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I left my fulltime job in August (hooray) and decided to apply for health insurance through the California exchange, CoveredCA. I was able to sign up for a Kaiser Permanente Bronze high-deductible plan, and the web site said it would submit my info to Kaiser and that Kaiser would bill me...

A bit of self-centered musing: Recently I hit a significant milestone in my FIRE portfolio. It so happens that in 1996, my then-SO introduced me to the concept of index investing, and I created my first spreadsheet projecting my net worth. It made assumptions about stock returns (I started...

Don't remember seeing this posted here before: 101 New Uses for Everyday Things | RealSimple.com I was surprised by this one: 5. Loosen caked-on food from a pan. Place a fresh sheet in the bottom of a dirty pan, fill with lukewarm tap water, and let sit in the sink overnight. The pan...

My employer recently decided to stop offering my particular group health insurance plan which I've been on for several years. Instead, employees are being offered a different set of group plans which are significantly more expensive. Since my current plan is an HMO, I will not be able to...

Q for anyone who's had recent experience with mortgage lenders: I'm currently planning to buy a home (either SFH, condo, or townhouse) and am shopping mortgage lenders and looking at rates. Some of the rates for the online-only lenders (like Amerisave) look good, but are there any drawbacks to...

I've used TaxCut from H&RBlock to prepare my taxes for several years. This year for the first time, I paid over $300 in foreign taxes due to my holdings in Euro and Pacific funds/ETFs. I entered the foreign tax payments (as part of the 1099-DIV info) into TaxCut, but Taxcut put "0" for my...

During the 2008 market dip, I did some tax loss harvesting and ended up with EEM instead of VWO for my emerging markets fund. I'd prefer to hold VWO long term (for one, EEM has an Expense Ratio of .68, vs .22 for VWO), but am now "stuck" with a large capital gain in EEM in a taxable account...

I just got a letter from PenFed offering me free $1000 Accidental Death and Dismemberment insurance coverage, with no medical exams or health questions. It says this coverage is paid for by PenFed, provided I return the Activation form. This looks legit, and I'm leaning towards not turning...

A few weeks ago I traveled out of town to visit a new friend. She was a very gracious hostess and put me up in her spare room, cooked for us, etc. Her BF bought us dinner a couple times. Throughout my few-day visit I repeatedly offered to pay for things, to buy groceries, etc, and was politely...

Google News the other day linked to this Newsweek article: The Scariest Earthquake Is Yet to Come - Newsweek which from the headline already seemed alarmist. I got more and more incensed as each new paragraph mixed unfounded conjectures (sometimes flat-out wrong ones) with emotionally charged...

I belong to a musician's association that advertises group health insurance through The Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust (TEIGIT). Although I'm currently covered through my employer, I thought I'd check out whether the TEIGIT option would be a feasible backup plan in ER. I was...

Last month I noticed an unauthorized charge while looking at my credit card activity online. It was a single transaction for several hundred dollars, and no other unusual activity since. Well since I'd heard this was fairly common and easy to take care of, I called my CC company to dispute the...

Ok all you LYBM-ers - if you had unlimited money to spend on a few items of your choosing, what would they be? I guess it's easier to limit it to just a few items, otherwise we might wind up with long lists of worthy charities (not that that's bad, but not quite what I'm aiming to ask here)...

just a heads up.

Over the weekend I was in a freeway collision which has probably sent my 10-year-old car to the big wrecking lot in the sky. Fortunately no persons were injured. Since I don't carry collision coverage on the car (was only worth a few thousand), I'm guessing I have to find an independent auto...

Looks like Charlie Munger will be speaking in my area soon - anyone want to weigh in on whether this would be worth going to see?

I just tried to sign up for a Vanguard account through their web site, and nearly changed my mind due to the bad impression I got. I'm hoping to open a general investing account with an ACAT transfer of a Vanguard fund from another brokerage. 1) The site wouldn't display the FAQs or begin the...

I've been waffling about whether to sell an individual small-cap stock for tax-loss purposes. This isn't a large fraction of my portfolio, but I'm not all that accustomed to harvesting losses so I figure this may be a good exercise for some larger holdings down the line. To put it in...

Along the lines of the whole wheat pasta thread - got any tips to share? I like yogurt with different kinds of fruit mixed in, so I used to buy the single serving sizes from the grocery. Took me awhile, but recently I realized it's both healthier and cheaper to buy a big tub of plain yogurt...

As I watch the effects of compounding on my portfolio, I wonder when, if ever, I might stop contributing while still letting the portfolio grow on its own. Do you have a milestone where you would stop contributing to your portfolio? I tend to think in terms of what percentage of my total...

I've heard folks say to self insure as much as possible, because in theory your losses should average out over time and cost less than paying insurance premiums over the same period. In theory, I could cover the loss of a brand new car (about $20k for me) with my emergency fund, but I generally...

I'm often guilty of over analyzing things, and this may be yet another instance. In Feb, I posted my proposed asset allocation here and got much useful feedback. I'm still happy with the AA I decided to go with, but now am wondering if there's really any advantage to doing a "slice and dice"...

Inspired by the "Stupid Mistakes" thread: What lucky things/events have most contributed to your ability to FIRE? For me: stumbling into a career in IT near the beginning of the 90's tech boom. Having a friend spreadsheet-demonstrate the power of compounding just as I began having money to invest.

I've been overthinking this way too long, so it's time to just spew my current ideas and hope they make sense. My aim is to tweak the AA to be a Bernstein-style slice and dice portfolio (I just read "The Intelligent Asset Allocator" and found it very useful). Here's what's proposed. I lean...

So this issue has been bugging me for a while, and I haven't found any info online that covers it specifically :D I'm considering transferring (ACAT) an account containing both stocks and funds to another brokerage. How do you deal with using the specific identification method to sell shares...