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I've seen good advice re: other home repairs and thought I'd ask. Our house has a metal roof (20 years old) and a very small area (maybe 180 square feet total) of flat roof that was rolled tar paper. The flat area leaked and we had a roofing company come and replace with TPO roof. One piece of...

My MIL (age 80's) recently lost her husband who had managed all her accounts. She does not want to do any internet banking/etc and has asked her children for help. She would only need them to help set her up with a higher interest savings account and CD's (and have the ability to help her...

I was just wondering if someone could explain to me the actuary reason why simple joint SPIA (man and woman) pays higher than a single woman? (per blueprint site) I understand why a single man would pay more than a single woman - but can't figure out the joint (unless being married decreases a...

hello I realize that in general withdrawals are assumed to be inflation adjusted over time. But - if I choose a spending level in firecalc and then put retirement date for 10 years later - is the spending adjusted for inflation for the 10 years before retirement- or is the spending start on the...

Hello A family member of mine is visiting to check out UW's school of engineering. He has done quite well with his early community college - advanced math and science and really wants to study aerospace engineering (he is just starting his second year). Would either of the museums be an...

Hello all- I've read the washington state law re: annuities and creditors. I get that up to $3000/month distribution is exempt from creditors. What I can't understand in the language (I did read the actual statute - just don't understand all of it) is if an asset accumulation annuity (i.e...

I worked for the California University system for several years. They did not contribute to social security but put money into a ?403k? I don't even remember what the account was. I also made some voluntary contributions. At some point I rolled the whole thing over into a Vanguard IRA (along...

Hello I have a MacBook and so the detailed social security calculator from the government site doesn't work for me. Most of my social security contributions are in years I've made the max contribution level (I'm ignoring all the years at <$8000/yr income) I have been guesstimating social...

Wondered if anyone saw the Steve Vernon's column about another group's proposals to shore up social security. The part that really caught my eye - b/c I hadn't seen this proposed before - was "Apply the benefit formula annually to earnings to more evenly reward continued work. For example, the...

Ok. So I thought I was getting really clever by figuring out the harvesting of capital losses and I exchanged my broad international stock fund for a similar but actively managed fund about a month ago. My brilliant plan was to exchange it back after I passed the 30 day (60 total) wash sale...

Was trying to help a friend. Wanted to keep her above medicaid level but otherwise as low as possible. I might have overshot the IRA contribution and gotten her below the approx 16,300$ threshold for medicaid (in a state that did expand medicaid). Would she lose her aca subsidy she already got...

Thought I would double check my thinking on gifting some stocks to my partner (have to admit, I'm not really looking for feedback on the idea of gifting money, more the details... having said that, to satisfy curiosity - my reasons for gifting are to help us be a bit more "partners" financially...

I found a couple old threads related to these, but didn't seem many had ventured this route at the time. Wondering if now anyone has any experience with these. They are sold through immediate annuities.com which generally seems like a valuable website? I appreciate the loss of liquidity risk as...

This is one of those silly questions I've researched and think I understand, but want to double check. I'm an index investor and mostly in the total stock market vanguard funds. I'm thinking about "cash flow" once I retire and want to make sure I understand dividends. I get the "total returns"...

Hello all - I resigned from my job (no, not retired yet!). Gave the required 3 month notice. I won't be done until late March, but the 401 match (and profit sharing) for 2014 isn't done/distributed until april. I'm assuming I miss out - but wanted to ask you smart folks to make sure (since I...

I enjoy the firecalc calculator very much but have recently been getting some results I don't understand when I try to use the "random performance" under the "your portfolio" tab. 3% withdrawal for 40 years with 50/50 portfolio = 100% If I change to the "random performance" - 3% inflation, 9%...

I've been meaning to introduce myself, but its hard to "sum" up all financial thoughts! (and I'm not as poetic as some posters). But I do appreciate the forum and all the time you all have spent developing it so... I have always been LBYM's type. In my early days it was more of the "live simply...