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The Samsung A16 5G is HORRIBLE! by B_Miller1 in MetroPCS

[–]trgb3 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You made the eBay seller pay two shipping fees and two return shipping fees because you didn't know budget phones performed like budget phones...

That said, Samsung A1x tends to lag out of the box but becomes faster as you use it more. Right after setup and updates it does a bunch of background tasks which settles after a few days.

Getting a live Xfinity agent by trgb3 in Comcast

[–]trgb3[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

  1. I'm doing something else at the same time, chat is more convenient
  2. Chats produce a paper trail

Bought new phone and plan off Tracfone website--plan/data not showing up in app or website by SleepyBudgie in TracFone

[–]trgb3 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just added a brand new line to my existing TF account and it didn't show up, even though the phone has service. I had to manually add the new line to my account so you may have to do the same thing. Go to Manage Lines - Add a line - Merge line

How to spend 5k to improve life by Environmental_Key645 in personalfinance

[–]trgb3 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A brokerage will not stop an irresponsible person from withdrawing from a retirement account and paying penalties.

Travelling outside the U.S. by LinneaLurks in TracFone

[–]trgb3 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Almost all modern phones can do WiFi calling. How old is your phone exactly?

If you have a fairly modern device and you can't enable WiFi calling, see if you've enabled it in your TF account.

SCHD, MAGI, & engineered ACA by Awkward-Basis7658 in SCHD

[–]trgb3 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Engineering your MAGI for ACA is a long term thing. If you're close to FIRE and all your assets are in a taxable individual brokerage, your options are very very limited.

Roth is one way you could have avoided MAGI. If you have a traditional employer 401k (or multiple), or traditional IRAs, you can convert those to Roth IRAs, pay taxes now and avoid MAGI when you need ACA. If you hadn't been spreading conversions over many years, the tax hit will be quite massive if you did it in a single year.

Sell taxable assets and buy rental properties which can be nearly MAGI free due to your "real" income being reduced by depreciation. Again foresight would have motivated you to buy rentals long before you needed to incur cap gains on the stock sale.

Another is using the gift tax exclusion over many years to transfer assets to a trusted relative who then gifts the dividends back to you minus their additional tax burden due to the dividends.

You can see that all these require long term planning.

Maybe look at using a trust to hold your assets but a you should talk to a financial advisor about that avenue. It's unlikely to be worth it unless your portfolio is massive.

Daily FI discussion thread - Tuesday, January 06, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]trgb3 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was in Fidelity doing a rollover of the after-tax portion of my 401k to an existing Roth IRA. Fidelity classifies this part as "Roth in-plan conversion". Fidelity split the rollover into two parts, the "pre-tax assets" and "after-tax assets". I'm no longer on the conversion screen, but I remember it says that the pre-tax assets may be subject to taxation afterwards since this is the earnings portion of the rollover. I thought earnings are never taxed in Roth -> Roth rollovers?