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It's very difficult to recall levels of emotion like concern. From a distance of a few years, I think our recollections are softened by time. My gut reaction was to vote more concerned now, mainly becasuse I was working and accumulating then, and now I'm not. But then I started remembering...

rbat, Looks like you have pretty good benefits there. While the incremental cost of the 100% survivor benefit is reasonable, it might also want to look at whats needed. There a lot of discusion about how much you need after retirement compared to before retirement, but not quite as much...

oops, - that was bi-monthly. I'll edit the orignal post. Thanks, Rick

2000 Sq Ft. Portland Oregon area. 4 bedroom, 2 bath. (all monthly values) Mortgage: 792 Insurance: $55 Property Taxes: $ 210 Electricity/heat: average: $ 202 (all electric) Sewer/Water: $65 Phone/Internet: $ 74 Trash Service: $ 25 Rick

Yeah, those look strange. The answer is that my total portfolio (cash + bonds + stock) has decreased. BY a LOT. While the percentage of equites in my total only dropped by 7%, The value of my equities dropped around 44% year to date. And I don't think anyone has ever learned anything from...

Thanks for posting the question. It clears up some of the things I didn't understand when folks talked about "cash". I keep three "buckets" I guess of cash (in savings accounts). These buckets are mainly for major expenses or emergencies, Car (either for major repair or down payment if it...

You have to decide what's best for you. But keep in mind that what you are seeing with Firecalc is the timing affect of markets. If your portfolio 'just' went into the point of not surviving 100% of the time, that's tellling you that With your current portfolio, you could STILL survive if...

I've been retired about 3.5 years with a COLA'd pension which covers about 90% of our expenses (total). (and this is before my DW's pension + SS kicks in). So I kept our allocation at around 80% Equities and 20% government bonds. I've done some minor reallocating in the prior 3 years moving...

About 42% I beleive. Rick

In the mailed statement, they assume you will have income equal to your income in the last reported year. If you use the SS calculator you can download from their site, you can enter zero amounts to get the correct expected earnings if you plan to stop working before retirement, but after the...

If you're getting over the air reception, and simply want to record for later viewing, you can buy DVD recorders that have hard drives for $240 bucks. (walMart Magnavox 2160). Hard drives will hold quite a lot, and you can always move recording to RW DVD's for watching. (these record digital...

I went through earlier this week (Monday Evening - I wonder what trigered me to do this) - Have around 8-9 years in Govt bonds. But DW will have a small pension in 3 yrs. And be eligible for SS in 6. Those combined more than cover our current style of living (assuming around 3.5 avg...

I'd give some thought to what Urchina said. Perhaps there is a non-profit place that needs a cook volunteer? Your wife could volunteer 2-3 days a week, get the satisfaction of helping, and you might even get a tax deduction for mileage for her driving. My wife has wanted to own a...

Once you've established the fund you should be able to add to it in smaller increments. There fund website should show this amount somewhere. Rick

I'm not sure if you were serious, but for last few days, I've been wondring the same thing. If this"problem" is because financial institutions have mortgages in default, then why not go to that core of the problem, and help not only the financial institutions get rid of tha risky(or bad) debt...

I watched her speech on C-Span and was pretty surprised. I had thought she supported the bill until that speech. Strange. Rick

Well I'm still in the 79% equities as of last Friday. No longer in accumulation though (in fact just the opposite). At this point I'll just hang on. Rick

I found it interesting, though I didn't entirely follow all of the details. Contrary to most here I thought the premise was reasonable. Although I wasn't sure I agreed in selecting the 8 % discount rate. Rick

I don't think you mentioned how long until your retirement. If you're all in equities, I assume you were not planning to retire in the near future. So what you might want to consider is that the Stock Market is having a SALE! And as someone mentioned, you might want to track it a little...

I don't know if it's the same, but this number would be true for CSRS employees. If you look at that thread, a bew folks pointed out that it was too early to know what it would be. That won't be known until Oct 16 release of September CPI numbers. If Sept. CPI-W is same as Aug, then 5.9 is...

If you're only down 12% from the third qtr., then your not doing bad at all. If I were you I'd stick with what youre doing. Rick

CPI is a gauge - it's useful for that purpose. It's also interesting to look at on Regional basis. I've monitored my expenses for over 10 years - and the year to year changes are highly variable to me. The largest annual increase was 13.4% and the biggest decrease was -10.8 (these...

I'm at an AA of about 80/20 (Equities/Bonds). MY YTD as of last Frid was -11 % +/-. In these times I try not to figure it any more often than once a week - (though I'm guessing about -16% as of 9/15). I'm in the withdrawal phase so this includes a draw of around 2%. From what I've read...

Is that true? Are CD's insured by FDIC? I thought that just covered checking and savings deposits? Rick

I hav e a Cola'd pension that covers 90% of our expenses, so I have a 80/20 equities/bonds allocation. Rick