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I'm using a Schwab Bank Pledged Asset Line of Credit on my brokerage account as bridge financing for a home purchase instead of selling the collateral, using the proceeds to buy the house and replacing it later when the old house sells. The underlying portfolio being used as collateral is a mix...

Big change soon! In the NCAA college football playoffs thread I mentioned that we were thinking of moving to Texas and aja8888 jumped right on it. Unless the home inspection tomorrow is a big fail we will be moving to Sun City Texas later this year. Quite happy to be nearer to DGS, DD...

Was talking with DS and DBIL the other day. The had an expensive new pool put in a few years ago. They have been getting hairline cracks in the cement and it loses water a little at a time. The problem is widespread in central Texas. I guess that the cause of the problem is that insufficient...

#1 Michigan vs #4 Alabama and #2 Washington v #4 Texas. All very deserving teams. 13-0 ACC champion Florida State and former #1 12-1 Georgia are probably pissed and understandably so. I think we need to select 8 and then playdown to 4 and then 2. Too many good teams.

As you may recall, we recently had GS#1 who is now 18 months old and GBaby#2 "in the oven" and my DM recent died. Part of my inheritance will include an inherited Roth IRA of ~$50k. This is money that I would never need. I'm thinking of investing the Roth for dramatic growth for the grandkids...

So RetMD21's post in the My "Best" Medigap options thread with a link to the Medicare Plan comparison tool caused me to do a quick compare of our Part D options for 2024, fully expecting that our current plan would still be the best option because it was when I did the same comparison last year...

I just wanted to share something that we have been doing with a widowed friend that has worked well and gives us all some peace of mind. It all started last December when a neighbor who was a single guy was found dead in his condo after a few days. He had not shown up for a meeting and some...

This appeared on my news feed today. I had never heard of it. Interesting. https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4075341-china-is-in-default-on-a-trillion-dollars-in-debt-to-us-bondholders-will-the-us-force-repayment/

I have a middle income high school friend whose income taxes I have done for many years. When I did his 2022 return he owed about ~$1,500 where he normally gets a ~$500 refund. So why? Well, he started SS in late 2021.. only had a month of SS income in 2021 so the impact was negligible...

DS is moving to Austin, TX and looking to have his Honda HR-V shipped from New England to Austin. If it saves him some dough we are willing to meet the carrier in Albany, NY or Boston, MA or Hartford, CT. Does anybody have any recommendations on who to use? Any tips or advice? Any recent...

I recently bought some SPY Dec 2023 LEAPS as an equity substitute. In Dec 2023, I'll receive the then current value of SPY over the strike of 400, but I will not receive SPY's dividends between now and then. I'm debating with myself how to calculate my AA. Hypothetical numbers. George owns...

I interested if anyone here has experience with this. DD works for a start-up and has received stock options that she intends to exercise within the next few months and will receive shares of stock in the private start-up company.... think of it as like Tesla 10 years ago. In 10 years, the...

I'm hoping this knowlegable group might be able to help me. Our condos are getting roofs replaced soon and we are about to go out for proposals. The condos were built in the late 70s. The clothes dryer exhaust duct ends about an inch from the dryer roof vent... there is no physical...

I'm looking for advice on an oddball thing. Back in 2005 we bought a house that was at the end of a dead end private road that I'll call Lois Lane. Technically, Lois Lane ends at our property line about 35' in front of our garage and there was a 35' driveway from the end of Lois Lane into the...

I was talking with a friend this morning comparing notes as we are both shopping for car insurance. He said that his agent asked him whether they were on Medicare and he responded yes, and the agent said that many of his customers on Medicare were dropping UI coverage. It sort of makes sense...

New to me... from Kiplinger: https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/taxes/T054-S001-cares-act-expands-charitable-giving-tax-deductions/index.html?rid=EML-tax&utm_source=tax&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20200419-tax&rmrecid=2655470411

As I have mentioned in prior posts, I bailed on stocks in March, specifically between March 17-23. I just has a feeling that this recession is going to be bad and there is too much uncertainty. In any event, while I still want to participate in equities, I want to do so with less downside risk...

17 Surprising Facts You Probably Don’t Know About The Retirement Income 4% Rule This might be worth a sticky. This was a new one to me... I think the 95% thing came from the Trinity Study.

DW will be eligible for Medicare in March 2020 and me in November 2020... so I started learning about Medigap. Also in 2020, we will also be moving our residence from Vermont to Florida but we have flexibility on the effective date of the move/change in domicile. My initial research suggests...

Looking to find out others' experiences. I have an online savings account with Discover Bank that we have had for many years. They recently went to two factor identification and I am fine with it and familiar with it from other financial accounts that I have. The frustrating thing is that...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanfrailich/2019/01/25/how-resulting-impacts-your-personal-finances/#30f3f1df3ee5

A friend of mine died unexpectedly a week ago. A week or so prior to that, he and his wife leased a new SUV... very nice... but with a $583/month lease payment for 36 months. His widow has no need for such a high end vehicle and her income will be 1/3 less and the $583 monthly lease payment it...

I couldn't find a recent thread on the topic so I created a new one. I've been using MozyHome's free service for my modest cloud backup needs for a number of years and today received this: What do you all use for cloud backup?... prefer free but a modest charge for a good service would be...

The higher standard deduction rather than deductions and exemptions will cause many middle income taxpayers to no longer itemize deductions... therefore no longer get a tax benefit from charitable contributions. A two part poll. If you itemized before do you expect to itemize in 2018? Do you...

As many of you know, the ability to recharacterize Roth conversions is now gone for the tax year 2018 and beyond... crimping the style of many of us that manage taxable income to a certain level... in my case to the top of the 0% LTCG bracket. (You can still recharacterize Roth contributions...