Catch - I can provide an update when I know more. Possibly the quality & coverage of such policies varies by company?
I’ve long elected to have insurance payments come out of my bank account automatically on a monthly basis. In the early days of getting a handle on my finances (when I just learning how to run an annual household budget) I went with that option because recurring payments seemed easier to manage. Today, 30 years later, it wouldn’t make any difference. But I’ve stayed with the monthly auto-payment method.

FMSDX is a multi-asset fund that holds stocks, bonds and some alternatives. It is riskier than VWIAX. Although classified as conservative-allocation (CA), it is somewhere between CA and MA, taking into account its lower grade bonds.
VWINX / VWIAX is a classic stock-bond CA fund. Stocks are value/dividend oriented and bonds investment-grade. A very simple formula at very low ER. It's so cheap and simple that no one else has bothered copying it.

Thanks, yogi.
What bothers me about VWIAX is its poor return over the past three years.
I forgot about another moderately conservative allocation fund, PRCFX (T. Rowe Price Cap Apprec and Income), that is brand new but is run by the excellent and experienced manager of PRWCX.
Do you have an opinion about PRCFX?

I have lost al hope that most organizations can keep up with hackers. The only hacks we probably hear about seem to be health care institutions that are probably legally mandated to report.
Can you imagine the downside to Schwab's stock price if it admitted a multi-billion dollar hack?
Like Old Joe we have had credit freezes on all our accounts for years. Not fool proof but I think it helps

Thank you to everyone for their input, and especially @briboe69 to verify what we thought we needed to do.
We have started the process, as per the paperwork received. I will update this thread as everything progresses in the future.
One last 'complaint' about our wonderful world of all things online. We've had a 'home' online presence since 1997; and have fully enjoyed the experience. My 'work' career had me involved with technology for more than 40 years; and many more years of keeping 'up' with everything involved with technology at home.
While I understand the ongoing attacks and system breaches of data centers of all sorts; I keep my fingers crossed that all organizations are spending the money needed to hire the folks they need to attempt to stay ahead of the hackers.
We keep all of our home systems up to date and use VPN for online; and anti virus programs. The only periodic downside for VPN is that it has to be disabled for access to some online accounts. A small bother to deal with for some protection.

Doug Ramsey, LCORX portfolio manager, is cited today (but not quoted directly) as part of a daily market recap by Bloomberg Media. (subscription required)
“To Doug Ramsey at Leuthold, another 10% gain in the S&P 500 isn't out of the question, at least statistically. He analyzed 80 years of data on bull-market rallies, focusing on those that happened when unemployment was this low and the economic cycle this mature. If the current rally meets the prior records for length and height, the S&P 500 would end the year at 5,705.”
Sounds somewhat at odds with Leuthold’s take on the markets six months ago as capsulized by @David_Snowball in his November 2023 MFO Commentary :
”Leuthold: the lights have all turned red, time to lighten up on stocks“
Possibly Mr. Ramsey feels the lights have now turned from red to orange (proceed with caution)?
Or perhaps his reference is meant merely to reflect the irrationality of today’s market participants?
Or, more likely, Ramsey’s assessment may be intended only to characterize near term market sentiment and does not represent some fundamental change in Leuthold's longer term outlook.
Interesting nonetheless …

Positive vibes on this fund is for a couple reasons. Long term record going back 30 years with same strat is outstanding vs sp500. Up/ downside not even close. Very experienced fund MGMT, not just one star manager. Doesn't hold any of the glamour tech stocks
Negative vibes are doesn't hold any of the glamour stocks. Concentrated. Hope they don't get stuck so to speak in large positions ala AKREX.
Still my largest position but watching it like a hawk.
Best regards
Baseball fan

Thanks @hank. Amazingly, the statistics for these 2 funds are so close over the past 4 years (shown below from portfolio visualizer). You wouldn't know one invested in stocks and the other in ETFs. I hold LCR now, just because it's easier to buy ETFs on dips. At least in my mind. I intend to work the fund up to 5% of my portfolio. Once I do, I may convert to LCORX, or not. Based on the numbers it probably doesn't matter much.
ticker CAGR STD bestY worstY Sharpe Sortino
LCORX 7.34% 10.64% 15.2% -6.8% 0.52 0.78
LCR 7.23% 10.57% 13.8% -7.6% 0.51 0.79

If I had turned down all but 4-5% of the most attractive investments (or dates) in my lifetime I would have no nest egg today and I’d still be trolling dating sites instead of being married for 58 years. Sometimes it pays to accept some risk and the reality that some bets don’t pay off. The joke seems to be on the person who thinks he/she is as attractive as the top 5% of the datable market.

During the Covid lockdown, my wife received a letter from an IL Dept saying that an unemployment claim had been filed for her. Considering that she had been "retired" for several years, we found this strange. I called the number provided in the letter but it said to leave a message and somebody will call back.
SEVERAL DAYS later, somebody did call back. We were told that there was an ATTEMPT to file a fraudulent claim that was flagged and that's what prompted the initial letter. But they won't provide any other details - who filed, from what job, etc. We were told NOT to worry, except to watch for any unusual credit report activities. STRANGELY, we were also told that the IL system would keep generating some related follow up letter(s) that couldn't be cancelled, but to just ignore it. Thankfully, nothing unusual showed up on her credit reports.
We subscribe to free Credit Karma, as well as some additional free monitoring provided because of some other breaches in the news.
What concerns me in the OP is that the SBA loan was processed and proceeds sent so someone not @catch22.

How far does $1M go in to NYC (Manhattan)? Not very. A $50K salary elsewhere would need to be $150K in NYC. Use this Calculator (linked below) to compare costs to where you live now.
cost-of-living/index

Doesn't that figure really depend on where "elsewhere" is? Even Boise, Idaho would cost over 25% more than your base $50K, using the CNN calculator.
And for that matter it also matters where "here" is - Manhattan's population is less than 20% of NYC's; Manhattan's land area is under 8% of NYC's.
According to the same calculator, one would need "only" $87K to live in Queens (another part of NYC) - where 40% more people live than in Manhattan. While that's far from inexpensive, it helps to look at where "real" people live. Queens has the reputation of being NYC's bedroom borough.

Also welcome to extremes..some have...many have not. 25% are millionaire and 20% are below the poverty line.
...
cost-of-living-calculator/city-life/new-york-manhattan-ny

This NerdWallet site is similarly confused about NYC. The URL and the drop down city selector say "Manhattan", and its top line figure, "median salary in New York (Manhattan), NY is:$51,270. Yet in the detail data, it gives the population as 8M (all of NYC) and the average salary per person as $31,417. Hard to tell what "average" means, though I'm guessing it is calculated across the whole city, not just the 1/5 of people living in Manhattan.
Here are some "alternative facts". Directly from the US Census Bureau, the per capita income in NYC (8M people) is $48,066. Since not everyone works, that makes the mean (not median) salary higher than $48K. Another page (SmartAsset) claims that "According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, the average individual income in New York City is $107,000."
The level of poverty in NYC is not good, though it is lower than cities such as Detroit, Laredo, Cincinnati, Memphis, Baton Rouge (all above 25%), Richmond, Miami, Tuscon, Atlanta, Dallas, Columbus (all above 20%). The whole country needs to do better.
100 largest US cities ranked by poverty level (sourced from US Census Bureau)
US metro areas w/highest and lowest poverty rates - Madison Trust Co. analysis of Census Bureau data - percentage of households w/income under $35K (noting that HHS defines poverty line as $30K income).
That last source gives Albany, GA as the 6th poorest metropolitan area. I mention this because that is the baseline area used by CNN/Money (see above) for how far $50K would go in other areas.

Well, NY has about 4% millionaires, but it is still behind Tel Aviv which has about 10%.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/economy/1663172527-israel-nearly-1-in-10-tel-aviv-residents-is-a-millionaire-study

FD makes a different apples-to-oranges error. Consistent source (Henley and Partners) cited, but different years. The i24 News piece references the 2022 study which reported 42,400 millionaires in Tel Aviv (detailed data is in Middle East top 5), while the current study reports "only" 24,300. Over a 40% decline.
https://www.henleyglobal.com/publications/wealthiest-cities-2024

The most important is the total performance and for many the risk-adjusted performance. I can generate an income very easily.
Suppose you are at Fidelity and you have one million invested in FXAIX(SP500). You can set up in 2 minutes a monthly sell order, on a certain date, for $3K(or another amount) to go on for months-years until you stop it. You just created an income monthly stream.
Basically, a fund that generates double the income of the SP500 but lags by 1% annually is still inferior. It is just a math exercise that the income crowd refuses to admit.
Income VS TR(total return) is one of the oldest discussions that have led the income crowd to miss a lot of performance since 2010.
I'm not against income, I'm against people who go blindly after income.
==========
While a low expense ratio is desirable, there are plenty of exceptions.
PRWCX in the last several decades.
PIMIX from 2010 to 2018.

@larryB Yes, and so much more. The community is a tourist destination year around.
Events of all flavors are in place, dependent upon the time of year. Including, Bonner's; reportedly the worlds largest Christmas themed store. I suspect 'hank' won't chastise me too much for stepping in with this info. And yes, the insurance company noted is from this community; and has been in business since 1868 (156 years).
Frankenmuth

Hi yugo,
I began to appreciate PVCMX as an investment when I began to compare it to other funds with similar risk profiles, similar levels of commitment (there's that word again) to investing in equities, and so on.
I wouldn't pay what he's asking for, but I can understand why others might. And I wish y'all many hours of blissful slumber. It's a factor that deserves more appreciation than it gets.
It has been a tough row to hoe for small-cap value for many years. I would compare VSMIX to other SCV funds in that regard. It seems to have been quick out of the gate in relation to changing conditions these past few years.
However, calling PVCMX a SCV fund is like calling FAGIX a LCG fund. It just bugs me for some reason.
If Cinnamond seriously considers that vapid conversation between Jerry and Elaine as a useful analogy for describing any part of his investment philosophy, well, God bless him; I don't think he got the joke.

Frankenmuth is a small Michigan based insurer. Also does business in Ohio. Been with them forever.
Long story short …. Rented car totaled while waiting for a red light to change in Florida 15 years ago. “No-fault” state. When the steeply padded bill from Budget arrived a few weeks later insurer settled with them fully. To this day I avoid buying expensive rental insurance.

I can report this re Chubb: A couple of years ago my Toyota Tacoma was parked and a woman (somewhat under the influence of something or other) took out a rear fender while attempting to park behind me. She had Chub and they paid quickly and in full on one estimate.

Beer googles?

Definition from Oxford Languages:
"Beer goggles" - used to refer to the supposed influence of alcohol on one's visual perception, whereby one is sexually attracted to people who would not otherwise be appealing,
when applied to financial markets becomes:
"Beer GOOGLs" - used to refer to the supposed influence of AI on one's analytical perception, whereby one is financially attracted to stocks that would not otherwise be appealing,
(all strictly in the spirit of this commentary, of course).
While a long-time fan of Cinnamond's fund management, I also own (a rather smaller) position in VSMIX. To be fair, VSMIX has had an amazing run over the last 3+ years, but it might be worth keeping in mind that on the 10-y basis it's posted max DD / alpha of < -47% / -3.70 under the same management per M*. On the flip side, I do not recall Cinnamond getting much below -20% DD in his entire managerial carrier across four different funds.

@Low_Tech
I made a concerted effort several years ago to find out what the CEO et at VG REALLY make.
Sometimes you can find their published salaries but the key employes get to participate i a sort "profit sharing plan" similar to stock options.There is absolutely no information about that.
Even Fidelity publishes more information.
If you chose, you can buy shares of Schwab and go to meetings and tempt to question people about compensation etc.
VG makes such a point about "our investors own our firm" but it is total fiction because we investors have no information no control etc

FWIW: In 27 years, Schwab has never pushed anything on me, nor even hinting at it with one exception: They did when they came out with their "Robo Advisor" 8-10 years ago.
I told them I was not at all interested, and they've never brought it up again.

But it also used to be that a Private Client customer at Fidelity was assigned a specific rep. No more at either brokerage.

Fidelity still assigns you an individual Premier Services Advisor.
@msf did they also used to assign another kind of "specific rep" as well?

As a matter of fact, they've assigned a Private Access Account Executive, a Private Client Group Account Executive (same person, different title), a Senior Account Executive (same person), an Account Executive (same person), and a Financial Consultant (same person).
Then the musical chairs began. No title changes, but in the span of three years, three different "Financial Consultants". Then a year later, when the last one left Fidelity, I was not assigned any specific rep, whatever title you wish to give to them.

@msf I think you might want to consider calling Fido and just asking for one.
In my case, I was offered an individual PSA several times, but declined because I thought it might lead to more marketing, to which I am quite averse. Finally, something made me try, so I just let them know and was promptly assigned one.

Merrill? 4.71%, but that's non-sweep and requires a $100K min.

I think this is in reference to their Preferred Deposit account. If so, this is only an initial investment min, hence one would conceivably put in $100K then take them out leaving, say, $1 and then add/withdraw funds as needed - manually, as this is indeed a non-sweep account. I believe they also have several sweep accounts paying 5.17% atm, but these require a greater commitment shown here.
(To be clear, I've never had a Merrill account before but have recently decided to try them out and am in the process of transferring some funds over. The above information has been confirmed with a phone rep, but I have not had a chance to verify it myself.
Btw, so far I have found their customer service to be surprisingly helpful and competent, though I have only had minor issues to address until now. One odd thing I've encountered with Merrill is that they do not allow you to ACAT in-kind any money market funds - even those that Merrill itself offers - which is a bit of a nuisance, iyam.
Incidentally, I was also told that one can trade against their mm fund balance at Merrill - the same way one can do, say, at Schwab - can anyone confirm this?)

@hank - No sir- we've had this coverage with at least four different companies over the years and that has never come up. As Yogi mentioned though, it's a add-on requiring another underlying policy.