As a college professor, I have my retirement funds in TIAA. They offer, I feel, something pretty close to what you've described here. A portion of my and my employer funding each month goes into a TIAA annuity fund that pays a minimum of 3% interest. As someone else here said, I see that like a bond. When I retire, I can convert that money into a variety of different types of annuity, or wait to convert. The annuitization rates are very good compared to other places if you use this fund for an annuity. I think this is a solid, sensible offering by TIAA.
All that said, TIAA also offer a "Social Choice" fund that I know a lot of my colleagues have their money in, as they believe it to be a socially responsible fund. Even after I pointed out to my colleagues that "social choice" actually means the fund is pretty heavy into McDonald's and ExxonMobil, I bet very few of them made any changes, showing that TIAA is also very good at marketing.
Jonathan, which cruise line did you take that has "access to a part of the ship with its own pool, restaurant and lounge"? We have never wanted to take a cruise, but this option might change the dynamics for us.
To be very exact on my question: If you have a 10 year Treasury bond of $120k that matures, when you "put one twelfth of the proceeds into your checking account each month" does that mean you put $12k into your checking account at the amount of $1k per month? When you "buy a new 10 year Treasury to replace the one that matured", is that a $108k bond?
Could you please do an entire separate post explaining this in more detail? : "You need to buy a 10 year Treasury bond ladder in which the value of each year is what you would obtain from a monthly annuity. Each year as a bond matures you put one twelfth of the proceeds into your checking account each month and buy a new 10 year Treasury to replace the one that matured. You invest the balance of the lump sum in some reasonable allocation plan."
I have absolutely LOVED reading this post! Thank you to all who have commented.
My list (in no particular order):
1) Membership to the local indoor pickleball courts. My wife and I play 3-5 times a week. Great exercise and social connections
2) Milk frother (from the OP!) We have two. We have a Bialetti and make our own lattes every morning.
3) Heated mugs (Nextmug from Amazon). You can take an hour to drink that amazing latte, and it never gets cold. I actually take these out with me too, as I find most places the coffee gets cold too fast
4) We live in Montana, and we now have an electric snow shovel for the front sidewalk and an electric snow blower for the back driveway. So much easier, faster, and way less chance of a back injury
5) We go to the local runners store to buy our athletic shoes. A while ago my wife bought her running shows on Amazon to save money. Ended up creating a stress fracture in her toe due to a not-so-go fit, and that cost $600 and 4 months not working out. Total waste of money saving money!
6) Costco membership. The fuel saves you a ton. I never bother to look at the price of petrol as it's always the cheapest, and, per Consumer Reports, the best. I also like to get my tires done at Costco. Way cheaper.
7) Consumer Reports subscription and the print magazine. I've found that the print magazine brings me to stuff I would never look up. Just upgraded my wife's lip balm to the "best" based on the CR reviews
8) Walmart+ membership. Didn't use it for months, but just figured that getting groceries delivered is VERY nice indeed.
9) Paying to not have to watch ads on whatever platform. Ads are awful.
10) Paying for a month on a particular streaming service for a particular show. We don't go to the movies, so spending $9 to watch amazing shows on Britbox is a steal
11) We have the Delta Reserve AmEx card. We pretty much have to fly Delta out of here, and the card gives you upgrades and, the most important part, access to the SkyClub. We just got our "complimentary" (obviously it's not, as we pay $600 for the card) free companion ticket, and we're both flying first class to Belize for Spring Break.
12) Top quality coats. Being cold is awful. Coats from Patagonia, Black Diamond and Arc'Teryx are stupidly expensive, but very light and very effective, and so very much worth it.
13) We have two old cars. Honda Ody, bought brand new 24 years ago, and now has 275k miles on it. Runs like a dream. I always buy good tires (from Costco) for it, plus have a very reliable local mechanic. The other is a 21 year old Honda Civic, just 105k miles on it. As someone else said, having two cars when at least one is old is just the right choice. Cheap to insure.
14) Good car insurance. I don't want to have an issue if there's an issue.
This is pretty much our exact way of doing things. We have the ridiculously expensive Delta Amex Reserve card, but it puts us automatically in Delta Comfort, and frequently first class. We really appreciate the Delta Sky Club access. Our main vehicle is our Honda Odyssey minivan, bought new 23 years ago and currently with 275,000 miles on it. When we travel, which is a lot, we look for great places to eat.
I just read another HD article about how when you own you're basically paying yourself bond income. Our house is fully paid, so our not-paying-rent bond-like "income" is rather nice.
Hi all! This is a lovely post.
One thing I love to do with these posts on HD is to click the ads. I let it load, then just hit the back button and in back at the post. I figure I'm directing money to JC. Just my good deed each time I'm here at HD
The real issue is that people want health care, not health insurance. I know many people think that they would have health care if we had a single-payer healthcare system in the US. Well, I am here in England right now to visit my 92 year old dad, and on the day I arrived he was taken to the ER (A&E). Almost every non-medical service is outsourced to the lowest cost provider, because no one wants to pay higher taxes. The result of using lowest cost providers is that the first blood test "didn't work" because the provider claimed, wrongly, that there was not enough blood drawn. We saw the nurse take a full vial, and the test requires a drop. So a second blood draw is taken, this time by the doctor. Still apparently not enough to do a test. By now the ER's performance dashboard on the screens for the medical staff is showing 74% of normal, and is very red. The result of that is dad gets released from the ER, the metric literally immediately goes to 76%, and my dad is in the "evaluation center". Still no results from the blood. It's now been 8 hours, so the doctor sends my dad home, without those blood test results. One thing most people think is that a single-payer healthcare system means great medical coverage! Absolutely not the case. Did you know that the average Accountant in the UK makes more than the average NHS doctor? Given the ER dashboard and the inability to get simple blood test results, would you believe that the above-average competency doctors tend to leave the NHS single-payer system for private practice. So we have a two-tier healthcare system here in England. Everyone pays through their taxes for the NHS, and anyone who can afford it "goes private". A can't-raise-taxes single-payer healthcare system means my brother-in-law waited 3 years for his first hip replacement, and 4 for his second. My other brother-in-law "went private" and got one done in 4 months.
When I teach Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation in my 200-level business class, I use Apple as an example of a company that has long ceased to be innovative. Since the iPhone 1 in 2008, Apple and Samsung have been pretty much in lockstep as sustaining innovators: just adding an availble upgrade to their current product.
Where Apple truly, and in my mind solely, shines is in glorious marketing. As for customer service, Apple brings a truly rigid regime to their software that some love because “it just works” and others (like me) hate because it only works the way Apple tells you they want it to work.
Clayton Christensen will tell you that Apple is doomed to fail as it will be out-innovated by a disruptor. It hasn’t happened yet, and it’s hard to see how it will happen, but that’s how disruptive innovation works.
Clayton Christensen also argues that it is not the people in an organization who are the problem (say the ones at Citi), but the institutional procedures and processes that are the problem. How money gets allocated and how people are rewarded is the real issue.
Often the only way to break free of these procedures and processes is to set up a new company.
Costco was a disruptive innovation as compared to Sears (remember Sears?).
Intel was about to get killed, talked to Clayton Christensen, and set up the Celeron processor division doing things completely differently to the rest of Intel. The Intel you see today is the Celeron division.
Clayton Christensen's Innovators Dilemma book is an amazing read if you've not had chance.
Comments
Holliday, I would to hear more about your travels
Post: Another HD Post About Cars
Link to comment from May 31, 2025
As a college professor, I have my retirement funds in TIAA. They offer, I feel, something pretty close to what you've described here. A portion of my and my employer funding each month goes into a TIAA annuity fund that pays a minimum of 3% interest. As someone else here said, I see that like a bond. When I retire, I can convert that money into a variety of different types of annuity, or wait to convert. The annuitization rates are very good compared to other places if you use this fund for an annuity. I think this is a solid, sensible offering by TIAA. All that said, TIAA also offer a "Social Choice" fund that I know a lot of my colleagues have their money in, as they believe it to be a socially responsible fund. Even after I pointed out to my colleagues that "social choice" actually means the fund is pretty heavy into McDonald's and ExxonMobil, I bet very few of them made any changes, showing that TIAA is also very good at marketing.
Post: 401(k) participants want annuities – some form of guarantee – RDQ
Link to comment from May 25, 2025
Jonathan, which cruise line did you take that has "access to a part of the ship with its own pool, restaurant and lounge"? We have never wanted to take a cruise, but this option might change the dynamics for us.
Post: Taking on Water by Jonathan Clements
Link to comment from March 22, 2025
To be very exact on my question: If you have a 10 year Treasury bond of $120k that matures, when you "put one twelfth of the proceeds into your checking account each month" does that mean you put $12k into your checking account at the amount of $1k per month? When you "buy a new 10 year Treasury to replace the one that matured", is that a $108k bond?
Post: RDQ considers: A lump sum in lieu of a pension, withdrawal strategies, annuities and other mundane decisions – good luck.
Link to comment from March 20, 2025
Could you please do an entire separate post explaining this in more detail? : "You need to buy a 10 year Treasury bond ladder in which the value of each year is what you would obtain from a monthly annuity. Each year as a bond matures you put one twelfth of the proceeds into your checking account each month and buy a new 10 year Treasury to replace the one that matured. You invest the balance of the lump sum in some reasonable allocation plan."
Post: RDQ considers: A lump sum in lieu of a pension, withdrawal strategies, annuities and other mundane decisions – good luck.
Link to comment from March 19, 2025
I have absolutely LOVED reading this post! Thank you to all who have commented. My list (in no particular order): 1) Membership to the local indoor pickleball courts. My wife and I play 3-5 times a week. Great exercise and social connections 2) Milk frother (from the OP!) We have two. We have a Bialetti and make our own lattes every morning. 3) Heated mugs (Nextmug from Amazon). You can take an hour to drink that amazing latte, and it never gets cold. I actually take these out with me too, as I find most places the coffee gets cold too fast 4) We live in Montana, and we now have an electric snow shovel for the front sidewalk and an electric snow blower for the back driveway. So much easier, faster, and way less chance of a back injury 5) We go to the local runners store to buy our athletic shoes. A while ago my wife bought her running shows on Amazon to save money. Ended up creating a stress fracture in her toe due to a not-so-go fit, and that cost $600 and 4 months not working out. Total waste of money saving money! 6) Costco membership. The fuel saves you a ton. I never bother to look at the price of petrol as it's always the cheapest, and, per Consumer Reports, the best. I also like to get my tires done at Costco. Way cheaper. 7) Consumer Reports subscription and the print magazine. I've found that the print magazine brings me to stuff I would never look up. Just upgraded my wife's lip balm to the "best" based on the CR reviews 8) Walmart+ membership. Didn't use it for months, but just figured that getting groceries delivered is VERY nice indeed. 9) Paying to not have to watch ads on whatever platform. Ads are awful. 10) Paying for a month on a particular streaming service for a particular show. We don't go to the movies, so spending $9 to watch amazing shows on Britbox is a steal 11) We have the Delta Reserve AmEx card. We pretty much have to fly Delta out of here, and the card gives you upgrades and, the most important part, access to the SkyClub. We just got our "complimentary" (obviously it's not, as we pay $600 for the card) free companion ticket, and we're both flying first class to Belize for Spring Break. 12) Top quality coats. Being cold is awful. Coats from Patagonia, Black Diamond and Arc'Teryx are stupidly expensive, but very light and very effective, and so very much worth it. 13) We have two old cars. Honda Ody, bought brand new 24 years ago, and now has 275k miles on it. Runs like a dream. I always buy good tires (from Costco) for it, plus have a very reliable local mechanic. The other is a 21 year old Honda Civic, just 105k miles on it. As someone else said, having two cars when at least one is old is just the right choice. Cheap to insure. 14) Good car insurance. I don't want to have an issue if there's an issue.
Post: What Purchases Have Been Worth It?
Link to comment from February 22, 2025
This is pretty much our exact way of doing things. We have the ridiculously expensive Delta Amex Reserve card, but it puts us automatically in Delta Comfort, and frequently first class. We really appreciate the Delta Sky Club access. Our main vehicle is our Honda Odyssey minivan, bought new 23 years ago and currently with 275,000 miles on it. When we travel, which is a lot, we look for great places to eat. I just read another HD article about how when you own you're basically paying yourself bond income. Our house is fully paid, so our not-paying-rent bond-like "income" is rather nice.
Post: Forget You
Link to comment from December 21, 2024
Hi all! This is a lovely post. One thing I love to do with these posts on HD is to click the ads. I let it load, then just hit the back button and in back at the post. I figure I'm directing money to JC. Just my good deed each time I'm here at HD
Post: Forget You
Link to comment from December 21, 2024
The real issue is that people want health care, not health insurance. I know many people think that they would have health care if we had a single-payer healthcare system in the US. Well, I am here in England right now to visit my 92 year old dad, and on the day I arrived he was taken to the ER (A&E). Almost every non-medical service is outsourced to the lowest cost provider, because no one wants to pay higher taxes. The result of using lowest cost providers is that the first blood test "didn't work" because the provider claimed, wrongly, that there was not enough blood drawn. We saw the nurse take a full vial, and the test requires a drop. So a second blood draw is taken, this time by the doctor. Still apparently not enough to do a test. By now the ER's performance dashboard on the screens for the medical staff is showing 74% of normal, and is very red. The result of that is dad gets released from the ER, the metric literally immediately goes to 76%, and my dad is in the "evaluation center". Still no results from the blood. It's now been 8 hours, so the doctor sends my dad home, without those blood test results. One thing most people think is that a single-payer healthcare system means great medical coverage! Absolutely not the case. Did you know that the average Accountant in the UK makes more than the average NHS doctor? Given the ER dashboard and the inability to get simple blood test results, would you believe that the above-average competency doctors tend to leave the NHS single-payer system for private practice. So we have a two-tier healthcare system here in England. Everyone pays through their taxes for the NHS, and anyone who can afford it "goes private". A can't-raise-taxes single-payer healthcare system means my brother-in-law waited 3 years for his first hip replacement, and 4 for his second. My other brother-in-law "went private" and got one done in 4 months.
Post: Clues Left by a Killer Echo Widespread Anger at Health Insurers
Link to comment from December 15, 2024
When I teach Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation in my 200-level business class, I use Apple as an example of a company that has long ceased to be innovative. Since the iPhone 1 in 2008, Apple and Samsung have been pretty much in lockstep as sustaining innovators: just adding an availble upgrade to their current product. Where Apple truly, and in my mind solely, shines is in glorious marketing. As for customer service, Apple brings a truly rigid regime to their software that some love because “it just works” and others (like me) hate because it only works the way Apple tells you they want it to work. Clayton Christensen will tell you that Apple is doomed to fail as it will be out-innovated by a disruptor. It hasn’t happened yet, and it’s hard to see how it will happen, but that’s how disruptive innovation works. Clayton Christensen also argues that it is not the people in an organization who are the problem (say the ones at Citi), but the institutional procedures and processes that are the problem. How money gets allocated and how people are rewarded is the real issue. Often the only way to break free of these procedures and processes is to set up a new company. Costco was a disruptive innovation as compared to Sears (remember Sears?). Intel was about to get killed, talked to Clayton Christensen, and set up the Celeron processor division doing things completely differently to the rest of Intel. The Intel you see today is the Celeron division. Clayton Christensen's Innovators Dilemma book is an amazing read if you've not had chance.
Post: Too Big to Succeed by Jonathan Clements
Link to comment from December 15, 2024