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Excel with a twist. We have too many accounts and holdings, old 401(k)s and whatnot. As I have whittled away at our portfolio, consolidating accounts, my goal has been to get it all to fit on one printed page from excel. This may be an irrational compulsion but it has guided my efforts to...

A few years ago I was driving on a freeway in New Hampshire. A guy on a motorcycle passed me. He was wearing a nylon jacked that was flapping in the wind. As he went by, a bill of undetermined denomination escaped his jacket pocket and fluttered away. Another, then another. He was going...

This is a great question! We have a great detached garage/shop with our single family home. We will both retire shortly. We are considering moving to another town about an hour from here. One thought is to rent out the house while retaining access to the shop. It would not be close enough...

Rapping lifters I had a VW Syncro. Awesome car! I changed the oil every 5000 miles. The lifters would start rapping after about 1000 miles. They would get louder and louder until I changed the oil. Then all was quiet again....Placebo? No way! None of my other cars have ever savored fresh...

We love New England seasons, coastline and mountains but hate the New England traffic associated with the northern extent of the East Coast Megalopolis. It's back to school time here and the roads are clogged! We are half-in, half-out of the workforce now and thinking about splitting our time...

Edward Jones, I'm guessing.

We have one at work. Couldn't live without it We make all kinds of fixtures, prototypes and mockups with it. We started off slowly but once we realized all the useful parts it could produce we have kept it very busy. Some of the big jobs run overnight. An occasional boat part comes out of...

Capitol and capital: The Capitol is a specific building in Washington DC, our nation's capital. The difference between capital and capitol (grammar lesson)

Buying or selling? Majority or minority interest? Profitable? There are many aspects to consider.

We just completed a transaction with Vanguard that required a "signature guarantee". Our local bank was happy to guarantee our signatures as long as the word "medallion" was not anywhere on the form. No reference to the dollar value of the transaction was necessary. Maybe check again to see...

No, you are not alone. I cannot stand animated ads and popup. I have Firefox locked down with Adblock Plus and NoScript. These tools are very effective at letting only the content you want through. Sometimes NoScript is a little too aggressive at blocking content but you can adjust what...

I'm pretty sure Fidelity knows that these calculations should be based on expenses and not income. But most people don't know what their annual expenses are. Everybody knows what their income is. I have no idea what our expenses are. I have never tracked expenses. I just know if the...

Earthlink cable (through Comcast), $49/mo no contract: 25Mb down, 3.8 up according to Speakeasy. No outages in over a year. We used to have Earthlink DSL through Verizon for $10 less but it was very unreliable.

Vanguard planner was very helpfull +1 We have had two planning sessions with Vanguard, once a few years ago and again recently after a windfall. I found them to be very helpful though you can tell they are canned. The most recent planner validated my portfolio strategy but was pretty...

FWIW, we just activated a refurbished iPhone 4 on Straight Talk prepaid service for our son. $15 for a microSIM and $45/month for unlimited voice, text and data. So far, so good. Straight Talk is affiliated with Tracfone.

Thanks. I had to read this twice before I understood it. This is a way to correct for underpaying estimated taxes earlier in the year.

Two engineers, here. I'm not too surprised by the strong engineering presence on the ER board. Engineering is a profession with a fairly narrow income range where if you LBYM you have a shot at ER. We also tend to be obsessive.

+1 And thanks to all who helped me out with my estimated tax question. I have a much better idea what to do now. F&J

This is what I need to do. Thanks!

Yes, Turbotax spits out est. tax payments when I print our return. I always wonder how they come up with the numbers.

Thanks, Rita. I use TurboTax... but it seems to base estimated taxes on previous year data. My problem is that my previous year data is not valid for projecting 2012 taxes.

So, I had a windfall from the sale of a business interest at the end of 2011.(:)) I invested most of it in Vanguard funds. Our tax landscape is altered and I need to recalibrate our estimated tax payments. Since our taxes will be substantially lower this year, we don't have a safe-harbor...

We have had several Tracfones over the years. One hitch we have encountered is that they cannot transfer minutes from the old phone to the new one if the old phone is dead. The minutes are stored in the phone. You may be able to find someone in the organization who can/will give you a break...

Okay, So here's a question. I have a large slug of money set aside to pay taxes on a windfall on April 15th. Right now it is in the bank at 0.95%. Would it be appropriate to put it in VFSUX for 2-1/2 months? Is that too short term?

I didn't mean to disparage your son by generalizing about teenagers. But, recently, I discovered an unknown computer on our home network. My son had generously shared his login credentials with a friend who was visiting. No harm done but these things happen.