Search found 1048 matches

by HootingSloth
Sun Mar 24, 2024 3:03 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 5% MMF + 2% CC = 7% return?
Replies: 13
Views: 1339

Re: 5% MMF + 2% CC = 7% return?

ObiQuiet wrote: Sun Mar 24, 2024 2:12 pm Thanks, I meant "net". Let me clarify:

Put $1000 in the MMF. A year later, withdraw "that same" $1050 to pay the CC bill. Repeat in a rolling fashion.

How much did that $1000 buy? $1070 worth of stuff?
One way to see that this is different from a 7% return is to ask what happens if you wait 2 years instead. A 7% return on $1000 invested for 2 years is $1144.90. If you let $1000 earn 5% for two years, you have $1102.50. With 2% cash back, you can then buy $1125 worth of stuff. Not the same amount.

Now try 30 years, and the difference is between $7612.26 and $4410.15. Definitely not the same.
by HootingSloth
Fri Mar 22, 2024 9:49 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Use of LLCs and Trusts for Primary Residence - purpose and when?
Replies: 15
Views: 1282

Re: Use of LLCs and Trusts for Primary Residence - purpose and when?

Different people will have different reasons, but since I own my home through a trust, I will share mine. My wife was in a law enforcement role where it could be quite bad for her name to be associated with her home address in public records. The trust was a simple way to have her as a joint owner without including her name in any public filings. I am an attorney, so I could set it up myself. It was probably a few hours of effort on our end, and I think the lender and/or title company may have charged a nominal proccessing fee based on the additional paperwork for them. Easily worth the effort in our case.
by HootingSloth
Fri Mar 22, 2024 7:13 am
Forum: Non-US Investing
Topic: Federal Tax Residency, Resident Alien left the US Mid-Year (W-9/W-8BEN)
Replies: 4
Views: 1161

Re: Federal Tax Residency, Resident Alien left the US Mid-Year (W-9/W-8BEN)

The IRS guidance is vague here because the statute is vague, and the case law is not particuarly well settled. In particular, defining the tax home for a person who is unemployed or otherwise lacks a principal place of business can be challenging, and it is possible to have no tax home at all. However, there are cases when a court has found that an unemployed person has a tax home, at least when the person had a "business reason" for living in that location. While these cases are in the context of travel-away-from-home business deductions, the FEIE incorporates its definition of tax home from this context, so these cases may be helpful. A couple of examples of these kinds of cases are John Allen Lyle, et ux. v. Commissioner, TC Me...
by HootingSloth
Thu Mar 21, 2024 6:31 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families
Replies: 18
Views: 1037

Re: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families

ScubaHogg wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2024 5:50 pm
HootingSloth wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2024 5:47 pm
ScubaHogg wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2024 3:12 pm
Edit: I think I get it. So if someone died at 40 it would work like this:

35-(62-40)=11

So the “high 11” in the earnings record would be treated as if they earned that for 35 years? Do I have that right?
Yes, I think that's right (except 35-(62-40) is 13, so it would be "high-13" instead of "high-11").
Yes of course
:oops:

So do we think the online social security survivor benefits are correct if you died today?
Yes, I think so.
by HootingSloth
Thu Mar 21, 2024 5:47 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families
Replies: 18
Views: 1037

Re: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families

ScubaHogg wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2024 3:12 pm
Edit: I think I get it. So if someone died at 40 it would work like this:

35-(62-40)=11

So the “high 11” in the earnings record would be treated as if they earned that for 35 years? Do I have that right?
Yes, I think that's right (except 35-(62-40) is 13, so it would be "high-13" instead of "high-11").
by HootingSloth
Thu Mar 21, 2024 5:44 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families
Replies: 18
Views: 1037

Re: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families

Yes the numbers work, but note that the children's benefit is for them. You need to document how it is spent. If you can't spend it all (even after charging them rent, food, etc), you need to "save" it. That money then must be transferred to them when they are 18. I couldn't spend all their survivor money on the kids, so they had nice savings accounts when they went to college. That makes sense, and I think that part of these funds would very likely go to college expenses at the end. Also, think about your wife. The money for her will run out when the last child turns 18. If she has not worked at all during this time, getting a job again may be difficult except for a minimum wage job. She could collect your survivor benefits agai...
by HootingSloth
Thu Mar 21, 2024 1:09 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families
Replies: 18
Views: 1037

Re: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families

...I was very surprised to see just how generous the benefits seem to be... I don't have a great understanding of the system, but I've spent more time than most people our age (also 37) on continuity planning. I've used a couple different calculators and always come to the same conclusion as you. Between SS and a similar benefit from my employer (tied to a defined benefit pension) and our savings, it looks my wife would probably be fine without a single dollar of life insurance coverage. I do still have life insurance, but it's probably just for margin of safety. Many people on this forum appear to ignore the SS old age pension in their retirement plans, and even more people appear to ignore SS in life insurance discussions, but both are v...
by HootingSloth
Thu Mar 21, 2024 10:37 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families
Replies: 18
Views: 1037

Re: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families

ehh wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2024 10:22 am https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43542/18
In the case of workers who die before turning 62 years old, the number of computation years is
generally reduced below 35 by the number of years until he or she would have reached 62. For
example, the AIME for a worker who died at 61 is based on 34 computation years.
Exactly what I was hoping to learn. This has the effect of treating me as having max earnings during the entire computation period, so the high benefit amount now makes sense. Thanks!
by HootingSloth
Thu Mar 21, 2024 9:15 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families
Replies: 18
Views: 1037

Calculating Social Security Survivor Benefits for Young Families

I have a two-year old with a second child now on the way. As I will be the only one working for some time moving forward, I wanted to reevaluate my life insurance needs. I went on the MySocialSecurity portal to see what kind of survivor benefits would be available if I died in the near term (we should be more-or-less financially independent within about 5 years, so there is not a long runway to contend with). I was very surprised to see just how generous the benefits seem to be, but I want to make sure they are reported correctly on the website and that I am understanding them correctly. According to the website, if I die this year, then: 1) My wife will be entitled to $2,901 per month as long as she has a child under 16 in the home. 2) Eac...
by HootingSloth
Thu Mar 14, 2024 12:18 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Was the Shiller CAPE in the 30s, or the 40s, in the January 2000 Shiller Spreadsheet?
Replies: 6
Views: 1260

Re: Was the Shiller CAPE in the 30s, or the 40s, in the January 2000 Shiller Spreadsheet?

alex_686 was the poster that brought this up. Allegedly, they were formerly employed in brokerage operations and discussed this issue with some quants, so claimed to come from a position of authority that all major bubbles were not known in advance since they were the result of accounting revisions after the fact. One should always be wary of "claims to authority". On the internet, no one knows if you're a dog. There is a great wealth of knowledge on the forum. But it can be helpful to follow posters over the long run to see if they repeatedly make authoritative-sounding but incorrect statements about topics that are seemingly tangential to the area of specialty they purport to have. Sometimes, you can learn who the dogs are and ...
by HootingSloth
Sat Mar 09, 2024 2:16 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: NJ “unsafe lane change” law
Replies: 14
Views: 1368

Re: NJ “unsafe lane change” law

As a fellow NJ driver, who sees constant unsafe aggressive maneuvers on the roads that go unchecked, I'm already ready to convict without even needing to hear the officer's side of the story.
by HootingSloth
Mon Mar 04, 2024 2:24 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Aggressive savers: Reduce stocks % the closer you are to your target numbers?
Replies: 32
Views: 3662

Re: Aggressive savers: Reduce stocks % the closer you are to your target numbers?

Here is what I wrote when a similar topic was discussed in another thread about goal-based vs. age-based asset allocations: For what it is worth, I have been using a goal based asset allocation, which works for my personal situation. Early on, I started at 80/20. Once I reached halfway to my comfortable-but-not-all-wants goals, I began slowly gliding towards 60/40. If I get to that goal and retirement does not seem to be in sight, I will probably glide back up in the direction of 80/20. Just to have something precise/automated in my spreadsheet, I use the following formula: percent in bonds = 0.4-0.2*ABS(LOG(portfolio/goal,2)) I do not try to take my age into account directly. I know that I will, in practice, be revisiting this glide path p...
by HootingSloth
Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:56 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: When did your Net Worth surpass your lifetime earnings?
Replies: 93
Views: 11845

Re: When did your Net Worth surpass your lifetime earnings?

Agree that this metric is pretty silly and depends on a lot of particulars about income and spending curves.

I am 36, but if my net worth were equal to my lifetime earnings so far, I would be pretty comfortably financially independent (would have a paid-off house plus about 30x expenses in investments) and could consider retiring immediately.

By the time I am actually financially independent, my lifetime earnings will still probably be nearly double my net worth. It seems like if I ever reached a point where my net worth surpassed lifetime earnings, it could only be because I was aiming to be the richest body in the graveyard.
by HootingSloth
Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:34 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: The Single Greatest Predictor of Future Stock Market Returns
Replies: 158
Views: 39088

Re: The Single Greatest Predictor of Future Stock Market Returns

Now that it has been a full 10 years since the initial post popularizing this "single greatest predictor" of stock market returns, we can revisit and see how the initial prediction did. In the post, dated December 20, 2013, the author writes that the model predicts a nominal 10 year forward return for the S&P 500 of approximately 6%. Looking at the full historical sample available at the time, he wrote:
Historically, whenever the market was at the current level, the low end of the return was a tad less than 5%, and the high end was around 9%.
So what happened? The 10-year nominal return of the S&P 500 from December 31, 2013 (11 days after the post), was 11.99%.

Oh well.
by HootingSloth
Fri Feb 23, 2024 9:59 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: High Salary (>$500,000) careers
Replies: 244
Views: 29159

Re: High Salary (>$500,000) careers

Wife qualifies: Top-50 university in liberal arts -> elite law school -> law firms interview on campus -> join elite law firm -> work like a dog for a decade with lockstep comp increases each year -> make partner -> work like a dog but make a lot of money. I'm a partner at a big law firm and I'm now over 40, but I qualified. To be quite honest, if you are skilled and fortunate enough to get on the track you describe, you don't even have to work like a dog. (It's a lot of work, sure, but I've never found it to be onerous, and I have a lot of control over my schedule, take a pretty generous amount of vacation, etc.) Yes, I think the "work like a dog" thing has been exaggerated for the big law path. I know from experience that there...
by HootingSloth
Wed Feb 21, 2024 9:51 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: TaxAct - No option to buy iBond
Replies: 8
Views: 1098

Re: TaxAct - No option to buy iBond

I think you may have to print and mail, rather than e-file, to get through option. I seem to only remember it popping up when I printed.
by HootingSloth
Thu Feb 08, 2024 10:56 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Crypto appraisal needed for 2023 donations
Replies: 19
Views: 1933

Re: Crypto appraisal needed for 2023 donations

Tax practitioners have asked Treasury and the IRS to relax the qualified appraisal rules for cryptocurrencies, since they make little to no sense for something with a publicly available market price. Unfortunately, the statutory exception for "publicly traded securities" pretty clearly does not apply to cryptocurrencies, and Treasury has felt that its hands are tied by the statutory text. Unless and until Congress acts, taxpayers making sizable cryptocurrency donations are just going to have to pay silly high fees for a qualified appraisal if they want to take a charitable contribution deduction. Make sure any appraiser you use meets the detailed IRS guidelines for a qualified appraisal: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p561#en_US...
by HootingSloth
Fri Feb 02, 2024 9:23 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Donating/Lending accumulated shares to charity
Replies: 11
Views: 1324

Re: Donating/Lending accumulated shares to charity

This doesn't sound totally crazy to me, but seems to have some significant degree of risk. Three concerns that immediately occur to me are: (i) the potential application of the economic substance, business purpose, and/or related common law doctrines to recharacterize the loan and subsequent forgiveness as an immediate contribution that has been disguised as a loan in order to avoid the percentage limitations without a non-tax business purpose; (ii) the potential application of the self dealing rules for private foundations; and (iii) the need to carefully document and report the terms of the loan and forgiveness. Transactions that are recharacterized under the economic substance doctrine and violations of the self dealing rules can both be...
by HootingSloth
Sun Jan 28, 2024 4:29 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: The Charitable Payraise
Replies: 44
Views: 4724

Re: The Charitable Payraise

For what it is worth, I am a tax lawyer at a large international law firm, and a significant portion of my practice is representing tax exempt organizations and their donors. If a client came to me with something like this, I likely would advise them to stay very, very far away.
by HootingSloth
Wed Aug 09, 2023 2:59 pm
Forum: US Chapters
Topic: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here
Replies: 3623
Views: 569208

Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

We recently moved from our paid-off 1BR condo that seemed like it would probably become too cramped if we have a second child. My job approved 100% remote work, so we bought a 4BR home in a lower cost of living area closer to family that (fingers crossed) seems like it could work for us for the next 20+ years. With the sale of the condo, our investments passed the $2M mark for the first time. Once we pay off the mortgage on this new home, we should be more-or-less financially independent. It's now looking realistic to aim for that by the time a second child hits kindergarten. Feeling excited and relieved to have these big changes in the rear view mirror.
by HootingSloth
Thu May 18, 2023 4:16 pm
Forum: US Chapters
Topic: Suggestions for the Wiki
Replies: 699
Views: 537662

Re: Suggestions for the Wiki

LadyGeek wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 3:23 pm Thanks! Google reported the spreadsheet as deleted. I have recreated the spreadsheet. See: Household budget

For the wiki editors - The gory details of how I recreated the spreadsheet are here: Talk:Household budget
Many thanks!
by HootingSloth
Thu May 18, 2023 2:29 pm
Forum: US Chapters
Topic: Suggestions for the Wiki
Replies: 699
Views: 537662

Re: Suggestions for the Wiki

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but there appears to be a broken link/missing document on the wiki. When I go to the pages for the household descriptive budget (i.e., here and here), it says "Sorry, the file you have requested has been deleted." I would find it helpful if it were possible to restore this example spreadsheet and others may as well. Alternatively, perhaps those sections could be removed from the wiki if the information is no longer viewed as important.
by HootingSloth
Fri Apr 07, 2023 1:31 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Taxes - Partnership (angel) investment, K-1s, etc.
Replies: 4
Views: 472

Re: Taxes - Partnership (angel) investment, K-1s, etc.

This article may help understand a few of the different reasons that losses may be suspended and the differing ability to use those subsequent losses on a subsequent sale of the investment. As someone mentioned above, these things can get somewhat complicated, but the very short story is that an LP investor generally can make use of losses that were suspended as a result of the at-risk limitations or the passive activity limitations once they sell their LP interest.
by HootingSloth
Mon Mar 27, 2023 11:59 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: “Stop Playing”..What Does This Really Mean?
Replies: 98
Views: 12443

Re: “Stop Playing”..What Does This Really Mean?

What does “if you have won the game, stop playing” actually look like? In particular, what does “stop playing” look like for the person with $10m+ in a taxable account and is in a 40% federal income tax bracket? But as we discussed privately, a TIPS ladder can require you to save perhaps $1.25 or more per dollar needed due to taxflation in a 40% bracket. Priorities are important. One possible priority is minimizing the risk of bad outcomes. Another possible priority is maximizing the amount of spending. Typically, as an individual's wealth increases, the declining marginal utility of wealth means that they tend to increase the relative weight of the former at the expense of the latter. How much you want to tip these priorities and how that...
by HootingSloth
Tue Mar 21, 2023 8:46 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]
Replies: 2482
Views: 214093

Re: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]

...I don't think Glass Steagall would have prevented this after all.... Under Glass-Steagall, until 1999, it was illegal for a bank to have branches in more than one state. That certainly would have had some kind of effect in limiting the size of banks, and preventing the existence of banks "too big to fail." It would also have made banking less appealing to ambitious people wanting to built national financial empires. I believe that the regulation specifically limiting the geography of branches was the 1927 Mcfadden Act, not Glass Steagall, and the deregulation actually occurred a bit earlier, in 1994 through the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act which allowed them to operate interstate starting June 1,...
by HootingSloth
Mon Mar 20, 2023 11:19 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Can $311B invested be wrong?
Replies: 68
Views: 7266

Re: Can $311B invested be wrong?

In February of 2020, ARKK had over $50 billion in AUM. How do you feel about that as a rational investment? Could those investors have been wrong?
by HootingSloth
Wed Mar 15, 2023 6:38 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]
Replies: 2482
Views: 214093

Re: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]

It's a bit different than this though. The Fed is offering to lend at OIS + 10 bps. OIS is not a market interest rate for a term loan. OIS is a derived rate based on the overnight market rate. In times with ample liquidity in the banking sector, OIS + 10 bps has been a good approximation of a market interest rate for a fully collateralized loan. But these loans are not fully collateralized, and we may be entering a time when liquidity in the banking sector is in short supply. So, to the extent that this facility is used, it generally will be asking for something below a full market interest rate. Generally, a below market rate loan can viewed as being a partial gift. In other words, you could recast the below market rate loan as a market i...
by HootingSloth
Tue Mar 14, 2023 4:08 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]
Replies: 2482
Views: 214093

Re: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]

Paraphrasing Matt Levine: Bank A has a $100 bond and $10 of cash and depositors want $70, immediately. The bank is solvent because it has sufficient assets right? Well, it doesn't have enough cash so it has to sell the $100 bond to pay depositors. All is well. Oops, interest rates changed and the bond is worth $50 today. The bank is dead because it can't fund the deposits if it is forced to sell at the price of $50, even though it has an asset with a certain value of $100 in X years. This is why bank runs are bad, and this is why people say "don't sell stocks while they're down" - you lock in a loss, and when the loss is locked in, the bank is insolvent. If it hasn't sold yet, it still has the same assets at a known future price ...
by HootingSloth
Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:14 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Diversification a la Markowitz #3: Gold
Replies: 126
Views: 12507

Re: Diversification a la Markowitz #3: Gold

I think there is a mismatch between people saying they expect 0% real from gold and then forming conclusions from backtesting data with 6% real returns. Other than that, I believe gold has been a good diversifier over the last 40 years. If I had 8 figures ($10 million) gold would almost certainly make up at least 10% of my portfolio. I'm not there yet so its a soft pass for now. I do enjoy the gold threads. I'm interested in what will be said here. What changes when you go from $8M to $12M? Not much that I know of. Something change in your personal life? Seems like it would do just as much good or bad at $8M as $12M. There's not some magic amount where it starts making a dramatic difference in a portfolio. As people get wealthier, their ne...
by HootingSloth
Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:49 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]
Replies: 2482
Views: 214093

Re: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]

not sure why people don't think this is a bailout lol the feds set up a program sunday night called BTFP that allows banks to borrow against their underwater treasuries at par. FDIC says there are $620b worth of underwater bonds on bank balance sheets today, so the program essentially plugs a $620billion hole. if you are only focusing on the FDIC expansion of insurance cap for depositors, you are very obviously missing the bigger picture. this is the beginning of QE5 under a different name. What’s the interest rate to borrow against their bonds? The interest rate for loans under the BTFP (which cannot have a term of more than one year) is "the one‐year overnight index swap rate plus 10 basis points." The rate will be fixed, rathe...
by HootingSloth
Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:19 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]
Replies: 2482
Views: 214093

Re: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]

not sure why people don't think this is a bailout lol the feds set up a program sunday night called BTFP that allows banks to borrow against their underwater treasuries at par. FDIC says there are $620b worth of underwater bonds on bank balance sheets today, so the program essentially plugs a $620billion hole. if you are only focusing on the FDIC expansion of insurance cap for depositors, you are very obviously missing the bigger picture. this is the beginning of QE5 under a different name. What’s the interest rate to borrow against their bonds? The interest rate for loans under the BTFP (which cannot have a term of more than one year) is "the one‐year overnight index swap rate plus 10 basis points." The rate will be fixed, rathe...
by HootingSloth
Mon Mar 13, 2023 8:50 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: [Bank failure discussion mega-thread]
Replies: 2482
Views: 214093

Re: Vanguard was the largest institutional investor in Silicon Valley Bank that collapsed

Parkinglotracer wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 8:44 am Surprised me Vanguard owned so much. I guess it should not have. Like the lessons of the 2008 crisis I re-realize our financial system is quite fragile and we are all connected in this together.

The Fed waited too long to raise rates and now is in a tough position and required raising rates quickly to control inflation. Banks failed to deal with the duration risk of bonds in a rising interest rate environment. Bank runs occur.

What can this personal investor do? Have a diversified portfolio and go get a life.

[Off-topic comments removed by admin LadyGeek]
Silicon Valley Bank was a U.S. publicly traded company. Vanguard is the largest shareholder of most U.S. publicly traded companies (see, e.g., here).
by HootingSloth
Fri Feb 17, 2023 3:51 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?
Replies: 410
Views: 79291

Re: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?

It looks like the big changes to one-day yields for Fidelity Municipal Money Market Fund are always on Thursdays. Presumably this correlates with the SIFMA index being updated on Wednesdays and then interest rates on 7-day municipal VRDOs held by the MMFs resetting. It seems that a good choice would be to check Thursday's one day rate each Friday morning and then decide whether to swap on Friday. Would seem to give quite good accuracy for the timing. That looks actionable and simple and most likely more valuable than most other approaches. Yes, that seems smart. But it makes it even more important to test out how settlement works (test, not just rely on what might be stated somewhere). Ie do you get interest starting Fri, or not until Mond...
by HootingSloth
Fri Feb 17, 2023 3:28 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?
Replies: 410
Views: 79291

Re: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?

Institutional pages for all(?) of Fidelity’s MM funds are here: https://institutional.fidelity.com/app/item/RD_13569_21709.html I look up yields from each fund’s institutional page on the "Fees & Distributions" tab and selecting a date range under "Historical Prices, Distribution & Yields". Thanks, I should have known to look at the Institutional page, I don't know the Fidelity site all that well. I think We can do something here! Fidelity also has a dedicated history page like Vanguard's https://institutional.fidelity.com/app/funds/hpdy Look up FZEXX and see the jump on 2/9/23 and how far behind the 7-day column is. So the comment of precision and accuracy is still important. We need good input data for the res...
by HootingSloth
Fri Feb 17, 2023 10:50 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?
Replies: 410
Views: 79291

Re: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?

What kind of results would you get for a District of Columbia resident? My federal marginal rate is 38.8%. My DC marginal rate is 8.75%. In DC, all municipal bonds (regardless of the location of the issuer) are exempt from DC income tax. I think DC is the only jurisdiction with an income tax where this is the case so that a high marginal rate DC taxpayer has just about the largest possible incentive to hold munis. I recently wrote a tool to look at optimizing MM choices based upon current yields, historical patterns and personal rates. You can be my first victim :-) Here is a link to a Google sheet that allows you to enter your jurisdiction (I have already put in a first stab at DC), tax rates and see what is best today and what would have...
by HootingSloth
Mon Feb 13, 2023 9:57 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: What % of your gross income do you set aside for retirement?
Replies: 224
Views: 22112

Re: What % of your gross income do you set aside for retirement?

We have not seen much, if any, relationship between what we earn and what we spend. Instead, we spend what we want and then save whatever is left over. As our incomes have increased, our spending has not changed very much at all, as we were already spending what we wanted to spend. This has meant our savings rate has been increasing. In the early 2010s, we were saving about 40% of gross income. In 2020, 2021, and 2022, we saved 53%, 53%, and 60% of gross income. I expect that we will have some career changes in the coming years, but that our spending will again remain relatively steady, so that we will probably be falling below 40% and maybe as low as 20%.
by HootingSloth
Fri Feb 10, 2023 7:14 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?
Replies: 410
Views: 79291

Re: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?

anon_investor wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 4:12 pm
preach wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 1:17 pm Municipal MMF indexes are already closing in on 4% that were 1.8% just a few days ago. This swing upward is going to be even harder than the drop downward from a couple months ago.

I personally am expecting to see actual muni mmf 7-day yields to be above 3% within a week or so.
Me too. You can look at one day yields from other company's muni MMFs (Fidelity, Blackrock, Federated Hermes) and see a spike of about 1% betweem 2/8 and 2/9 for all of them.
Wow, yes. It looks like VMSXX TEY (5.62%) already crossed over VUSXX TEY (5.17%) for me today 2/10.
by HootingSloth
Fri Feb 10, 2023 5:32 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: HomerJ - retirement plan
Replies: 81
Views: 16206

Re: HomerJ - retirement plan

This is a good plan and similar to what we plan to do when the time comes. My only concern would be whether the withdrawal rate is "too low." This is not a problem, per se, but perhaps a sign that you are not be getting the most out of the tradeoffs that are available to you. If I were in your shoes, I would try to think about whether there were things (more travel? more luxurious travel? home improvement projects? giving to children or charity with a "warm hand"?) that I would rather use the money for while I am in my 50s and 60s than after I am dead, and can no longer experience the benefit of the resources being expended. None of these things needs to lead to any permanent "lifestyle inflation," so if it tu...
by HootingSloth
Fri Feb 10, 2023 12:11 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: HomerJ - retirement plan
Replies: 81
Views: 16206

Re: HomerJ - retirement plan

This is a good plan and similar to what we plan to do when the time comes. My only concern would be whether the withdrawal rate is "too low." This is not a problem, per se, but perhaps a sign that you are not be getting the most out of the tradeoffs that are available to you. If I were in your shoes, I would try to think about whether there were things (more travel? more luxurious travel? home improvement projects? giving to children or charity with a "warm hand"?) that I would rather use the money for while I am in my 50s and 60s than after I am dead, and can no longer experience the benefit of the resources being expended. None of these things needs to lead to any permanent "lifestyle inflation," so if it tur...
by HootingSloth
Fri Feb 03, 2023 2:02 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: What Age & How Much Money? (Your Plan)
Replies: 185
Views: 26284

Re: What Age & How Much Money? (Your Plan)

Current age: 35

Current portfolio value: $1.6M

Target for retirement: Current home is paid off, but we will upgrade in a few years and will want to pay that off before retirement; will have SS+pension+TIPS+I bonds to provide lifelong, federal-government-guaranteed, inflation-protected income to provide for baseline needs and wants; the remaining risk portfolio will be whatever it ends up being

Target retirement age: no earlier than 42, probably no later than 62, but don't really have a fixed idea at this point
by HootingSloth
Fri Jan 27, 2023 7:08 pm
Forum: US Chapters
Topic: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here
Replies: 3623
Views: 569208

Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

AnnetteLouisan wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 5:29 pm
Darth Xanadu wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:35 am Today marks my 5 year anniversary since joining Bogleheads. It's no exaggeration when I say that the information and guidance on this forum has been an integral part of securing my family's financial future. Thank you all so much!! In that 5 years, my investable assets have more than doubled!

This month, my household net worth eclipsed $2m (for the 2nd time, haha :wink: )
Same here! High five! (first time for me, and two are better than one… although I don’t think that’s what that saying meant).
We also hit $2M net worth for the first time this month, and we (coincidentally) paid off the mortgage more or less the same day. :sharebeer
by HootingSloth
Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:41 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: At What Multiple of X Would You Be Comfortable to Semi-Retire?
Replies: 127
Views: 16160

Re: At What Multiple of X Would You Be Comfortable to Semi-Retire?

Thanks for both of these posts, which I think are accurate. My original post was general in nature and perhaps could have been more specific. But I guess I should have defined "semi-retirement" as "still having enough income to cover expenses," which is what I think it is, at least on this forum. The 20x and more responses simply make no sense if you have income that is largely covering expenses, because it dramatically reduces and likely eliminates the withdrawal rate. With that said, what I was trying to get at in this thread was how big of a nest egg do you need to pull your foot off the income gas? As much as I want to semi-retire, I am well aware that a dollar earned when you are 35 is more valuable than a dollar e...
by HootingSloth
Thu Jan 26, 2023 7:21 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?
Replies: 410
Views: 79291

Re: Vanguard Money Market Funds - Differences in Returns?

And there we have it. Even at 38.8/5.75 rates, Muni MMF is yielding less right now than it did at the last trough. 2.84% vs 2.87 That's a BIG drop compared to what we've seen in the last year's worth of cycles. Very interesting indeed. It's also interesting that the slope of VUSXX has clearly flattened since the 1st week of December. https://i.postimg.cc/HnVp2DQD/Capture.jpg What kind of results would you get for a District of Columbia resident? My federal marginal rate is 38.8%. My DC marginal rate is 8.75%. In DC, all municipal bonds (regardless of the location of the issuer) are exempt from DC income tax. I think DC is the only jurisdiction with an income tax where this is the case so that a high marginal rate DC taxpayer has just about...
by HootingSloth
Tue Jan 24, 2023 1:15 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: International stock fund placement - FTC vs. QDI
Replies: 27
Views: 2485

Re: International stock fund placement - FTC vs. QDI

Does anyone have insight as to why the VTWAX (Total World Stock Index) fund, which currently consists of 41% international stock (59% US), does not show any foreign taxes paid for 2022? All the other funds holding international equities show up in the just-released "2022 Foreign tax credit information for eligible Vanguard funds" document except Total World Stock Index. Cannot account for its omission. Because the international holdings are less than 50%. It's one reason many recommend holding VTSAX+VTIAX in the appropriate proportion if you have larger holdings in taxable. That is interesting. Could you explain more what 50% has to do with the paying of foreign taxes? Btw, the STAR fund has around 19% international equities but ...
by HootingSloth
Tue Jan 24, 2023 10:24 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Rescuing a whole life policy with a large loan
Replies: 32
Views: 2484

Re: Rescuing a whole life policy with a large loan

Here's a start to a quantitative analysis. Assume the OP has a separate $146,919 that would be allocated to fixed income. (These are reasonable assumptions for a couple with no heirs in their 50s, but this specifically is needed for an apples-to-apples comparison.) Seems like an important assumption, and we need to know more about the rest of OP's fixed income assets and/or fixed liabilities (e.g., mortgage) to evaluate. OP, do you have $147k in munis or other readily available fixed income assets sitting around that you don't really need to be holding for liquidity/emergency fund/avoiding or paying off some other high interest rate debt/etc.? If so, paying the loan off quickly could be a good idea, and then you can decide what to do with ...
by HootingSloth
Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:00 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: International stock fund placement - FTC vs. QDI
Replies: 27
Views: 2485

Re: International stock fund placement - FTC vs. QDI

When I looked into this, I found that, at least in my circumstances, it was a bit difficult to calculate precisely, that it may change from year-to-year, and that the net difference was unlikely to be more than a few basis points. I concluded from this that I should worry about other things instead.
by HootingSloth
Mon Jan 16, 2023 1:13 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Share your net worth progression
Replies: 4288
Views: 1082160

Re: Share your net worth progression

Ten years ago, my (now) wife and I were a little over $300k in debt and had very little in the way of assets. I moved to a new city by putting everything I owned in two backpacks and walking to the train station. On the way, I met up with a friend and went out to dinner. He had to pay for me, because I was not sure there was enough money in my bank account to cover both the meal and my next two weeks of expenses. Fortunately, I did have a good job lined up (as did DW), which I started exactly ten years ago and have stayed in since. Our approximate progression since then: Age Net Worth 25 -$310k 26 -$240k 27 -$120k 28 $0 29 $100k 30 $270k 31 $480k 32 $750k 33 $1.1M 34 $1.53M 35 $1.68M It hasn't always been the easiest decade, but it is nice...
by HootingSloth
Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:29 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: New tool for building a TIPS ladder
Replies: 426
Views: 81352

Re: New tool for building a TIPS ladder

Thank you very much for your work on this. It is already an excellent tool with a very user friendly interface, and you seem to be continuing to make improvements. I hope to use this a few years from now.
by HootingSloth
Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:51 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: What is the simplest way to handle the household budget?
Replies: 111
Views: 13484

Re: What is the simplest way to handle the household budget?

We just save whatever is left after the credit cards and other expenses are paid for the month. For me, that is the simplest method. We generally save around 50% of gross income each year using this method, so it seems to work fine.
by HootingSloth
Mon Jan 09, 2023 2:05 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: HEDGEFUNDIE's excellent adventure Part II: The next journey
Replies: 14360
Views: 1989859

Re: HEDGEFUNDIE's excellent adventure Part II: The next journey

It's nice to see that this thread has evolved in a way where folks are talking about things like the Kelly Criterion, lifecycle investing, and the risk management and irrational-path-dependence problems of holding separate "funny money" accounts that are not rebalanced with your "main" portfolio. However, it may be worth acknowledging that the original (and "Part II") HFEA explicitly rejected these kinds of "rational" approaches to setting and then gradually reducing your leverage over time. The idea was to have a separate fund of investments that would maintain their very high leverage even as it (hopefully) came to dominate your entire portfolio with either no exit strategy at all or a cliff-based s...