Hi all...glad to find this site but now disgusted with myself!

Lisa99 said:
I am frugal in some areas...books is one of those. I really don't like to buy if I can check them out from the library. However, my education is at stake, so which books from the list below are a MUST BUY? Note: I have no interest in buying individual stock and really don't care at this point how Wall Street works (or doesn't work). I need a solid education in how to achieve FIRE.

"The Intelligent Investor"
"The Four Pillars of Investing
"The Intelligent Asset Allocator"
"Triumph of the Optimists"
"Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes"
"The Retirement Savings Time Bomb"
"Parlay Your IRA into a Family Fortune"
"Are You a Stock or a Bond"
"A Random Walk Down Wall Street"
"All About Asset Allocation"
"The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need"
"Stocks for the Long Run"
"The Coffeehouse Investor"
"The Boglehead's Guide to Investing"
"Common Sense on Mutual Funds"
"The Little Book of Common Sense"
"J.K. Lasser's Your Winning Retirement Plan"
Click to expand...

We each have our favorites but mine are "the four pillars of investing", "the only guide to a winning investment strategy you'll ever need", and "the Boglehead's guide to investing".
 
Lisa99 said:
I am frugal in some areas...books is one of those. I really don't like to buy if I can check them out from the library. However, my education is at stake, so which books from the list below are a MUST BUY? Note: I have no interest in buying individual stock and really don't care at this point how Wall Street works (or doesn't work). I need a solid education in how to achieve FIRE.

"The Intelligent Investor"
"The Four Pillars of Investing
"The Intelligent Asset Allocator"
"Triumph of the Optimists"
"Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes"
"The Retirement Savings Time Bomb"
"Parlay Your IRA into a Family Fortune"
"Are You a Stock or a Bond"
"A Random Walk Down Wall Street"
"All About Asset Allocation"
"The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need"
"Stocks for the Long Run"
"The Coffeehouse Investor"
"The Boglehead's Guide to Investing"
"Common Sense on Mutual Funds"
"The Little Book of Common Sense"
"J.K. Lasser's Your Winning Retirement Plan"
Click to expand...

Read a William Bernstein book first. He does an excellent job building an investing framework that you use and then expand as you need. His latest is The Investor's manifesto.


From his website
When I wrote The Intelligent Asset Allocator, I thought I was producing a volume for the average investor. Turns out I was wrong: the book's audience was closer to the average electrical engineer. So I tried a little harder and produced The Four Pillars of Investing. Close, but no cigar: still lots of complaints about all the math and graphs. This time around, the approach is even more down-to-earth. I think that most of my old readers, and perhaps some new ones as well, will find the contents of this work even more readable than the last two.
More to the point, the investment landscape has been so altered that I believe investors will find a fresh perspective useful. The first few chapters are available online, compliments of the good folks at Wiley. And if you just can't help yourself and want to order it online at Amazon.com, then please go ahead, make my day! (Amazon does occasionally run short; in that case, you can order the book at either Barnes and Noble or Borders.)
As always, those of you who do buy the book are hereby deputized into The Investor's Manifesto Typo Police; any one reporting bona fide specimens to tim "at" efficientfrontier.com will receive a metaphorical pat on the back from the author.
Click to expand...
The Investor's Manifesto





 
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Welcome to the forums, Lisa. The most important thing you've done is accumulate an impressive nest egg--you are much more financially savvy that some of us (okay, me) when we started reading the forum.

Don't sweat the Ameriprise stuff. Getting out of it to me is like deciding to sell a poor-performing stock on the low side but then putting the proceeds into something that will grow to your advantage vs. leaving them somewhere where they will languish (or feather the Ameriprise advisor's nest). I like that you consider the fees a sunk cost not to worry about.
 
Lisa, 5 years ago I felt just as you do today. Stick around here, you're going to do fine.

The first book I read was the Four Pillars but it turned out to be over my head for a first read. I recommend the Bogleheads Guide to Investing to start out with.

Good luck to you, you're on the right track.
 
73ss454 said:
Lisa, 5 years ago I felt just as you do today. Stick around here, you're going to do fine.

The first book I read was the Four Pillars but it turned out to be over my head for a first read. I recommend the Bogleheads Guide to Investing to start out with.

Good luck to you, you're on the right track.
Click to expand...

i agree. the boglehead's guide to investing is simple and excellent. although i just checked out some bernstein books from the library today. check them all out first, figure out which ones you like and then buy the ones you want on your book shelf. i walk into half price books about once a month looking for the ones i want (who knows, maybe some saavy person kicked the bucket and their kids are only interested in the greenbacks?).

welcome lisa.
 
Wonderful idea Ron. I hadn't thought of half-price books!
 
You can 1035 the cash value from the VUL to an annuity with no tax consequence. However, a surrender charge may apply, most VUL's have LONG surrender charges, up to 15 years or more.

You CAN NOT 1035 from an annuity to a VUL, though.......

DO NOT listen to the Ameriprise rep's suggestion he will likely have to "just leave it do its thing", and "let the cash value or dividend pay the premiums for now"...........
 
FinanceDude said:
DO NOT listen to the Ameriprise rep's suggestion he will likely have to "just leave it do its thing", and "let the cash value or dividend pay the premiums for now"...........
Click to expand...

Uh oh, someone heard the typical Ameriprise spiel before...:LOL:

Also, I would encourage you to secure a term life insurance policy before canceling the VUL especially if your health history has changed since you opened the VUL.
 
I'm a healthy 48 year old female non-smoker. No advisor can convince me that I need to pay $250/month for an insurance policy that has a death benefit of $500k!

and when he starts talking about the tax-free withdrawals that I'll be missing out on....well, he can just talk to the hand cause I'm no longer buying it.
 
and thanks for the advice Fire. I have a policy with my company and another one with my husband's. Between the two policies hubby is about $1 million richer if I kick the bucket (even without the VUL).
 
Lisa99 said:
I'm a healthy 48 year old female non-smoker. No advisor can convince me that I need to pay $250/month for an insurance policy that has a death benefit of $500k!

and when he starts talking about the tax-free withdrawals that I'll be missing out on....well, he can just talk to the hand cause I'm no longer buying it.
Click to expand...

"But, but, but.......we'll give you the AWESOME option of being able to borrow your own cash value on a policy loan for only 4%, and you won't pay taxes on getting your own money back, how cool is that"?? :whistle:
 
FinanceDude said:
You can 1035 the cash value from the VUL to an annuity with no tax consequence. However, a surrender charge may apply, most VUL's have LONG surrender charges, up to 15 years or more.

You CAN NOT 1035 from an annuity to a VUL, though.......
Click to expand...
Yep, that's what I thought I gleaned from a quick review of this situation. But in this case, the cash value is less than the premiums paid in so there's no tax consequences for taking the cash value (and thus *in this case* no point to doing a 1035), only the surrender charges -- but it may help others who may search the forum in the future with a similar question in a different situation. If the cash value were significantly higher than the premiums paid in, a tax-free 1035 exchange into a low cost annuity (such as a Vanguard variable annuity) would likely be an option worth considering since other options would trigger taxes and (if under 59 1/2) penalties.
 
Through ILL (interlibrary loan) you can borrow pretty much any book you want, probably including all of the ones on the FIRE reading list. After you borrow it and read it, you can still buy it somewhere (I'd recommend someplace like the used copies on Amazon.com -- they are usually very cheap there.)

2Cor521
 
I've never heard of interlibrary loan. I'll have to check into that because my local Las Vegas library has only 3 of the books on the list....which is shocking since there are so many retirees here!
 
Thank you for the book source Ron.
 
If you are used to doing the $2000 a month, I would keep doing it, as you are "used to" not using the money for monthly bills. One thing you could do is open an ING Direct Orange Account or a Schwab or Vanguard MM account. You can let the money accrue while you learn about doing things yourself. That way, you will build up a little "stash money" that you can "learn with" until you are comfortable working with the "serious money"...........just a thought.......

You are getting a lot of good and helpful advice on this thread from the other posters...........:)
 
Great idea Finance. The money comes from a credit union acct that is separate from our daily expense acct, so there isn't the temptation to spend it like it would be if it were in our general checking account.

I hadn't thought about opening an acct though and just putting it in a money market fund. I have an existing Schwab acct so I'll look into doing that today.
 
Lisa99 said:
Great idea Finance. The money comes from a credit union acct that is separate from our daily expense acct, so there isn't the temptation to spend it like it would be if it were in our general checking account.

I hadn't thought about opening an acct though and just putting it in a money market fund. I have an existing Schwab acct so I'll look into doing that today.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan..........:D
 
Surprisingly enough I just learned that my credit union has a higher return than the Schwab money mkt account.

Schwab's return is .02%. My credit union acct is .4% and since I'm not tempted to spend money from the credit union account I think I'll leave it there for now.

Thank you for all the suggestions - I'm learning a tremendous amount just from taking the actions that everyone is so graciously suggesting.

BTW, I've also started putting together a portfolio profile so that I can ask a question on the Boglehead forum. That exercise has been eye popping. We're all over the map with our funds and allocations....and here I thought our financial advisor knew the big picture across all of our accounts and was directing us well....NOT!
 
ziggy29 said:
Yep, that's what I thought I gleaned from a quick review of this situation. But in this case, the cash value is less than the premiums paid in so there's no tax consequences for taking the cash value (and thus *in this case* no point to doing a 1035), only the surrender charges -- but it may help others who may search the forum in the future with a similar question in a different situation. If the cash value were significantly higher than the premiums paid in, a tax-free 1035 exchange into a low cost annuity (such as a Vanguard variable annuity) would likely be an option worth considering since other options would trigger taxes and (if under 59 1/2) penalties.
Click to expand...

ziggy.......wouldn't a 1035 exchange be potentially useful even if cash value were lower than premiums paid in . That way, you would preserve the basis
(higher than cash value) and any gains in vaue up to the basis would be tax-free. Of course, you'd have to weigh that against any extra fees in the annuity and being "locked-in" until 59.5 (?) yrs old.
 
Lisa99 said:
Surprisingly enough I just learned that my credit union has a higher return than the Schwab money mkt account.

Schwab's return is .02%. My credit union acct is .4% and since I'm not tempted to spend money from the credit union account I think I'll leave it there for now.

Thank you for all the suggestions - I'm learning a tremendous amount just from taking the actions that everyone is so graciously suggesting.

BTW, I've also started putting together a portfolio profile so that I can ask a question on the Boglehead forum. That exercise has been eye popping. We're all over the map with our funds and allocations....and here I thought our financial advisor knew the big picture across all of our accounts and was directing us well....NOT!
Click to expand...
Have you looked at Schwab's High Yield savings account and compared that to any high yield account at your CU?

-- Rita
 
ING Direct Orange account is at 1.10%, I have one myself.............also, Rita has a good point. .40 is too low..........

As far as your asset allocation being all over the map, I am not surprised. Most advisors are only concerned with the money they are DRAWING a fee from. I see that happen all the time............
 
i wouldn't spend too much energy in understanding the rhyme or reason of your current AA. channel that energy into the future...BH's will tell you it is wack and to dump the FA, but you already know that.
 
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