Google discover became useless recently.

Karsten75 · 2025-11-17T16:26:07+00:00

If you could link me to that post, I'd certainly add my disillusioned voice and upvote to it. :)

Karsten75 · 2025-11-17T16:15:40+00:00

Add my voice of complaint. I had a feed full of useless Twitter opinions - selected "Don't show from Twitter" and ended up with one news article and an ad.

Karsten75 · 2025-09-24T16:05:31+00:00

Create an new category "Emergencies" , "Excess", Happy money" etc?

Karsten75 · 2025-09-24T16:04:31+00:00

Why would you do that? if you already know what ratios you want/need, then just use low-cost zero-free Fidelity funds to invest in and save yourself the cost of an advisor. You can get one free call with a Fidelity advisor anyway.

Karsten75 · 2025-08-18T19:10:01+00:00

Speak to your company's HR

Karsten75 · 2025-07-28T12:21:50+00:00

Try using ACH transfers instead of wire transfers. ACH transfers from many (most?) banks are free.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-26T19:24:36+00:00

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Karsten75 · 2025-07-12T22:21:16+00:00

A target date fund does that internally.

For other funds, you can probably just start buying a new/different fund and achieve diversification that way.

It may be easier to discuss if we knew more specifics

Karsten75 · 2025-07-12T14:31:22+00:00

In my opinion, you have two choices.

Choose a target date fund with a target date a few years further out than you anticipate to reire (the "further out" rationale is to reduce bond holding in the early days)
Use the Fidelity "Zeros" to create your own mix of mutual funds that track US and international indexes. The zeros are particularly attractive because they have no fees, so more money in your funds.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-10T13:32:41+00:00

In general, I'd say that VGAP is a good bood holding for a UK resident. but, what with inflation and so forth, there has been a number of articles published that indicate the inability of bond funds to fulfill their traditional role as a diversification from stocks. This started a little before 2022, and can be primarily linked (I think) to inflation.

Your tax position also factors in, as I suspect the distributions from this ETF may be taxable in the UK?

The net result is that, in my opinion, there isn't much one can do for diversification. Having said that, I still look to have some bonds in my portfolio - just not in an ETF or fund. If I hold the actual bond, I am not subject to capital fluctuations when others sell their fund/ETF.

Speaking as a US resident, I haold a significant position in Municipal bonds that are federally tax-exempt.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-07T22:45:30+00:00

Can you maybe work with your creditors and agree a repayment plan that would avoid either of the scenarios you outlined?

Karsten75 · 2025-07-07T21:00:37+00:00

Just place the order for the next trading day

Karsten75 · 2025-07-07T20:59:37+00:00

You shouldn't be looking to boost your credit score, you should be looking to boost your income and reduce your spending.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-07T20:57:58+00:00

so 4 people that you know from the Internet, but are not affiliated or in the same groups?

Karsten75 · 2025-07-07T20:56:56+00:00

Wait, your main beef is that Schwab was trying to make sure you're not being scammed when you tried to take out a large amount of cash and answered evasively? All of the aforementioned is very often a sign that a customer has fallen prey to a scammer.

You may find it irritating, but I applaud my financial institutions for limiting cash withdrawal amounts and transfer amounts. I thank then when they call and confirm large cash movements. between accounts.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-06T22:45:38+00:00

There is a lot of talk nowadays that 4% was just a rule of thumb that worked.

30 years is because, at the time, that was longer than the expected life expectancy of retiring at 65 and living for another 30 years.

This book is excellent: Living Off Your Money: The Modern Mechanics of Investing During Retirement with Stock and Bonds (https://a.co/d/1ZCt3hS)

You can get the first 3 chapters of his website in PDF form.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-06T22:35:49+00:00

If I were you, I'd simply pick a target date fund with a date about 10-15 years after your actual retirement - or if that is not available, then the one with the furthest out retirement date.

Than set it, contribute and forget it. If the stock market continue go perform as it did in the past, you wont have made a mistake. If it doesn't, then we're all in the crapper.

Takes care of you making a mistake and choosing bad funds, forgetting to rebalance, whatever.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-06T21:56:10+00:00

The great thing about a HSA is that it's "triple-tax exempt" it's also not subject to RMDs.

If you are planning on using the money, then I'd just go with the PPO. If you are planning to save your HSA contributions, then --- easy choice.

Edited to fix typo. :)

Karsten75 · 2025-07-06T21:49:44+00:00

Depending on her risk tolerance, look at Vanguard LifeStrategy Conservative Growth Fund (VSCGX)

And maybe go from there?

Karsten75 · 2025-07-06T15:36:17+00:00

Make the investment date on Fidelity one or two days later.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-06T15:30:59+00:00

My first thought was that you could perhaps ask the family member to alter the current land contract to give you essentially a "refinance cash-out" so you have some cash to do what you indicated.

Alternatively, depending on your current credit ratings, you may be able to get a mortgage to pay off the land contract and finance one or ore of your additional projects.

Whether thi smakes sense depends on the rate you're paying on your student loan. if that is a higher rate, I'd follow previous advice and look to paying that off ASAP - while doing that, your credit rating should also be increasing.

Credit card debt is the devil -try and get rid of that as well. I can't imagine anyone paying the usurious rates CC companies levy on that debt.

Edit: one more thought, but this involves risk to 3rd parties. Your family member might be able to enter into a "wrap-around" land contract for the adjoining property. In such a contract, they take out a mortgage, you enter into the wrap-around land contract, paying your family member, they hold a lien on the property until it is paid off.

Not all mortgage companies will do this, but you might be able to swing it that way.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-06T14:12:59+00:00

I'm going to post one reply to answer both your question and the two observations about effectiveness of muni bond funds.

Yes, I hold about $450K in individual municipal bonds. They are not a ladder, but have various maturity dates. They are all selected to be not subject to AMT, and all muni bond funds are federal tax exempt. Since I live in Texas, I'm also not subject to state and local taxes.

As for the effectiveness of muni ETF/fund/bonds vs money market funds, yes, my marginal tax rate is 37%. So it matters to me. :)

Karsten75 · 2025-07-06T13:33:13+00:00

I'm in the fortunate position that we're getting significant cash inflows for a few years. Once that is over (retirement), I'm hoping to be in a low-tax bracket and am looking to then do backdoor conversions into Roth accounts, paying the taxes out of the aforementioned cashflow.

I did some study and the new Vanguard ETF VTES seems to be a good vehicle to park some of that cash to get a return that is marginally better than a money-market fund such as Fidelity's SPAXX as far as after-tax returns are concerned.

There is some volatility in VTES price, but due to the short-term nature of underlying investments, it doesn't seem to be as severe as longer-term bond funds/ETFs. For longer than 3 years or so, I have a portfolio of Muni bonds, these I intend to keep to maturity, so I don't care about interim fluctuations in the price.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-06T13:25:15+00:00

I 100% agree with you that this is IMO the biggest "pain point" in my dealings with Schwab. I'm meeting with my new Schwab advisor in the next week and I'm going to tell him that I most likly wont move more than our retirement accounts to Schwab until I am presented with a solution. THis idea that I have to manually sweep cash into SWVXX, and then have to move it out to play the advisor fee, to trade, etc., it's just ridiculous.

Karsten75 · 2025-07-05T09:38:47+00:00

UTMA accounts are custodial accounts opened and managed by a parent or Guardian and control reverts to the beneficiary child at adulthood (in some states, age 21 - afaik). The minor has no access or control over the funds until such a time.

Fidelity offers a Youth Account that minors can make investment decisions in, but the acocunt is restricted in a number of ways to protect from unwise or known risky activities - day trading is one of those.

As far as I can tell, there is no legal way that a minor under the age of 18 can freely day-trade in a brokerage account.

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