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Larry T. Spider

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Everything posted by Larry T. Spider

  1. FBALX is 34% bonds. Depending on your age and risk tolerance, that could be too high.
  2. I’ve always done my taxes on TurboTax because they are so uncomplicated. Takes about 15 minutes. But I bought a rental last year. This is going to suck, isn’t it?
  3. Some thoughts on why I would keep it. 1. I’m building a rental portfolio and acquired my first property about 5 months ago. Hopefully this would be around my 5th rental by the time I move. Goal is to have them all cash flowing well by the time I retire in 20 years. This house would easily cash flow today and should be great in 20 years. 2. I’m at a place in the amortization schedule that each payment is making a good dent in the principle. Seems silly to pay 20 years of mostly interest to sell it when you (or a renter) is taking out bigger chunks each month. 3. It’s in a nice area that will be easy to get good renters that stay for years and don’t trash the place. There’s always risk with tenants but this is about as good as you can do. There’s house is well built, 4 side masonry, and I know how all the major expense items have been handled well. Shouldn’t be too many surprises. 4. I’ve got a low interest rate locked in. 5. No guarantees for the future but it’s been appreciating nicely. Even a 4% average increase moving forward adds 25k of on paper value each year. At some point in my life, the house should be worth over a million dollars and paid off. Nice little insurance policy in old age.
  4. At some point in the future, I may want to move into a nicer house/better location, although we are happy where we are. House is probably worth about 700k and I owe 135k at a low interest rate. If I eventually want to keep the current house as a rental, how would you go about saving for the new house? Would probably want a fat down payment to keep the monthly payment down. I’m thinking about just doing a taxable brokerage account because I want to shoot for decent returns in the event we stay put. I would hate to eventually end up with 200k in a high yield savings account, decide not to move, and have regrets about not getting a better return all those years. Any other ideas?
  5. I’m not that sophisticated of an investor, but this is my strategy. I hold most of my big dividend paying stocks in an IRA so that I don’t have to deal with taxes on those payments each year. I put my low dividend, high growth potential stocks in my taxable brokerage account. I’m typically a buy and hold investor so I’m not dealing with the short term tax rate. This gives me more flexibility because I have more control over when I pay the tax man vs dividends that are going to come when they come. For example, I can sell a big winner when I have something benefiting my tax situation going on with a rental property. Is this smart? Who the hell knows but it’s been working for me.
  6. Date on that is 11 months old….
  7. We started the year at about 37.5% full and are currently sitting at 43.9%. Managed to avoid disaster but also didn’t make any real progress. Always feels like a game of Russian roulette when we start the year below 50%. One dry spring followed by a normal summer and we could easily be less than 30%.
  8. My Nike pick certainly sucked. Doubled up at $74. Just get back to $100!
  9. El Dorado is amazing but not exactly hurting for business. I have to go during off peak hours to even get in. Great food though!
  10. With the continued takeover by McGuire Moorman and the like, I wanted to start a thread of independently owned or family restaurants worth visiting. With Austin rent prices and inflation hitting customers, I’m sure they will take all the help that they can get. Suggestions can be anywhere in the area, any type of food, and any budget. Just not chains or larger restaurant groups. Hoping to discover some hidden gems and help some hard working people out in the process. Post what you got and let us know if you try any of the spots people name.
  11. My theory is simple. Trump put up somebody that’s unpopular with many in his own party. It’s a loyalty test.
  12. What if the person doing the harm is also special needs?
  13. Nope. The district was not able to get their facility that will house the program ready by start of school this year. We are still on track to open in fall 2025. I have another program starting in the next couple of months that is smaller, but if they both happen, I’ll be over quota without any other deals. Our fiscal year starts/ends September 1st so plenty of time to add some backup possibilities. My gut feeling is pretty good but it doesn’t take much for these deals to fall apart. So many moving pieces and usually a 6-18 month sales cycle.
  14. I know quite a few blue collar Hispanics that love him for all the shit talking and bravado. They also like WWE rasslin.
  15. I thought Harris was pretty good but this was trumps “Biden debate moment”. He’s always been an idiot but go back to his debate with HRC. He was a lot sharper in his own weird way back then. All he has left is scare tactics. World war 3, illegals raping your mom and eating your pets, Marxism, etc. It will certainly work for his base but he’s not picking up any new voters.
  16. I fly about twice a month and rarely have issues. I left my house in round rock and was at my gate in under an hour last time. Sometimes the pre check line is long but it moves.
  17. I’m in western RR. We got about 5 good minutes. More than my wife can say.
  18. The hotel is also in massive debt. This isn’t going to help.
  19. I love the system in Madrid. It makes everything so easy. There are a lot of factors that make it harder here such as density and our cities are already built for cars. But I think the number one reason is that the public doesn’t truly demand it. A train system is a basic expectation in Europe and much of Asia. Here it is a “nice to have” outside of NYC and Chicago (kinda). My other hot take is that American cities like to half ass projects. It doesn’t really work for rail. You either need a complete system that allows people to not buy a car or just don’t bother. Example: Austin’s red line. It’s better than nothing but I still need a car.
  20. Lake still looks depressing but it’s 46.5% full. Up from 39.4% 3 months ago. Lake going up in the summer is never a bad thing.
  21. Solid shower this morning in Round Rock. Great addition to yesterday’s rain. I always assume August will be completely dry so any rain is a surprise.
  22. I wouldn’t say that Birmingham is on my retirement list but you can definitely do a lot worse. They have enough good bars and restaurants to keep you entertained, a decent downtown scene, and you are closer to getting four seasons. It’s an easy drive to the beach, Atlanta, or Nashville. Buying a nice house is cheap as hell and they do have some very nice neighborhoods. Metro population is over 1.1 million. Natural beauty isn’t great but better than I expected with hills and trees kinda similar to the western part of Austin. Cons are crime is pretty bad but the nicer hoods won’t have an issue. You don’t escape red state politics if that’s important to you. You can get dropped off at the airport and be at your gate in 3 minutes but almost all flights are going to have a connection.
  23. True story. I travel to Birmingham for work sometimes. It was pretty hot this week but next week is all highs in the upper 80s and gets down into the upper 60s at night. They actually have a low projected at 61 one day next week. Totally different world than most of Texas.
  24. If you have lived there, I’m sure that you have picked up on a million differences that a visitor wouldn’t. I haven’t lived in either. My take is that they are both big, spread out, car dependent cities with a lot of traffic. However both are diverse and have the great food scene that goes with it. You could say the same about several other big southern cities, but maybe without the same great food. My main point is that LAs appeal is largely related to the physical location and other than that it’s not very different than other big, spread out cities.
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