baldona

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For those of us that are extremely conservative, are annuities coming into fashion?

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You do you. An annuity is just very expensive insurance.

You could take that expense and put it in a very low risk investment like a CD or bond and almost always be better off.

Bonds are not absolutely terrible right now. I don't know why you need an annuity if you can get 3% from bonds. Just do something like 80% bonds and even in a completely dog shite market you'd lose 10% of your money with a 50% drop.

BTW, look at the history of the market. The amount of times its had multple negative years is very few.

ETA: When I said you do you, I meant it seriously. Its your money. Its your retirement. Do what makes you comfortable. Just don't read a bunch of doomsday sales pitchy stuff.

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I am looking at borrowing against both property assets and my investments to purchase an investment property.

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You can't get help without actual numbers.

The first question is why do you have to borrow against multiple assets. That's a major red flag. There's nothing at all wrong with borrowing against an asset, but if you have a loan on that asset and you are taking out another loan that's exactly how people eventually go bankrupt.

Can you cash out refinance any of them to solve some of these issues?

Have you talked to a banker about doing a commercial type of loan for multiple properties? I'd highly recommend exploring that option, its free to look into

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The single biggest variable is lodging. Some people in this thread are likely paying twice what others do, depending on location and hotel quality. And that's fine.

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I don’t disagree. I think for a family of 5 in November we didn’t spend over $300/ night and most were closer to $200. Our Rome Airbnb was 2 bedroom with washer and had a nice balcony for $988.

We only carried on. I can carry 4 days of clothes plus what’s on my back without issue with a carry on, and we make sure we have a washing machine routinely if not nightly.

There’s nothing wrong with staying in nice expensive hotels, but you don’t have to. Or mix it up, stay in a nice hotel in one location and an apt with a washer somewhere else

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Got 2 boys that will be 12-13 by the time it comes around next year so just trying to make sure the ride is comfortable. Just trying to figure out time of year and who to book at this point

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Even the "small boats" are something like 34 Contenders. I'm not suggesting that just that there's not really a terrible choice. The only time a huge boat is worth it would be if the seas are crap.

The smaller boats will also burn a lot less fuel. It could be $500 less.

If you have boys that young, personally I'd go when they are most highly likely to catch medium sized fish. There's no reason to go and strike out and there's no reason to target large or Jumbos.

We went for 13 nights in November with 3 kids, rental car for I think 8 days, and we spent $13,000 all in without including flights. Used points for flights, they were like $650 and used the chase portal.

So about $15,500 total for 13 nights for a family of 5. We stayed in Airbnbs.

Definitely could have done it cheaper, ate 2-3 dinners over $300. We stayed in 5 different places which ads up and got 2 bedroom Airbnbs. 2 people staying in 2-3 Airbnbs you could easily do under $200/ night.

Get out of Rome and Venice and the peak tourist areas like Almalfi coast and Cinque Terre and it’s not expensive at all.

We also like to eat a modest lunch out and then dinner at the Airbnb. Did pizza to go to the Airbnb a lot also. But lunch out when you are moving around and next to stuff, then let the kids rest and get some tablet time at night works well for everyone. Mom and dad a glass of wine on the balcony. Oh yeah we splurge for balconies

Most of the guys work together, they all have at least 2-3 others they talk to and work with.

A lot of it depends on your budget, what exactly you want to target, etc. Some of the boats include fuel and some don’t, fuel bill will be $800-1500 so keep that in mind.

Some of the price is the size of the boat and how nice of a boat it is.

lol. I’m half asleep. None the less dumb argument. It’s not like they are flying to Europe

I mean you guys act like flying out the day before to central time to play 2 hours early is a big deal. If they play at 6 central or 8 pacific it’s the same time…

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Not sure of the current maintenance interval, but had saw 150k miles

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So let me get this straight, baws on here that change trucks like they change their underwear and get a new truck every 40-60k miles are bitching about something that doesn’t need changed until 150k miles and is a $2500 job at the dealer? lol

95% of guys won’t drive a new vehicle until 150k miles.

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You like an oil pump being driven by a belt?

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What's the knock on a belt honestly? I'm most ignorant here, but belts have been running tons of things in car engines for millions of miles without issues. Belts can be super easy and cheap to replace also, I don't know how easy this one is, but if its easy to replace routinely that should make it extremely reliable?