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    Restaurant adding fee for use of credit card

    Only one of our favorite restaurants is doing this, and he is a small operator who keeps his prices very reasonable. I don't mind his 2-1/2% surcharge because he is very fair to start with, and essentially we split the difference, since I get 5% cashback on my CC. When the big chains start...
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    Asset Allocation and Fund Location for Early Retirement

    I retired 10+ years ago (the wife had done so 4 years before me). I did not sweat the details like you are now, and stayed then and still are now, largely invested in the stock market. More important than buckets and how much should be in stocks versus bonds, the more important thing should be...
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    Calamos Structured Protection ETFs

    Bingo. The caveats on this product make it not worth the effort. I can almost guarantee any investor will be better off putting the same amount of money into a combo of an S&P500 ETF and either a Total Bond ETF or Treasuries. The only people making good money off this Calamos offering will be...
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    Use It or Lose It Letter From Credit Card

    I have a number of CCs all paying me cashback for various transactions. Also received a similar notice recently for a card I haven't used in years, particularly since it had nothing to warrant me using it anymore over my other cards. Normally I would make a charge and keep it, but in this case...
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    Airline mileage programs

    I have a goodly number of credit cards that I use for various items, since most emphasize different things for their highest cash back amounts. I only use cash back cards since retiring ten years ago. We don't fly any more after I did so much for years, and my wife always hated flying anyways...
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    How to deal with taxable holdings with large gains

    Be very careful of the IRMMA hell. We are in our second year of it and it is painful. I made sure it ends after this year but I had some trading get out of hand 2-3 years ago, so both mine and my wife's SS and Medicare checks were lowered substantially.
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    Condo common area cleaning dilemma

    My wife and I said years ago that we would never get ourselves involved in any HOA or condo association type of situation, both for the (sometimes) onerous HOA fees and for exactly the kinds of situations noted here by the OP. At 70 and 71 years of age we are still happily ensconced in our...
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    What If Fed Rate Hikes Are Actually Sparking US Economic Boom?

    As others have stated, it depends. I carry a lot of higher dividend paying equities in tax-advantaged accounts, and I have layered a number of CDs at our bank, but not enough to move the needle overall. If I had my choice it would also be lower inflation and lower interest rates. The current...
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    Five Years Retired: Lessons Learned

    I have one point and one question: 1. Disability insurance - while there may be a case here or there where it worked very well in the buyer's favor, for the most part this is one of those insurances that the provider will do all they can to not pay out. To me it is something people need to...
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    Anyone else NOT watch the news?

    Don't watch news programs anymore, outside of some CNBC for stock news and what little they comment on regarding current affairs that might get included. I prefer to get my news from a variety of online sources rather than the obviously slanted way all the networks, regardless of where they are...
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    Experience with State Farm?

    Same thing happened to us a few years before that. We had a great agent and local office but their hands were tied. Never been back to them and whenever I ask for a quote they are always much higher. Looks like they don't want the business even with folks who have spotless driving records...
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    The Eagles - Lip Syncing? Milli Vanilli redux?

    The Turtles still around? In the 1990s and 2000s we used to live in Syracuse where the NY State Fair took place. While they had modern grandstand acts that you had to pay for (they were usually horrible), they also had another stage that they brought in older acts for free. I saw people like...
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    Experience with State Farm?

    Yeah, apparently they are unaware that people actually can shop their policies. Either that or they were saying they didn't want to insure your vehicles in NYC, and just go away.
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    Experience with State Farm?

    When I was doing my research on alternative insurance providers, I used their websites to get the results of their pricing. One is particular was much higher than I was already paying so they were immediately crossed off my list. Later one of their agents sent me a message to call them because...
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    After I'm Gone

    Same difficulty I have. At 70 I still make all the investing decisions; my DW has zero interest in it, basically saying "do we have enough to get by? Great!". I have tried to make things somewhat easier by consolidating some accounts into Vanguard such as her workplace 457 plan, but I still...
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    The Eagles - Lip Syncing? Milli Vanilli redux?

    The guy on Wings of Pegasus is outstanding and very fair. I trust if he is stating this than it must be true, since he is very complementary of most musicians he reviews. As for going to see the Eagles and paying good money, these aren't the Eagles I saw back in the day. It is one thing to...
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    State Income Tax: not always perfect

    I've heard they have someplace near Orlando that brings in a lot of tourists and tax revenue. Not sure but I heard something to that effect :)
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    Update on Cord Cutting (Cable TV) - 2021 version

    I did a lot of research on the sports angle over the last few years, since I wanted to watch football and basketball for two teams (TN and Syracuse) that were on two different broadcast channels (SEC and ACC). YouTube TV was the only one that let me watch all the games either live or taped, no...
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    State Income Tax: not always perfect

    When we left a high tax state 13 years ago and settled in TN (with no state income tax), I was still working and considered a high earner. The taxes saved were incredible for the four years I kept working, and still are as our retirement income is still pretty high. Couple that with some of...
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    Would Like Input Regarding Cheap Refurb Win10 Computers

    I always buy refurbed for my own use, both desktop and laptop models. Have had good luck with Dell as well as Lenovo, which is my current desktop PC. Used to use TigerDirect but they went out of business, which surprised me since they seemed to be successful. But there are plenty of reputable...
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    Experience with State Farm?

    Not unique to SF. I believe all insurance companies do the same thing as far as considering it a claim. And since they all use the same database for most information on customers, customers are screwed no matter who they go with from the aspect of claims history.
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    Fast food _McD's fish sandwich..shrinking?

    We don't sound like our parents; we ARE our parents!
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    Fast food _McD's fish sandwich..shrinking?

    They are although more people are finding them, especially with their specialty burgers and fish sandwiches. I find the same with Burger King, who we went to recently after not being there in many years.
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    Fast food _McD's fish sandwich..shrinking?

    They most definitely have shrunk it over the years, regardless of the comments from McD's lately that they have not. TBH we don't go anymore to them for anything but breakfast, but the last time we went for lunch the shrinkage on the fish sandwich was very noticeable.
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