Dan Malone

Comments

• James, please help us understand how your ex-wife will benefit if you delay until age 70. Vanguard says: "An ex-spouse's Social Security spousal benefit never depends on when the higher-earning ex-spouse claims their own benefits. Your benefit amount is calculated based only on their Full Retirement Age (FRA) amount, regardless of whether they claim early, delay until age 70, or never claim at all."

  Post: Rethinking the “Right” Time for Social Security

  Link to comment from May 29, 2026

• Excellent!

  Post: The World’s Least Useful Financial Adviser

  Link to comment from May 29, 2026

• Excellent perspective, and it works on the other side of the allocation transaction, too. I gifted some of a highly concentrated, low basis stock after it had grown significantly to $300 - $350. And then sold most of the remainder at $450 - $520 . . . . only to see it surpass $600. Like you, no regrets on the "derisking" rationale for the decision, but hard not to notice what you missed out on, too. I have ~20% left, though, which will likely go to my heirs with a stepped-up basis.

  Post: The 34% Return I’m Glad I Missed

  Link to comment from February 14, 2026

• Love your pithy KIBS slogan and the academic research that backs it up.

  Post: No Such Thing as Easy Money

  Link to comment from January 9, 2026

• Sounds like QCDs (Qualified Charitable Distributions) are a perfect match for you, Richard!

  Post: If You Could Rewind 5 Years Before Retirement… What Would You Change?

  Link to comment from December 28, 2025

• Ha!

  Post: The Supply Chain Behemoth That Puts Amazon on the Naughty List

  Link to comment from December 25, 2025

• To demonstrate the power of AI, take a look at this comprehensive comparison of various features of DAFs. Quite unbelievable, actually! https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/98c3b7e9-a539-4f9b-91ff-96d3b76776f7

  Post: Easy DAF (e.g. Daffy.org) for Donation of Appreciated Stocks

  Link to comment from October 18, 2025

• I switched from Vanguard Charitable to Charityvest for many of the reasons you mentioned, especially for the low grant minimum of $15 ($500 with Vanguard) and to avoid the minimum annual $250 maintenance fee, which is too high for small balances (Charityvest has a $100 annual fee minimum). Chartityvest uses Vanguard's low expense ratio funds. Overall, I’ve been very happy with Charityvest. There are only two drawbacks: 1) they only communicate via email, which is one way they keep their administrative fees so low (so understandable). They have always been very responsive, though; 2) they do not allow designatation of which investment to sell to fund grants. With Vanguard, I could hold cash in a money market fund and make grants through that account; Charityvest requires grants to come from all investments you hold in your account proportionately. Hopefully, that will change soon, as it appears this is just a software programming issue.

  Post: Easy DAF (e.g. Daffy.org) for Donation of Appreciated Stocks

  Link to comment from October 18, 2025

• That must be it, as I had two embedded links.

  Post: ROTH Conversions and Fixed Indexed Annuities

  Link to comment from October 11, 2025

• (new) Editor: Why was my comment not accepted?

  Post: ROTH Conversions and Fixed Indexed Annuities

  Link to comment from October 11, 2025