[Coronita]

[quote=The-Shoveler]
You will never starve as long as you have a Costco account LOL.[/quote]

I use to joke about this along time ago… When someone asked, where should we eat, someone would say some place cheap. I would say “how about Costco Dim Sum” (the free samples)

[Coronita]

[quote=svelte]

Wow you and I are on virtually the same path – I’ve cut out the same things (plus pasta) with practically identical results (sleep, weight result).

I’m being pretty successful at staying in the low 160s and for my height that is well within the ideal weight range so I’m good. I weigh myself daily and adjust my eating the next few days if I feel I’m heading up at all.[/quote]

Cool….

Giving up carbs was not easy on my part. I don’t like rice to begin with(I know, I’m asian, go figure), unless it’s fried rice or mexican rice …But I do like french bread, pasta, chips and salsa, tacos, burritos, pizza, and just about everything that has wrap on it.

I do eat some carbs, just sparingly. If I don’t eat any carbs, I start to get jittery and hungry, so I probably would end up eating more. Also, the problem I experienced with eating just vegetables and fruit with very little of meat or carbs, is that roughly 15 minutes after I eat and go the bathroom with a #2, i feel hungry again. So for me the key is just to keep a balanced meal.

The other thing that I noticed that was bad for me was the way we serve our meals: family style…. This has the unexpected consequences of me in the past of getting too much food, partly because we have a habit of trying not to leave any leftovers on the serving plates, especially when we’re really done eating and just talking. These day, I get everything I need on one plate. When I’m done, I’m done. If there’s leftovers, it goes in the trash or in the fridge. Clearing the leftovers ends up costing me more time/money I need to spend burning off the extra calories, ha ha.

[Coronita]

Yes, and you know what’s happening right? All the slightly weaithier ones (including the ones that made an honest business) are quickly trying to move their assets to Europe, the U.S. and Canada. Because when the crapper hits the fan, anyone that is wealth(ier) is a sitting target by the government.

So, no, this isn’t simply like the 80ies when Japan heavily invested abroad. There definitely is that going on too. But I think for a lot of people, there is an interest to have a “get the hell out of the country” plan.

Planned economies are great….. as long as you are the beneficiary of it and the government doesn’t decide to turn around and make you the scapegoat….

Maybe you haven’t noticed but there has been certain cases in which hedge funds/investment groups in China had shorted the market, only for the government to come back and confiscate those profits and jailed certain fund managers. Some say it was because of inside trading. Others say, it was just a way for the government to claim down on those bearish on the market.

Investing in China is the wild wild west right now. Some CEO’s on the board are shorting their own company stock! No conflict of interest there (end sarcasm)

Vancouver did interesting recently. They passed a 25% tax on home purchases by non-citizens I think. And you know what happened? Drove up real estate prices in Seattle, WA.

[Coronita]

[quote=moneymaker]Vegan definitely sounds healthy and I’m always amazed when I see vegan bodybuilders. I have a new theory that in the morning when getting up all the sugars are gone and the liver is starting to burn lipids but what most people do is eat breakfast which then shuts down the lipid (fat) burning, so I might go against traditional knowledge and start skipping breakfast and not eating until I really feel the hunger pangs, I rarely feel hungry when I awake unless I have a small dinner early the night before.[/quote]

If you’re going to skip meals, I think it would probably be best to skip the dinner versus breakfast.

Breakfast and lunch fuel you for the entire day. Dinner, you don’t do much after you eat (usually). I think for me, ever since I started to eat less for dinner, I’ve been sleeping better too.

My fitbit is also saying that I should take at least 10,000 steps per day. I’m currently around 8500, lol

Vegan imho I think is overkill. If you stay with white meat or fish, and go light on the carbs, it’s probably more helpful. I use to eat a lot of bread and rice, and ever since I eat less of on the carbs, it’s been helpful too. Even lean red meat occasionally isn’t that bad i think. Going to in-out burger every other day, probably isn’t a good idea.

I also eat way too many bananas. I think I down about 4 a day….

I’ve been able to keep my weight around 162ish, and that includes presumably slightly more muscle and less body fat now, since I’m doing more weigh training in addition to running.

The first 15-20 lbs was easy. Burning off fat where I’m at has increasingly been more difficult. It’s like trying to undo decades of neglect. I just wish I had cared much earlier.

[Coronita]

you didn’t setup up an alternative email?

[Coronita]

[quote=SK in CV][quote=flu]Side note… Trump now believe Obama was born in the U.S.

Phew. Glad we finally settled that one! (end sarcasm)

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/politics/donald-trump-obama-birther-united-states/index.html?adkey=bn%5B/quote%5D

No evidence that he actually believes that. The statement was not from him but from his campaign. Besides the statement being packed with at least half a dozen lies, he said earlier this year that the only quote that matters is one from him directly. He’s still a racist shit stain.[/quote]

Well he admits it now. But he’s blaming Hillary for starting the Birther controversy.

WTF?

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/politics/donald-trump-obama-birther-united-states/index.html

[Coronita]

Well, look on the bright side. If you’re a republican, you can probably get birth control pills over the counter if Trump is elected…Lol

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/health/trump-contraceptives-without-prescription/index.html

[Coronita]

Side note… Trump now believe Obama was born in the U.S.

Phew. Glad we finally settled that one! (end sarcasm)

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/politics/donald-trump-obama-birther-united-states/index.html?adkey=bn

[Coronita]

[quote=no_such_reality][quote=livinincali]

The only thing your really missing out on is the tax benefit. [/quote]

Head bang wall.

He’s stated that his MAGI is too high for Roth. So their MAGI is north of $194K for a couple.

As such, his marginal tax bracket is 9.3% if not 10.3% in California and another 28% for Federal.

Combined a 37% tax hit. So to park that $18K max 401K contribution in a regular brokerage, he’s going to have to allocate $28.5K to pay the $10K+ in taxes and put the $18K in the brokerage. Any realized additional income or gains during the year are also taxed.

Last I checked, a 58% one year return with virtually zero risk was pretty good.[/quote]

Not to be nit picky about this…But his tax rate may not be 37%, more likely around 29% combined. He does have a mortgage, i believe, but would get hit most likely with AMT. My tax rate will be more like 37% combined this year though, since well, one of the things about not having a mortgage:(

[Coronita]

[quote=livinincali][quote=flu]
I wouldn’t worry about it, you’re not going to miss *that* much money from waiting extra year. Who knows, maybe you won’t lose money during that 1 year, in case the stock market tanks. So you never know, maybe there’s reason for this after all 🙂
[/quote]

The only thing your really missing out on is the tax benefit. You can open a standard brokerage account and likely invest in the same shitty funds the 401K offers. The question of paying down a mortgage versus investing really just comes down to rate of return and any kind of possible tax advantage/disadvantage. If you pretty confident you can get a rate of return a couple percent higher than the mortgage rate do that. If you can’t then pay down the mortgage.[/quote]

The tax benefit is would be roughly 1.5 years worth of Roth 401k contribution roughly $7750… Assuming a 4% conservative ROI over the next 10 years, that would be roughly $11k available at retirement. If he has a mortgage or loan amount above 4%, perhaps paying off of the higher interest debt would be a better option.

Yes, it’s money, but not completely devastating..Who knows, maybe svelte got more than an $11k net raise (after taxes). I guess it depends on how much of a hassle does svelte want to deal with setting up a backdoor Roth (and whether if he can).
For me, I don’t mind dealing with PITA things when it comes to money. But that’s just me.

[Coronita]

Oh, and if you happen to be have made a mistake and rolled over a 401k into a rollover IRA, making you ineligible for a backdoor Roth IRA with no tax consequences…there is one workaround you can consider…..

If your current employer’s 401k plan is decent and your current employer’s 401k plan allows it, you can roll in your rollover IRA into your companies 401k plan. Again, the IRS treats the 401k plans differently from IRA accounts. So it doesn’t matter how much money you have in any of the 401k accounts of previous employers.

[Coronita]

[quote=svelte]

Flu, thanks for the back door explanation. Probably way more work and risk than I want to put in – after all, the max I could put into an IRA is just a fraction of what I’d put into a 401K in 2017…think I’ll consider your other suggestion of putting part towards mortgage and a part under the mattress. I’ll run the numbers of how much I’d have to throw at the mortgage to have it paid off when I’m 67, that might steer me towards the right split.

I also should check to see what fund choices they offer – hopefully it isn’t crappy! That might influence my decision on how long I stay.

[/quote]

I wouldn’t worry about it, you’re not going to miss *that* much money from waiting extra year. Who knows, maybe you won’t lose money during that 1 year, in case the stock market tanks. So you never know, maybe there’s reason for this after all 🙂

You definitely should check the sort of funds they offer. A shitty 401k plan will stick you with managed funds that have huge hidden fees/costs, and very little selections of funds that mirror index funds. Index funds are meant to be passive/low cost funds, and a lot of 401k plans don’t have them because the plan administrator obviously wants to make money by offering those actively managed funds.

The other thing you want to check at a small company is if there are any specific rules/restrictions as to when you can do exchanges, and how often you can do exchanges, if there are any sort of extra costs from doing exchanges, and if there are any fees to roll out of the account or transfer out of that account. In my new employer, they were adding a few new funds two months ago. And while they were doing that, the plan administrator locked out anyone from exchanging their funds for about 6 weeks.

The other thing you want to check at a small company is how before one paycheck’s contribution makes it into a 401k account. This should not be longer than 1 week. If the company is doing something shady, you won’t see the funds for several weeks.

[Coronita]

[quote=dumbrenter]You cannot put money in 2 401k plans in the same year.
Something I found out the hard way because the employer assholes never told me that (they have no incentive to tell you that).

[/quote]
That’s a rule that your employer made up, it’s not a general rule for all 401k plans for all companies. My two previous employers and my current employer have both a traditional 401k and roth 401k plan, and allowed you to allocate any percentage between the two. The only thing that my previous employers stipulate is the annual 5% base salary company match they give you gets deposited in the traditional 401k portion, not the Roth portion. I thought this was some IRS rule, but one person here mentioned that her employer deposits 401k matches in her Roth 401k, so I guess that’s not an IRS rule either, but a varies depending on company.

[quote]
What I ended up doing few years ago (when still a wage slave)was to max out the 401k in the first 2 months. You can do that by setting 99% of your wage to go to 401k. It automatically stops once you hit the limit for 401K that year.
[/quote]

That strategy many not work if your employer does a company match and limits the maximum match per pay period to the maximum amount prorated based on each month… For example, my employer matches 5% of your annual salary, but the maximum they will contribute per pay period is 5%/26 (we’re on a bi-weekly pay period). So if you contributed 99% into the first few weeks of the pay period, I don’t believe you will get the full 5% match for the remaining months, just the months you actually contributed to the 401k.

[quote]
That way you de-risk yourself from having a taxable event with larger income + any signing bonus you might have gotten for your new job this summer!
[/quote]

The maximum tax deferral you can take is $18k. It makes no difference if you take it up front, or spread it out over the months. It might make a difference if you believe there are certain months that tanks market tanks, like for instance if you believe in the sell in may, go away until october. But what people usually do there is to just change the investment elections during those month to be more heavy in cash positions versus stock poitions. It also might make a difference if you have a cash flow issue because you’re trying to max out your 401k AND trying to max out your after tax ESPP stock plan, since those withholdings are with after tax dollars and you won’t get them back for a quarter or in some cases 6 months, until the share purchase, when you can sell.

[Coronita]

Well in general, I think a lot of us are much better off financially than we were 10 years ago. The economy hasn’t been pretty good actually, on this west coast at least. In additional, with a ultra low 30 year fixed loan with low monthly payments, I don’t see many people motivating to sell, especially if prevailing rent prices are near parity, if not more.

[Coronita]

[quote=no_such_reality]Good ideas, but let’s talk about the obvious one.

What kind of company has a 401K that you can’t enroll in for more than 6 months? Let alone 18 months. And what are the details around the plan?

If you started this summer, I could maybe see missing some arbitrary 6 months cutoff. Even then, most companies will let you enroll and start contributing to the 401K, you’re just not eligible for match until the 6 month mark.

I’d say take a good long look at the plan, verify the management of it, match, vesting, expense ratios, etc. and most importantly, getting your money out when you leave.[/quote]

Some small/mid size companies do this, for different reasons. It’s not necessarily a indication of the health of the company. And so long as it was disclosed this would be the case, it would be one extra negotiation with the company as part of the compensation package.

The biggest issues I’ve had with my new company’s 401k plan, is the lack of fund selection. I don’t like the available funds they have, since most of them are these “target retirement” fund of funds. And most funds are actively managed funds versus passive indexes. So, the way I dealt this, was pick only the few index funds that my current plan has, and rebalance the rest of my 401k/IRA elsewhere so that I wouldn’t be lopsided. So my current 401k has a lopsided heavy tilt towards large cap blend, mid cap blend indexes, no small cap, no international, and some short term bonds, while as my other accounts have mostly small came, some bonds, and no mid and large cap allocation.

I’m also trying out one of them “robo-advisors” to see when I should rebalance certain things.

Slight highjack (sorry svelte).

[Author]

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