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I worked for 11 years at a small company without a 401k. I chose to invest part of my salary in tax efficient ETFs in a taxable account. I am now grateful that I have abundant accessible funds since leaving the workforce at age 53. I know some who have retired earlier than expected and have...

Portfolio is +3.3% YTD, 64/32/4 S/B/C AA - and spending 100%+ of taxable dividends and interest.

I sold $10K of older 0% fixed-rate I bonds at the beginning of April and purchased $10K of 1.3% fixed-rate I bonds yesterday. I have about 10% of my portfolio in I bonds and feel comfortable with this allocation for now. This will increase my return by a whopping ~$130 a year. But, over 30...

Just pointing out how fickle NW can be from day to day and transaction to transaction. Happy accounting! :)

Should the taxable amount on unrealized capital gains in equity investments be considered a liability in NW calculations. It seems optimistic to include the entire unrealized gains as an asset. However, if I was to pass these appreciated assets to heirs the step-up basis would include the gains...

I have had home, auto, and umbrella policies with State Farm for about 35 years. Their service of claims has been outstanding - until now. Last summer we had extensive hail storms along the front range of Colorado. I've heard that upwards of 500,000 roofs were damaged. I filed a hail claim for...

This will show overlap of two funds. https://www.etfrc.com/funds/overlap.php

1. Medical 17% 2. Home Improvement 15% 3. Travel 12% 4. Grocery 10% 5. Self Improvement 6% 6. Dogs 5% 7. Housewares 4% 8. Misc 4% 9. Restaurants 4% 10. Misc. Auto (3%) Income taxes are minuscule due to managing income for ACA subsidy.:)

I find that many, possibly most, yahoo articles are too shallow to be useful.

I owe federal tax this year due to t-bill interest exceeding the standard deduction and slightly overshooting MAGI regarding my ACA subsidy.

I don't have an answer, but I purchased a tiny position in TSLA at the end of 2022 with some lingering cash in my brokerage account. It doubled, dropped, and is still up about 50%. Fun! I recently calculated the amount invested in TSLA in my QQQ, SPY, SPTM holdings. That dwarfs my individual...

Using the Line 24 / Line 11 methodology, for 2023: 0.9%. It's a little higher than I anticipated.

Just for grins I requested an offer from CarMax for my 2000 GMC Jimmy with 240,000 miles, history of 2 fender benders, ABS not working, oil leaking, etc. Drum roll...$100. It's gotta be worth more as scrap. I guess that's not their core business.:)

Vanguard has posted 2023 Final estimated year-end distributions here. https://advisors.vanguard.com/tax-center/year-end-distributions

Since quitting (retiring from?) w*rk 3.5 years ago, I am evaluating whether I'm frugal, thrifty, miserly, minimalist, or perfect in my spending. Who's to say? Saving during my career was a fun exercise in optimizing my expenses, and that has been a hard habit to break. My username was an...

Does anyone have experience transfering a HSA from Lively to Fidelity? I like the idea of the 60-day rollover. However, I initiated a transfer early last week. I suppose it's not too late to do a withdrawal.

52 week auction is on 1/24. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/auctions/upcoming/

Is the 0% financing offered on new cars real? Is it impossible to qualify for or part of some kind of a bait-n-switch tactic?

That's hilarious!

Live and learn. The need for a new car was sudden and a shock to the system. Ack! We panicked and went to the local dealer. So far, the online experience with an out-of-state dealer has been pretty smooth (knock on wood). We're waiting for some paperwork to arrive any day to complete the...

Thanks. This is the first time that either of us have bought a car in almost 20 years and dealers certainly have a negative reputation as far as we're concerned. But, I thought they would jump on any profit opportunity. After all, the salesman spent about 5 hours with us over two days. Not...

My recently FIREd DGF found it impossible to buy a new or used car at a local dealership. We went to lot and requested a specific vehicle that's apparently rare because of the desired color. The salesman located two new 2020's out of state and we negotiated a price. As we were on the way to...

I'm trying to convince myself that I can live a retirement with a sense of abundance. This is quite different than the frugal attitude of saving that I am used to.

My current stock allocation is at the bottom of my desired allocation range. That's my minimum and I'm comfortable with that right now.

At 53, I expect SS to be there mostly, if not fully intact. However, I consider FI conservatively without SS. I make two runs through the calculators: First, without SS to get a sense of worst case. Second, with SS to get an estimate of maximum spending allowed. Anywhere in between those...