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Thanks for your thoughts. I am schizophrenic on bonds. I have funds and I purchased individual bonds. I appreciate the debate and I see both sides of the issue. But, my question is slightly different than just an individual bonds vs. bond funds question. I am asking whether it makes sense...

Had two Muni Bonds called. Sad to see the 5% tax free go in taxable account. But, I am amazed that California waited this long. :) I am debating whether to follow what has been my normal strategy and put the money into a total bond fund (at Fidelity). Or, should I grab a 1 year treasury...

I don’t see how it is a wash now or ever? I pay nearly 10% in state taxes now. If I move to a 0% income tax state, I save 10% in taxes regardless of what the federal government does. That is one of the reasons I am not converting to a Roth IRA now.

2 Additional Factors 2 more factors to consider. These stopped me from making Roth conversions. 1. LTCG’s are taxed at $0 up the $80K or so. If you have $80K Or more of LTCG’s each Year as I do, any Roth conversion adds 25-27% in taxes on the first $80K or so. That is a pretty big hill to...

Thanks again everyone for your thoughts. I just pulled the trigger and bought a 2 year subscription for $59.99. I don’t love it. But, it is the only game in town.

Thanks for helping me think this through. I didn’t pull the trigger on the Quicken subscription because it bugged me that they were forcing me to give up 2.5 months of my current product. But, I have way too many transactions to start from scratch. So, I don’t think I have any other options...

Actually, I don't think it is asking too much to ask Quicken to make it possible to export a data file that works. Why do they have that function if it can't be used for anything. So, yes, I honestly expect them to provide something that works. Is there any other investment tracking product...

I don't have hundreds or thousands. Most of my transactions are monthly/ quarterly dividend reinvestment or similar. But, I have enough transactions that it would be a pain to enter them manually. Plus, I think I would find the lack of up to date valuations to be confusing.

All true. But, it stinks that Quicken's product is so bad that it doesn't easily transfer files to other products like Moneyspire and the product you tried. Quicken is forcing me to continue using their product because I can't transfer the data from their product to another product. Kind of...

Well, I REALLY wanted Moneyspire to work. But, after spending a few hours trying to make it work, I couldn’t. I followed the manual (read the whole thing—see I told you I wanted this to work) and watched videos. But, when I export and import my Quicken files there are huge errors. I even...

How does Moneyspire do in tracking investment basis and trades. As I said above, I only use Quicken 3-4 times per year to quarterly download my transactions and to periodically check basis information to determine which lots to donate to charity or to sell. If it can do that reliably, then I...

That is an interesting idea. How do you deal with no updates to the values of the assets? Also, what happens if (when?) Quicken decides to hang it up because their customer base is dwindling? I'm certainly not opposed to learning how to do this myself. But, I still worry that this would be a...

Another 2016 Q user here. I am also struggling with what to do. I hate subscription models. I also fear that the Quicken market is shrinking and will continue to shrink. I use Quicken strictly to keep track of basis information for my holdings. All of my holdings prior to the time that...

Thanks for putting this together. It provides an interesting reality check on my future plans.

Funny you should ask right now. In the last 8 years, I’ve been working less and less instead of outright retiring. Loving it by the way! But, I’ve still covered all of my expenses with my work income. So, I’m not in the decumulation phase just yet. However, I was recently asked by a...

Whew! I-ORP is pretty complicated on the first use. But, I think I've got a rough idea based on running two identical runs one with Roth conversions and one without as you recommended. ORP would have me convert all of my tax deferred to Roth. However, the identical runs show a relatively...

Started playing with IORP. It doesn't show anything in the Roth category. Does that mean that it is telling me not to do a Roth conversion?

Thanks Thanks very much for the links and all of the information that you've all shared! Very helpful. I've started reading and learning already. I didn't remember that I could report the I bond interest yearly. That is worth considering. But, most of my bonds were purchased over 3...

Sorry for the hyperbolic title. I am in the happy situation where I have a large IRA balance as well as a large investment in I bonds. I am still 17 years away from RMD's. Unfortunately, the RMD's start the same year that the last of the I bonds mature. As a result, I could have a very...

I am helping my mother with her Required Minimum Distributions. Last year, she made some charitable contributions with a portion of her RMD. I know that congress hasn't extended that deduction, yet. I am wondering if it is still worth it to have a portion of her RMD sent to a charity...

Right. Thanks. I've got to get into the thought pattern of annual rebalancing when redeeming. I'm used to buying new products with new money to rebalance. But, I'm not used to selling to rebalance. With the expectation of routine stock outperformance compared to fixed income, I could be...

I follow the concept. But, how does firecalc include the costs of switching to higher interest rate products? For example, if you are currently holding total bond index fund, the NPV of the fund will decrease with every interest rate increase. Similarly, I currently hold a chunk of individual...

OK. I am embarrassed to say that I just saw the little box that allows you to ask for a spreadsheet from firecalc. :facepalm: This very valuable tool allows me to see the value of my portfolio over time as well as the inflation adjusted portfolio value. Just exactly what I was looking for...

Yes, that is what I plan to do. I've played with firecalc and it shows 100% success. But, I don't know how to tell the actual portfolio values other than guessing from the chart. And, without the numbers, I can't tell if I'm keeping up with inflation. Firecalc calculates success at never...

Thank you for your response. Your spreadsheet is very interesting. I'm also very happy with your conclusion that the stock portion only needs to average 6.1%. But, I'll confess that I'm not understanding how that happens. I assume this has to do with compounding of both returns and...