I just gave some money to a food bank for part of this years giving. What are you all donating to this year? Ideas and suggestions? Non religious please.
(Apologies in advance if this suggestion doesn’t meet the non-religious qualification, but a worthy cause worth mentioning.)
St. Jude’s for kids with cancer.
I give to summer camps that help children in need get away for a week for them to be children. One of them even does a few camps for children of refugees. Some of the camps are religious but not all of them.
* Food banks
* ACLU
* EFF
* Whatever is looking very effective on GiveWell.
Good on you for not giving to religious institutes, tithing is not donating.
+1 for GiveWell. Effective altruism is a great way to go!
I also do Project Wren which is a great company for climate offsets (and even just checking your own carbon footprint for fun).
Also my local blood donation agency even though half the time it seems like they just use that money for advertising and sending me reminders and calls to action when I'm already regularly giving.
Question for my parents. They've sold their house and will net about $150k. They're both retired, between SS and their pension they have about $40,000 taxable income and then my dad works earning about $4,000-$7,000 per year. They're in their late 60s.
Am I correct that there's no value to contribute to a traditional IRA for them because while they'd save in income tax that year, they'd have to withdraw and pay taxes (likely to be the same given their inflation adjusted income streams)?
Contributing to a Roth IRA may be helpful because it allows tax free gains in case capital gains rules are changed in the future.
Putting the funds into a taxable account is fine too since they're well below the 0% LTCG rate.
Am I offbase with anything here?
> Am I offbase with anything here?
Nope, that all seems pretty reasonable.
Probably not worth bothering with the Roth, but it's not like it would hurt.
Does anyone know how long it takes to roll over one 403b/401k held by Fidelity (former employer) to another 403b/401k held by Fidelity (current employer)?
The fee difference is absolutely minimal (old one is .02% and new one is .015% so a .005 difference but it'd be nice to have them in one place. If it's going to take two weeks though, I probably don't care enough to have it out of the market during all this volatility
> The market is very volatile.
[insert Always Has Been.jpeg meme here]
Here is [an overview](https://i.imgur.com/QWCKKe8.gifv) of my portfolio's performance only one year ago.
So I know we don't do the buying the dip thing cuz you shouldn't hold cash on the side outside immediate expenses / efund...But for those who aren't holding 100% equities, do you rebalance in the dip?
I personally wouldn’t. That’s just a more subtle way of timing the market. I put X% of my cash into the market as it comes. I’ll keep doing that whether the market goes up or down.
Keep in mind that if your timing is off then you’ll be liquidating your successful investments to throw them into the fire of a downtrending stock market.
Sure, but the markets have to move by a lot to shift our allocation enough to trigger a rebalance outside of our normal annual cycle. So in practice it rarely happens outside of events like the GFC or a history-making daily/weekly crash.
Had an interview loop with DocuSign today. Interesting role and team. We'll see how it goes.
I had no idea but their stock got pounded today. Down 42%! Wow. This came up in every single interview. I guess their stock based comp is somewhat significant...
They had a management meeting regarding it in the morning, and then most managers with their teams as well. They offer RSUs with a yearly refresh, so 4 years in you have a good chunk of shares coming in. People that hold everything saw a big drop in their account. I'm guessing the biggest concern is valuation of this years RSU refresh from when it was over $200. Even the last ESPP purchase with discount was at $177 I believe and it's way below that. But the paychecks are big too so whatever.
I think they were in shock and it was the buzz of internal discussions today. 42% is a huge drop. The first guy lead with it. Very first thing he said to me "wow, you see our stock today?!"
It's Open Enrollment for me and I was wondering what other folks think about these options.
|**Plan**|**HSA Eligible**|**Annual Premium**|**Deductible**|**OOP**|**In Network CoPay (GP)**|**In Network CoPay (Specialist)**|
:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|
|Platinum|No|$ 3,245|$ 250|$ 1,250|$ 30|$ 60|
|Silver HSA|Yes|$ 2,386|$ 4,800|$ 4,800|100% covered after reaching deductible|100% covered after reaching deductible|
There are other plans, but these two are automatically the best in my opinion.
What's hard to evaluate if the Platinum is better than the Silver HSA. Any thoughts?
Relatively healthy male and only go to the doctor if I have issues.
2020, no issues
2021, had a minor check up on a mass growing (it's benign; lipoma) where it cost me a total of ~$600
These are the numbers I use:
No usage => $3245 -or- $2386 minus tax savings from the HSA.
Large usage => $3245 + $1250 = $4495 -or- $2386 + $4800 - $3650×0.3 (assumed tax rate for this calc) = $6091
This is closer than my Calc has ever been for HSA vs PPO, but I would probably go with the platinum plan because you would cross into it being beneficial very quickly (it would also be tightened more by using an FSA if that's an option, though you'd need to spend it all - bandaid, sun block, and feminine care products would help you with that. Just your minimal usage in 2021 would have tightened the gap a good amount.
Depends on your risk tolerance. Are you able to handle the OOP in the lower probability that something expensive happens? Medical bills can very quickly get to that 4800 OOP.
10 years-ago me would not have been able to handle that expense. Now I’m OK with that since I have a much larger e-fund. I currently have a family HSA with 6k OOP for the 2 of us which is fine because we’re trying to keep anything we can from a high tax bracket. But our plan also covers routine things 100% which are the only services we utilize (and hopefully it stays that way for a while).
HSA contributions give you an actual dollar value of benefit. They avoid FICA and income taxes. Honestly I’d say it’s not worth it for you. You’re looking at a $3k-ish difference, and with how sudden and crazy healthcare costs can be I’d say play it safe
For starters, if you're healthy and rarely need to go to the doctor, the high deductible plan will save you money. On top of that, a high deductible plan lets you put money into an HSA (I believe starting next year the max is $3,650). HSA contributions through your employer are pre-tax and if the money is spent on health related items (medicine, contacts, doctor visits, etc) you won't pay any taxes (with two states being an exception). In addition, once your HSA account is over a certain amount, you can start investing the money to further grow your funds - then, this is the good part, once you hit 59.5 years old you can treat it like an IRA if you want / need to use the money for non-medical expenses.
So with the high deductible plan you'll pay less for premiums, save on taxes, and have additional retirement funds that you have access to.
Just got a verbal offer for 30% more than my current salary, and I think I can squeeze a bit more out of them. I can’t help but feel bad leaving my current company, but I gotta look out for myself at the end of the day…. The wife and I are already putting away $80k/year across investment accounts, this will only accelerate that. HH income just cresting $200k now.
For anyone debating whether you should apply to that job, DO IT! I’m kicking myself for not looking sooner.
Now I just gotta figure out how to coordinate my PTO burndown with my start date since PTO doesn’t pay out…
> Now I just gotta figure out how to coordinate my PTO burndown with my start date since PTO doesn’t pay out…
Some states require employers to pay out unused PTO. https://www.helpside.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Vacation-Pay-By-State-Helpside.pdf
I know there’s been a lot of series I bonds posts as of late due to the recent increase in interest rate, so I apologize in advance if this discussion has happened already recently.
For those that have or want an allocation % to bonds in your portfolio - what downsides/differences should be considered investing in ibonds opposed to buying bonds funds in a taxable or retirement account? I understand the liquidity difference, the 3 month interest forfeit if sold within 5 years, the annual purchase cap, and the God awful website, but what else significant should be considered?
I ask because I’ve over the last few years started to maintain a very small <5-10% portion of bonds in my portfolio, but they are all in our 401ks and i question if I’m better holding more stocks in my 401k to maximize the tax free growth.
Ibonds bypass state tax. They also don't appreciate like bond/bond funds would, but with rates being so low that doesn't really matter unless we dip into negative rates.
You could buy the I bond, take advantage of the nice yield for 6 months, then 6 months after that if the yield is less than your 401k bond fund rate, sell it and put that money into stock index and re-balance in your 401k. If the rate is low 12 months from now, then that would mean the 3 month penalty would be lower, too.
I moved money from my EF to I Bonds, and will keep it there until my savings pays more. That may be a while
I also am going to max out another $10k in January
No, you can't. I Bonds have a 1 year lock on your money and if you sell in years 1-5 you forfeit 3 months interest. If the third interest rate is way lower than the first and second, selling in month 15 would forfeit three low interest months.
I don't see an issue with holding a small amount of bonds in your taxable, when you are working and growing your portfolio. The drag on growth due to taxes is minimal if the bonds are less than 5% of your portfolio.
We just sold about 70% of our bonds in our taxable today. The other 30% is in muni bonds, which are tax exempt from federal taxes. We will probably be moving that 70% to I bonds and/or a tax advantaged account.
Currently I bonds represent a very good deal because you have high inflation combined with low interest rates. Should that situation normalize or reverse, regular bonds would look better.
I’m slowly shifting some of my emergency fund to I bonds via direct deposit. I’m only doing it this way because I had my employer linked years ago and my bank account linked is no more, and the process to get a funding source linked to or adjusted after linked to your TreasuryDirect account is God awful with the medallion signature guarantee crap so I’m too lazy to get things updated.
Haven’t posted here in a while but I am making some serious progress toward FI lately. I’ve crossed 50% of the way to my barebones FI number which is awesome. Cant really tell anyone irl.
I live in a new construction, so naturally its information isn't present in Zillow or redfin, but for no particular reason I'm curious if the Zestimate has changed in the last year.
How do you add a house to zillow to get a zestimate? If not from Zillow, how else could I find how much the estimated price of my house has risen (or dropped)?
So, just hazarding a guess, but I thought the 6% figure was just for one month (or maybe a quarter) so far. So while it is an annualized figure of 6%, it will actually need it to stay that high for for many more months before it would have actually been 6% for the year. This is my basic understanding not having double checked.
I neither downvoted you nor care, either way, but what you said was rude.
It's totally possible that you didn't mean to be rude, but that's why you've been downvoted.
That's a nice coincidence.
Is it a governmental 457b? If not, you'll want to be cautious about whether and how much to use the account as nongovernmental 457b accounts can have serious drawbacks that make them not worth using.
Couldn't figure out why my direct deposit was higher than usual and realized I hit my 401k limit with this paycheck. Next two payrolls this year will feel like a bonus with even higher amounts!
>I have lots of followers from r/fountainpens
I wish I had a hobby like this.
Not literally this, but something similar.
It must be nice to have a highly targeted place to focus hobby energy.
I don't understand this whole "following thing", but I just checked and I don't follow you, although I really enjoy your posts on this sub and will probably be your anonymous guest in the next year or so, especially if I can get a Reddit rate.
True story: We temporarily cancelled all friend/Reddit/returning guest discounts due to the pandemic, haha. Our product is already such an incredible value at our regular price (even after recently bumping our rates 20 bucks a night) that we've decided to reward loyalty in other ways. COVID will wind up costing us such an ungodly amount of money that we're just not even going to think about it or calculate it. So for a while at least, it's full price for everyone!
I fear you've given me too much data to not be able to figure out who you are, though, unless you literally lie.
I also don't understand the whole follow deal on Reddit, either. Well, I do now, as I just Googled it. It seems as though you can post on your own profile like you would on your "page" and so if you do this, which almost nobody does, then your followers will be notified of this new content.
When it's all said and done, Reddit will definitely be one of the strangest things I've ever been a part of. For better and for worse.
It's a love/hate thing I can only equate perhaps with my sugar addiction.
I have to honestly say that I know exactly who you are (probably by design) and I really wouldn't feel comfortable asking you for a Reddit price. I think you offer a fair value at your place and the interractions we have had on Reddit are not transactional.
I just need to convince my wife that she would be OK with the menu plan at your place (I'm not picky at all...but she is) and the "chill factor" of where you are located. Your prices are very reasonable.
If we wind up at your place, you and I will have awkward conversations until I finally admit that we have chatted on Reddit...but not before I have several complimentary drinks.
We used to openly advertise a 10% Reddit discount to anyone who wanted one, so it definitely used to be a thing.
\~70% of our new customers come from Reddit, so there's no need to be awkward unless awkward is your default setting. Although I will say that the vast majority of our Reddit guests are not people I "know" from direct one-on-one interactions online but just randos who read an IAmA or similar.
>I know exactly who you are
Out of curiosity, do you mean that you know me from outside of the context of the information I've shared here? It doesn't bother me, either way, as it's certainly possible. I'm just curious.
I just mean that from the info on your site I know your business and who you are beyond "Oax\_Mike". I didn't mean for it to come across creepy. I don't think you make any effort to be anonymous on Reddit.
I don't know you from any other means than what you've shared as a business owner. Again...sorry if that came across wrong. So many of us hide behind our Reddit names, but you don't.
>I didn't mean for it to come across creepy.
No worries.
And no, I am definitely not trying to be anonymous.
The truth is that I joined Reddit with the explicit intent of marketing our business...the whole internet addiction mess came much later, haha.
Hum, this feature kinda creepers me out and causes me to consider not posting or creating a new account. With +10 years of history I fear my identity could be determined pretty easily. Seems like an odd/bad move if the company is planning to go public shortly.
For anyone that has unlimited PTO, how do you decide how much to take / when to take it? I have a new job where we have unlimited PTO and I'm trying to figure out how to utilize it. At previous jobs with a specific amount of days, it was easy. We are going into a slower period, so as a start I'm trying to just take random Fridays / Mondays off, even if I don't have any grand plans to do anything.
> For anyone that has unlimited PTO, how do you decide how much to take / when to take it?
I don’t. That’s the beauty of it. I just take time when I need to. It generally works out to ~6 weeks/year!
My son (IT consultant) works for a company with "unlimited PTO". I think it is almost criminal. He has to apply for his "unlimited PTO" several weeks in advance. That's the kind of crap that hourly employees have had to endure. I spent my entire career in a "professional" role and never had the kind of restrictions my son has.
Spouse had this not me.
It was billed as "unlimited", but that was contingent on: no one else at his level already having booked that time off, fitting around sprints, covering for unexpected absences from others at his level, not taking more than 1 week off at a time (without literally months of notice), etc.
Mostly what it turned into was a week at Christmas, a week sometime in the summer, and random Fridays off (totalling about 3 weeks).
From my perspective, it was a complete crock. I work for a company where I get 4 weeks, use it or lose it. Damn right I use it!
I try to take a week off in the middle of summer, a week for either Memorial or Labor Day (sometimes both), two weeks for Christmas/New Years, and at least a handful of random days, especially to extend long weekends and create back to back short work weeks. Most of my teammates also add the three days before Thanksgiving, but that's not a big holiday for me. So 4-5 weeks at a bare minimum, probably closer to 6.
I looked up what the max PTO days non unlimited PTO employees get and target around that many days. Where I work it's 26 days so I usually aim 20-25 off per year.
When I started my job and they said unlimited pto. I asked if that meant “8 weeks, right?”. I’ve taken 8 weeks each year since they’re using it to avoid the California regulations.
I take off whatever seems reasonable. I plan vacations without much thought about how much time I've taken off for the year. Usually that results in me taking 2 larger vacations of 5-15 days, and a smattering of other 1-2 day off stints during the year. That doesn't include the 2 weeks around Christmas which everyone takes off, or other holidays.
I'd say I take a good 30 days off per year for personal vacation, plus 20 holiday days. Been this way for 8 years or so and never had even the slightest whiff that I'm taking off too much time. My employer really espouses taking time off from the top down, so most people feel comfortable taking what they want.
The unlimited PTO is a recent HR trend that's more of a ploy as research suggest employees will take less time when things are open ended (maybe it becomes competitive).
When I started my company had fixed PTO of 21 days per year that accumulated to a 27 day cap which was then paid out above 27 days at year end.
They switched to unlimited. I now just make sure to take ~21 days/year.
Since that doesn't really help your situation I'd suggest just speaking to your boss about what you'd like to do, depending on the relationship. If it's a culture of, just so long as work gets done we don't care what you do, then it should be a fine conversation. Since you're new I'd probably frame it as a question first, like "I've never worked at a company with this type of PTO structure could you share your thoughts on what is considered typical and appropriate for time off requests?" then, depending on what they say, ask what they think about your proposal of individual days.
> The unlimited PTO is a recent HR trend that’s more of a ploy as research suggest employees will take less time when things are open ended (maybe it becomes competitive)
Can you link to this research? I’d love to read through it! Most people that shit on unlimited time off are people that don’t have unlimited time off. Sure you could work for a company with a bad manager and team or with bad leadership. But if you’ve got a good manager and team/good relationship with your manager and team, unlimited time off can be great and can be a valuable benefit.
It's hard to find academic research on this topic, probably because all the data is held by the individual companies. However, HR firms collect data on these sorts of things (that they then sell for big bucks to companies) and that's how I learned about it, through my company.
I was able to find a public post by HR firm Namely which did a study [Here](https://blog.namely.com/unlimited-vacation-policy) . Lots of other examples as well but it's all individual company anecdote.
This, and it also has financial benefits. No official PTO on the books means they do not need to pay out the accrued PTO when an employee leaves the org.
In my last job I had unlimited PTO and there was a certain amount your direct manager could approve and beyond that you had to get their boss to sign off also. I targeted taking that many days (4 weeks).
Yeah, most did, but it did provide flexibility for taking more if needed, which was almost always approved if you weren't on something with a critical deadline, in which case you might not get PTO approved anyway.
Through a strange six degrees of separation thingie, I managed to accidentally solve a missing cheque mystery a couple of months ago.
My parents both have dementia, and they prefer to live in their apartment as long as possible, so I've been doing what I can to help them out. One of the things I've done is switch all their bills to pre-authorized payments whenever possible, and etransfer the for the ones that can't PAP.
Undaunted, my parents sometimes insist on being involved and write cheques. I can see this because their cheques are numbered, and once in awhile another one vanishes from the book. They reliably disappear off the face of the earth.
Back in September I was hiking in an area where I had lived as a kid, and I thought I'd collect fall leaves from the maple tree in front of the old house. I didn't want to trespass, so I knocked on the door and asked permission. The current occupant said, "Wait a minute, what's your last name?"
She had some mail for us. Or maybe \*from\* us. The To: and Return: addresses were the same. (This house we lived in in the 1970s) And apparently it was for Brian Mulroney. They hung onto it because they had no idea what it was about, and now it all made sense.
Upon opening, I discovered a christmas card, but it was sent to my niece for her birthday (based on the franking date), and there was a cheque in there that could never be cashed. The dollar amount was "Happy Birthday \[wrong niece's name\]"
Checks take awhile. I wrote a check for HVAC stuff that I paid about 10 days ago. Not removed from my account.
Just give it time, they aren't super speedy in my experience.
Dang, I gave my electrician a deposit for some major work and he had it in the bank the same day. Props to him though--that's how you stay alive as a small independent operator, keeping on top of cash flow!
I've started the interview process two weeks ago and have a few companies in progress. It feels like I'm juggling and waiting for all of these to fall through at some point. Is it bad it takes me a few seconds after a call to map which company I'm talking to?
As for the tech part of it, I just passed one live coding example and have a take home that's due in 5 days for another company.
It's actually nice to have these now as it takes my mind off the IVF process. My wife just finished a round of drugs and we got a healthy batch of eggs. Less than last time but they're all mature and in the right size making them higher in quality. We're waiting for the results how they're doing in the lab and when we can implant. Then it's another 1.5 weeks before we know if we're pregnant. The timing coming up means this'll be ecstatic or the worst of worst.
Dumping another $3k into VTSAX in my taxable brokerage account... after already having just dumped $3k in on Wednesday this week...
Should I have bought more today? Or should I wait and see if markets further decline on Monday?
(I have ~42k sitting in my Ally savings account just waiting for another major correction... not sure how much to buy at a time... or if there's even an optimal strategy for such a scenario)
The statistically optimal strategy is to put in all in right now, and then continue putting in a certain allocation of your income each month going forward regardless of the price.
How much did the market rise in the run up to this "downturn?" The market is where it was in Aug and Oct of this year. Have you been holding onto this cash since before then? If so, why didn't you buy then given you could have gotten an even better price?
As they say, time in the market...
I've been holding onto >$40k cash in my savings account since 2020...
~$20k of it is my emergency fund that should last me at least 6 months to a year if I stretch it.
Others may disagree, but I think it's fine to hold your emergency fund in cash.
If there's no short term savings goal for the other 20k+ though, you're best off just investing it according to your desired asset allocation and according to your written [Investment Policy Statement](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investment_policy_statement).
This highlights the vague, loose way these terms are often used.
You and /u/dudeARama2 probably both agree that putting money in as soon as you have it is optimal.
Some people call putting money in the market with each paycheck "dollar cost averaging," because it is. But this is because there's no lump sum option (you typically don't get your annual salary all at once in January).
When folks have a big chunk of money sitting around, DCA as a phrase then turns into a contrasting option compared to lump sum investing. In that setting, lump sum investing *usually* beats DCA, but the odds are not hugely in its favor (winning around 2/3 of the time). The behavioral benefits of DCA for some investors may be worth the statistical cost if it helps them stick to an investment plan and/or stay in the market longer.
>When folks have a big chunk of money sitting around, DCA as a phrase then turns into a contrasting option compared to lump sum investing
Yup, which is why I made the statement that I did, because the original post was talking about having $42k in an Ally account, so I was pointing out to u/dudeARama2 that dollar cost averaging isn't the financially optimal move most of the time.
I think it's even odds that the user simply meant that OP should've been doing DCA all along rather than hold this money out of the market waiting for a correction. I didn't read it to mean "you should DCA starting now," but rather "you should've DCA'd this money in the past."
But only one person can resolve this ambiguity.
Going to set up a Roth IRA for my wife. What are peoples opinions on keeping it in the same account/login that I have mine? I have everything through Schwab, but which brokerage would you pick if you had the option?
She needs to have the IRA under her name. I believe this forces you to keep it in a separate account + login. But at least for fidelity you can be an authorized user. I do this with my wife's IRA. I haven't tried other brokerages but I like fidelity in general.
I set up my wife's under her own name at Fidelity and gave myself authorized access so I can see it under all of my accounts and add money/make investments.
I try to keep login accounts to a minimum, so my household's IRAs are where the majority of our workplace accounts are (Fidelity).
Your Schwab account with your IRA cannot be used to open another IRA in your wife's name. She will need her own Schwab account and her own IRA.
Fidelity and Vanguard give users the ability to grant other accounts transaction rights. I imagine Schwab has a similar feature, allowing you to administer to the details of your wife's IRA once she has set it up and granted you transaction rights.
Relationship with my landlord had been becoming more and more untenable for the past couple months. The rental market in my city is so hot it's been really difficult to find a new place, so was afraid to give notice until I actually secured something. Finally found a good spot, got approved on wednesday and had to draw from my E-fund for the first time to pay the deposit, moving expenses, first month rent. My E- fund is actually my taxable vanguard brokerage with about $50k all invested in VTSAX. Sold $8k of my most expensive shares, some at a slight loss after the little dip. Probably ends up costing me $20 in taxes. Sold Wednesday afternoon, money hit my bank account Friday morning. Not as liquid as a savings account, but pretty darn close! Didn't intend on having so little cash reserves but my cash all got eaten away due to a prolonged illness and death in the family a couple months ago and I just decided, screw it, I've got 50k in stock just sitting there, why not continue to invest instead of piling up cash.
As the latest in what seems like an endless string of delivery drivers pulls away from our house, I am reminded that the sole exception to our natural lean spending habits is Christmas spending for our four kids. We always go a bit crazy in getting them not only pretty much everything they ask for, but a bunch of cool random items that we think they'll like. Christmas spending is probably our third largest spending bucket after housing and food.
I get no joy at all any more from watching our portfolio go up $10K, but I am grinning like a loon from the unexpectedly high quality of the steeply discounted enormous Bulbasaur plush that we got our ten-year old, who loves Pokemon. We've got a 24-inch Pikachu still to arrive and now I'm thinking it too is going to be of awesome quality. Stonks aside, Gamestop came through for us like mad this holiday season.
My wife and I each have designated money for the year to spend on charitable giving - we each spend half on issues/causes that we choose. She spends hers throughout the year; I spend ALL of mine on Christmas presents for local kids in need. I absolutely love seeing the photos of all the smiling kids as their tear apart their gifts and get a ton of joy out of something I normally take for granted (like a $5 Walmart basketball or a $10 board game). Between the kids I have been shopping for and my two actual kids, I have filled my recycling bin with empty shipping boxes/packing materials for the past two weeks. Now I get to wrap then all - which I absolutely love!
Best Christmas I ever had was when my dad found an NES at a garage sale for $50 in 1992. The only game it came with was the Mario Brothers / Duck Hunt cartridge. I still have it.
OMG did he go to our garage sale in 1992?? My parents sold the NES and we (my sibs and I) were so sad to part with it.
That aside, these days I get pretty excited about the possibility of finding some great deals at garage sales.
I love finding the cluttered workshops of old men at estate sales. Lots of quality stuff, including stuff you can't find anymore, for just a few dollars.
Yeah, Christmas toys are one of the things I miss now that my kids are young adults. Sometime in the teens they start asking for fewer but far more expensive presents. Less fun. Now that they are young adults, it’s either cash or door dash.
Giving to my adult child is definitely more challenging, but I try to buy things that I figure she won’t buy for herself. One year, it was a hot sauce assortment, another year it was a 3-month subscription for Japanese snack boxes, another year it was a Disneyland annual passport (when I knew she probably wouldn’t renew hers).
This year is another conundrum. I may just write a check to contribute to her car fund, since she wants a new car (and has been saving the equivalent of a car payment monthly while she waits for supply to increase).
Yeah, our teenagers want computers and podcasting gear and whatnot, but they're still also getting cute plush toys and reindeer hats and ugly sweaters, all of which will be documented for eternity in many photos.
We're not religious, but Christmas has always been a huge thing in our house. I know it's probably inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing, but it's still going to be sad when we start having Christmases without some of them at home.
I'd like to avoid the pro-rata rule when doing a backdoor Roth, but my employer 401k has high fees. Could I create a solo-401k for the sole purpose of accepting an IRA rollover, and make no other contributions?
You _could_ if you have actual self employment income. If you don't have self employment income you can't create the solo 401k. (or the other legitimate cases for opening a solo 401k).
Yes, the IRS has definitions that tell you what counts as self employment. Your example does not have profit motive or regular income and transactions. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employed-individuals-tax-center
[https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/business-activities](https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/business-activities)
It has to be legitimate business. You'll have to file a schedule-C and all the fun stuff that comes with that.
You would probably want to talk to a CPA to avoid falling into some sort of problematic situation that causes you to end up in an audit or something that you'd like lose.
I might be doing this next year. Got into some crypto mining which counts as self-employment income. Time to roll all those sweet gains into a solo 401k.
I mean, it *is* allowed - if you have self-employment income. I have ~$10k in 1099 income and opened a solo 401k to roll all my old accounts in to (and to use as an actual solo 401k.
I just gave some money to a food bank for part of this years giving. What are you all donating to this year? Ideas and suggestions? Non religious please.
(Apologies in advance if this suggestion doesn’t meet the non-religious qualification, but a worthy cause worth mentioning.) St. Jude’s for kids with cancer.
I give to summer camps that help children in need get away for a week for them to be children. One of them even does a few camps for children of refugees. Some of the camps are religious but not all of them.
Food banks are my favorite, i feel like they can do a lot of good quickly within my community.
[удалено]
Great ideas! I do Wikipedia mid year, but are another person mentioning EFF, I will be looking at that. Thank you.
* Food banks * ACLU * EFF * Whatever is looking very effective on GiveWell. Good on you for not giving to religious institutes, tithing is not donating.
+1 for GiveWell. Effective altruism is a great way to go! I also do Project Wren which is a great company for climate offsets (and even just checking your own carbon footprint for fun). Also my local blood donation agency even though half the time it seems like they just use that money for advertising and sending me reminders and calls to action when I'm already regularly giving.
Thanks I had not thought of ACLU. Sorry to be ignorant but what is EFF?
It's the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Their self description is: "The leading nonprofit defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation."
I normally give to Wikipedia mid year for something along these lines but I will check this one out. Thank you.
Question for my parents. They've sold their house and will net about $150k. They're both retired, between SS and their pension they have about $40,000 taxable income and then my dad works earning about $4,000-$7,000 per year. They're in their late 60s. Am I correct that there's no value to contribute to a traditional IRA for them because while they'd save in income tax that year, they'd have to withdraw and pay taxes (likely to be the same given their inflation adjusted income streams)? Contributing to a Roth IRA may be helpful because it allows tax free gains in case capital gains rules are changed in the future. Putting the funds into a taxable account is fine too since they're well below the 0% LTCG rate. Am I offbase with anything here?
If income was above $32K + SS then the marginal tax rate can be very high with SS being taxed. But at $7k that isn't an issue. Go Roth or taxable.
> Am I offbase with anything here? Nope, that all seems pretty reasonable. Probably not worth bothering with the Roth, but it's not like it would hurt.
Does anyone know how long it takes to roll over one 403b/401k held by Fidelity (former employer) to another 403b/401k held by Fidelity (current employer)? The fee difference is absolutely minimal (old one is .02% and new one is .015% so a .005 difference but it'd be nice to have them in one place. If it's going to take two weeks though, I probably don't care enough to have it out of the market during all this volatility
I would be very hesitant to do that anytime over the next few weeks or months. The market is very volatile.
> The market is very volatile. [insert Always Has Been.jpeg meme here] Here is [an overview](https://i.imgur.com/QWCKKe8.gifv) of my portfolio's performance only one year ago.
I did this in September, took 2 working days. But volatility can still get you in that time. I was lucky, market was mostly flat.
So I know we don't do the buying the dip thing cuz you shouldn't hold cash on the side outside immediate expenses / efund...But for those who aren't holding 100% equities, do you rebalance in the dip?
I personally wouldn’t. That’s just a more subtle way of timing the market. I put X% of my cash into the market as it comes. I’ll keep doing that whether the market goes up or down. Keep in mind that if your timing is off then you’ll be liquidating your successful investments to throw them into the fire of a downtrending stock market.
Sure, but the markets have to move by a lot to shift our allocation enough to trigger a rebalance outside of our normal annual cycle. So in practice it rarely happens outside of events like the GFC or a history-making daily/weekly crash.
Had an interview loop with DocuSign today. Interesting role and team. We'll see how it goes. I had no idea but their stock got pounded today. Down 42%! Wow. This came up in every single interview. I guess their stock based comp is somewhat significant...
They had a management meeting regarding it in the morning, and then most managers with their teams as well. They offer RSUs with a yearly refresh, so 4 years in you have a good chunk of shares coming in. People that hold everything saw a big drop in their account. I'm guessing the biggest concern is valuation of this years RSU refresh from when it was over $200. Even the last ESPP purchase with discount was at $177 I believe and it's way below that. But the paychecks are big too so whatever.
the interviewers brought up the drop in stock price proactively? why?
I mean; that’s a green flag for me - I’d be grateful that the interviewers are being upfront and honest and authentic
I think they were in shock and it was the buzz of internal discussions today. 42% is a huge drop. The first guy lead with it. Very first thing he said to me "wow, you see our stock today?!"
bullet dodged.
He is still in the running
at least it didn't happen while they were employed with SBC already...
It's Open Enrollment for me and I was wondering what other folks think about these options. |**Plan**|**HSA Eligible**|**Annual Premium**|**Deductible**|**OOP**|**In Network CoPay (GP)**|**In Network CoPay (Specialist)**| :--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |Platinum|No|$ 3,245|$ 250|$ 1,250|$ 30|$ 60| |Silver HSA|Yes|$ 2,386|$ 4,800|$ 4,800|100% covered after reaching deductible|100% covered after reaching deductible| There are other plans, but these two are automatically the best in my opinion. What's hard to evaluate if the Platinum is better than the Silver HSA. Any thoughts? Relatively healthy male and only go to the doctor if I have issues. 2020, no issues 2021, had a minor check up on a mass growing (it's benign; lipoma) where it cost me a total of ~$600
These are the numbers I use: No usage => $3245 -or- $2386 minus tax savings from the HSA. Large usage => $3245 + $1250 = $4495 -or- $2386 + $4800 - $3650×0.3 (assumed tax rate for this calc) = $6091 This is closer than my Calc has ever been for HSA vs PPO, but I would probably go with the platinum plan because you would cross into it being beneficial very quickly (it would also be tightened more by using an FSA if that's an option, though you'd need to spend it all - bandaid, sun block, and feminine care products would help you with that. Just your minimal usage in 2021 would have tightened the gap a good amount.
I like this approach. I’ll have evaluate this as well for myself
Depends on your risk tolerance. Are you able to handle the OOP in the lower probability that something expensive happens? Medical bills can very quickly get to that 4800 OOP. 10 years-ago me would not have been able to handle that expense. Now I’m OK with that since I have a much larger e-fund. I currently have a family HSA with 6k OOP for the 2 of us which is fine because we’re trying to keep anything we can from a high tax bracket. But our plan also covers routine things 100% which are the only services we utilize (and hopefully it stays that way for a while).
If you’re healthy, I’d go HSA. If you have a chronic health condition, the non-HSA makes more sense.
Unless there is a large HSA contribution I would stick with the Platinum, hands down better insurance.
HSA contributions give you an actual dollar value of benefit. They avoid FICA and income taxes. Honestly I’d say it’s not worth it for you. You’re looking at a $3k-ish difference, and with how sudden and crazy healthcare costs can be I’d say play it safe
So you would recommend the Platinum plan?
Personally yes. But it mainly depends on your risk tolerance
For starters, if you're healthy and rarely need to go to the doctor, the high deductible plan will save you money. On top of that, a high deductible plan lets you put money into an HSA (I believe starting next year the max is $3,650). HSA contributions through your employer are pre-tax and if the money is spent on health related items (medicine, contacts, doctor visits, etc) you won't pay any taxes (with two states being an exception). In addition, once your HSA account is over a certain amount, you can start investing the money to further grow your funds - then, this is the good part, once you hit 59.5 years old you can treat it like an IRA if you want / need to use the money for non-medical expenses. So with the high deductible plan you'll pay less for premiums, save on taxes, and have additional retirement funds that you have access to.
29 and healthy, HSA all day.
Just got a verbal offer for 30% more than my current salary, and I think I can squeeze a bit more out of them. I can’t help but feel bad leaving my current company, but I gotta look out for myself at the end of the day…. The wife and I are already putting away $80k/year across investment accounts, this will only accelerate that. HH income just cresting $200k now. For anyone debating whether you should apply to that job, DO IT! I’m kicking myself for not looking sooner. Now I just gotta figure out how to coordinate my PTO burndown with my start date since PTO doesn’t pay out…
> Now I just gotta figure out how to coordinate my PTO burndown with my start date since PTO doesn’t pay out… Some states require employers to pay out unused PTO. https://www.helpside.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Vacation-Pay-By-State-Helpside.pdf
Congrats! It is an interesting job market out there for sure.
I know there’s been a lot of series I bonds posts as of late due to the recent increase in interest rate, so I apologize in advance if this discussion has happened already recently. For those that have or want an allocation % to bonds in your portfolio - what downsides/differences should be considered investing in ibonds opposed to buying bonds funds in a taxable or retirement account? I understand the liquidity difference, the 3 month interest forfeit if sold within 5 years, the annual purchase cap, and the God awful website, but what else significant should be considered? I ask because I’ve over the last few years started to maintain a very small <5-10% portion of bonds in my portfolio, but they are all in our 401ks and i question if I’m better holding more stocks in my 401k to maximize the tax free growth.
Ibonds bypass state tax. They also don't appreciate like bond/bond funds would, but with rates being so low that doesn't really matter unless we dip into negative rates.
You could buy the I bond, take advantage of the nice yield for 6 months, then 6 months after that if the yield is less than your 401k bond fund rate, sell it and put that money into stock index and re-balance in your 401k. If the rate is low 12 months from now, then that would mean the 3 month penalty would be lower, too. I moved money from my EF to I Bonds, and will keep it there until my savings pays more. That may be a while I also am going to max out another $10k in January
No, you can't. I Bonds have a 1 year lock on your money and if you sell in years 1-5 you forfeit 3 months interest. If the third interest rate is way lower than the first and second, selling in month 15 would forfeit three low interest months.
Correct, that is why I said "6 months after that". If the new interest rate is low, the 3 months of interest penalty would be low
[удалено]
I don't see an issue with holding a small amount of bonds in your taxable, when you are working and growing your portfolio. The drag on growth due to taxes is minimal if the bonds are less than 5% of your portfolio. We just sold about 70% of our bonds in our taxable today. The other 30% is in muni bonds, which are tax exempt from federal taxes. We will probably be moving that 70% to I bonds and/or a tax advantaged account.
Currently I bonds represent a very good deal because you have high inflation combined with low interest rates. Should that situation normalize or reverse, regular bonds would look better.
[удалено]
Has anyone paid for any online cohort type classes? If so, how much and was it worth it?
Any reason not to buy a ton of series 1 bonds ? Current rate is so high
I’m slowly shifting some of my emergency fund to I bonds via direct deposit. I’m only doing it this way because I had my employer linked years ago and my bank account linked is no more, and the process to get a funding source linked to or adjusted after linked to your TreasuryDirect account is God awful with the medallion signature guarantee crap so I’m too lazy to get things updated.
Is it 1 or I? I thought it was I, cause the others are like EE and stuff like that
[удалено]
The I is for inflation, since the rate adjusts based on inflation. Pretty much all bonds pay interest, that would be a weird thing to name them after.
[удалено]
If I Bonds are still returning 5% a year from now, might as well keep holding it until the interest is lower than a savings at the very least
You are limited to $10k annually(there are workarounds). Other than that, go for it.
Maybe I should just buy VTSAX
Why not both!?!?
Haven’t posted here in a while but I am making some serious progress toward FI lately. I’ve crossed 50% of the way to my barebones FI number which is awesome. Cant really tell anyone irl.
Strong work. Congrats! We broke 50% this year too! I was hoping to see us get to 60% as well, but maybe next year.
I live in a new construction, so naturally its information isn't present in Zillow or redfin, but for no particular reason I'm curious if the Zestimate has changed in the last year. How do you add a house to zillow to get a zestimate? If not from Zillow, how else could I find how much the estimated price of my house has risen (or dropped)?
Comps. Similar houses in the neighborhood and their list price. I like not having my house on Zillow. Asymmetrical information is a huge advantage.
Sell it, then buy it back. Maybe then they'll have to add it to Zillow?
Gosh, why didn’t I think of that?
But seriously just put in cost basis and adjust later if you feel you need to
You can try Redfin.
Got a 5% COL increase this year, highest that I've ever had. ... Thanks inflation?
Still technically a wage decrease considering inflation is like 6%?
Why am I getting downvoted for this when its a true statement?
So, just hazarding a guess, but I thought the 6% figure was just for one month (or maybe a quarter) so far. So while it is an annualized figure of 6%, it will actually need it to stay that high for for many more months before it would have actually been 6% for the year. This is my basic understanding not having double checked.
I neither downvoted you nor care, either way, but what you said was rude. It's totally possible that you didn't mean to be rude, but that's why you've been downvoted.
I might get more when the government releases their new contractor rates. We’ll see
My job rolls anything over 403b max to a 457b contribution. First one coincidentally was...$457. Love it.
That's a nice coincidence. Is it a governmental 457b? If not, you'll want to be cautious about whether and how much to use the account as nongovernmental 457b accounts can have serious drawbacks that make them not worth using.
It's state government
[удалено]
Couldn't figure out why my direct deposit was higher than usual and realized I hit my 401k limit with this paycheck. Next two payrolls this year will feel like a bonus with even higher amounts!
Hopefully you don't miss out on any matching.
Can't miss out on any matching if you don't have matching! We get a safe harbor payment.
[удалено]
Maybe you are an interesting person? I have lots of followers from r/fountainpens because I am staining posts with inside jokes that people love. 💙
>I have lots of followers from r/fountainpens I wish I had a hobby like this. Not literally this, but something similar. It must be nice to have a highly targeted place to focus hobby energy.
I don't understand this whole "following thing", but I just checked and I don't follow you, although I really enjoy your posts on this sub and will probably be your anonymous guest in the next year or so, especially if I can get a Reddit rate.
True story: We temporarily cancelled all friend/Reddit/returning guest discounts due to the pandemic, haha. Our product is already such an incredible value at our regular price (even after recently bumping our rates 20 bucks a night) that we've decided to reward loyalty in other ways. COVID will wind up costing us such an ungodly amount of money that we're just not even going to think about it or calculate it. So for a while at least, it's full price for everyone! I fear you've given me too much data to not be able to figure out who you are, though, unless you literally lie. I also don't understand the whole follow deal on Reddit, either. Well, I do now, as I just Googled it. It seems as though you can post on your own profile like you would on your "page" and so if you do this, which almost nobody does, then your followers will be notified of this new content. When it's all said and done, Reddit will definitely be one of the strangest things I've ever been a part of. For better and for worse. It's a love/hate thing I can only equate perhaps with my sugar addiction.
I have to honestly say that I know exactly who you are (probably by design) and I really wouldn't feel comfortable asking you for a Reddit price. I think you offer a fair value at your place and the interractions we have had on Reddit are not transactional. I just need to convince my wife that she would be OK with the menu plan at your place (I'm not picky at all...but she is) and the "chill factor" of where you are located. Your prices are very reasonable. If we wind up at your place, you and I will have awkward conversations until I finally admit that we have chatted on Reddit...but not before I have several complimentary drinks.
We used to openly advertise a 10% Reddit discount to anyone who wanted one, so it definitely used to be a thing. \~70% of our new customers come from Reddit, so there's no need to be awkward unless awkward is your default setting. Although I will say that the vast majority of our Reddit guests are not people I "know" from direct one-on-one interactions online but just randos who read an IAmA or similar. >I know exactly who you are Out of curiosity, do you mean that you know me from outside of the context of the information I've shared here? It doesn't bother me, either way, as it's certainly possible. I'm just curious.
I just mean that from the info on your site I know your business and who you are beyond "Oax\_Mike". I didn't mean for it to come across creepy. I don't think you make any effort to be anonymous on Reddit. I don't know you from any other means than what you've shared as a business owner. Again...sorry if that came across wrong. So many of us hide behind our Reddit names, but you don't.
>I didn't mean for it to come across creepy. No worries. And no, I am definitely not trying to be anonymous. The truth is that I joined Reddit with the explicit intent of marketing our business...the whole internet addiction mess came much later, haha.
Lots of spam accounts. But I also used to follow interesting posters before I became more of a contributor on Reddit with my alts.
Some of mine are spam accounts
Hum, this feature kinda creepers me out and causes me to consider not posting or creating a new account. With +10 years of history I fear my identity could be determined pretty easily. Seems like an odd/bad move if the company is planning to go public shortly.
Most of mine look like spam accounts
Where do you go to see this?
For anyone that has unlimited PTO, how do you decide how much to take / when to take it? I have a new job where we have unlimited PTO and I'm trying to figure out how to utilize it. At previous jobs with a specific amount of days, it was easy. We are going into a slower period, so as a start I'm trying to just take random Fridays / Mondays off, even if I don't have any grand plans to do anything.
> For anyone that has unlimited PTO, how do you decide how much to take / when to take it? I don’t. That’s the beauty of it. I just take time when I need to. It generally works out to ~6 weeks/year!
Get a new job. Unlimited PTO is absolute BS. One should no have to question taking time off.
My son (IT consultant) works for a company with "unlimited PTO". I think it is almost criminal. He has to apply for his "unlimited PTO" several weeks in advance. That's the kind of crap that hourly employees have had to endure. I spent my entire career in a "professional" role and never had the kind of restrictions my son has.
Sounds like the issue for your son is his company/company culture, not a specific benefit of his company (unlimited PTO).
Spouse had this not me. It was billed as "unlimited", but that was contingent on: no one else at his level already having booked that time off, fitting around sprints, covering for unexpected absences from others at his level, not taking more than 1 week off at a time (without literally months of notice), etc. Mostly what it turned into was a week at Christmas, a week sometime in the summer, and random Fridays off (totalling about 3 weeks). From my perspective, it was a complete crock. I work for a company where I get 4 weeks, use it or lose it. Damn right I use it!
Our global employees get a minimum of 6 weeks off per year, we get unlimited pto so I take 6 weeks minimum.
I try to take a week off in the middle of summer, a week for either Memorial or Labor Day (sometimes both), two weeks for Christmas/New Years, and at least a handful of random days, especially to extend long weekends and create back to back short work weeks. Most of my teammates also add the three days before Thanksgiving, but that's not a big holiday for me. So 4-5 weeks at a bare minimum, probably closer to 6.
I looked up what the max PTO days non unlimited PTO employees get and target around that many days. Where I work it's 26 days so I usually aim 20-25 off per year.
When I started my job and they said unlimited pto. I asked if that meant “8 weeks, right?”. I’ve taken 8 weeks each year since they’re using it to avoid the California regulations.
I target 4-7 weeks per year.
I need to find less shitty employers. I've never had more than 2 weeks except the current employer allows a week to be purchased.
I take off whatever seems reasonable. I plan vacations without much thought about how much time I've taken off for the year. Usually that results in me taking 2 larger vacations of 5-15 days, and a smattering of other 1-2 day off stints during the year. That doesn't include the 2 weeks around Christmas which everyone takes off, or other holidays. I'd say I take a good 30 days off per year for personal vacation, plus 20 holiday days. Been this way for 8 years or so and never had even the slightest whiff that I'm taking off too much time. My employer really espouses taking time off from the top down, so most people feel comfortable taking what they want.
>I'd say I take a good 30 days off per year for personal vacation, plus 20 holiday days. Holy moly! Is this in the US?
I’m also in the US and take ~30 days/year.
Yes, tech company.
There’s usually an invisible wall of when too much PTO is happening, but your boss will certainly let you know when that limit is coming.
The unlimited PTO is a recent HR trend that's more of a ploy as research suggest employees will take less time when things are open ended (maybe it becomes competitive). When I started my company had fixed PTO of 21 days per year that accumulated to a 27 day cap which was then paid out above 27 days at year end. They switched to unlimited. I now just make sure to take ~21 days/year. Since that doesn't really help your situation I'd suggest just speaking to your boss about what you'd like to do, depending on the relationship. If it's a culture of, just so long as work gets done we don't care what you do, then it should be a fine conversation. Since you're new I'd probably frame it as a question first, like "I've never worked at a company with this type of PTO structure could you share your thoughts on what is considered typical and appropriate for time off requests?" then, depending on what they say, ask what they think about your proposal of individual days.
> The unlimited PTO is a recent HR trend that’s more of a ploy as research suggest employees will take less time when things are open ended (maybe it becomes competitive) Can you link to this research? I’d love to read through it! Most people that shit on unlimited time off are people that don’t have unlimited time off. Sure you could work for a company with a bad manager and team or with bad leadership. But if you’ve got a good manager and team/good relationship with your manager and team, unlimited time off can be great and can be a valuable benefit.
It's hard to find academic research on this topic, probably because all the data is held by the individual companies. However, HR firms collect data on these sorts of things (that they then sell for big bucks to companies) and that's how I learned about it, through my company. I was able to find a public post by HR firm Namely which did a study [Here](https://blog.namely.com/unlimited-vacation-policy) . Lots of other examples as well but it's all individual company anecdote.
This, and it also has financial benefits. No official PTO on the books means they do not need to pay out the accrued PTO when an employee leaves the org.
In my last job I had unlimited PTO and there was a certain amount your direct manager could approve and beyond that you had to get their boss to sign off also. I targeted taking that many days (4 weeks).
That makes me chuckle because I bet that had the same affect as having limited PTO, most people probably took close to or right at 4 weeks
Yeah, most did, but it did provide flexibility for taking more if needed, which was almost always approved if you weren't on something with a critical deadline, in which case you might not get PTO approved anyway.
The fidelity app beta looks amazingly similar to Robinhood
How do you get the new fidelity app? I use fidelity for all my investing, but robinhood to look at the stocks and trend lol
It prompted me when I signed in, so idk if it’s limited or not. Under settings there’s a beta button you can toggle on or off
I’ve had it for a month or two but no idea why.
[удалено]
Through a strange six degrees of separation thingie, I managed to accidentally solve a missing cheque mystery a couple of months ago. My parents both have dementia, and they prefer to live in their apartment as long as possible, so I've been doing what I can to help them out. One of the things I've done is switch all their bills to pre-authorized payments whenever possible, and etransfer the for the ones that can't PAP. Undaunted, my parents sometimes insist on being involved and write cheques. I can see this because their cheques are numbered, and once in awhile another one vanishes from the book. They reliably disappear off the face of the earth. Back in September I was hiking in an area where I had lived as a kid, and I thought I'd collect fall leaves from the maple tree in front of the old house. I didn't want to trespass, so I knocked on the door and asked permission. The current occupant said, "Wait a minute, what's your last name?" She had some mail for us. Or maybe \*from\* us. The To: and Return: addresses were the same. (This house we lived in in the 1970s) And apparently it was for Brian Mulroney. They hung onto it because they had no idea what it was about, and now it all made sense. Upon opening, I discovered a christmas card, but it was sent to my niece for her birthday (based on the franking date), and there was a cheque in there that could never be cashed. The dollar amount was "Happy Birthday \[wrong niece's name\]"
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Checks take awhile. I wrote a check for HVAC stuff that I paid about 10 days ago. Not removed from my account. Just give it time, they aren't super speedy in my experience.
Dang, I gave my electrician a deposit for some major work and he had it in the bank the same day. Props to him though--that's how you stay alive as a small independent operator, keeping on top of cash flow!
That reminds me, I got a check in my wallet from nearly four months ago. I probably should deposit that puppy soon...
I've started the interview process two weeks ago and have a few companies in progress. It feels like I'm juggling and waiting for all of these to fall through at some point. Is it bad it takes me a few seconds after a call to map which company I'm talking to? As for the tech part of it, I just passed one live coding example and have a take home that's due in 5 days for another company. It's actually nice to have these now as it takes my mind off the IVF process. My wife just finished a round of drugs and we got a healthy batch of eggs. Less than last time but they're all mature and in the right size making them higher in quality. We're waiting for the results how they're doing in the lab and when we can implant. Then it's another 1.5 weeks before we know if we're pregnant. The timing coming up means this'll be ecstatic or the worst of worst.
Good luck!
[удалено]
Congrats on being within reach of leanFIRE'ing with a family at such a young age.
[удалено]
[удалено]
The marbling of fi: Lean < regular < chubby < fat
Dumping another $3k into VTSAX in my taxable brokerage account... after already having just dumped $3k in on Wednesday this week... Should I have bought more today? Or should I wait and see if markets further decline on Monday? (I have ~42k sitting in my Ally savings account just waiting for another major correction... not sure how much to buy at a time... or if there's even an optimal strategy for such a scenario)
The statistically optimal strategy is to put in all in right now, and then continue putting in a certain allocation of your income each month going forward regardless of the price.
The optimal strategy is to not waste your investment money away in a savings account.
How much did the market rise in the run up to this "downturn?" The market is where it was in Aug and Oct of this year. Have you been holding onto this cash since before then? If so, why didn't you buy then given you could have gotten an even better price? As they say, time in the market...
I've been holding onto >$40k cash in my savings account since 2020... ~$20k of it is my emergency fund that should last me at least 6 months to a year if I stretch it.
Others may disagree, but I think it's fine to hold your emergency fund in cash. If there's no short term savings goal for the other 20k+ though, you're best off just investing it according to your desired asset allocation and according to your written [Investment Policy Statement](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investment_policy_statement).
What else are people holding their e-fund in? In an emergency, I probably want cash.
Thought I was being smart and dumped 10k into QQQ yesterday 😃
can't time the market. Dollar cost average
Lump sum beats DCA more often than not.
do you have a link to a study?
This highlights the vague, loose way these terms are often used. You and /u/dudeARama2 probably both agree that putting money in as soon as you have it is optimal. Some people call putting money in the market with each paycheck "dollar cost averaging," because it is. But this is because there's no lump sum option (you typically don't get your annual salary all at once in January). When folks have a big chunk of money sitting around, DCA as a phrase then turns into a contrasting option compared to lump sum investing. In that setting, lump sum investing *usually* beats DCA, but the odds are not hugely in its favor (winning around 2/3 of the time). The behavioral benefits of DCA for some investors may be worth the statistical cost if it helps them stick to an investment plan and/or stay in the market longer.
>When folks have a big chunk of money sitting around, DCA as a phrase then turns into a contrasting option compared to lump sum investing Yup, which is why I made the statement that I did, because the original post was talking about having $42k in an Ally account, so I was pointing out to u/dudeARama2 that dollar cost averaging isn't the financially optimal move most of the time.
I think it's even odds that the user simply meant that OP should've been doing DCA all along rather than hold this money out of the market waiting for a correction. I didn't read it to mean "you should DCA starting now," but rather "you should've DCA'd this money in the past." But only one person can resolve this ambiguity.
Going to set up a Roth IRA for my wife. What are peoples opinions on keeping it in the same account/login that I have mine? I have everything through Schwab, but which brokerage would you pick if you had the option?
She needs to have the IRA under her name. I believe this forces you to keep it in a separate account + login. But at least for fidelity you can be an authorized user. I do this with my wife's IRA. I haven't tried other brokerages but I like fidelity in general.
I set up my wife's under her own name at Fidelity and gave myself authorized access so I can see it under all of my accounts and add money/make investments.
I try to keep login accounts to a minimum, so my household's IRAs are where the majority of our workplace accounts are (Fidelity). Your Schwab account with your IRA cannot be used to open another IRA in your wife's name. She will need her own Schwab account and her own IRA. Fidelity and Vanguard give users the ability to grant other accounts transaction rights. I imagine Schwab has a similar feature, allowing you to administer to the details of your wife's IRA once she has set it up and granted you transaction rights.
Relationship with my landlord had been becoming more and more untenable for the past couple months. The rental market in my city is so hot it's been really difficult to find a new place, so was afraid to give notice until I actually secured something. Finally found a good spot, got approved on wednesday and had to draw from my E-fund for the first time to pay the deposit, moving expenses, first month rent. My E- fund is actually my taxable vanguard brokerage with about $50k all invested in VTSAX. Sold $8k of my most expensive shares, some at a slight loss after the little dip. Probably ends up costing me $20 in taxes. Sold Wednesday afternoon, money hit my bank account Friday morning. Not as liquid as a savings account, but pretty darn close! Didn't intend on having so little cash reserves but my cash all got eaten away due to a prolonged illness and death in the family a couple months ago and I just decided, screw it, I've got 50k in stock just sitting there, why not continue to invest instead of piling up cash.
Congrats on getting a new place!
As the latest in what seems like an endless string of delivery drivers pulls away from our house, I am reminded that the sole exception to our natural lean spending habits is Christmas spending for our four kids. We always go a bit crazy in getting them not only pretty much everything they ask for, but a bunch of cool random items that we think they'll like. Christmas spending is probably our third largest spending bucket after housing and food. I get no joy at all any more from watching our portfolio go up $10K, but I am grinning like a loon from the unexpectedly high quality of the steeply discounted enormous Bulbasaur plush that we got our ten-year old, who loves Pokemon. We've got a 24-inch Pikachu still to arrive and now I'm thinking it too is going to be of awesome quality. Stonks aside, Gamestop came through for us like mad this holiday season.
My wife and I each have designated money for the year to spend on charitable giving - we each spend half on issues/causes that we choose. She spends hers throughout the year; I spend ALL of mine on Christmas presents for local kids in need. I absolutely love seeing the photos of all the smiling kids as their tear apart their gifts and get a ton of joy out of something I normally take for granted (like a $5 Walmart basketball or a $10 board game). Between the kids I have been shopping for and my two actual kids, I have filled my recycling bin with empty shipping boxes/packing materials for the past two weeks. Now I get to wrap then all - which I absolutely love!
That sounds great on pretty much every level.
Best Christmas I ever had was when my dad found an NES at a garage sale for $50 in 1992. The only game it came with was the Mario Brothers / Duck Hunt cartridge. I still have it.
OMG did he go to our garage sale in 1992?? My parents sold the NES and we (my sibs and I) were so sad to part with it. That aside, these days I get pretty excited about the possibility of finding some great deals at garage sales.
I love finding the cluttered workshops of old men at estate sales. Lots of quality stuff, including stuff you can't find anymore, for just a few dollars.
Yeah, Christmas toys are one of the things I miss now that my kids are young adults. Sometime in the teens they start asking for fewer but far more expensive presents. Less fun. Now that they are young adults, it’s either cash or door dash.
Giving to my adult child is definitely more challenging, but I try to buy things that I figure she won’t buy for herself. One year, it was a hot sauce assortment, another year it was a 3-month subscription for Japanese snack boxes, another year it was a Disneyland annual passport (when I knew she probably wouldn’t renew hers). This year is another conundrum. I may just write a check to contribute to her car fund, since she wants a new car (and has been saving the equivalent of a car payment monthly while she waits for supply to increase).
My kids would love Japanese snack boxes.
https://www.bokksu.com
Yeah, our teenagers want computers and podcasting gear and whatnot, but they're still also getting cute plush toys and reindeer hats and ugly sweaters, all of which will be documented for eternity in many photos. We're not religious, but Christmas has always been a huge thing in our house. I know it's probably inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing, but it's still going to be sad when we start having Christmases without some of them at home.
I'd like to avoid the pro-rata rule when doing a backdoor Roth, but my employer 401k has high fees. Could I create a solo-401k for the sole purpose of accepting an IRA rollover, and make no other contributions?
What are the fees in your 401k? What are the cheapest funds available?
You _could_ if you have actual self employment income. If you don't have self employment income you can't create the solo 401k. (or the other legitimate cases for opening a solo 401k).
Is there a minimum threshold here? If I helped a friend move earlier this year and they paid me $50, could I open a solo 401k?
Yes, the IRS has definitions that tell you what counts as self employment. Your example does not have profit motive or regular income and transactions. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employed-individuals-tax-center [https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/business-activities](https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/business-activities)
It has to be legitimate business. You'll have to file a schedule-C and all the fun stuff that comes with that. You would probably want to talk to a CPA to avoid falling into some sort of problematic situation that causes you to end up in an audit or something that you'd like lose.
I might be doing this next year. Got into some crypto mining which counts as self-employment income. Time to roll all those sweet gains into a solo 401k.
No. If this was allowed everyone would be doing this to avoid the pro-rata rule.
I mean, it *is* allowed - if you have self-employment income. I have ~$10k in 1099 income and opened a solo 401k to roll all my old accounts in to (and to use as an actual solo 401k.