Recent content by steelhead

I saw the article too. I've been drinking Athletic for maybe six months and enjoy it. To me, it's not as full-bodied as my favorite Sierra Nevada, but it's good and I'm happy to cut back on the alcohol a bit.

We had a revocable trust set up last year mostly to avoid CA probate fees. Along with our house, we put our Vanguard joint taxable account in it because Vanguard did not allow us to add secondary beneficiaries to the joint taxable account. My DW has a smaller separate brokerage to which she...

Vanguard has Qualified Dividend % estimates at https://advisors.vanguard.com/tax-center/qualified-dividend-income

Covered CA We just renewed our Covered CA Anthem Blue Cross Silver Plan for 2015. Premiums increased about 6.2%, but all of that appears to be related to DW and me being a year older. When I reduced our ages by one year, the premium for 2015 is the same as 2014.

In California, my understanding is that balance billing an insured patient for emergency room care by an out-of-network physician is illegal. Kaiser has a chart listing the various state approaches. State Restriction Against Providers Balance Billing Managed Care Enrollees | The Henry J...

I don't think you can fairly use the .1% decrease across the Anthem plans (all medals) to conclude that the expected 2.9% decline for a Bronze Plan shows that there's a net increase of 2.8% in the cost of that Bronze Plan. The Standard Bronze $5,000 deductible plan that you've highlighted has...

Connecticut Connecticut rejected Anthem's (the state's largest insurer) 12%+ initial proposed rate hike and the revised number was an average decrease of .1%. I don't think the PWC graph includes that update, but I couldn't find any links to the source material on the PWC graph. After rate...

The 11.7% increase for Arkansas in that PWC graph is not consistent with more recent reports. Looks like the Arkansas exchange rates will decrease by 2% for 2015. Good for the folks of Arkansas. Arkansas, home to key Senate race, announces rate decreases on Obamacare exchange - Washington...

A downside to using the Vanguard Target Date funds is that they use investor shares of the underlying funds rather than admiral shares, so a DIY portfolio with admiral shares will lower your expense ratio. You also lose some ability to hold different asset classes most tax efficiently (e.g...

92% of our taxable equity dividends were QDI for 2013.

Taxable accounts: 56%. Tax deferred: 35% Tax free: 9%.

Anthem finally took my payment! I can hardly believe it. :dance: Thanks for the tip TromboneAl.

TromboneAl: Would you tell me if your payment took overnight to post? I logged in to Anthem this morning after seeing your post (Thanks!) and paid with a checking account. I got a nice payment confirmation but it still has not posted on our bank account.:( Usually those payments at Costco or...

I've been looking into a rollover from my former employer HSA account with Chase, and it looks like HSA Bank will be the best option for me. I understand I can avoid monthly fees on the account by keeping just about $5,000 in the cash account and I can invest the balance of the rollover in...

We tracked our expenses with Quicken for about a decade before retiring. It has been an indispensable part of our planning.