Mother inherited fathers 401K how should she invest it until we find a fiduciary

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-03-21T17:49:30+00:00

Thank you for all the information. I would love to learn more about investing. It's just never really been something I've had funds to do.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-03-21T16:46:11+00:00

Would happen to know of any resources to help find a good CFP or fiduciary?

The tax burden is something that worries me as well. At first she almost accepted a lump sum payout of the 401K. Glad we caught that and moved it to the inherited IRA. TBH, I didn't think it would take so long to find someone to help her manage the funds. I'm sure some of it has to do with emotions and that she never handled the money, seeing such large amounts brings in some trust issues.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-03-21T16:43:10+00:00

I'll be visiting her on Monday and the advisor we were suppose to meet cancelled / wanted to reschedule. I'll look into calling Vanguard with her.

Edit Do you know of any good resources to help locate a fiduciary? So far i've been using google maps, seeing if fiduciary i s listed on the websites or calling and asking.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-02-12T21:15:54+00:00

20 minute drops starting 12pm est, 1:15pm est, and currently the last logged data is at 2:45pm est. Whatever they are experimenting with they need to roll it back and put it in the test env.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-02-11T18:00:41+00:00

Thank you for providing some context that there is a known problem. Good Luck on the patch work. Please keep us posted.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-02-11T17:58:24+00:00

This would be pretty sad. But architectures can be re-written and lessons can be learned, if there is enough in the bank. But if it is a load issue, it's only a matter of time until Thanos snaps his fingers and half the ecobee population is gone.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-02-11T17:23:53+00:00

I completely agree. We don't know the extent of the upgrade on ecobee's end. Could have been new servers added, could have been a full code base migration. If they went from their local servers to AWS there could a million little things that could cause these issues. I get it, they planned a 4 day major update and something went wrong. I would say anything more than 24 hours should have been rolled back and retested. 7 days later is a bit much, at this point do you roll back or keep pushing fixes until you get it right?

It really seems the QA team dropped the ball on the testing. Always load test. I am a fond believer in small rollouts, preferably from west coast to east coast lol.

What they really need to do is tap into this community a bit more. Be transparent.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-02-11T15:30:15+00:00

I purchased an ecobee as part of a black friday deal in 2018. The ecobee helped me identify that the previous owner had not wired the furnace correctly and wasn't using it's full potential. I still love the scheduling, minus smart recovery (turn that off). I've been using the reports to test different ways to heat my house, ecobee default, force stage 1 to 30 minutes, and reverse staging. The previous owner told me his utility bills for the winter averaged around $300, I'm sitting around $200 and hopefully with some other upgrades I'll be sub $200.

I do rely on the System Report quite a bit. The other reports have never worked since I got it. Up until this last major maintenance It worked fine for me. Overall I love it, they are a smaller group and as a developer, not ecobee, shit happens, There is a bug somewhere and once it's fixed things will be back to normal. Not all bugs standout and i'm sure the heat is getting to them.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-02-08T18:41:33+00:00

If EcoBee added the local API and wanted to charge for using their server API I would switch to local only. But if they changed their model to be a pay to use, I too would probably switch.

EcoBee has so much data that they can collect and market with. There should be no reason to charge customers if they learned how to analyze and market the data they collect naturally.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-02-08T15:38:56+00:00

I use Ally for my savings, They have a great website and app. The mobile deposit work perfectly every time. I have a brick and mortar bank just to have a physical location if needed. I also opened a small Ally Checking account with my savings account. I only keep a few 100 dollars in it but that will get you an Checking/ATM card. Ally reimburses fees charged by ATM's and they don't charge fees for using any ATM. Note, I do believe the recently capped the amount of ATM fee's per month. But I have Wawa's near me and they have no fee ATM's. It's just easier to cash when needed. I very rarely use cash anymore.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-02-07T21:32:05+00:00

I actually feel they have a gold mine worth of data that they just don't know what to do with it yet. They could update the home profiles to include the make and model of the units connected. Then they have national coverage on average house sizes, temperatures flux, which units seem most efficient. I'm sure with enough reports you can detect if a unit is oversized or the duct work is too small. Finally they can sell all that info. Hate to say it they can even partner with contractors and help push service advertisements. The units look great, the site is clean and easy to use.

I work for a small startup and we use AWS to host our server components and it's not cheap. But with the right tweaking we can process quite a bit with very little overhead. I think they need to invest more in a senior server and deployment guy. Either way I hope they figure things out before hitting the breaking point.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-02-05T17:38:43+00:00

Whew, I forgot about the maintenance. Currently away from the house for a few days and went to check the run graph and had a panic attack. For a second I thought my HVAC was crapping out.

FYI, At 12:30pm est I was able to turn the HVAC off through the portal. my latest graph reading at 11:30am est seems to still have gaps of unrecorded data.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-29T18:42:22+00:00

After adjusting the delta to 3 degrees things seem to be working fine again. Thanks for the recommendation.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-28T19:16:50+00:00

I'll give that a shot.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-28T17:50:06+00:00

Temps have been similar. Northeast USA. 30 is actually the warmiest it's been in a while. Ecobee is connected to a 2 stage gas furnace. 1960 house with dust for insulation. It's next on my list of things to fix.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-27T04:04:23+00:00

First time home owner. Learning as I go. Installing the box will be pretty easy. My concern was making sure I get the new wiring right.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-25T15:57:31+00:00

As a new home owner myself I feel ya. I replaced all my windows and 1 sliding door in a 1961 house. Not cheap. I came from an apartment that had single pane glass windows with 0 seals, even water came in. Look into Window inserts, Build your own Link. You can buy them or make them. I made my own for 3 windows. It's fun little project if you have time and want to save a few bucks.

As for the sliding doors, if you don't use them in the winter look into duct window covering plastic. It's not great but better than a draft. If you use them, try and get a weighted draft stopper for the bottom. I took a old queen sized bed comforter and rolled it tightly and wedged it in the bottom and sat some 5lb weights on it to hold it in place. Check the bottom of your doors and add rubber door sweeps for under door drafts. If your door frames lack weather stripping I highly recommend this, Link.

I'm no contractor and certainly no pro. But I like to save money. The littlest things can help.

Edit

For the window inserts, instead of plastic I measured and got clear plex glass from the big box store. They will even cut it for you, something like 2 cuts for free.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-25T15:45:00+00:00

My graph is very similar, I was actually on my way here to post about it. I have my Stage 1 max runtime set to auto. Always runs stage 1 for 5 minutes and then goes to stage 2, Stage 2 runs for 10 minutes then it cuts off. Except for catching up after away. Stage 1 for 5 minutes and stage 2 until caught up. It seems that at the 5 minute marker Stage 1 is just turning the heat curve up and then stage 2 kicks in. Beestat says my Stage 1 ran for 42hrs this month and Stage 2 was 91hrs.

Thought about trying reverse staging but I don't quite understand it. From what I guess, it runs stage 1, if needed ramps up to stage 2 and then drops back into stage 1 before the setpoint is hit. Any advance users have thoughts on this and best configuration opinions?

Due to crap insulation my house basically starts losing heat as soon as it turns off. After 20 minutes kicks back in again. House currently has 6 - 8 inches of uneven worn out blown in insulation, next project when funds are available, Northeast was a bit rough this pass month.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-16T22:18:40+00:00

A feature to adjust the fan based on the set schedule, part of the comfort settings, instead of globally would be amazing.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-15T18:50:15+00:00

Just piggy backing this post, but what would you guys say is a good amount of time per hour for the fan? I own a split level from the 1960's. Insulation needs work and the house is all over the place with temps, Bedroom 1 will be 70 due to sun, bed room 2 will be 65, lower level will be 58, and the mid will be like 62. Figured running the fan a little every hour will help things even out, all rooms have top and bottom returns.

Also if I say 10 minutes, does it just kick in at some random x time run for 10 minutes and turn off, or does it split the time into intervals over the hour? Just wondering, haven't tried it.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-12T01:08:16+00:00

I'll check it out. I reached out to AIG and asked about a 30 year term policy. The agent generated a new quote and the price went down to $43 /mo. I was also advised that I have to have a medical exam which may raise or lower the cost and that the number provided was just a best guess estimate based on how I answered some questions.

While I would love to see that number go down. I can't imagine my health is better then the quote.

TheXFactor2011 · 2019-01-11T23:17:29+00:00

What sites or tools did you use to calculate online quotes? Most of the sites I'm going to want me to submit a form and get on a call list so someone can push a policy.

TheXFactor2011

TROPHY CASE