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New year, new thread. Here is 2023 https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/blow-that-dough-2023-a-116450.html

Probably many of you know this already but I was surprised to find that you can now do a mobile paper check deposit with an app of up to $500,000. Last week my daughter, here in England, received a paper check for well over $100k and asked me for advice on how best to deposit it. (this was the...

Well over 10 years ago Chip and PIN (no signature ever needed) became the norm over here to cut down on fraud but if the physical card was stolen along with the address of the owner then it is still possible to have it used fraudulently online. Our daughter moved back to England recently and...

Does anyone have experience in using esims instead of or as well as a physical sim in their phone? Yesterday we bought new iPhones and while talking with the incredibly helpful and personable salesman at the Apple store we told him that we planned on holding onto one of the phones to give to...

I did my first Roth IRA distribution this week and was amazed to discover that Vanguard stated that IRS rules require a minimum 10% tax withholding. We've never had to make withholdings when doing IRA to Roth conversions even though they are taxable by the IRS.* No tax will be due on my Roth...

I listened to a news story this morning about the latest findings more than 10 years after HPV vaccines were offered to girls in the UK between the ages of 11 and 13. Already they are talking about the near future when routine pap smear tests become 2 or 3 times in a woman's lifetime instead of...

My wife and I volunteered for this, have passed the initial online screening and go to a hospital in Newcastle in a few days time for final screening and hopefully receive our 2nd jab as part of this trial. With all that has been going on with our son we figured volunteering for this would be a...

A few weeks ago we bought a flat pack greenhouse online which arrived with many, many, parts, dozens of nuts, bolts, wire clips and screws plus over 20 panes of toughened glass. We could have had the company come and install it for £300 but reckoned we could do it ourselves. The instruction...

To save hijacking the thread where I posted that our son had tested positive for Covid I decided to start a new thread as folks seem to be interested, and it gives me a chance to share what we are going through with my friends here.

Since retiring in 2010 I have been receiving a standard pension from my ex-employer in the USA reported on a 1099-R plus a SERP. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/serp.asp Through 2019 the SERP has been reported on a W-2 in which the gross payment was recorded in box 1 as per regular W-2s...

Our son took a year off work. He starts work again next week but he quit his job end of 2019 and no income for all of 2020. He usually files using my copy of TurboTax so it won’t cost him anything to file. He owes nothing in taxes and is owed nothing. He recently received his $600 stimulus...

Just got this email today from my electricity supplier. 4 free hours of electricity on Christmas morning. I have signed up and look forward not only to cooking dinner for free, but charging our solar panel batteries and using our 2 space heaters to heat the house that morning - forecast is for...

My wife’s sister in Edinburgh (age 65) has just had confirmation that she has an aortic dissection, which is a tear in the inner wall of the aorta coming out of the heart. She sees a consultant on Tuesday for more tests and to get an idea of timing for when the surgery will take place. The...

Background I retired early at age 55 in 2020 and as well as receiving a regular DB pension reported each year on a 1099-R I also receive a non-qualified pension reported each year on a W-2. I pay Louisiana State tax each year because I receive W-2 payments. I have just received a letter from...

This article explains why at certain times of the year the over production of electricity results in the prices going negative and the company pays you the consumer for using electricity. I have just received an alert that the prices are going negative between 1 and 7am so I have just set the...

One of the power companies here, Octopus, is now providing an optional tariff called agile pricing so that customers with stored energy, from batteries (inc. EVs), or with solar panels in the summer can lower their electricity bills. They provide a spreadsheet showing the whole of 2018 with half...

We just returned from 2 weeks visiting Paris and London via train, metro and London Underground (Tube). Train to Paris was easy, get on in the north of England (Darlington) at 8:27am, one change of train and step off in the center of Paris at 2:21pm. (1:21pm UK time). Passport control was in...

For those of you that need to transfer money abroad I expect that you've heard of TransferWise as being both new to the market and recognised as the most cost effective way to send money. I used to use HiFx then they dropped all US customers living in the USA so I switched to mostly using...

Today I went for my 3 month follow-up appointment after my AF ablation surgery. The Kardia device from Alivecor I bought a year ago is well known by members on this site and the traces I took myself and gave to the doctors was very helpful to them as they could never capture my heart in AFib...

This morning I woke up to see a fraud alert from our US bank. We live in England and the alert was for 2 charges to our bank account using our debit card in a Safeway grocery store in Arizona. The charges were $50 and $4.58. I called the bank to confirm that it was not us and to cancel the card...

I had been aware of this tactic of and was always very careful when paying invoices that I received by email. Last week I received an invoice from the landscaper who had been working on our garden for a couple of weeks. I did my usual process of setting up the contractor as a new payee in my...

Yesterday I had cryoballoon AF Ablation under a local anesthetic at 10am and was eating lunch by 1pm. I was kept under observation for a few hours and released once the wound in the groin was sufficiently healed, plus I had several ekgs and blood pressure readings to confirm all was well. It was...