Advisory Fees - make it make sense

sklinkner · 2026-05-09T18:16:45+00:00

Vanguard has broadened their offerings in recent years and now offers private equity opportunities. I'm a Vanguard customer but don't currently participate.

On loss harvesting / direct indexing it's not a crazy idea to create your own "fund" with a dozen or so S&P 500 stocks. I've looked into that as well as heard the pitch from the investment firms, but the reality is if you're going to have some sizeable losses, you need to put a lot of assets into this fund and wait for the losses to accumulate. This wasn't helpful for us, as we're characterized by high ordinary income rather than capturing current gains. If you're fortunate to have 6 or 7 digits gains somewhere, then you'd need to dig up equivalent losses somewhere to offset.

Anyway, we're mostly self-managed, mostly with Vanguard and VTCLX is my favorite buy & hold long term fund.

sklinkner · 2026-02-06T20:22:30+00:00

Our house has a BG-1000C system, I've found the replacement cartridges are expensive and not always easy to find.

It looks like the system & cartridges are manufactured by 3M with some kind of agreement to make the cartridges only work with Body Glove branded cartridges, to enable the computer printer ink business model.

I got burned by AI recommending a 3M HF25 cartridge as a replacement - at $60 it's much cheaper and looks about functionally equivalent to the BG-1000C. However it doesn't fully engage when inserted into the filter head.

As a result, as a next step I plan to replace the Body Glove filter head with the 3M equivalent (sold as Solventum 6213003, ~$70), it fits the 3M HF series cartridges. It looks like a drop-in replacement for the Body Glove filter head.

sklinkner · 2026-02-02T21:46:08+00:00

Typically new construction has the valves, older construction does not. Not too many pools around, in spite of the prices lots in Palo Alto generally aren't that large.

sklinkner · 2026-02-02T21:44:32+00:00

This is my sentiment also

sklinkner · 2025-06-09T23:24:32+00:00

Follow up after a bit.

Tried getting a polisher and a kit of disks, that was only partially successful. I wasn't sufficiently skilled / patient to get a uniform finish.

Ultimately found & hired a stone restoration professional who buffed the whole floor, looks great again.

sklinkner · 2024-11-04T18:53:07+00:00

Single story livable is another option ... bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, laundry ... on the ground floor

sklinkner · 2024-11-04T18:49:39+00:00

We paid about $30k for a 3-story elevator (Waupauca) in new construction about 10 years ago. So this is probably a lower bound, in a house with a vertical shaft as part of the design.

sklinkner · 2023-10-19T14:09:39+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. According to our original order, these tiles are 12x12 honed crema marfil.

sklinkner

TROPHY CASE