May I have your thoughts on this, please?

[AlmostDone]

I have finally finished moving our funds from Merrill Lynch to Vanguard. This is what I have now. I will be selling the Calamos (ER is 1.8%, almost done with the back-end fee). I would like to get rid of the small stock amounts. These were mostly gifts from my parents. The Legg Mason is in DH's current 403B in 6 different funds, so that needs some work. Any other thoughts on consolidating or is the rest reasonable? The percentages are of our total portfolio.

Symbol Fund

IRAs - Roth and Traditional, and 403Bs

VIVAX VG Value Index 4.6
CVTCX Calamos G & I 8.7
VWELX Wellington 10.8
VISVX Small Cap Value Index 5.7
VSCGX VG LS Conservative Growth 17.5
Legg Mason 3.1
VGTSX Total Int'l Stock Index 8.7
VIPSX VG Inflation Protected 7.8
FAGIX Fidelity Capital & Income 1.4
VFSTX Short Investment Grade 7.8
CD @ 5.25% due 6/28 5.5
Home Depot 1.4

Taxable:
VVA-Balanced 2.2 Annuity exchanged from ML
VVA-International 4.7 Annuity exchanged from ML
VWELX Wellington 3.2
VMSXX Tax-exempt MM 3.1
CVTCX Calamos G & I 0.4
CitiGroup 0.4
Intel 0.17
Pfizer 0.11
Verizon 0.26
Vodafone 0.53
CD @ 5.35% due 6/28 0.84

 

[JustCurious]

My advice is to put all of your retirement funds into one mutual fund....the target retirement fund that is the closest to your retirement year (without going under your retirement year).

 

[LOL!]

If parents gave you stock shares as gift then your cost basis is their cost basis which may be difficult to determine. I suggest you give away those stock shares to charity yourselves rather than try to figure out the cost basis. You get a tax deduction as well and avoid the cap gains taxes. You do not need to give the shares away all at once, but can give some away over the next several years.

 

[ats5g]

AlmostDone,

You seem to have both taxable bonds [in Wellington + CD's] as well as a tax exempt MM in your taxable account. Given your tax bracket which type of bonds make more sense to the taxable account: 1) fully taxable or 2) municipal?

If munis make more sense you can always switch out the Wellington from the taxable account into the tax deferred accounts with Total International.

- Alec

 

[SteveR]

To determine what to do one requires knowledge of where you wish to go.

What is your saving horizion?
What is your risk tolerance?
What is your tax situation?
What is your health insurance coverage situation?
etc.

 

[LOL!]

To add to the "give away" the stocks idea, my broker (TDAmeritrade) does not appear to charge to do the gifting. Or if it does (and the recipient pays the commission), we still get to deduct the full value of stock as a charitable contribution. Anyways, it's a much, much better deal for us than if we had sold the stock and donated the cash.

 

[AlmostDone]

AlmostDone,

You seem to have both taxable bonds [in Wellington + CD's] as well as a tax exempt MM in your taxable account. Given your tax bracket which type of bonds make more sense to the taxable account: 1) fully taxable or 2) municipal?

If munis make more sense you can always switch out the Wellington from the taxable account into the tax deferred accounts with Total International.

- Alec

Right now we are both still working, so the tax bracket is 25%. I am planning to quit on 8/31, which will still leave us in that bracket for the 2007 tax year. I don't plan to withdraw anything until 2008 at the earliest.

I don't know anything about munis, but I'll read up on them. I plan to take funds from the taxable account first, so I need to get it set up for that purpose. There is currently 185k in the taxable account, including the annuities. We will need to withdraw $36k per year. I've read here about structuring ladders for this purpose. I would appreciate your suggestions.