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District Selectman posted:Since I see you're interested in rentals in general, I encourage you to look into the financials of renting by the room to college kids. Pay attention to the tax write-offs, more than anything. When I ran the numbers, it came out to a taxable loss, with about $10k in (tax free) annual income. Be sure to take passive loss limitations into account with this strategy. Passive losses can only be deducted up to the amount of passive gains, and if you are not a real estate professional, this rental would probably be classified as a passive activity. The tax write-offs might not be as great as you think on a year to year basis.
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Dec 28, 2013 05:52
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I'm in this weird situation where by my employer's policies I'm not eligible to participate in their retirement programs, but I held an account with the financial institution that manages their programs before getting hired and the retirement accounts showed up on my account page with them anyway, with balances of $0. Is anyone aware of any weird regulatory trap situations I may find myself in if I just continue ignoring these accounts?
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Dec 28, 2013 18:50
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Shear Modulus posted:I'm in this weird situation where by my employer's policies I'm not eligible to participate in their retirement programs, but I held an account with the financial institution that manages their programs before getting hired and the retirement accounts showed up on my account page with them anyway, with balances of $0. Is anyone aware of any weird regulatory trap situations I may find myself in if I just continue ignoring these accounts? I've had several of these for 5-6 years now and it has never come up. I doubt it means anything at all.
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Dec 28, 2013 18:53
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MickeyFinn posted:I've had several of these for 5-6 years now and it has never come up. I doubt it means anything at all. Great, thanks. I figure some system just got its wires crossed and forgot to check the "is eligible" flag at some point.
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Dec 28, 2013 19:04
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OP posted:3) Max out 401(k) ($17,500 limit this year) Question about point 3 in the OP. Can I contribute money, outside of the payroll deductions, to my employer sponsored 401k? I've already contributed past my employer match and done my 5.5k Roth for the year. I'm trying to figure out what's next here.
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Dec 28, 2013 19:24
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Not sure if this is the right place to ask this. My grandmother (who lived in the UK) died and left my dad some money which he now wants to give to me. The money (over $10,000) is in a bank account in the UK. What is the best way to deal with the money? Should my dad try and transfer the money over here to the US and then gift the money to me over a couple of years? I can provide more information as needed.
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Dec 28, 2013 22:49
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Just signed up for SigFig this week, but I'm not seeing where it gives specific advice on the website as to what to fix - it has options for paying for them to rebalance each account for $10/account/month, and optimal portfolio redistribution, but nothing like "here's where you're paying too much for X". But, if I load up the mobile app, I see those specific recommendations on what to change. Where do I find the same info in my desktop PC's web browser?
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Dec 29, 2013 09:00
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So I have a question for you guys because I've been pretty antsy about saving money. For a while I've been contemplating opening a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund account but I didn't have enough cash that I was comfortable setting aside (I want to have at least 6 months living expenses liquid for an emergency). Now that I feel I can do it I'm a bit spooked by everything sitting at a record high number and seemingly accelerating faster. Is there a better fund I should be looking at that I can put <5k into and have a bit less chance of losing my shirt because I bought high? For reference I'm 25 years old and already max out my 401k contributions so this is supplementary savings.
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Dec 29, 2013 18:10
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Nail Rat posted:So I'm pretty happy with changing the way I viewed saving for retirement in 2013...went from having literally zero dollars invested in retirement accounts at age 29 to having 11k in my 401k and 2kish in my Roth IRA. 0.91% is still expensive. I'd just hold all your bonds in your IRA. There's no reason to hold every asset class in each account, as long as your combined mix is on target. Just keep some stock in the IRA too to rebalance against. Also, your IRA balance is rather light compared to your 401k. Most people will want to prioritize maxing their Roth IRA over making unmatched 401k contributions.
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Dec 29, 2013 21:44
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Blindeye posted:So I have a question for you guys because I've been pretty antsy about saving money. For a while I've been contemplating opening a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund account but I didn't have enough cash that I was comfortable setting aside (I want to have at least 6 months living expenses liquid for an emergency). Now that I feel I can do it I'm a bit spooked by everything sitting at a record high number and seemingly accelerating faster. Is there a better fund I should be looking at that I can put <5k into and have a bit less chance of losing my shirt because I bought high? For reference I'm 25 years old and already max out my 401k contributions so this is supplementary savings. Same as every other recommendation, put 10% into bonds, and of the rest of the 90%, 70% S&P500 and 30% international. You need to know what you are getting into. If you are opening an index fund account, the assumption is that you're going to be in the market for 10+ years, without moving money out. Otherwise, any time is a good time to invest.
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Dec 29, 2013 21:47
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Blindeye posted:So I have a question for you guys because I've been pretty antsy about saving money. For a while I've been contemplating opening a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund account but I didn't have enough cash that I was comfortable setting aside (I want to have at least 6 months living expenses liquid for an emergency). Now that I feel I can do it I'm a bit spooked by everything sitting at a record high number and seemingly accelerating faster. Is there a better fund I should be looking at that I can put <5k into and have a bit less chance of losing my shirt because I bought high? For reference I'm 25 years old and already max out my 401k contributions so this is supplementary savings. If you had the ability to predict when the market is going to rise or drop, you would own all the money in the world. I see this saying on this forum a lot and I like it: Time in the market beats timing the market.
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Dec 29, 2013 21:54
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I'm planning to open a Roth IRA with Vanguard in the next week or two (fully funded for 2013) and I was wondering which funds I should hold in both it and my 401(k) to be properly diversified while minimizing my weighted expense ratio. I am 24 years old and I don't plan to retire until my early 60s at the earliest. Currently in my 401(k) I have $14.5k invested in the Principal LifeTime 2055 target retirement fund (LTFLX) which has a fairly high expense ratio (1.19%). Unfortunately almost all of the funds available in my 401(k) have similarly high (or higher) expense ratios except for two S&P index funds. Here is a summary of the available funds in my 401(k) (minus the target retirement funds):code:code:Should I split my US investments between the S&P 500 and S&P 600 index funds at all to gain exposure to small cap equities? Fake edit: looking at my 401(k) account online it also appears that I can make Roth/post-tax contributions to it. Should I switch from making pre-tax contributions to Roth contributions? That would reduce my contribution to about $280/month but obviously tax-free withdrawals in retirement would be nice.
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Dec 30, 2013 07:03
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Disclaimer: I'm still clueless about investing. That said, I would only do something like you listed where you're balancing asset allocation across the two accounts in aggregate if you do in fact switch the 401k to a Roth IRA. It would seem to defeat the purpose of tax diversification ( one part Roth one part traditional) if all your international stock is tax free and all your bonds/US stock are ultimately taxable. Also employer 401k matches are always traditional, not Roth, so that's an annoying little thing if you go all Roth. But hey if the vast majority of your income is tax-free in retirement and you have only a tiny bit that you're withdrawing that's taxable, you'll probably get almost all of that back from the standard deduction  If you contributed the max to a Roth IRA and $280/month Roth 401k until age 64, assuming just 3% inflation-adjusted returns that's 700k in purchasing power at age 64, which I think sounds pretty good considering it's tax-free. And that's pretending you won't up the 401k contribution or increase Roth contributions when the limit goes to 6k or 6500, which you probably will.
Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 14:23
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Has anybody here invested in trust deeds? From what I can tell, it's a way to invest in real estate a little more directly than REITs: http://www.tngtrustdeeds.com/trust-deed-investments/ Just curious, the main limitation is that you can only invest 10% of your net worth (excluding primary residence as assets) in them. Is there something I should be looking for as a scam here?
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Dec 30, 2013 19:50
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Nail Rat posted:
I ended up going with this instead: 63% Vanguard 500 Index Fund 27% American Funds EuroPacific Growth Fund 10% Templeton Global Bond Fund It seemed the best of my limited options to get US stock exposure(pretty happy with that part) and international and bond exposure(not that happy with that part). I may or may not down the road a few months switch to say 40% Vanguard 500 Index and 23% Vanguard Mid-Cap Index for some more aggressive exposure within US stocks, but meh. This is a better allocation than the random poo poo I had before...and my weighted expense ratio still went down by 0.72% 
Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 19:54
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moana posted:Has anybody here invested in trust deeds? From what I can tell, it's a way to invest in real estate a little more directly than REITs: http://www.tngtrustdeeds.com/trust-deed-investments/ It looks like some form of p2p lending to small business owners wanting to flip/rent/construct real estate, but with collateralization and enormous concentration risk. Only multi-millionaires need sensibly apply. Ask yourself why you're getting 9-12% when prime mortgages are sitting at 3-5%.
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Dec 30, 2013 20:14
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baquerd posted:It looks like some form of p2p lending to small business owners wanting to flip/rent/construct real estate, but with collateralization and enormous concentration risk. Only multi-millionaires need sensibly apply. Ask yourself why you're getting 9-12% when prime mortgages are sitting at 3-5%. I imagine 9-12% is less profit than DIY landlording/flipping, but also less risky/concentrated. And agreed, this is mostly for people nearing retirement age. Just curious since I've never heard of it before.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:42
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Mr.Radar posted:I'm planning to open a Roth IRA with Vanguard in the next week or two (fully funded for 2013) and I was wondering which funds I should hold in both it and my 401(k) to be properly diversified while minimizing my weighted expense ratio. I am 24 years old and I don't plan to retire until my early 60s at the earliest. Currently in my 401(k) I have $14.5k invested in the Principal LifeTime 2055 target retirement fund (LTFLX) which has a fairly high expense ratio (1.19%). Unfortunately almost all of the funds available in my 401(k) have similarly high (or higher) expense ratios except for two S&P index funds. Here is a summary of the available funds in my 401(k) (minus the target retirement funds): Picking up PSSPX is a good idea, especially since it's not really any more expensive than PLFPX. So within your 401k, I'd do 65% PLFPX, 20% PSSPX, and 15% PTRRX. If Roth made sense for your IRA, it makes sense for your 401k too. Remember that even though it's less money contributed on paper, if your tax rate remains constant then the difference is actually a wash. Keep the bonds in the pre-tax money that's already there until they move to your IRA, since they'll have the least growth.
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Dec 31, 2013 08:40
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I have enough in my Vanguard accounts to get Admiral shares of all of the funds that the Target Retirement funds invest in. Is there any reason not to pull all of my money out of the Target funds and just buy the mix of funds myself? Are there any tax implications I need to worry about or is there some way to just transfer the money?
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Jan 1, 2014 04:18
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Papercut posted:I have enough in my Vanguard accounts to get Admiral shares of all of the funds that the Target Retirement funds invest in. Is there any reason not to pull all of my money out of the Target funds and just buy the mix of funds myself? Are there any tax implications I need to worry about or is there some way to just transfer the money? Are all your assets in IRAs? Transfer away, have fun. Are some of your assets in taxable accounts? You'll need to pay taxes on capital gains.
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Jan 1, 2014 04:47
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baquerd posted:Are all your assets in IRAs? Transfer away, have fun. It's all in IRAs yeah, thanks!
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Jan 1, 2014 04:52
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Papercut posted:I have enough in my Vanguard accounts to get Admiral shares of all of the funds that the Target Retirement funds invest in. Is there any reason not to pull all of my money out of the Target funds and just buy the mix of funds myself? Are there any tax implications I need to worry about or is there some way to just transfer the money? You have enough money that you can buy Admiral shares of the funds in the same proportions as the Target Retirement fund? If not, remember that you're shifting your asset allocation to something that you may or may not want. Happy new year, all! The whole "backdoor" Roth IRA thing still works in 2014, right?
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Jan 1, 2014 09:13
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What's the recommended period of time to wait before rebalancing a portfolio? In Four pillars Bernstein alternately uses "each year" and "two years."
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Jan 1, 2014 16:17
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Nail Rat posted:What's the recommended period of time to wait before rebalancing a portfolio? In Four pillars Bernstein alternately uses "each year" and "two years." I'd say whenever it makes sense to. For example, I've been 100% in the Vanguard Target Retirement Fund (2050) for the last two tax years. I decided I want more control over my portfolio though, so this morning I rebalanced. My question for you guys: Thoughts on Vanguard's new Dividend Appreciation Index Admiral Shares (VDADX)? This large cap fund just launched a few weeks ago. I figured the S&P 500 is due for an adjustment and unlikely to repeat it's 30% growth in 2014, so I went with a large cap fund with a focus on dividends. Why not reap some of those rewards from the stock market rally? Where would you guys recommend I throw this year's IRA max into? I was thinking of going with Small-Cap Value Index Admiral (VSIAX) to round-out the portfolio. Explorer is sexy, but I think it's a little high right now.
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Jan 1, 2014 19:33
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crazyphil posted:My question for you guys: Thoughts on Vanguard's new Dividend Appreciation Index Admiral Shares (VDADX)? This large cap fund just launched a few weeks ago. I figured the S&P 500 is due for an adjustment and unlikely to repeat it's 30% growth in 2014, so I went with a large cap fund with a focus on dividends. Why not reap some of those rewards from the stock market rally? Where would you guys recommend I throw this year's IRA max into? I was thinking of going with Small-Cap Value Index Admiral (VSIAX) to round-out the portfolio. Explorer is sexy, but I think it's a little high right now. Vanguard Extended Market Index. Sticking to the S&P 500 and the Vanguard Extended Market Index effectively captures the entire US stock market.
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Jan 1, 2014 19:38
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ntan1 posted:Vanguard Extended Market Index. Sticking to the S&P 500 and the Vanguard Extended Market Index effectively captures the entire US stock market. Thank, I'll look into it.
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Jan 1, 2014 19:52
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crazyphil posted:I'd say whenever it makes sense to. For example, I've been 100% in the Vanguard Target Retirement Fund (2050) for the last two tax years. I decided I want more control over my portfolio though, so this morning I rebalanced. By rebalancing I mean balancing back to the intended percentages. It seems unlikely your portfolio would ever stay at the "intended" asset distribution for more than a few weeks owing to different assets performing differently.
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Jan 1, 2014 20:19
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Nail Rat posted:What's the recommended period of time to wait before rebalancing a portfolio? In Four pillars Bernstein alternately uses "each year" and "two years." Anywhere between the two is fine. Personally, I think my approach is going to be to rebalance any time there's a significant market correction after it's been more than a year since my last rebalance, and if two years go by without any such sudden change, rebalance then. I know that's kind of market timing, but it makes sense.
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Jan 2, 2014 04:12
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I've got a Roth IRA I started contributing to this year (for 2012 at first). I just got married in October though and and my wife is being stubborn about filing taxes this year as Married Filing Separately. What this appears to mean is that I wouldn't be eligible to contribute to a roth IRA in 2013, and need to pull my 2013 contributions out. 2012: $5000 2013: $400 But the value on the fund has increased as well. If I can't convince her to do MFJ, obviously I need to pull out the $400. But do I then also pull out the gains attributed to that $400, and pay capital gains tax on them come tax time? How do I suss out the amount attributable to that $400? I was thinking that if that $400 bought 15.552 shares @ $25.72, and the value at market close on the day I withdraw the funds is $28.32/share, my capital gains would be ((15.552*$28.32)-$400)=40.43, right? Do I just pull out $440.43 then and deal with it on tax day?
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Jan 2, 2014 04:44
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Remy Marathe posted:I've got a Roth IRA I started contributing to this year (for 2012 at first). I just got married in October though and and my wife is being stubborn about filing taxes this year as Married Filing Separately. What this appears to mean is that I wouldn't be eligible to contribute to a roth IRA in 2013, and need to pull my 2013 contributions out. Hrm. If you contributed that $400 all at once like that, and you sold those same shares when you pulled it out, then I think you have it right. Really, though, this sounds like a question for the tax thread, to be honest. The regulars there are pretty good with the specifics of tax law, and they can also help explain to your wife why Married Filing Separate is (probably) a really dumb idea, especially if it's already causing a pain in the rear end like this. edit: Actually, one small difference - I suspect the earnings would be taxed as ordinary income, not capital gains, and might have the 10% penalty on top of it. Kilty Monroe fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 12:39
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Yes, MFS doesn't make sense for almost anyone. Why does she think it does?
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Jan 2, 2014 13:54
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It's not really worth going into here, basically she and I don't work together well on the same project and she'd prefer to do her own taxes. Back when it was first discussed I did a dry run with 2012 data and found MFS and MFJ more or less equivalent for us, we both work at roughly the same income level, so it was no skin off my nose to file separately. I'm lucky I stumbled on this last night, because I never would've dreamed that MFS would cause an effective ban on Roth IRA contributions.
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Jan 2, 2014 19:09
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It might seem like path of least resistance now to give in to an unreasonable request like that, but if you guys can't stand to file taxes together, I think things like buying a home or financing kids later will be a real issue.
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Jan 2, 2014 20:17
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Oh don't worry, kids are grown, land won't be owned, we argue plenty where it's needed and this will be one of those issues. We've just evolved a system over the years together that combines for the communal things but otherwise keeps our money individually managed. I know it's weird to some couples, but this has avoided far more problems for us than it's caused. The tax thing just raises a new snag because it's something complicated going from independently managed (where she can do her taxes her way, and she doesn't have me "controlling" it) to a communal thing. Communal means we're going to have to work to make sure the handling of refunds etc. is fair, which means figuring out how to solve it mathematically, which means I'll be doing it, which makes her feel like she's losing agency. With no loss, MFS was not worth arguing over. Now that my retirement eligibility's at stake I'm going to need to make it clear to her what my loss would be, because she'll be losing some independence turning tax day over to me.
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Jan 2, 2014 21:08
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I'm looking to make my IRA investment for 2013, and as part of this I'm trying to decide (1) who invest through and (2) whether or not to roll all my existing IRAs into one central location. I currently bank with Wells Fargo (two separate IRA accounts open with them), online account with Ally, 401k through Fidelity, Scottrade as my trading platform. Any advice on which broker / bank is best for basic investing, whether I should stick with Scottrade, and if I should roll my existing IRAs over into one account?
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Jan 2, 2014 21:23
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Well, ROTH season is open again. Anyone else skittish about making their full contribution after a spade of headlines calling this one of the best bull runs in over decade?
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Jan 2, 2014 21:35
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bam thwok posted:Well, ROTH season is open again. Anyone else skittish about making their full contribution after a spade of headlines calling this one of the best bull runs in over decade? God yes. I opened my Roth with a 2012 contribution and to date it's 100% in VTSAX. I'm tearing my hear out trying to decide on adding total bond, total intl stock, or MORE VTSAX
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Jan 2, 2014 21:41
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bam thwok posted:Well, ROTH season is open again. Anyone else skittish about making their full contribution after a spade of headlines calling this one of the best bull runs in over decade? Meh, I maxed out 2014 today. No point in trying to time the market. I'm perfectly okay with the fact that the market will dip again in the future, but remember that saving with an IRA or ROTH is playing the long game.
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Jan 2, 2014 21:41
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bam thwok posted:Well, ROTH season is open again. Anyone else skittish about making their full contribution after a spade of headlines calling this one of the best bull runs in over decade? Exactly what obi_ant said. Quoting fool.com: quote:Okay, so when do I buy?
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Jan 2, 2014 21:45
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obi_ant posted:Meh, I maxed out 2014 today. No point in trying to time the market. I'm perfectly okay with the fact that the market will dip again in the future, but remember that saving with an IRA or ROTH is playing the long game. I have no reason to believe that I can predict what the market will do in the next few months immediately after I make my contribution. But my lizard brain sees "record high" and gives me the tingling sense that this is a bad moment. So there's trying to time the market, and then there's trying to time the market. Consistently buying high and missing chances to buy low tend to make one lose the long game.
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Jan 2, 2014 22:16
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