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JGrayDBU

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  1. Speaking of history and trivia. It was very early spring 1984 or 1985 when I was listening to KLBJ 590 AM sports talk one evening. I was a student at Southwest Texas State University, and the trivia question came over the air. I immediately knew the answer. The question: Who held the longhorn baseball record for RBI in one season. The answer, of course, was Jamie Doughty. I got lucky and was the first person to call in with the correct answer. The prize? Free roundtrip taxicab from wherever you were to Disch-Falk field and two tickets. My roommate and I went. The cabbie acted like it was no big deal to drive from San Marcos to Austin and back. Btw, the most interesting part of the trivia was that Jamie did not bat third, fourth, or fifth. My memory is that he batted ninth! Amazing, yes!
  2. wow! Lower than I would have thought. Still impressive.
  3. Indy impresses the hell out of me. Tyrese is amazing, and they always play defense down to the last second of every possession. In thinking about Rick C., I think about possibly influence of Larry Bird on him. They are winning this game on the road and I think that is a big indicator. Underdog road team winning game one has a _____% of success in winning the series... Pretty high I would imagine.
  4. You are welcome. I am dead serious when I say it was this board that has helped over the years, because it would have been so easy to give up many times. But I believe it was no accident I was pointed to the bogleheads by someone from this board. And luckily enough, the annual national convention of bogleheads is coming to San Antonio in a few months. I will be there, volunteering my time.
  5. re: buying service credit from TRS. the short answer is that it increases the pension. Basically a trade-off. Do you like more guaranteed income streams or more $ in the stock market in deferred accounts? I am retiring with 30 years combined ERS and TRS. 30 x 2.3= 69. I get 69% of high five avg. annual Texas salary. Without buying the Alaska years from TRS, I would have had only 24 years credit. The longer answer is that I used "qualified" money, aka traditional IRA money, to buy the years, which reduces the traditional IRA that would be subject to RMDs later on. I just had a retirement plan completed by Trowe and unless the wife dies earlier than expected, I will stay in the 15% or lower tax bracket. Her dying before me puts me into the higher tax bracket unless I remarry. She is 2 years older than me, so I predict we both die about the same time.
  6. Yes, our relationship with money has always been complicated. I have always been the provider, we had the two kids together in the late 90s, she stayed at home long enough to get the kids ready for school and then returned back to work when they went to school. We were never 100% on the same page financially, but we are closer now than we have been in a long time. She definitely has the heart of a spender, but to give her credit, she has compromised in the last half a dozen years. During the Arctic years I did come back to Texas to spend two weeks of Christmas and entire summers with her, but yes, it was the distance we both needed. But, once we moved her into the apartment in SA in 2023, I paid all of the rent. So, I was paying tiny rent above Arctic circle($360) and the rent on the two bedroom apt in SA, about $1000. It didn't hurt that in addition to investing for retirement, I also did the following: 1. paid off the 2022 car-Hyundai Kona-we bought in 2021 - took me about 16 months. 2. bought her a Black Friday deal on a washer and dryer-$1300 all in delivered. 3. paid off previous grad school loans I had incurred in about 2015-about $11000 Who missed each other the most? I think she missed me most.
  7. Could be wrong thread not sure, but felt so good after meeting with two Fidelity reps today. I am self-directed, and am retiring from education officially on August 31. My last day at school was April 8, as my super wonderful principal let me take all of my accumulated days. My saving grace was probably about 5 factors. 1. decision to leave Texas, move to rural Alaska to teach SPED in 2018. First three years got back on the bicycle of investing just the max for the traditional IRA, but then my wife read my mind one evening in early 2021. "Okay, you can go up north and make the big bucks, but I reserve the right to go live with my sister in Euless." I smiled and the best three years of my life began in late July 2021. My appetite was super-strong to save and invest for retirement and it happened, beating my wildest hopes and dreams. 2. About the same time I moved to above the Arctic Circle, someone on this board suggested I take a look at bogleheads.org. Thank you whoever you are!!! I had already received a tip from my principal in southwest Alaska about something new to me called the S and P 500 Index fund. In Alaska education we have control over our retirement account, because that is all we get. In Texas, the ERS and TRS recommend a "three-legged stool." In Alaska, there is only one leg, your retirement savings. So when I switched future investments from a target date fund to all S and P 500 fund for the last three years in Alaska, it was on, and by on I mean I saved and invested like a man with his hair on fire. I maxed out a 457b with 100% S and P 500 fund as well. 3. My investigative curiosity about purchasing service credit began way back in 2012, when I purchased my 6 years of state of Texas service. I called the IRS in 12, made sure I was doing the purchase correctly, asked for the IRS agent's first name and ID number, put that info in an email to myself and it worked out almost exactly as planned. Sure enough, about two months after filing the return, here came the mean letter from IRS, claiming I filled out forms wrong. I pulled up email I sent myself, filled out form with agent's name and ID number, and sent it back. 2 more months and a 2nd letter from IRS, giving me the nod. I remembered all of that info. as I planned to buy my out-of-state service from TRS. I completed the transaction early this spring, and my Alaska retirement account performed so well, I got out of the market in May 2024, knowing I had hit the target. I beat the target by about $9,000. I had 96k, and the six years cost me $87,500. Stayed safe with that money from May 2024 until purchase in February 2025. Along the way I took a huge portion of my S and P 500 gains and moved them into a 55/45 fund at Trowe. I was anxious to have money with both Trowe and Fidelity. I am an index investor with Fidelity for the traditional IRA only. I will never be a Roth man, as you can see that I purchased 12 years of service credit total. My Trowe money is down only about 3% since January 21, 2025, which astonishes me. Very exciting! 4. Goal setting. I had done well with goal setting for my fourth graders in the 2010s at the charter school in south east Dallas, so why not try it in Alaska? There was plenty of spare time. I went back and realized my net worth was about 165k when I arrived above the Arctic Circle, so I decided to make a serious goal of doubling that before I left Alaska for good. I remember exactly where I was in February 2024 when I hit my goal of 330k, but it didn't end there. it was rolling like a snowball. After the dust finally settled after the last paycheck in summer 2024, the number was 390k. Before the correction, buying the years of service, and moving a bunch of money to Trowe I think the number was 450k, not sure. My goal when I landed above the Arctic Circle was to work in education until age 67. That number quickly went south as things happened at a crazy good pace. After two years up there the goal was down to 61, and I am retiring this year at age 60! 5. Research attitude. I don't know where it all started but I have been researching financial stuff forever. At some point I started calling both ERS and TRS on a regular basis, to make sure details were the same. I am retiring from ERS because of the free health insurance premium for me, for life. Money is the same from both systems. I started calling once a year, and met some of the nicest people. Turned out the ERS people were highly trained and more knowledgable. Then after a while it became once a semester, then more often, etc. until the week the check arrived in Austin from Trowe. I called TRS once a day that week, and they were still nice about it! It was done! Woohoo! I believe there is a message of hope in this, especially if people know somebody who has a strong spender for a wife. I survived, but it never ends. I possibly set the world record for years between a full year's IRA contribution, as my last full year of contribution before marriage was probably 1993, and then I resumed once again in 2019. It can happen!
  8. Sister-in-law, old lady, has been recommending Laguna Madre for quite some time. She and my little brother are extremely set in their ways, and this is the only place they eat in San Antonio on their way to Laredo, when they visit her family. He is 58 and she is 70! Having her is about to pay off for him when the homestead exemption for age 65+ goes up to $200,000. Good job, little bro. I finally ate there today, got a six piece shrimp plate that included Cole slaw, fries, one hushpuppy and a piece of garlic toast. Have no idea how the garlic toast made it in there. Hushpuppy, nah, not worth the effort imo. Garlic toast better than hushpuppy. Cole slaw decent, shrimp, the best part, they were freshly cooked. Fries, nothing to write home about, definitely not fresh. Spent a little more than I usually spend, but I might go again, especially if I could get fresh fries.
  9. Wow! What an extensive list. Did not expect. Thanks a bunch! It will be fun exploring these places. The wife works nights and sleeps days so this is almost as good as me living in Alaska while she lives in Texas. We move June 7th. Important thing will be me keeping her working, not giving her an option to quit for the next 2.5 years. I will get a part-time job, starting probably January.
  10. I'm sure someone has already mentioned, but that "Brunson Burner". sure reminded me of MJ's shot that won the whole thing against Utah. Somebody who is a magician with the internets should mash up the two. Of course Brunson's was much further out than MJ's but they sure resemble each other, at least to me.
  11. I think Mack is laughing big time. Of course he had the curse on recruits, but what about coaches? Strong check, now this, how about Torbush! Wow....17-18 at UNC. Gotta give it up for Mack, assuming Bill crashes and burns the Mack Coach Curse will be confirmed.
  12. The wife and I are moving to an apartment a stone's throw from Brackendridge Park. Seems to be a nice older area, and the manager pointed out we will be within walking distance to "the Pearl district." Anybody know of good spots to eat near Brackenridge Park?
  13. stupid but effective Turbo Tax. I have read the myth about a free e-file for a couple of years, tried again this year. This is a very simple return, 3 total W-2s, for the wife and myself. Our AGI was low enough, below $84k, to qualify for a "free efile", so I fell for the sucker bet and tried a free e-file last night. It is my turn to get the large refund. Sure enough the IRS would not accept my return, yada yada, PIN this whatever. My wife who works overnight comes home and jams the numbers in Turbo Tax, and it almost works the first time, but she transposed a number so IRS would not accept the return. I knew this would not be a free return but because I am the professional procrastinator supreme, I had little choice but to accept her inputting the numbers. One good thing, we made the numbers hum, as they numbers came out exactly the same. When it came for Turbo Tax to help her fix her transposition mistake, they were available on the phone, which is more I can say for my cheapo allegedly $0 cost return place. So, the charge is $137.51 to file a fairly easy return and I get the big refund. This is the last year I will have been on the dark side of income tax refunds. Forever and ever I did the correct thing, nailing the return within about $100 or so either way, but I got tired of the IRS bugging me, so when I came over to the dark side, they miraculously stopped bothering me. Only about 3 to 4 years on the dark side. I am now retired, and will have plenty of time to tinker with W-4s throughout the year. I plan to owe the IRS about $200 next year. I plan to pay with a paper check, to mail in the return via snail mail and for the return to take about 8 weeks to process, assuming they still take paper returns next year. I guess the thing that bugs me now is that I was never able to participate in a free e-file. Oh well. Here is to retirement!!😃
  14. Wonder what the ratings will be? Tiger-esque?
  15. Amazing!!!
  16. oh yeah, it's closer.. he has no business missing this.
  17. exact same length putt 10 minutes ago?? Impossible.
  18. this thing is gonna be over quick, imo.
  19. Rose with the psychological edge for sure.
  20. not too surprising. more surprising the iron shot went into the bunker.
  21. looks five feet to me.
  22. chance of playoff just got huge.
  23. Just shut everybody's mike down, now Jim is gonna do all of the talking.
  24. decision time, I say dance with the one who brung ya! Hit driver Rory!
  25. shadow, but he makes it!!!
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