I was surprised to learn recently that regardless of “tread-wear” tires need to be replaced at a time interval set by the manufacturer - usually about 6 years - a year or so longer with some premium brands. The reason is that the sidewalls deteriorate over time and could cause a blowout. This was pointed out to me when I had my old 2005 pickup in for routine servicing a year or two ago. The mechanic pointed to extensive visible cracks in all of the sidewalls. The tire treads were lightly worn. I drive the old truck only about 1,000 miles a year, but often heavily loaded. The tires were probably 10 years old. Of course I replaced all 4.
Edmunds Commentary: How Old / Dangerous Are Your Tires?
Per @msf’s experience with an oil change - I encountered the same resistance a few years ago when I took the old pickup in for an annual oil change at a local “quick lube.” The guy claimed the oil looked “clean” on the dipstick and at first declined to change it. Eventually, I convinced him to do so. For us old-timers that seems indeed odd. We were taught (I believe correctly) that an oil’s “appearance” is not an accurate way to to access its condition or need to be replaced. And it seems especially peculiar a vehicle service center would voluntarily turn down a chance to make a dollar. I’m wondering if perhaps there’s been some pressure applied by the EPA to encourage or coerce oil change outfits to do this visual inspection with the goal of reducing the amount of waste oil, which presents environmental challenges (though I believe it can be recycled).
”Do I receive compensation for observing that the risk is water condensation?:-)”
As the old expression goes, ”a penny for your thoughts …” :)

I used to be fanatical about oil changes. Up until around 2005 I did my own - crawling around under the pickup or driving my small cars up on ramps to work underneath. A couple things changed. Vehicles got lower and lower to the ground making it very difficult to work underneath. And tolerances (the acceptable degree of harmful “slack” or “play” on internal engine components) got narrower and narrower as better tooling / techniques evolved. This led to greatly reduced wear on internal components, reducing the need to change oil as frequently. At the same time, oils improved and synthetics (even better) came into common use. So the manufacturers gradually extended the oil change intervals from a few thousand miles in the 60s to (a guess here) 10K or more today.
I don’t pay attention to dates or mileage anymore because my 2018 Honda (like most new vehicles today) monitors oil changes and dozens of other service items, alerting me when it’s close to time for service. The system monitors not only miles driven, but things like outdoor temps, total number of days, idling time (hard on engines), speeds driven, number of stops & starts, ad infinitum. Much better ISTM than any prescribed limit based on miles or time. That said - I’ve yet to see a vehicle manual that doesn’t tell you to change the oil at least once a year. That’s in part a nod to the fact that over time compensation condensation (water) can form inside the engine and contaminate the oil.
One note: For “severe service” conditions - things like driving in mountains, pulling a heavy trailer, or driving extensively in high temperatures - the manufacturers do reduce the allowable time / miles between oil changes.

M* has just announced that the changes are coming, but hasn't provided much details yet.
Big Bang Link https://big-bang-investors.proboards.com/thread/3255/morningstar-refreshing-iconic-style-allan
M* Change FAQ https://advisor.morningstar.com/Enterprise/VTC/MSB2024FAQ.pdf
M* Release Updates https://advisor.morningstar.com/ReleaseNewsLive/productLD.aspx?prd=Licensed Data&subprd=API

Anyone that transferred HSA to Fidelity,
I would like to gather your personal experience which I recognize may vary and could be different from my eventual experience:
Did Fidelity reimburse any fees charged by your HSA provider for partial or full account transfers? (Irrespective of your experience, I will ask Fidelity if they would reimburse before I submit the transfer request.)
How long did it take to complete the transfer from the time you submitted the completed forms with Fidelity? (Fidelity website says 2-5 weeks.)
https://www.fidelity.com/go/hsa/transfer
Thanks

"Britain’s per-capita GDP is lower than that of any of our 50 states"
@hank - No surprise there- their GDP has been subpar for many years, and Brexit certainly didn't help.

I was surprised by Zakaria’s claim that Britain’s per-capita GDP is lower than that of any of our 50 states.
Like others here, I own a slice of GLFOX which invests in infrastructure and, for whatever reason, stays mainly in Europe. It has returned a big zero this year. Not a concern to me. I can be content with some holdings rising and some falling. If everything were rising together I’d be very worried. But I suspect others may not share that level of patience..
Not to be overlooked, the dollar’s persistent strength has also dinged investments in Europe and elsewhere.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/06/16/fareeds-take-europe-america-pace-gps-digvid.cnn

Insightful, but does the current US/Euro gap indicate future trend or represent a possible turning point? One thing for sure, the US will not stay this far ahead forever. There is good growth in the US, but possibly better value may be found overseas.

Ya, I ventured overseas years ago. The "old saw" was that Europe was "old money." I was looking for a bargain. And I had some EM holdings, too. These days, Europe is even more complicated: Ukraine war, Right-wing election gains. One currency, but many different national budgets.... I did well investing in EM bonds through the GFC and for a while beyond, and then I got out, following some good advice from someone in here.
Politically, China is uninvestable these days. Authoritarian. Curtailed civil and human rights. They're putting the screws to "special territories" Hong Kong and Macau, too. After having visited there in early 2019, it makes me so sad and angry to see it happening. The Markets have no conscience. But this whole business in China is morally distressing. I'm sworn off of foreign investments in my mutual funds; funds are still the lion's share of what I own. My fund managers have me in UK and Europe, just a tiny bit. I own a Canadian stock with a great dividend; is that "foreign?" Also, a Luxembourg-based maker of oil drilling pipes. Two still very tiny single-stock holdings. In retirement, I like YIELD. My (junk) bond funds provide most of that. Keeping a close eye on them--- a "short leash." Currently, my portfolio provides a 4.05% yield, as calculated by the ever-reliable (LOL) Morningstar.

Additional detail and links in this NYTimes article (June 5):
Europe Has Fallen Behind the U.S. and China. Can It Catch Up?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/business/economy/europe-economy-competitiveness.html
It says that "Mr. Draghi’s report will not be released until after voters across the European Union’s 27 states go to the polls this week to elect their parliamentary representatives." Those elections were a week ago. It may be worth looking for his report.
If China is doing so well, should one be investing more in China, despite the political risks involved?
With respect to investing in Europe, or in any company with suboptimal prospects: it can be a good investment if the price is right. Fundamentally, a stock is priced according to its expected future earnings discounted to present value. Lower expectations (due to slower growth), lower present value.
https://philschatz.com/economics-book/contents/m48834.html

Crash, technology isn't perfect, but the old ways isn't either. Technology has presented us with a lot more choices. Choices = a lot more development and interactions between systems.
I used to pay $1.5 per minute calling abroad, I have used WhatsApp for years paying nothing. Sure, sometimes it's not clear but it's FREE.
Google Maps gives you driving, walking, and public transportation for FREE. Yes, I know Google also gets the info they need to make money, but you have a choice. 40 years ago, you had no choices.
I like choices. Maybe you prefer to drive downtown to city hall, use gas, pay for parking, and pay your bill with cash, and spend 1-2 hours. I prefer paying online in one minute.
Sure, I don't like state/gov bureaucracy, I would fire tomorrow at least 20% of them.
A city near us did just that. They hired private companies to do a lot of stuff and that saved them a lot of money.

Missed my point entirely. You must have tried very hard.

Suppose you have 1 million in Fidelity SP500 (FXAIX) and you want $4K monthly. You can create a sell monthly trade on a specific date to run for years to do it...and you are done.

Only if you have the stomach for it. If you had $1M on Jan 1, 2022, and set up that trade you would be down $283,000 come October with zero guarantee that things were about to improve, and most likely torturing yourself thinking about what a terrible mistake you made.

It's a very old argument that higher distributions are better than lower ones (or none)...and it's a bogus one.
Until the 70s blue chip big companies paid div to prove they are healthier. Then the technology revolution took off and these new companies have been paying nothing to lower distributions which did not hurt their stock TR...but this notion of higher distributions has not gone away and cost these investors a lot of performance and money.
Many retirees fall into it too thinking they must have these higher distributions to survive. No, they don't, the following is an easy example how you can generate monthly distribution.
Suppose you have 1 million in Fidelity SP500 (FXAIX) and you want $4K monthly. You can create a sell monthly trade on a specific date to run for years to do it...and you are done.

Crash, technology isn't perfect, but the old ways isn't either. Technology has presented us with a lot more choices. Choices = a lot more development and interactions between systems.
I used to pay $1.5 per minute calling abroad, I have used WhatsApp for years paying nothing. Sure, sometimes it's not clear but it's FREE.
Google Maps gives you driving, walking, and public transportation for FREE. Yes, I know Google also gets the info they need to make money, but you have a choice. 40 years ago, you had no choices.
I like choices. Maybe you prefer to drive downtown to city hall, use gas, pay for parking, and pay your bill with cash, and spend 1-2 hours. I prefer paying online in one minute.
Sure, I don't like state/gov bureaucracy, I would fire tomorrow at least 20% of them.
A city near us did just that. They hired private companies to do a lot of stuff and that saved them a lot of money.

I never paid attention to MM before 2022 and after that because I'm invested at 99+%, but I was in MM from 01/2022 to the beginning of 11/2022.

Of course you were LOL, Not bad but I moved everything into MM on 1/3/2022 and back into the market on 10/11/2022... SMH You're slipping... you missed the exact top and bottom by a few days.... SMH FD you're laughable... LOL
ADD: so you moved all your money into a MM fund paying ~0.05% at the time-- good move.

”I'm not sure what benefit anyone could derive from that …”
Oh, every bit helps. :)
Thanks for commenting. When I switched from investing at just a few fund houses to a full service brokerage 4 or 5 years ago it was as if a dark curtain had been lifted, uncovering not only a more extensive field of traditional OEFs, but also the ability to own individual stocks, ETFs, CEFs - a whole new universe of investments. My initial reaction was to broaden out into ETFs and even buy a few stocks. But now, a few years later, I find myself largely invested in a handful of good timeworn OEFs. I guess I like the manager having some additional latitude and not having to match every buy or sale of his investors tit-for-tat. The OEFs also tend to have a longer more extensive track record to research, having been around longer. And I have a sense that those in OEFs tend to be a slightly more stable bunch, less likely to be spooked (and sell) during market downdrafts - although that will vary by fund. I do understand that OEFs are more expensive, So fees are a good reason to move to ETFs or to own equities outright. One additional thing I’ve learned is that I tend to monkey around less with OEFs. There may be a psychological advantage to once-a-day pricing. But, of course, that depends on one’s own psyche.
So I wanted to double-check my current heavy use of traditional mutual funds (80% of portfolio) against how different members of the community invest. The biggest surprise has been how diverse the approaches are, ranging from some managing extensive portfolios of individual stocks to others zeroing in on just 3-5 broader investments. And, some like @racqueteer, appear to be active traders. Also a surprise is the extent to which some are predominately invested in cash. But it’s hard to quarrel with them taking advantage of 5%+ short term rates. All good. Thanks for sharing.

guaranteed-income or lifetime-income ... Old name for these is annuities but that tainted term is now avoided.
Love it. See George Carlin's bit on euphemisms (shell shock)

Defined-benefit (DB) pensions have gone away except for some federal & state employees.
It certainly seems that way, but according to the latest BLS statistics, 15% of private industry workers have access to DB plans. More like an endangered species than extinct.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/15-percent-of-private-industry-workers-had-access-to-a-defined-benefit-retirement-plan.htm

PRCWX traditionally lags its peers further and further as the year goes on, then distributes a massive dividend and CG payout in December, putting it squarely back in the pre-tax Total Return lead.
This statement says that the dividend adds to total return - the "massive dividend" helps a fund that is lagging to catch up (and surpass) in Total Return. In 2023 the price of PRWCX declined on Dec 19th (ex-div date) commensurate with the size of its dividend, thus netting zero increase in Total Return. That is, not putting it squarely back in the Total Return lead.
The equalization of NAV to distribution only holds effect on the ex dividend date and NAV should revert to mean reasonably quickly.
This statement acknowledges this effect but says that it was temporary. Over time (two months was mentioned) the fund would recover this loss. At that point the dividend would have presumably added to the Total Return, putting the fund squarely back in the lead.
It's the underlined section that is problematic.
-------
Consider two funds that pay out over a year roughly equal dividends (percentage wise). One pays quarterly, one annually. As I understand the statements above, the one paying quarterly will pull ahead in total return during the year - it will pay out its quarterly dividend, see its price drop but recover sometime within that quarter. So its total return will for those first three quarters gradually exceed that of the other fund.
But come December, the second fund will make a larger distribution (full year's worth rather than a quarter) and that will let it catch up (perhaps surpass) in total return. That catch up will be complete in a couple of months once the price has "reverted to the mean". At least that seems to be the claim.
For simplicity and clarity, let's consider two purely hypothetical funds, each holding the same one stock. Fund A distributes quarterly, Fund B annually. Suppose the underlying stock pays a div on March 31 (record date much earlier, but irrelevant), and Fund A distributes divs on the same day.
To compute total return, one assumes all fund divs are reinvested. With that assumption, the pre- and post-distribution portfolios of Fund A are the same, and are also the same as the Fund B portfolio (which made no quarterly distribution). Going forward, both funds will have the same total return because they have identical portfolios.
Fund B does not lag just because it doesn't make quarterly distributions. It does not catch up with a "massive dividend" at year end. A dividend payment has no effect on total return.
------
Where I think the confusion arises is in how investors perceive stock divs. Many investors feel that higher div stocks have better returns. But consider stocks like BRK, or see:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/082015/3-biggest-misconceptions-dividend-stocks.asp
Even if one buys into this theory, funds don't work that way. In part because fund distributions include capital gains which are not part of this stock div theory. In part because there are so many moving parts in funds that one can't tell from the yield what's going on. A fund could be invested in a mix of money losing companies (with no divs) and companies with high div payout ratios (distributing cash since they are stagnant), or strong companies with respectable payout ratios. The fund yields could be similar either way.

I'm happy to share, but my allocation varies; as does its composition; so I'm not sure what benefit anyone could derive from that?
At the moment, there is a very narrow focus within US LC, and I'm effectively near my 'normal' allocation levels:
stock etfs: 61% (effective; some 2:1 leveraging)
ST Treasuries: 56%

Flowing distributions through NAV can be a confusing process. Account values may keep rising despite the reductions in NAV in the ex-dividend days. This is best seen for ultra-ST bond funds whose NAVs don't fluctuate much. So, the actual prices (_TICKER) remain range bound, sort of back-and-fill, but the account values (adjusted prices, TICKER) keep rising.
Distributions by funds are so that the IRS can get its annual cut, and they don't have much to do with the TRs.
BTW, variable-annuities don't make any distributions and their TRs are fine (i.e. NOT zero).
ICSH https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=ICSH&compare=_ICSH&id=p12703106151
USFR https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=USFR&compare=_USFR&id=p79039476549

Federal and state tax laws are different and not always in sync. HSA isn't the only area. 529s have similar issues when some federal-qualified expenses aren't state-qualified expenses.
A huge example is that SECURE 2.0 allows rollover of some excess 529 funds into Roth IRA. But such 529 withdrawals aren't qualified withdrawals for many states. Illinois 529 is just fixing this problem by making these rollovers qualified.
BTW, a search "UMB HSA Complaints" brought up some links including BBB - UMB seems to respond promptly to those.

I'm a bit confused by all the complaints.
1) I never used debit cards, a few showed up many years ago and I just cut them up immediately. CC have better protection = end of story.
2) I got/replaced/opened several CC, including this week, none is made out of metal because I just cut one of the new ones I got. They sent me 2 by mistake.
I don't own frequent flyer/travel/foodie cards and never will.
3) I never signed any CC because no merchant ever denied them.
4) Sure, I get chip malfunction rarely, but after one try I swipe and it passes. Lately tapping works in more places. Wait, lately, I have used Wallet (replaced Google Pay).
5) In Europe, in several countries in the last 2-3 years, Google Pay works everywhere, I don't need to show my CC. Even when I couldn't use Google Pay, tapping can be used everywhere. I don't like to give my CC to anyone, as they do in the US. I prefer the merchant to use a small machine and bring it to me for tapping.
In 2022-3 we were in several countries in the UK and I never used my CC even once, even the public transportation in London accepted Google Pay, what a pleasure.
6) I have been using my CC everywhere, even to charge $1, I hate coins + I get cash back.
7) I use ATM, the worldwide Schwab one. Schwab pays me back all the fees by the end of each month, but I hardly take out cash anymore.
Yes, I know, that technology is a a challenge for some. I made mistakes too but try to learn quickly. It took me several times to get the tapping placement thing right because the placement wasn't the same.
OK, what bothers you next?...maybe your new TV setup?...mmm...technology again.
I play Bridge with people in their 80-90s. The ones that hate technology and refuse to learn, keep suffering and complaining. The ones that learn it are happier.
You can't run away from it. The old way is dying quickly, in most cases, you pay much more.

My own "beef" runs deeper than merely learning to deal with newfangled junk. My point is that systems don't work. Technology works until it doesn't. So many "time-saving" technological "improvements" are far from fail-safe and are in fact unreliable. Underneath it all is the fact that people don't care, just go with the flow; no one takes responsibility to make sure systems and procedures are responsive to people's needs. There is no accountability--- whether you talk about government or private enterprise. What happens to people doesn't matter. The only priority is to worship Mammon. Gov't is supposed to serve the public? Forget it. Government has divested itself of its own responsibilities. Few are to blame, but all are responsible. And no one will stop and say: "yes, it's my fault, and I'll get it fixed."
Call it The Human Condition? Original Sin? No matter; a rose by any other name... And no one in a position to get things back on track (CEOs, elected officials, etc.) will admit that things don't have to be this way, either. This ethical element is just never, ever spoken about.