<p>We built our home 22 years ago. I noticed our State Farm ‘rebuild’ cost had grown beyond what it should have - which did affect it with their current pricing structure, so I brought our house plans in to our agent who had some kind of training with the company on this. He got our ‘rebuild’ down to correct amount and thus it saved us on our homeowners.</p>
<p>Insurance companies don’t like to lose business, but if they are not running things correctly…</p>
<p>“If you like Geico, buy a few shares (I think one is enough) of Berkshire Hathaway. B shares are ~$145, A shares are more pricey ($218,540 today). You get an 8% discount on Geico and a good stock also. It’s the only individual stock we voluntarily own”</p>
<p>Wait a minute, what? All I have to do is buy one B share BH stock and I get an 8% discount on my Geico policy? I think we pay Geico almost 2K/yr, so that would be a $160 discount for buying a $145 stock? Can you do that in any account, how does that work?</p>
<p>I have an insurance agent and she shops around for us and makes recommendations. She gets us the best combo of rates, coverage and insurers that PAY claims and don’t randomnly deny them. We and my dad and brother have used her for years and are pretty happy with her.</p>
<p>@Busdriver11,
</p>
<p>I thought it was 8% in every state, but call and see. This can’t be combined with other affiliate discounts. </p>
<p>Just heard a story on NPR about energy costs on Michigan’s upper peninsula; outdated power plant. Gov’t requiring it to stay open for grid requirements even if no one is buying the power, so the customers’ power is jumping incredibly high.</p>
<p>So energy cost is another thing to consider down the road - it will vary in different areas of the country as clean energy regulations will affect power producers. In AL, north AL is served by TVA and we have lower costs than those served by AL Power… at least it is worth researching. Hate to fall into a problem…</p>
<p>A guy from my work just retired, at age 56. He had a different take on how much money he needed to retire. I think he spent a lot less time thinking about it than we all have. His quote is, “I’ve been asked do you think you’ll have enough money in retirement? My answer follows along the same thought process as Nancy Pelosi famously said about the health care bill. We will have to pass it to find out what’s in it. The same goes for is it enough money for retirement, well, we will have to pass into it to find out if its enough.”</p>
<p>As for why he’s retiring early, he said. “It’s time for me to support them by always being home, not missing another holiday, birthday, piano recital, play, dance recital, welding classes, wedding anniversary and just be home all the time to drive them crazy”</p>
<p>Something to be said about retiring when you’re ready, whether you’re sure you have enough money or not. By the time you’re sure, you might have one foot in the grave.</p>
<p>I’m definitely going to check on that Geico discount. That’s a great deal.</p>
<p>Well, we’ve owned Berkshire Hathaway stock for a long time. Could try Geico. Do they provide responsive help when you have an accident?</p>
<p>Very responsive, easy. Have had two accidents in the family the last few years with no increase in rates.</p>
<p>Anybody here know ways of reducing taxes when converting a regular 401k to a Roth?</p>
<p>Start a donor advised fund–you can deduct whatever you contribute to the fund, even tho you can distribute over the next many years. </p>
<p>Convert it when the market is down, and the 401K is at a lower value, don’t convert at the peak. Convert earlier, rather than waiting years, as the value would probably go up. Of course, if you can tell which way the market is going, you’re psychic.</p>
<p>I am really glad we took the hit and converted our IRA into a Roth early, pretty much as soon as we could, though we really didn’t have the cash to pay the taxes on it. A couple years later, it had doubled in value, and we would have had to pay taxes on that.</p>
<p>Be sure it makes sense for YOUR situation to convert. It is not always a good idea, financially. We have a mix of traditional, Roth and other investments that work for us. Also, not everything has to be converted in the same year. </p>
<p>Apparently there are much more creative ways of doing this than suggested above. I went to a financial seminar and the speaker was talking about how it always doesn’t make sense to convert. Afterwards, I overhead a discussion he had with somebody where he mentioned another thing to do if you’re an accredited investor. Unfortunately, he left early so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him but I have a meeting with them in a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>Then you can tell us doct.</p>
<p>Yes, if be curious to learn more. We have instinctively not converted as we prefer not to pay taxes before their time. </p>
<p>We had thought we’d be in a very low tax bracket at retirement but have been happily surprised to be wrong. </p>
<p>Bogleheads.org has a calculator showing how much to convert to stay in your preferred tax bracket. It made me very confused so I gave it up. </p>
<p>Here’s a Schwab article with some examples in a standard conversion including general tips of when it makes sense vs doesn’t. </p>
<p><a href=“http://perspective.schwab.com/mobile/article/7639/Roth-IRA-Conversion-Look-Before-You-Leap”>http://perspective.schwab.com/mobile/article/7639/Roth-IRA-Conversion-Look-Before-You-Leap</a></p>
<p>Accumulate $3000 in net short term capital losses. It’s not much though.</p>
<p>Yeah…</p>
<p>What happens if you are still in a high bracket? That $3,000 isn’t going to cut it.</p>
<p>Instead of doing one time conversion, you could convert multiple times over a few years to stay in a lower tax bracket.</p>
<p>Another thing, you could wait until after you retire so that your taxable income is smaller.</p>