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I am curious if you have the exact same number of shares in your Roth that you had in the IRA after doing the conversion. I believe Fido would have to first sell, then buy shares to fix the price and satisfy the IRS on the value of the IRA withdrawal. But if they are doing a buy/sell when doing...

When I started gmail 18 years ago, I opened it with first.last@gmail.com. But I found that I would get email as fistlast@gmail.com, as you have pointed out. It turns out that Google strips the "." from whatever you signed-up as and that is how you are formally known to their email system. When...

EV batteries are not optimal for PV storage. When Musk first proposed the PowerWall, he was shooting from the hip and assumed the batteries used for Tesla would work fine in a PowerWall. Turns out they don't work all that well and because of that his giga-factory had to be retooled to produce...

Yes, thank you for the clarification.

A lot of the discussion here is centered on the economics of energy sources, like PV. But if you believe that climate change is one of the biggest problems we face as humans (and I do believe that) then we have to rethink the economics of energy because the energy sources that are the cheapest...

We (DW and I) spend $1200/month on groceries and alcohol and misc kitchen stuff like paper towels and dish soap. We try to eat organic and local food. We have big garden and eat a lot from it also. We have a chicken that gives us 1 egg /day. :) We have no budget for eating out but we probably...

One of the biggest road blocks is Ireland, which is part of the EU but is its own country and therefore not leaving the EU when GB leaves. But Ireland shares a long border with England and it is largely unguarded and unfenced. In fact it snakes through the middle of some towns. But if Ireland is...

You probably have an option for tax withholding to be automatically subtracted from money taken out of your IRA (Schwab does). You will get a 1099 form from your brokerage house that will have your withdrawals and the tax withholding for the year. The withdrawal counts as ordinary income. So...

The average cost among our peer nations is about half what the US spends is the main highlight. My belief is that medicine has become big business in the US and thus has powerful lobbying which keeps the business environment friendly toward the goal of making money. The AMA is complicit in this...

That and more birth control. All of our problems can be tied back to an unsustainable human population.

I would recommend that your strategy about what to do not be based on guessing what the economy is going to do, including inflation. Just have a diverse portfolio and a safe AA and you will be fine, whatever happens.

We send annual cards to a few close friends. There is something special and intimate about a handwritten note to those who are special in your life. We like sending and receiving a few and will likely continue until we cannot.

I like helping people out who are working hard and not getting paid much for it, so tipping does not bother me in the least. A woman comes over and helps DW in the garden with weeding and other things hard on my wife. She charged $15/hour and we told her she is not charging what she is worth...

I don't really rebalance, at least not in a formal sense. When making withdrawals I choose equities or bonds and that tends to push things towards my target AA, but that's about it. In any case, I doubt that I will ever again sell bonds to buy equities, although I will do the opposite. My target...

Yes that is me, but I also have tinnitus. I have found that hearing in parties is much harder than a 1-on-1 conversation. And my hearing loss is mostly in higher frequencies, so hearing women is harder than hearing men. I got hearing aids but they only improved things slightly. They did nothing...

A couple of observations on this topic: Volatility is usually defined to be the standard deviation of annual returns. In a short term market you could just say it is the standard deviation of daily valuation of the S&P 500. In any event, it is commonly associated with the standard deviation...

Seattle is going to be a mess come January as a major thoroughfare (Hwy 99, AKA, Aurora Ave) is being shut down to reroute it. Downtown Seattle is rather chaotic anyway with its rapid growth. So I would consider staying outside the city center, maybe Queen Anne or Ballard, or on the east side -...

The 4% rule assumes a lifetime of 30 years and an AA of 60/40. You can run it through Firecalc with your parameters but that will be iffy because the statistics are poor for 50 year retirements - there just aren't enough 50-year sequences in the historical record to give much confidence in...

And that is the situation - DW will use it probably 30+ hours a week and I would use it less than 5 hours. And she wants a Pro, at $600. So I am thinking for that much money I'd like to use it a bit also but my usage is going to be low so not sure it warrants a whole 2nd tablet.

My wife is an artist and wants to use the pencil-stylus with some drawing programs. She also takes photos with her phone and then composes from the pad. I want to sneak off and watch football games. :) DW is not a fan of NFL. I also do woodworking as a hobby and my hope is the pad can help with...

That is not true. Total return is based on tax consideration and the fact that there is no financial advantage taking dividends as opposed to total return. The tax advantage is that 100% of dividends are taxed while capital gains is only taxed on the gain above the basis. So, if the company...

I am used to Windows which allows multiple accounts, at least in the Pro version. So my wife and I can share the computer but we each have our own browser, email program, etc. We are about to buy a new tablet, probably an iPad, but I cannot see how we can share it so we each have our own...

Humans have been on this planet 300,000 years, give or take. For the vast majority of that time one didn't have the option of saying "hunting and gathering is bull ****, I'm not gonna do it anymore", or "tilling the land is bull ****". It is only the last 50 years that people can now say that...

The bolded part above is the operative phrase - yes, there are a lot of things now on Netflix "of interest", but not of high quality. At least not to us. One way for me to tell this is we will watch a series on Netflix and a week later I cannot even remember it. They go in one ear and out the...

This is one of those questions where the answer can really only come from you. We had a vacation home and loved it but that doesn't mean you will. It worked out well for us financially, but again, that doesn't mean it will for you. The devil is in the details. All I can say is do your homework...