, so back home I log in to do various things on a weekly basis, but since heading overseas have left everything...

Where have you gone to get your vaccinations for overseas travel? For example, things like typhoid, hepatitis A/B, yellow fever, etc. How much have you paid out-of-pocket for them, roughly? Did insurance lower the costs at all?

Wondering if any of you boat or PWC owners have found it beneficial (or necessary) to maintain your battery year-round using a trickle charger. I recently got advice from the service department where I take my PWC to always use a trickle charger, even in the summer and even when the battery is...

What is the most you've ever spent on first-class, long haul international airline tickets, as a percentage of your annual SWR spend. For example, if your annual SWR spend were $100k and you spent $5k on first-class, roundtrip tickets to Iceland, then your answer is would be 5%. I ask because...

Just a heads up for fellow Vanguard users. I recently enabled the "restrict access from unrecognized devices" security feature in my accounts. Seemed like a good way to add an additional layer of security. I typically only ever use my desktop web browser or my laptop browser to log into...

DW and I decided to do a one-month free trial of Walmart+. So far, our experience hasn't been great. Every delivery so far (out of 3 total) has had missing/undelivered items. Once it was because an entire bag wasn't delivered (overlooked by the driver, left in the truck), and twice because items...

For a while now (couple years, at least) I've noticed that we don't watch nearly as much stuff on Amazon Prime as we do on Netflix or HBO Max. And until last night, I wasn't entirely sure why. But as I was scrolling through the "My Stuff" section in Prime, it suddenly dawned on me. There was a...

Having just returned from a weeklong, cross-country trip for a cousin's wedding and some sightseeing/vacationing in the area, I can safely say that the travel situation in the U.S. right now is... well, to put it kindly... a bit of a disaster. So this post is my "word to the wise" for those of...

Is it a reasonable thing to do to try to get competitive bids for a plumbing repair job at a second home? The home in question is used only occasionally/sporadically, so while it would be ideal to get the repair done ASAP, it can wait for a little while until the right bid comes along...

I'm in the process of shopping my auto & homeowners insurance around for competitive quotes, and I realized that I actually don't have a good handle on how much liability coverage I should have for things like property damage and bodily injury. The default numbers that come up for most online...

I've been getting some strange texts and WhatsApp messages recently, and my best guess is that they're an odd, new form of phishing. Just got one now on WhatsApp from "Cristy": And yesterday I got this strange one as a regular text message: Prior to maybe six months ago, I might have...

I've been using a very basic, lockable file cabinet for many years now to keep small valuables stored away and hidden when I travel. The cabinet is small (only two drawers) and cheap, definitely not meant to offer security approaching what even the cheapest home safe could provide, yet I've felt...

I noticed this morning that the E-R.org app for Android isn't working properly on my Samsung tablet. When I open it, the splash screen appears for a few seconds and then I get two errors. "Network error, please try again later.", and "java.lang.RuntimeException: Register silent token failed". I...

I think I know the answer to this, but want to ask just to be sure. Is there no way to be notified (say, via e-mail) when someone quotes me in a thread? I've found that, over the years, I've missed/overlooked replies where someone has quoted me, only to discover them days or weeks later...

I'm wondering if there has been any revision to the guidance we all heard last year (and even back in mid/late 2020) that COVID infection happens primarily via respiratory pathways and not by touching surfaces. To this day, I still don't feel comfortable touching "public" surfaces like pump...