Recent content by orbops

I retired at 50 with $1.7M, and my wife & I had an asset allocation until that age was probably 85/15 with 48% in tIRA, 31% Roth, 21% taxable brokerage. Once I retired, I started doing small Roth conversions every year. It's been almost 8 years, and the total is now at $3.6M. I've reduced my...

Everyone should do Roth conversions to grow the Roth account as much as possible. What isn't mentioned in these comments are the flexibility a Roth account gives you. A Roth will let you pay for any unexpected expenses without having to pay any tax. For example, we are planning on buying a new...

I recently switched all my accounts at the same time from VG to Fidelity. The customer service at Fidelity was like a breath of fresh air compared to VG. Received a couple thousand bonus for moving the funds in kind. As a final note, VG even put a hold on one of my stock holdings due to some...

I'm also 57 with an 18 year time frame and do Roth conversions in the 12% bracket. I am definitely trying to put more bonds/t-bills/cds into my IRA so it doesn't grow as fast as my Roth. My view is that with a larger Roth base to work from by the time I'm using SS at 70, I can use my Roth to...

As a spreadsheet geek (former satellite engineer), I present a similar simplified chart to my wife. I would add a column that adds all your money together. Personally, I would present it as column A (Year), column B (Lisa age), column C (Scott age), column D (total money), column E (annual...

Here's the ACA calculator that I used: https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator In general, my wife and I have a silver plan with AGI of $37K and pay $50/month with a max out of pocket of $6K. I've found that if you keep your AGI < ~$45K, your rates stay low. Higher than $45K, ours...

I came across this net worth calculator in a recent Kiplinger's article on net worth. https://www.thekickassentrepreneur.com/net-worth-percentile-calculator-usa/ The percentiles seemed a bit high for net worth (which this calculator says to include your home value). What do you think of the...

I thought having the HSA was going to be a real income saver that I could use to increase my Roth conversion! Turned out that last year, I had a quadruple bypass, my gallbladder failed, and my wife suffered internal injuries from getting t-boned by a snowbird. Got the $9,300 deduction, but ended...

Since most people did not focus on the healthcare costs of ACA (Marketplace or Obamacare), I will try to. I used this calculator to get early estimates for ACA: https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ Generally, if you keep your AGI below $40K, premiums for Bronze can be <...

I noticed that your location is Oahu. Keep in mind with Vanguard that for same day wire transfers out of your account, they need to be submitted by 12:30PM ET. That burned me one time since I live on the West Coast in the Pacific timezone, where the deadline was 9:30AM.

One of the reasons I left Vanguard this year was sending an email question, and having to wait a week for a response. Now that I moved everything over to Fidelity, I have a dedicated local person in my area that I can call and get a response within 24 hours. Even when I was moving my account...

I retired at 50 back in 2017 with 1.7M total (1.2M in retirement & 0.5M in taxable). It's just my wife and I and we spend about $75K/year. We keep about 30% in CDs & T-bills that earn about 5% annually. After looking up what the 3 bucket strategy is, we essentially follow buckets 1 & 3, and not...

My wife and I spend about $600/month for 2 people. We eat out once a week.

I retired at 50, and we initially were at 85/15. Now we're at 70/30 and the DW is much happier. She would prefer 50/50 and I would prefer 80/20 - so we compromised.

This was one of the reasons I left Vanguard for Fidelity. Since signing up with Fidelity in Jan 2024, I've been in contact with Fidelity multiple times, and they always followed up quickly.