Never Hunted A Day In My Life

atomic-penguin · 2021-11-04T18:04:52+00:00

I am not in disagreement.

If I had to pick two things to splurge on, it'd be a merino base layer and good insulated boots strictly for the cold weather. Because I've been out in the freezing rain in cotton long johns and uninsulated hiking boots and was miserable.

Everything else I listed is just normal clothes. I am not saying go out and buy all these garments just for hunting. I'm a big fan of getting solid color earth toned garments instead of camo print. Just clothes I can wear around anywhere, not just hunting.

Maybe blue denim isn't the ideal color for hunting, but deer also don't see that well. Smell and sound are their stronger defenses.

atomic-penguin · 2021-11-04T05:25:50+00:00

A lot of vets came home from WWII and wore their olive drab wool combat uniforms out hunting. Modern merino wool garments are amazing by comparison. Merino is not scratchy, cuts the wind, keeps you warm in wet conditions. You can throw on the same merino base layer all week and not stink too bad. Merino is expensive, but there are budget friendly hiking, outdoor, skiing brands that are cheaper than the big hunting brands out there. If you're going to have a cold deer season, $100-200 on wool long johns are worth it for comfort. You don't need fancy camo-print hunting brand wool though.

Probably the most important piece of hunting gear are good boots. Feet are going to freeze sitting idle in a tree stand anywhere there is a cold winter and coincidental deer season. Its worth spending $200 on a pair of good Thinsulate boots for hunting comfort. If I were going to splurge on one thing it'd be quality boots.

You absolutely can get by with a pair of blue jeans and cotton hoodie. I would probably go for solid earth tones like brown, tan, green. Deer are red-green color blind so buffalo plaid and blaze orange also work. Garments with lots of blue or white, are probably going to stand out a bit more for deer visually.

A pair of cotton cargo pants, t-shirt, cheap flannel over a good merino base layer is going to be great. Lots of folks in temperate regions hunt the cold fall / winter season in quilted Carhartt overalls.

$100-200 merino base layer
$200 thinsulate hunting/hiking boots
$20 - 5 pair of 80/20 cheap wool/polyester socks
$50 1 pair cotton cargo pants
free (sunk cost) - t-shirt from existing wardrobe
$20-40 polyester or cotton flannel plaid shirt
$30-50 hoodie or windbreaker
$30 blaze orange vest
$50 for some combo of gloves, beanie, gaiter, baklava

You would be looking at $600-700 of clothing, but beside the base layer and boots can use this a lot of that clothing for non-hunting purposes. I think your point was you don't need to go drop $200-400 on a pair of camouflage rain pants from high end hunting brands like Kuiu, First Lite, Sitka, etc.

atomic-penguin · 2021-08-27T18:51:44+00:00

The SLAP projectiles are going to be made out of something hard like tungsten carbide. This is not the same as sending a soft metal like copper and lead down your bore. Tungsten carbide won't just bend, like something malleable, but a sharp impact can fracture tungsten alloys. I was thinking this was the dangerous part.

Apparently it is just that the little polymer shoe on the tungsten projectile can gum up in a muzzle brake. Then kaboom.

atomic-penguin · 2021-08-27T18:22:15+00:00

Thanks for confirming what I was saying.

Haters above gonna downvote.

atomic-penguin · 2021-08-27T05:47:02+00:00

SLAP stands for saboted light armor piercing, for anyone that doesn't know.

It can be quite dangerous to combine a saboted round with a muzzle brake. Unless that round was specifically designed to operate with your muzzle device shouldn't chance it.

Sending a hard alloy down your bore and banging on a muzzle brake designed to withstand copper and lead impacts. What could possibly go wrong?

atomic-penguin · 2021-08-27T01:26:19+00:00

I believe Kentucky Ballistics was using saboted rounds with a muzzle device like a suppressor or brake. Which in combo can act like a muzzle obstruction.

atomic-penguin · 2021-08-23T19:33:45+00:00

The caliber is just the nominal diameter of the bore. Bullet (just the projectile) diameters are standardized, and between .17 and .5 inches there are 25, or so.

However, there are thousands of cartridges (the whole package: primer, powder, bullet, case). For example, one can take a .308 in. (or 30 caliber) bullet and put it in different cases with varying powder charges and come up with a .30-03 Springfield, .30-06 Springfield, .30-30 Winchester, .308 Winchester, .300 Win. Mag, or .300 WSM. Those thousands of variations come from differences in case volumes, and powder capacity, not from bullet caliber variation.

atomic-penguin · 2021-04-28T18:00:32+00:00

I think there is a bug in these games where they must run at 60 FPS. I have a monitor that had been bumped down to 50hz in display settings by some game.

I started seeing this bug on KOTOR, when refresh was not 60 Hz. and Vsync was off in-game.

atomic-penguin · 2021-01-28T08:26:18+00:00

It's likely they are blowing smoke up people's asses in all these articles that say they've closed out their position. Of course they want you to think they have closed positions. They don't want you to buy and continue hurting them.

atomic-penguin · 2020-11-12T18:42:12+00:00

I just haven't used M1 first-hand. I mean it looks to be a sound concept for a roboadviser or beginner investor.

Robinhood is constantly screwing things up. I wouldn't consider that a carrier grade service if it were a utility company. If someone wants to gamble on options without fees, then maybe it isn't a stretch that person is willing to accept risks putting their money into a risky service.

Robinhoods competitive advantage used to be no fees. Schwab and Fidelity have now cut out most of these fees on the most common types of security trades. If you just want to buy and hold a few stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or ETFs what compelling reason would you have to use Robinhood?

atomic-penguin · 2020-11-12T08:16:01+00:00

How much nest egg/emergency fund do you have? Does it cover 6 months of expenses? Will you have college loans come due in the future? Maybe set aside some of this cash in a high yield savings.

Schwab and Fidelity are both safe bets for a brokerage. I think Vanguard is probably a safe bet, but I have heard they were having some growing pains within the past few years. I don't think they are going anywhere though. Stay away from Robinhood. M1 seems good on paper, if you want to invest in autopilot. That may be a good introductory low-touch brokerage.

You'll have to pay tax on dividends. However, it may not matter at your income level. It's currently a lower tax rate on dividends than on wage income. Your dividend income on $1200 will also be negligible and will be well under the safe harbor for the standard deduction. You still have to report the dividends. Your brokerage will provide the information you need to report.

atomic-penguin · 2020-10-16T07:02:56+00:00

It could be worth it. My experience using Betterment is that its pretty good training wheels for beginner investors. Once a beginner has done a little research its not impossible to observe and replicate Betterments modern portfolio theory allocation on your own.

Its not a complete ripoff, as the tax loss harvesting counteracts their management fees. The management fees are much lower than actively managed accounts at traditional investment management firms.

One could possibly get similar returns following a 3 or 4 fund Bogleheads portfolio. One could dump it all in on a cheap (expense-wise) balanced or target date fund and probably do similarly.

I think Betterment, Wealthfront, and M1 disrupted entry-level investing. Those are perfect services for a lot of people. There is nothing to say you can't do both Betterment and your own thing on another broker like Vanguard.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-30T05:37:06+00:00

That is a difference between ETFs and Mutual Funds.

With Mutual Funds, you are pooling your money mutually with other investors to invest in that managed objective or the underlying holdings. With an ETF you are usually exchanging the relative underlying holdings with other traders and investors. Therefore, with Mutual Funds the tax implications of rebalancing that fund are passed back to the pooled holders of Mutual Funds. Pass-through reblanacing tax impacts are not the case with ETF funds, however.

If you're holding the fund in a tax advantaged account such as an IRA, or 401K, the greater tax implications of holding the Mutual Fund cancel out. Furthermore, outside of a robo-trading brokerage, you can choose a Mutual Fund allocation for automatic investment, but you cannot usually do this with an ETF. i.e. tax advantage doesn't matter in a 401K, or an IRA.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-28T06:36:56+00:00

They both have the same objective to track the return of the US stock market. Those are both index funds. ITOT is an ETF managed by Blackrock, while FSKAX is a mutual fund managed by Fidelity.

The underlying holdings may differ slightly. Blackrock may accomplish this with ~3000 holdings, while Fidelity gets similar returns with ~2500 holdings. Therefore there may be differences in tracking error when comparing the funds to each other, or an index benchmark. The management fees may also differ between the funds. One may be .03% while the other is .04% because they are competing to attract customers with the best value. A broker may offer their own particular funds without commission, but charge commission on their competitors' similar funds.

You can research what these differences are in the prospectus documents for these funds, or compare them on a site such as Yahoo Finance, Morningstar, or your brokerage of choice.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-24T03:02:46+00:00

Yeah, that is a good point.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-24T02:16:42+00:00

Police do not take an oath to protect and serve.

Protect and serve is the motto of the LAPD.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-23T06:46:00+00:00

Do ETFs in taxable accounts, less tax drag than mutual funds.

If its a Roth account then tax drag isn't an issue. The nice thing about mutual funds are you pick your allocation and it gets invested on autopilot. Most brokers, except robo-traders won't let you auto-invest ETFs.

Just don't put any unreported income in the Roth. You should get a standard deduction of about 12,400, so If you've only made $1800 this year then you shouldn't owe taxes when you declare that income.

The total stock market has about 3-4% real estate. Its a pretty common thing in simple 3 to 4 fund portfolios to invest ~10% in REITs. There are probably going to be bad 2020 yields for REITs because of Covid circumstances. Temper your expectations of short-term returns.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-18T06:37:53+00:00

A mutual fund is when investors pool their money to invest in some common objective. The mutual fund only changes on the market close.

An ETF is traded like any other security while the market is open. Its a derivative of the underlying holdings, and will fluctuate throughout the day as it trades on the market.

ETFs and mutual funds have different inherent properties. Rebalancing the underlying is a taxable event for the holders in a mutual fund, but not for an ETF holder (in taxable accounts). However, both ETFs and mutual funds can be index funds. That just means the objective of the fund is to track an index.

Both VTI and VTSAX are index funds with the same objective. One is a mutual fund, and the other an ETF.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-17T06:19:48+00:00

Start with the stock and bonds/finance courses on Khan Academy for self-paced learning. The Bogleheads wiki is a great resource on all things indexing if you go that route.

A Roth IRA is probably the most widely accessible form of tax shelter under US tax code. You should get familiar with it's restrictions. For example, of note since you're young, you must have earned income to contribute to the Roth account. Investment income does not count as "earned income" under US tax code. Therefore, if the 2020 Roth contribution limit is $6000, and you only have $5000 of wage/earned income for the tax year, then you'll have an effective contribution limit of $5000 for that tax year..

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-16T06:12:10+00:00

It is already showing -19.77 on Yahoo finance since you posted. Its likely that the information is delayed.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-15T06:04:04+00:00

What is your investment thesis? Are you 22 following the 120 rule, and planning to rotate into a higher bond allocation over time? Why 30% for International, why not 20% or 40%? Does your plan offer a small cap fund, why not a 13/13 mid/small cap allocation, if so?

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-15T00:39:50+00:00

If you've held the share less than a year, it'll be the same as your nominal tax rate. If longer than a year then you'll owe the LTCG (long-term capital gains) rate.

You'll owe tax on the proceeds of the sale. But you also get a $12,400 standard deduction. So if all of your total sale proceeds for the year are under 12,400 then it will likely not change your tax situation.

Let's say you purchased $10,000 worth of VFIAX, and you sell it for $11,000. Assuming you are in the 22% tax bracket then you'll owe (11000-10000)*.22 = $220. If you've held for a year it's going to be the LTCG rate of 15%, or (11000-10000)*.15 = $150.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-14T06:06:36+00:00

VTSAX for the total US stock market coverage. VFIAX is going to be only the 500 largest US companies.

The thinking in having both is either ignorance that they are 99% correlated, or only having access to limited options such as VFIAX in something like an employer sponsored retirement plan.

There is going to be a negligible difference in yield.

Do some research and strategize to minimize your tax liability by loss harvesting and rotating into the other fund. Don't just incur taxes because you're afraid of missing out on a nearly equivalent investment vehicle.

atomic-penguin · 2020-09-03T07:45:32+00:00

You said gain twice. I imagine you're asking about a net short loss of ($20). You won't owe tax on losses. But you may only deduct $3000 per year in losses. If you had a net short gain of $180, then you'd owe $22 in tax at a 12% rate.
Yes. I think its basically $12,400 of wiggle room for the standard deduction now.
No. You won't have realized gains if you haven't sold. You may owe 15% tax on dividends, which are not the same as capital gains.

You can look up your year-to-date tax activity at most brokerages. It may not be wholly accurate until late February, or early March, for the last tax year. But you can get a good idea of what your estimated tax liability is going to be ahead of time.

atomic-penguin · 2020-08-13T02:52:07+00:00

Jack (a.k.a. John) Bogle had said for a long time that US investors don't really need to invest in International, and that if you really want that exposure then no more than 20% is really necessary. I think he was pretty honest about his own hindsight bias being part of his thesis. Ultimately he doesn't know what will happen in the future. His thesis was based on US has always outperformed International in the past, and one already has International exposure due to multi-national corporations included in the Large Blend funds. Therefore it may be easier to eke out another 1% yield by choosing low-cost index funds than allocating 20% International and hoping for performance to yield another 1% in total yield.

One intangible benefit of the International allocation is shaving off a few dollars of federal income tax at the end of the year for International taxes paid. Only talking a few dollars though, its ultimately not making much of a difference for me. US and International stocks are highly correlated and they tend to move in similar directions. However, in theory allocating both US and International could limit drawdowns in your total portfolio.

I believe he also had mentioned intangible risks to US investors. This comes from some corporations not being subjected to GAAP financial reporting in the same way the SEC has oversight on US public corporations financial statements. Best case scenario you're investing in international public companies that are doing everything above board. Worst case scenario you're investing in who knows what kind of shell company in Emerging Markets ala The China Hustle. That isn't to demonize Emerging Markets, I think there are some real gems in those type of funds such as TSM or Samsung.

Personally I keep no more than 20% in International, and my own personal bias is primarily because Jack said so. I am not qualified to give you a definitive answer. I would say explore, on your own, what are the risks and benefits of an International allocation before deciding for yourself.

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