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What's that saying? People plan and God laughs? It appears I have a monoclonal gammopathy. I haven't gotten a final diagnosis yet, and I don't think I have multiple myeloma, but it sure looks like things are headed in that direction. I'm only 57. I guess I don't need to worry about planning...

I retired at the end of 2017. Since then, my wife has continued to work. Today she decided that she's had enough and will retire in the next few months. Not that it would change our retirement decisions, if you have any reaction to the details below I'd really appreciate hearing them. Late...

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge regarding medical specialists as they relate to concierge service? Are there any medical specialists who provide this service or does your concierge service make arrangements to have a non-concierge specialist squeeze you in who otherwise wouldn't...

Holy Hannah! I was so shocked when my wife told me this, I had to share. She's planning a vacation to Vietnam in 2024, and used miles to book business class tickets with Singapore Airlines. I knew prices for travel went up quite a bit since Covid first hit, but my goodness! She learned that...

Please give me your honest opinion. Would you say that the color of the vanity countertop is a bad match with the rest of the room? Thanks in advance.

Question that's probably a no-brainer for most of you: My portfolio has gotten unwieldy over the years and I'd love to simplify it, if for no other reason than to make things easier for my wife when I'm gone. A portion of the portfolio is invested in managed equity mutual funds that I've held...

Some of you may remember that I recently had a master bathroom renovated. The job was completed towards the end of May of this year, so we've been using the shower daily for the past couple months. We have a tiled shower floor with a basket weave pattern with a silverish/light greyish grout...

Is there written somewhere on this site a policy regarding redaction requests?

Would someone kindly help me make sense of this. I was in the process of using Vanguard's bond ladder tool. The attached photo is a snippet of one of the bonds in the ladder. The quantity in the example provided is 6, and the price is 99.410156. How are the principal and "net money" amounts...

I have a bunch of cash that I'm not willing to put into stocks, and don't want to leave in cash. I'd like to build a T-Bill ladder and was planning on doing that on TreasuryDirect (TD). Recently, however, I read that you can buy T-Bills at auction on Fidelity and Schwab, and was wondering if...

Some of you may remember that I'm in the process of going through a bathroom renovation. We're near the end of the project and all that remains are to have the final inspections done and some minor punch list items to be completed. This morning, I had a most bizarre telephone conversation with...

One of our two bathroom renovation projects is just about nearly completed - just a couple of smaller punch list items remain. One of the things we had replaced was the exhaust fan which was old (I believe from the 1970s), noisy as all heck and inconveniently configured (you had to pull on a...

When I was a kid, I used to take broken electronic things apart and mess around with the electronics on the PCB. I learned to solder and to use a de-soldering wick to remove components from the board and then solder them back. I learned how to identify the various electronic components. I...

My wife and I are in the process of renovating our master bathroom. We decided to ditch the tub/shower combo and convert it to just a stand-up shower with a linear, tile-able drain. The contractors had to lay concrete in the shower alcove into which the linear drain was embedded. The shower...

My wife had gone on a baking spree this holiday season, making all sorts of goodies. The plan was to bring the baked goods to a family gathering so we can all enjoy them together. We ended up with so much that we decided to give some to our neighbors. Up until today, we never exchanged more...

I've hit a little bit of an emotional rough patch in life with really no one to talk to about it. Nothing dramatic; I'm not suicidal or anything like that. I realize this forum is hardly the appropriate place for this sort of thing so I'm just interested in hearing - from those who've found...

I live on a high floor in a 31-story high rise building and I'm in the process of going through a bathroom renovation. I've lived here for about 20 years and at some point during that time I must have gotten the impression that the water supply lines going to the shower were 3/4". I should...

Simple, basic question. If you had the majority of your tax sheltered and tax free (roth) money in cash, and knowing that cash is being eaten by inflation, and knowing that bond yields are very low, and not wanting to allocate any more to stocks or other investments with a similar or higher...

Does anyone have any experience replacing a heating element/burner on an electric glass cooktop? I have a GE electric glass cooktop (model PP950SM1SS) and received an estimate from GE. I can't believe the amount of money it'll cost to have a GE technician replace it so I'm playing with the...

My wife and I enjoy international travel. While working, we take about 2-3 international trips a year and we plan to increase this once we're both retired. We've been wondering if there'd ever be a situation where we would need to get access to our brokerage/mutual fund accounts while we're...

Does anyone have any experience with water softeners for apartments, where the softener must be installed at the point of entry into the apartment rather than the main source? I'm in the market for water softeners for the shower, the kitchen sink and bath sink. Cannot use a "whole home"...

I'd be interested in hearing some of the ways people who have chosen the fixed % of current portfolio withdrawal strategy determined their appropriate %. Thanks in advance.

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Does anyone know if it's unusual, as a buyer of a house that needs renovation work, to insert into the contract a contingency that if estimates of the cost of renovation exceed a certain amount, you can legally back out of the deal with no penalty? I suppose, if this were possible, you'd have...

I'm looking into buying an air purifier for our home. We live in a one-level apartment that has two bedrooms and a dining room, and is approximately a little over 1,000 sq. ft. in total. My question: can I buy one unit that claims to cover 1,000 sq. ft. or more, or should I buy a unit for each...