We just refinanced our mortgage and had to get an updated replacement estimate from our insurance company. Compared to the estimate we got about 4 1/2 years ago, replacement costs went up about 40% which meant that even though we reduced our mortgage costs, our home insurance costs increased.
Our coverage amount increases incrementally every year but I was wondering what would have happened if we had needed a replacement under our old policy limits. Turns out our policy has a 30% cushion that would have covered the increased costs.

Yes, been holding them for years, and now into retirement. Reduces the volatility, and the dividends make it easy to wait for better days for bond funds. I can own bonds at pretty damn good interest rates through the funds, which I could not do on my own--- since I'm not independently wealthy. PRSNX. RPSIX. PTIAX. Plus bonds held in balanced funds PRWCX and BRUFX.
current yields:
PRSNX. 3.04%
RPSIX. 2.73%
PTIAX 3.81%
PRWCX. 1.01%
BRUFX. 1.92%
(And when did this goddam computer decide FOR me where I wanted periods inserted--- where they DON'T belong?) DAMN machines.

Any homeowners with insurance asking questions or finding large price increases in policy costs ???
We've given attention to home insurance replacement values over many years, for a total loss of the home. Note: our mortgage is paid from long ago and our insurance doesn't renew for several months.
We have not called our agent yet regarding the recent large increase in lumber and many other building materials; but we're pondering the impact relative to our home insurance coverage, even though it contains an inflation clause.
I offer this link for informational purposes only.
Home Insurance Overview
Lumber cost adds $24,000 - $36,000 to new home construction pricing. I gave this price range, as Bloomberg offered the low number, but I have not yet discovered why.

The rough cost to build a house.....
Thank you,
Catch

I have used M* for years- back when they printed those flimsy paper fund reports- but like many others have been discouraged recently. The Portfolio Manger however remains one of the few (only?) place I know of that will break down your funds and stocks into the underlying characteristics.
I have found M* stock reports to be too simplistic and too focused on their jargon like "Moats" and do not think they are useful. The analysts all look like they are just out of school and change constantly. The stock data sometimes seems off and out of date, but I don't use that much.
I have tried a lot of "newsletters" with web based stock analysis over the years and have had mixed luck.
For dividend stocks, the one I have stuck the longest with is "Simply Safe Dividends". There are three real life portfolios and detailed analysis of a lot of dividend stocks in an easy to read and understand format. Highly recommended at $288 a year.

Hi David, congratulations on a well-deserved rest from MFO! Thank you for your years growing this community and sharing your valuable wisdom, and all your effort and time helping others understand the complicated world of personal finance and investing.

… just asking what % would most seem apropos, is it 10%, 15% etc.”
For many years I kept 10% in my “real assets” sleeve - which always included a commodity & real estate fund - and occassionally a mining fund. I kept another 10% in international bonds which might shelter against inflation too - and rebalanced back and forth between the two.
For many years I lost $$ on the commodities part as they went through a brutal decade+ long bear market. A year ago may have seen rock-bottom when they were literally giving oil away on the futures markets - hard as it is to believe. The real estate and gold funds did better over that time - helped along with some tactical buying and selling. But commodities stunk.
Growing more conservative with age, I’ve curtailed the real assets sleeve to 8%. Most risk assets have been curtailed. Not what my instincts would prefer. But I have no control over the aging process.
The above doesn’t take into consideration a roughly 10% hold in PRPFX - which spreads the money all around - and includes gold, silver, natural resources & real estate. It runs hot and cold, so I’d be loath to recommend it to someone today after a nice streak.

Jerome Powel is Trump's hand picked Fed Chair, one of Trump's "top of the line professionals".
Nevertheless, Trump agreed with you that Powell was "foolish" and "crazy" However, Trump came to that conclusion when Powell raised interest rates. Trump felt rates should be lowered. That's just what Powell is doing now.
Moving past the ad hominem remark, we get to Banana Republic, surely not the clothing store :-)

Over the past century, “banana republic” has evolved to mean any country (with or without bananas) that has a ruthless, corrupt, or just plain loopy leader who relies on the military and destroys state institutions in an egomaniacal quest for prolonged power. ...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/is-america-becoming-a-banana-republic
Rather than a banana republic, perhaps what you had in mind was the Weimar Republic?
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_germanhyperinflation.html
At any time one can find conspicuous consumption in all age groups. That said, an objective account would show that Porsche was and remains a brand for males going through midlife crises.
From Fortune, January 1995:

The demographics of the Porsche owner are utterly predictable: a 40-something male college graduate earning over $200,000 per year.

https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1995/01/16/201811/

Plus ça change:

The demographic of the Porsche owner, includes a college graduate, household income over $100,000, 85% male, and 15% female. The typical Porsche owner is 40 years old and up ...
The age demographic rose from an average age of 48 in 2007 to an average age of 51 in 2012.

https://www.stephenzoeller.com/targetmarket-segment-porsche/
FWIW, what I saw in Silicon Valley at the turn of the century were stock rich entrepreneurs driving Bimmers, not Porsches. (Well, Larry Ellison drove a Testarossa.) Me, I was zipping down I-280 at 100+MPH in my MR2. 80% of the fun for 30% of the price (see 80/20 rule). Value investing.

@hank,
Ha! I see what you did there...out in left field...apologies if I did not communciate my question clearly...did not mean to imply that I would put all or most of monies as an inflation hedge...just asking what % would most seem apropos, is it 10%, 15% etc.
The Invesco funds you listed seem interesting, but...will admit I am shying away from derivatives, swaps and the like...do like the looks of the PRAFX T Rowe fund, I'm going to ponder it further...
I could be wrong but I have seen info that equities at times are NOT a good inflation hedge contrary to what many beleive. Equities took it on the chin in late 70s early 80's.
Real estate intrigues me, home prices going thru the roof (pun intended), multi-family housing growing like weeds. Home Depot, bought out HDS HD Supply, had large div who sells to multi family developers etc..(Disclosure: I hold a lot of HD stock)
Gold...has worked in the past but maybe Bitcoin is the ultimate either farce or statement/ clever investment in which many believe too much central banks have grossly increased their balance sheets and money supply??
Have to hand it to Fleckenstein...he's been consistent thru the years on his views, maybe wrong, but consistent...and I'm hoping he still has that good hair...
Take care/Best,
Baseball Fan

I think your question is pretty far out in left field. Whatever my thoughts on inflation or the economy I’d never risk all my assets on commodities, gold or other. Moderation in everything.
PRAFX is a decent fund at TRP. Buys stocks that profit from inflation and holds significant real estate. I also like BRCAX at Invesco if you can get it load free. I wouldn’t overlook ABRZX, an allocation fund at Invesco. They keep about a third exposed to commodities. (I own small amounts of all 3 funds.)
BTW - I recently took profits in some of the above mentioned funds and put the $$ in PRELX. It’s a mediocre non-hedged “local currency” EM bond fund. Should do well if the dollar keeps falling (in tandem with rising inflation). A safer option than playing gold and commodities directly - but more limited potential.
A good real estate fund should benefit from hyper inflation.
Equities in general are a good inflation hedge.
All of the above are subject to reasonable prices. I can’t tell you which funds are fairly valued and which might be in assets that are in bubble territory.
If you want confirmation for your own hyper-inflation thesis, you can pay $130 a year for Bill Fleckenstein’s daily online rant (I do). Bill would have you put a lot of your money into gold miners. But he’s been wrong for the past 1-2 years while gold has languished. (I did make some money in miners on his advice 3 years ago). He’s also been trying to short tech and other high flyers for several years without success, as those markets have screamed higher.
Good luck.

David- I'm thinking that the odds of finding someone with your gentle touch in administration, coupled with your knowledge of the investment areas, are likely slim to none.
I was an old buy-and-hold fund type, did pretty well doing that, and because of the limitations of my plain vanilla experience didn't have much to contribute to the in-depth financial discussions here. But over the years this place has become almost like the local watering hole, pleasantly populated by interesting and intelligent people whose varied experiences and opinions on all sorts of matters have been a source of great interest and mind-stretching knowledge. Losing this place is going to leave a great void for me, and will be like losing a great number of friends all at once.
Thank you so much for all that you've done here, in the creation and management of the best financial watering hole that one could hope for.
The very best to you and yours in whatever your futures may bring.
Dan

Gasp!

All of which feeds into my decision to step aside as publisher of the Mutual Fund Observer by year’s end. After 25 years of writing about funds and ten years of being the defining presence at MFO, it’s time to give a new colleague the chance that Roy Weitz long ago gave me.

A heartfelt thanks, David, for picking up where Roy left off and jump-starting the world's best mutual fund website.
May the wind be ever at your back.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/category/mutual-fund-commentary/

“Happy birthday. Now pack up your stuff and go.
“That might constitute a harsh goodbye for most employees, but unless your name is Warren Buffett, it is a possible ending for corporate executives and directors … Mr. Buffett is 90 and has been running Berkshire for five decades. His business partner, Charlie Munger, is 97.
“(The) reality is that most CEOs will never be able to approach that tenure. Some 70% of S&P 500 companies had a mandatory retirement age in place for corporate directors as of December … Other research suggests such policies are in place for perhaps a third of S&P 500 chief executives. Not even Berkshire is immune to the pressure: The pension fund Calpers cited the board’s long tenure and the lack of board “refreshment” as one reason it plans to withhold its vote to re-elect some Berkshire directors this weekend.
“While many won’t last in a top job nearly long enough to see such a policy invoked—the average S&P 500 chief executive retires at 60.1 years old after a tenure of about 8.4 years—perhaps the practice needs a rethink in an era when once-unthinkably long lifespans are commonplace.”
From: The Wall Street Journal - May 1, 2021

My situation is a little unusual. Normally I'd wait as long as possible to take SS especially since my wife is ten years younger than me. However, we have many children and the youngest two are still teenagers (13 and 16). I'll start taking SS at full retirement age (66 + 2 months for me) because I can collect some money on their behalf until they hit 18 or graduate high school. Has anyone else actually done this? I've only read about the option. Later this year I'll get serious about researching it. I plan to sign up this winter.

Bottom line: I [Ed Slott] believe this will be corrected by IRS to show that the 10-year rule means no required distributions until the end of the 10-year post-death period, and no RMDs will be required for years one through nine. However, RMDs can be taken voluntarily by beneficiaries at any time within the 10 years based on their own tax situations.

I keep looking through the Pub to find a statement that one must take RMDs.
p. 12 says that "if the deceased beneficiary was an eligible beneficiary, any remaining balance in the account must be distributed within 10 years of the beneficiary's date." The Pub then gives an example of how you might use standard RMD calculations for the first nine years without ever saying that you must draw money out this way. This is the example that Ed Slott refers to.
Other Pub writing says more even clearly that you must either start taking RMDs or take full distributions under the 10 year rule:
p. 10: "[Death in 2020] Any ... individual beneficiary of an owner who dies before the required beginning date ... must start taking distributions in 2021 based on his or her life expectancy (or elect to fully distribute the account under the 10 year rule by the end of 2030).
p. 11: "The terms of most IRA plans require individual designated beneficiaries, who are eligible designated beneficiaries, to take required minimum distributions using the life expectancy rules (explained later) unless such beneficiaries elect to take distributions using the ... 10-year rule.
Finally, worth noting is that IRS Pubs are just writing for the masses. They are not regs or legal interpretations of regs. (Though often, the IRS just carbon copies the regs into the Pubs, which defeats the purpose of making the regs clear to the general public.) As Slott notes, "IRS has not yet released official regulations." So it's absurd to think that this Pub could be presenting the IRS interpretation of regs that don't yet exist.
In the immortal words of Douglas Adams:

I believe that all the funds listed above have strong/aggressive growth orientation. Growth was beating value for many years. If the trend changes (because of reopening), value may beat growth for many years. If you have money in growth AND value, then as an investor you may just wait. If you have money only in growth, I would add value (or replace some part of growth by value) and wait. I do not pretend that this is a wise advice, just the standard diversification/rebalancing argument.

“Professional money managers are turning up the heat on Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. California Public Employees’ Retirement System and Neuberger Berman have demanded that the Omaha, Neb., conglomerate bring in new directors and provide more disclosures on climate risks and executive pay.
Leading up to Berkshire’s annual meeting on Saturday, proxy advisers Glass Lewis & Co. and Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. have recommended that investors withhold their votes for board members. While many of the complaints aren’t new and none of the shareholder proposals are likely to pass, Berkshire’s lackluster returns in recent years have made it more vulnerable to criticism amid a growing wave of investor interest in corporate sustainability issues …
Under Mr. Buffett’s leadership, the firm boasts 20% compounded annualized gains from 1965 to 2020, outperforming the S&P 500’s 10.2% gains including dividends during the period. Berkshire’s total returns over the past three- and five-year periods were 12% and 14%, respectively, compared with the index’s 19% and 18%.”
Link: The Wall Street Journal - May 1, 2021
Lengthy article. While I’ve excerpted portions relevant to Berkshire’s investment returns, other areas of contention are also addressed, including Berkshire’s commitment to fighting climate change,

The 10 year RMD rule for non-spousal inherited IRA's was part of the legislation in the Secure Act of early 2020. This rule is now subject to a language interpretation and also will have a new public comment period to formalize "the rule".
The below article provides some information; as well as a link to the current IRS Pub. 590-B.
I will attempt to keep track of this rule change going forward, but solicit others here to provide information as discovered.
Note example: For our house, part of a written plan instruction was that: One has 10 years to "take" all of the monies from a non-spousal inherited IRA; meaning that all of the money could taken in year 10, if desired. The "new" rule meaning would require RMD's for years 1-9, with the balance taken in year 10.

Secure Act, Ed Slott article
Regards,
Catch

@zigster M* works well for your purpose. I’m almost exclusively in funds vs. individual stocks but when I’m tempted...I always check Yahoo conversation boards (old habit) as well. From a newish subscriber...MFO Premium is the best value and insight for funds and I often wish I found it many years ago - this from a long time Valueline subscriber. Agree with what @Crash said above and I also use Fido.

@JonGaltIII
PDFDX is sketchy at best. The fund has been around for many years. It previously invested in micro cap stocks; now it invests in micro cap health & biotech companies.
Caveat Emptor...

Well stated, except for the assertion that "mutual funds with a load are ... not always going to show lower fee-adjusted long term performance than a comparable ETF or mutual fund without a load [and any load fund underperformance] can disappear the longer the mutual fund is held.
If one replaces "comparable" with "identical except for load", aka "all else being equal", then the long term performance (including effect of the load) must be lower for the load shares, and this difference does not disappear over time.
The first assertion, that loaded funds could perform better over the long term even accounting for load is just the usual handwaving that fund A might do better than fund B even though fund A costs more. Sure, but not likely, especially if one assume "all else is equal."
The second assertion that the underperformance of loaded funds gradually diminishes over time is a misrepresentation of arithmetic. If you buy a fund with a 5% load, then, all else being equal, it will underperform a comparable fund by 5% over the first year, but just 1%/year over five years. It's not that it is catching up, it's just that you're amortizing the underperformance over more years. After 5 years, you've still got 5% less money with the load fund; after 10 years you've still got 5% less, and so on.