The Rob Berger Show

Latest Episodes:

RBS 212: Should You Contribute to a 401k That Has No Employer Match? (FQF) May 23, 2025

Show notes

In this edition of Five Question Friday (FQF), we look at these five questions:
1. My 401k is not employer matched, should I stop contributing to my employer 401k and open a Roth IRA instead?
2. Where should we keep cash we'll need to spend in 12 to 18 months?
3. Can you implement the bucket strategy in Boldin?
4. SCHD + TIPS & Chill?
5. Do Short-Term Treasury Bills provide the same inflation protection as TIPS?
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RBS 211: When Should You Change Your Asset Allocation? (FQF) May 16, 2025

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In today's Five Question Friday (FQF) we'll tackle the following questions:
1. Is now a good time to change your asset allocation?
2. Do target date funds force you to sell stocks in a down market?
3. Does the IRS treat the withdrawal of dividends as taking out earnings or contributions from a Roth IRA?
4. Is an 80% Chance of Success in Retirement reasonable?
5. How much should you allocate to international stocks?
Boldin: https://go.robberger.com/boldin/yt-fqf
ProjectionLab: https://go.robberger.com/projectionla...
FICalc: https://ficalc.app/
Chance of Success Guardrail Articles:
https://www.kitces.com/blog/monte-car...
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/ris...
https://www.kitces.com/blog/probabili...
https://www.morningstar.com/retiremen...
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RBS 210: Where I'm Keeping My Cash: T-Bills, Money Market Funds, CDs or Savings Accounts? May 09, 2025

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In this video, I'll run down several high-yield options for your cash. I'll also discuss where we are keeping our cash today.
Bank Bonuses: https://www.allcards.com/best-bank-bo...
CD Rates: https://www.allcards.com/cd-rates/
Savings Rates: https://www.allcards.com/savings-acco...
No-Penalty CD Rates: https://www.allcards.com/no-penalty-c...
Vanguard Money Market Funds: https://investor.vanguard.com/investm...
Schwab Money Market Funds: https://www.schwab.com/money-market-f...
T-Bill Yields: https://home.treasury.gov/resource-ce...
Nerdwallet T-Bill Account: https://www.nerdwallet.com/l/nerdwall...
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RBS 209: The 5 Biggest Risks in Retirement According to Experts May 07, 2025

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The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College recently surveyed financial advisors, asking what the major risks were to their clients' retirement. In this video, we'll look at the top 5 risks financial advisors identified, and compare them to the five biggest risks according to retirees.
Here's the study: https://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads...
ProjectionLab (Use Code RBERGER-10 for a 10% discount): https://go.robberger.com/projectionla...
Boldin: https://go.robberger.com/boldin/yt-
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RBS 208: Is It Safe To Link Financial Accounts To Budget Apps? (FQF) May 02, 2025

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Here are today's Five Question Friday (FQF):
1. Are financial apps safe?
2. Can you help me understand the risk of bonds?
3. How are mutual fund dividends taxed?
4. How should we think about annuities for retirement income?
5. Does Ben Felix hate index funds?
Ben Felix video: • The Problem With Index Funds
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RBS 207: Should We Do a Roth Conversion Now? (FQF) Apr 25, 2025

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Here are the five questions we'll cover in this week's edition of Five Question Friday:
1. Is now a good time to do a Roth conversion? (John)
2. Mutual Funds vs ETFs (Shane)
3. Should we invest more in international stocks? (Phil)
4. Is Gold a hedge against inflation? (Cathy)
5. Has 2025 wrecked our retirement plans? (Doug)
Resources
Boldin: https://go.robberger.com/boldin/yt-fqf
ProjectionLab: https://go.robberger.com/projectionla...

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RBS 206: Is Now a Good Time to Start Investing? (FQF) Apr 18, 2025

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Welcome to another edition of Five Question Friday (FQF). We actually have 6 questions today plus a free investment tracking tool:
1. Do I send Facebook friend requests to viewers?
2. Is this a good time to start investing?
3. Is rebalancing in volatile times just market timing?
4. If following the 4% rule, should the amount you pay in taxes be included?
5. Should an emergency fund be part of your asset allocation?
6. What is your opinion of using T-bills for cash instead of CDs or bonds?
Investment Tracking Tool: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/view...
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RBS 205: A Smarter Way to Model TIPS Ladders in Retirement Planning Software Apr 16, 2025

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A viewer named John emailed me the following question: "I'm planning to build a 5yr TIPS ladder to provide some inflation protected income in the years before Medicare and SS. How do I model that "account" in Boldin??"
It's a great question, and it gives us the opportunity to look at an often overlooked feature of retirement planning software--pension income. Yes, a TIPS ladder can be modeled as pension income. We'll look at it in both Boldin and ProjectionLab.
Boldin: https://go.robberger.com/boldin/yt-ti...
ProjectionLab: https://go.robberger.com/projectionla... (use code RBERGER-10 for a 10% discount)
TIPSLadder: https://www.tipsladder.com/
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RBS 204: Savings Account vs Bond Fund (FQF) Apr 11, 2025

Show notes

Here are the questions for this week's Five Question Friday (FQF):
1. Are savings accounts better than bond funds?
2. Can you please explain nominal and real returns?
3. Does it matter if the market is up or down if you do a Roth conversion?
4. Will I be taxed twice on reinvested dividends?
5. Do you really need more than one broker?
Bonus Question: What camera and mic are you using?

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RBS 203: Traditional vs Roth 401k: The Optimal Strategy Apr 07, 2025

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Choosing between traditional and Roth 401k contributions is difficult. It forces us to make a guess about our taxes years or even decades from now. In this video, we'll discuss some of the factors that can affect this decision. And then, I'll share one strategy that may make the decision much easier.

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