Financial Independence and Legit Side Money Ideas For Techies and Geeks

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Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked. Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

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https://www.riskparityradio.com/podcast/episode/75658718/episode-209-popular-swr-delusions-and-the-madness-of-gurus-and-portfolio-reviews-as-of-september-30-2022 https://www.riskparityradio.com/podcast/episode/7a8db999/episode-223-a-celebrity-deathmatch-about-cape-ratios-and-related-topics https://portfoliocharts.com/charts/portfolio-matrix/ sort by Safe WR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agR1gF_7s8k Big ERN "Karsten Jeske" is amazing, his writing is prolific, I have learned a lot from him. But...I think he is leading the pack to be too conservative. Listen to these 2 podcasts above and tell me what you think. Frank was able to use Big ERN's toolbox to get 4.9% SWR from 1926-2022 with: 27.5% large cap growth 27.5% small cap value 30% intermediate treasuries 15% gold Today we have way more options to construct a more resilient portfolio but that is all that was available with data going back that far. There is older data it sounded like you could not break down the equities into SCV and LCG. Bill Bengen(Discoverer of 4% rule) says something similar that SWR rates are 4.7%+ Karsten also says 10-15% gold would improve SWR Edit: I see gold is a controversial part of this post. Don't get hung up on that. What you are looking for are the most uncorrelated assets available. If you don't like gold, there are many other options. gold just has data going back very far. Edit2: If you really hate gold these two have a 4.9% SWR and no gold: https://portfoliocharts.com/portfolios/coffeehouse-portfolio/ https://portfoliocharts.com/portfolios/swensen-portfolio/ submitted by /u/drdrew450 [link] [comments]

Edit: I mean how can I reach $5M Here’s my story: W2 Income: $450K (my wife also earns ~$400K, which has allowed us to invest aggressively in real estate this year). Real Estate Portfolio: 5 rental properties in California (all purchased this year) with a combined equity of $320K; all cash flowing. This equity only reflects the down payments; I haven’t factored in the slight appreciation already observed through appraisals. My expectation is for significant appreciation over the next 3–5 years. 3 properties are short-term rentals (STRs). 1 property is a long-term rental (LTR). 1 property is currently under rehab and will also be used as an STR once completed. 1 residential property in California, purchased 7 years ago, with $250K in equity. Other Assets: 401(k): $100K Roll Over IRA: $40K (was over $1M during the C-19 boom, but I lost most gains due to timing and risky penny stock trades). Brokerage Account: $60K (similar story as the IRA – gains during the pandemic but losses due to market timing). Coinbase: $2K Pension: $40K Employee Stock Purchase: $5K Liabilities: Student Loans: $94K My Background and Goals: I was able to increase my W2 income to nearly $500K about two years ago, and with my wife’s income, we’ve used this period to aggressively build our real estate portfolio. While I’ve taken some risks with stocks in the past, my focus has shifted toward real estate as a reliable wealth-building strategy. I see many people here achieving FIRE with most of their wealth in IRAs and brokerage accounts. In my case, I aim to reach $3M in net worth (excluding home equities) by age 50 – giving me 12 years to achieve this goal. I’m looking for advice on the best strategy to reach this target. Should I focus more on growing my real estate portfolio or diversifying into other areas? I see that most people here don't factor real estate at all into their FIRE plans, and I honestly would love to do the same. I’d love to hear your thoughts, insights, and recommendations. Thank you in advance for your guidance! submitted by /u/Sea-Bonus5659 [link] [comments]

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I'm in the boring middle phase of my journey, but the "coast" of Financial Independence is already looming on the horizon. I'm already past FU money. In the best-case scenario, I might be a happily FIREd in 2 years, with 7 days per week to do whatever I want. In the worst-case scenario, I need to keep pretending to be interested in yet another corporate project for another 5-10 years. Obviously, stock market gains are not in my control. Because of that, I have no clue what my overall lifestyle is going to be in 2-10 years. This feels like a surprising challenge for dating - a challenge which I didn't expect to occur. When you start seriously dating another person, you are not just aligning your personalities, but also lifestyles. What could I offer to my partner emotionally/timewise during the next 5 years and beyond? How to choose a "compatible" partner, when the range of potential future lifestyles is so broad? I have no clue, because everything seems to depend on the success (and timeline) of the FIRE journey. Paradoxically, dating felt much simpler in the early phases of this journey, when financial independence was still a distant dream. There was peer support from fellow corporate-drone wingmen, and the potential dating partners pretty much knew what kind of overall package they would get in me. Now the situation feels overall much more unclear. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a challenge. The well known "one more year" syndrome of FIRE has started to feel like "one more year of being single" syndrome. And I don't like this feeling, because being single sucks in the long term. I'd like to hear how this resonates to your experiences of combining the FIRE journey and dating. submitted by /u/GrindingForFreedom [link] [comments]

Throwaway account for privacy. After working towards FIRE since college, I think I'm ready to pull the trigger in January! I'm quite confident in our numbers but figure it can't hurt to look for holes in the plan. I'm a 38 year old mechanical engineer, ~200k/year income. Wife is 36 and works in Tech, income has varied with stock vests, will peak this year at $550k, dropping to $400k next year and would likely drop further the following year. No kids and no plans to have kids. Live in a VHCOL area. I realize we have been very lucky in our careers as well as with how the market has performed to allow us to consider quitting this early. In the last 12 months our investable net worth has gone up 50% between our savings and market appreciation which has trimmed a year or so off my anticipated timeline. I would have settled for a higher withdrawal rate prior to this last year of crazy market appreciation so we've actually surpassed our "target number" awhile ago. Current assets: NW: $4.5m + Primary residence. Taxable Index Funds: $1.65m Taxable Bonds: $450k Taxable Tech Shares: $650k Cash: $60k Retirement Index Funds: $1.7m Primary Home: $1m Mortgage: $360k @ 2.1%, 11 years remaining on 15 year. NW: $4.5m + Primary residence. Spending: Current annual spending: $155,000. Annual spending without Principal/Interest on mortgage: $120,000 Projected Health Insurance Spending: $15,000/year NOTE: non insurance healthcare spending is already part of the current annual spending. Extra Spending for home repairs/car replacement etc: $20,000/year Future home upgrade: 5+ years down the line we will likely want to upgrade our primary residence after we get some travel out of the way. Will likely spend an additional $750,000 but will be flexible on timing and amount based on circumstances at the time. Other Income: We receive approximately $24,000/year in cast gifts from parents. While not absolutely guaranteed, this is unlikely to stop prior to them passing on. Parents are 75 but generally healthy. Likely to receive at minimum $1.5m for inheritance. Wife will plan to continue working for 1 additional year as insurance against the bottom falling out of the market the day after I quit. That's an extra ~$300k in after tax income between now and both of us pulling the trigger. Thoughts: Assuming small but positive market gains between now and my wife pulling the trigger in early 2026, we are on track to have approximately $5m in investable assets as well as receiving $24k/year in gifts. Our spending, stripping out the principle/interest portion of our mortgage, is $131k/year once I add in the $35k in extra health insurance/durable goods spending but subtract the $24k in gifts. Round it up to $140k after accounting for taxes and a bit of extra spending. I plan to roll the dice on leaving money invested in the stock market vs paying off our 2.1% mortgage. If the market is still super frothy in 1-2 years when we can start taking advantage of the 0% capital gains rate, I may sell off enough shares to pay off the house and invest that money in bonds to take advantage of the 4% interest rate vs our 2.1% mortgage. Will evaluate at the time based on taxes, ACA subsidies and the state of the stock market. Over the next year and a bit before my wife retires, I plan to finish putting another $300k into bonds. At that point we will have $750k spread out in $35-$40k lumps that come to term every 3 months. That works out to 5 years of expenses other than our mortgage repayment. Subtracting the $330k that we will owe on our mortgage from the $5m leaves $4.67m in investable assets. With $140k in recurring expenses, assuming we wanted to plan for a 3.5% withdrawal rate, that would imply we have about $670k more than we need. Given our plan to upgrade our house in the 5-10 year future and that will likely involve a ~$750k expenditure, it seems likely that the $670k current excess will grow to cover that as well as some increased expenses that will come along with the larger home. This is a flexible expense regarding both the amount and timing. Depending on circumstances we could also look into getting a mortgage or loan against our brokerage if the numbers looked favorable instead of selling shares to cover the home upgrade. Given the fact that we are both in our late 30’s, we also recognize that we have ample opportunity to make some money in the future, whether taking on some work in our old industries or getting a casual job just to ease some pressure on the finances if there has been a big downturn. We also live in one of the most expensive cities on earth, love to travel, and bought a campervan last year that we want to make much more use of. I believe that it is very possible that our expenses could potentially be lower in retirement when we can spend more time traveling to places where things are significantly cheaper. We also plan to be flexible in our spending. If the market drops 30% I’m perfectly happy to use some airline miles or drive our van down to Mexico/Costa Rica and sit on a beach or spend more time backpacking and hiking that year instead of taking a more expensive trip to Europe. Let me know what you think. I feel confident but want to know if I’m totally neglecting something obvious. submitted by /u/Parking_Jaguar774 [link] [comments]

Work in big tech. Make around 250k CAD. Most of my compensation was company RSUs which I never sold and exploded along with housing post-covid. 620k in GOOGLE 275k in AMZN ~ 620k in VOO/VFV 30-40k cash ~1.55 million in stocks (~200k TFSA, ~300k in RRSP) Also have a rental property I bought around 700k with 480k mortgage which is now worth 1.2 million (break even on expenses/rent). Total NW = 1.55 + 0.72 = 2.27 million My expenses are around 50-60k a year, which means I can probably retire off of my portfolio (probably after selling the property). I don't see myself retiring, I like my job, and want to have a family. Not big on traveling or doing expensive hobbies. Like simple things in life. Should I stop contributing to RRSP (other than match)? I get a tax deduction, but wondering if tax rates are higher, and since I'll be withdrawing a larger amount, I may get taxed more in the future. Also prevents me from retiring earlier, if a huge chunk is in RRSP. There is a huge imbalance with partner in terms of income (~60k) and NW (~10k). How would I manage finances if we get married? My biggest worry is a divorce derailing my future (likely the ONLY risk other than a health issue/death). Even if I stop contributing now, assuming I put everything in VOO and get a 8% real yield, I would be at around 25 million by age 65. I highly doubt I'd ever spend over 200k in one year, I enjoy work, and don't enjoy expensive hobbies like travelling or whatever. submitted by /u/IEatUrMonies [link] [comments]

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked. Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

Over 20 years I have gradually been saving cash in my safe at home. A long time ago, I thought it might be good to have cash in case the shtf. I’m kind of a prepper. But this month I realized it’s now $100,000. It’s all my money from my salary, but I don’t have records that far back. Plus nowadays everything is bought with a card or online, so I don’t even use that much cash anymore. So it just occurred to me, how am I going to use this? I’m concerned that they’ll ask for proof of where I got it if I deposit more that $10,000 in bank or brokerage account. Maybe I should just start depositing $1000/month. It will take only 8 years, which is much less than what it took to accumulate submitted by /u/Square-Brain9064 [link] [comments]

I understand that selling stocks or funds within a 401(k) or other retirement accounts doesn’t trigger taxes on gains unless you withdraw the money. However, from what I’ve read, selling stocks in a brokerage account—even if you immediately reinvest—incurs capital gains tax. Are there any strategies or loopholes to avoid this? I ask because I’m investing in stocks outside my retirement accounts to retire earlier than 59.5. My goal is to build a savings pool by age 45. At that point, I’d like to shift my portfolio from aggressive stocks to less aggressive funds, which would require selling and reinvesting. Is there any way to do this without triggering capital gains taxes? submitted by /u/dwivedva [link] [comments]

This is a throwaway account. I was laid off on 12/2/2024. Based on the current tech job market and how hard it is to find a new job right now, I am thinking of staying home to take care of my kid. I am 36 years old and my spouse is 35 years old. We just had our first baby in June 2024, and my retired parents have been helping us a lot to take care of our kid while we both worked. Now that I am laid off and unemployed, I am thinking of just stop working and potentially never going back to work again if possible. My spouse still wants to work and likes working, and is a public school admin in a growing district, so the job security is pretty good. If the admin job gets cut in the future, a teaching position is still available and guaranteed because it's within the same school district (worked there 10 years as a teacher, and first year as a school admin, since it's in the same school district, tenure still applies). And the school district offers health insurance, so all of us can still have health insurance. Here is an overview of our combined assets as of today, I try to be as detailed as possible: - Spouse salary $150,000 (next year should be $155,000, and about 4-5 thousand increase every year but capped at $190,000 per year as public school vice principal, unless switching to a principal position or district director/vice superintendent, pay can go up higher). - 435k invested in 401k and 403b accounts, all in S&P 500 index funds. - 30k invested in Roth IRA, all in S&P 500 index funds. - 893k invested in Vanguard and Robinhood, 70% S&P 500 ETF and 30% QQQ ETF. - 150k cash in high yield savings account (4.5% interest currently), this account also acts as an emergency fund if the stock market crash, or something catastrophic happens. - I will collect unemployment for 6 months, so I should have $450/week for 6 months. - Home value is about $1.1m, but we still owes about $700k mortgage. Here is an overview of our expenses, and we live in San Francisco Bay Area, East Bay: - Mortgage $3500 per month, property tax $11,000 per year, property insurance $1000 per year, No HOA. - Two cars $500 per month (one car just got paid off this year, the second car is $500 per month for 2 more years), car insurance for both cars is about $150 per month. Both electric cars, so no gas needed per month. - Electric bill around $250 per month. - Phone bill $50 per month for 2 phones ($25 each on US Mobile). - Health insurance $1000 for a family of 3, pre-tax, auto deducted from pay check. - 403b contribution $23000 per year in 2024, auto deducted from pay check (my spouse still wants to contribute max on 403b). - Grocery and going out to eat is hard to estimate because it varies monthly. I estimate $150 per week for grocery, and going out to eat is probably $100 - $200 per week, we make food at home during the weekdays, so we only go out to eat on the weekends. - Entertainment subscriptions like Netflix, Youtube, Disney, Amazon Prime etc, $50 a month. - Misc shopping like clothes and shoes probably $200 a month. - Infant formula $80 per month. - Travel twice a year, summer break and winter break, probably spent $5000 a year on travel. We try to use credit card points to cover plane tickets, so we mostly just pay for hotel stays. We don't have any childcare cost right now because my parents have been helping us a lot. And now I am not working, I can watch our kid full time. My spouse was a teacher for k-8 grades for 10 years, and can do some after school programs for our kid. So we don't really need to send our kid to after school programs that cost a lot. Most of our expenses goes to mortgage payment, so we also talked about moving to a low cost of living area, but the pay is a lot lower. Maybe we would have an extra $1000-$1500 leftover per month by moving to a low cost of living area, but we would move away from our friends and family (my parents live 10 minutes away, and my spouse parents live 40 minutes away). My job has been stressful for the past 10+ years working in tech. I constantly wanted to quit but not sure if I could afford it. We can also withdraw some money out ($1500-$2000/month) from our investments/savings to supplement the 1 income. Do we have enough money for me to stay at home full time and just have 1 income in the family? submitted by /u/Junior_Evidence4171 [link] [comments]

My husband's work 401k is with VOYA and at about 360k. He plans to leave next summer at age 55, and while he's checking again, he said last time they said they don't allow it to stay. My husband is financially illiterate. I read the books and get the basics, but I have had a financial advisor for my non-retirement investments after the loss of my first husband and found it worth the 1%. I don't know, however, if it would be worth handing over thousands per year for an IRA. Should he roll over to one of the big 3 and just invest in the index funds or do one that has the generic advising for like .3%? Basically, he will start withdrawing some at 59.5, so we aren't looking at the 10-year outlook . submitted by /u/PegShop [link] [comments]

I’ve (34M) been working in tech about 12 years and my wife (34F) works in a stable field that she enjoys and has no desire to retire early from. We live in a house we own outright with two dogs, and we might have a kid at some point in the future. We rolled over house equity across three different moves over the years and ended up with a paid off home after our final move from a HCOL -> MCOL city. I have some ideas for projects I’d like to work full-time on, so I’m interested in quitting my job. These projects likely won’t bring in any income, but they shouldn’t require monetary investment either. I don’t hate my current job, but I also don’t see a benefit in continuing the grind. Alternatively, if we do have a kid, I’ll be a SAHD. Based on the numbers below, does it seem reasonable for us to “coast” to FI on one income? My income: 195k -> 0, Spouse income: 130k Current NW ~ 2.1M (1.2M invested) 50k cash 500k taxable investments 730k retirement accounts 840k paid off home Yearly budget: 100k Property tax: 15k Insurance: 2k Home maintenance + improvements: 14k Utilities: 5k Healthcare: 5k Pets: 5k Food: 18k Phone + internet: 2k Cars: 4k Fun/Flex: 20k Income tax: ~10k (?) Retirement contributions / year: 45k (401k + 2x IRA + HSAs) The plan is to continue to max out retirement contributions by liquidating taxable investments as needed. This should require selling about 15k / year. Hopefully after deductions, the capital gains tax on these will be 0%. We get health insurance through my wife’s company, but it is a high deductible plan, so it’s possible it will cost more than $5k some years, but hopefully most years it will be closer to $0. Overall I think the budget is pretty conservative and it is flexible so we can save in some areas if there’s a market downturn. The pets budget is high because we earmark funds for future vet bills each month - self-insuring the dogs. If or when we have a kid, most of the fun or home improvement budget will go away for some years. Both sets of our parents are healthy in their 70s and have prepared extremely well for their retirements and EOL care, so we also have a safety net of inheritance far in the future. I’ve plugged these numbers into various calculators and it looks like we’d be fully FI at 3M invested after about 10-15 more years. It seems safe to say that my wife could retire before 50 if she ends up wanting to do something else by then. Am I missing or forgetting anything? submitted by /u/Training-Sink051 [link] [comments]

I've been thinking about my situation in the future when I have to start accessing my money, and I'm pretty sure I've got a good grasp of things. But I wanted to run this by the sub and see if there's anything I'm not seeing here. First off, I am single, 36, and these are my current accounts: A. Fidelity 401k (Pretax) B. Fidelity Roth 401k (After-tax contributions, immediately converted to Roth contributions in-plan) C. Schwab Roth IRA D. Schwab Brokerage So I know that starting off, I can access from accounts C-D without much issue. Once I have no income, I can take up to $48k in long-term capital gains from my taxable brokerage at a 0% bracket. And on my Roth IRA, contributions can come out at any time, tax-free, as long as earnings stay in until age 59 1/2. So my plan for getting access to accounts 1-2 would be two-fold: Rollover account B (Roth 401k) into account C (Roth IRA). If I'm not mistaken, I can roll over this entire balance from Fidelity to Schwab without triggering any taxes or penalties, since they're both after-tax accounts. This would effectively get around any age restrictions in a Roth 401k for early withdrawals, as well as the "prorata" withdrawals that a 401k Roth does. It also does not count against the yearly contribution limit. (Any downside to this I'm not seeing?) For account A, my plan here would be to convert a small amount from my 401k to my C-Roth IRA, up to the standard deduction every year. This would be considered income, but since the entire amount would be canceled out by the standard deduction, it would allow me to maintain a $0 taxable income, allowing me to keep my long-term cap gains in that 0% tax bracket. Does this sound doable? I wonder if there's something I'm not seeing, or a tax hit I'm not accounting for. Thanks! submitted by /u/sharkenleo [link] [comments]

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked. Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

I came across this article, Is the 4% Rule Obsolete? It looks at the past 33 years, calculating how the 4% rule would have worked with actual inflation and stock market returns. Some really interesting findings: if you had a million dollars invested in the S&P 500, your nest egg would be $12.9 million in 2023—which means, at 93 years old, you’d still have $12.9 million left unspent! They also ran the numbers using the guardrail method, and while the final nest egg was more reasonable, it’s still pretty high. There’s been criticism of the 4% rule over the years—some say it’s too reckless, while others argue it’s conservative. It’s definitely interesting to see the real numbers. As someone just starting on the journey, I don’t know... and I’m curious to hear, how do you plan for the future? submitted by /u/Confident_Spinach810 [link] [comments]

I want to assess whether I can comfortably retire early or need to put more years into my earnings first. I could use some help not panicking. I recognize I'm in a somewhat fortunate position, but still paranoid about coming up short of life expectancy or being unable to provide for my partner. My questions: The big one: Can I retire early? I've run several analyses, created all sorts of plans, etc., and it appears there is a high likelihood I can make it to 98 without a problem. But I'm sure I'm not thinking about something critical. Inflation. I might not understand exactly how this works, but if I'm withdrawing money from my portfolio annually, won't I need to withdraw more to match inflation over time? Those $6 eggs will be $12 in my lifetime, right? I don't see how that's sustainable with what I've earned thus far, hence the panic. Here are my details: I am 50, currently unemployed, and not likely to be employed soon... if ever. Job market sucks. Been doing some contract/consulting, but nowhere near the income levels I was earning before. I am earning approx. $10K this year. Who knows what next year brings. My SS income is estimated at around $3300/mo at 67. I live with my partner, who is 40 and earns 65K annually in a HCOL area. They will have a pension (approx. $2.5K/mo) and, hopefully, social security ($2.5k/mo if available) later in life. They want to and are able to work, and will likely continue for the next 20 years or until their retirement. Our expenses are: $3500/mo mortgage (2.99%) for the next 25 years (includes property taxes and insurance, which will likely go up over time). Our home is currently valued at slightly over $900K. Approx. $4K/mo between us both. Considering my current income status, we're trying to bring that down, but many things impact the number that are immovable (health insurance, utilities, car insurance, etc.). The good (?) news is that I've saved/earned almost $2.1M over my career. I have $835K in IRA, and $1.33M in taxable investments (primarily stock), and about $100K in cash. I thought I would withdraw 3% ($63K) annually, and my partner would make up the difference in other expenses. Other considerations I'm evaluating: If we marry, I can save almost $1K a month on health insurance. My partner has health benefits as part of her job, and quite honestly, it's long overdue regardless! We have no kids and are not planning on having them. I'm also older than my partner, so I want to make sure they are taken care of when I bite the bullet. I leave it to them to donate or give the rest away to family. After all, I'll be dust! Any other data points I need to share or watch for? Of course, there are other things like "what if we need a new car?" or "what if I get a brain tumor?" but figure we'll just roll with whatever the wicked gods throw at us versus planning for every contingency. Appreciate any help, thank you! submitted by /u/MaleficentPension7 [link] [comments]

A lot of people on here advocate using low-cost index investing to reach FI, and it is what I have done so far. One problem that I have been wondering about recently is the tax implications when selling parts of the portfolio at a later stage, after reaching FI, or for a house purchase for example. If you hold the index funds, you pay tax on the gains for everything that you sell. If you own the underlying stocks, then you could choose some stocks with gains and some with losses to sell, potentially eliminating, or at least minimising the capital gains tax. How do you think about this when choosing whether to invest in index funds or individual stocks? Are there any blog posts, books or videos that cover this topic? Are there any robo investment firms that one could potentially use that buy a decently representative basket of a common index to benefit from the tax advantages? P.s. I know it would be basically impossible to own all of the underlying assets of an index and therefore you would have to pick a representative sample yourself. This could still be good, because either: All your picks go up - you will pay tax, but you've probably outperformed the index so you don't mind Some go up, some go down - this is the expected outcome where you benefit from the tax advantages You underperform the index - In this outcome you would have rather bought the index, that's the risk you take. But it's not terrible, as you now can buy the index knowing you have some losses (or lower gains than you would otherwise) to balance index gains and pay less tax. Overall it feels like this strategy does have some risk, but that the tailwind of the tax advantage should increase your expected return overall. submitted by /u/glassypirate [link] [comments]

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Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked. Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

obligatory burner account no one to share and looking for any feedback. so to start i never knew about financial independence, fire, coastfire etc, until a few years ago. didn't put much thought into it, thinking it was unattainable. it wasn't until late last year when i finally put pen to paper and realized how we saved sort of slides right into this lifestyle. we might be closer than ever. the biggest move we made this year was selling our home in a HCOL city and buying a home outright in a LCOL state. since doing that we can essentially live on one person's salary. investing the rest in taxable (fxaix'ing it basically) some details below - broke out retirement accounts because of the age gap. Basic Stats Married (40 Husband, 35 Wife, no kids now or ever) Combined HHI - $250K (Potential to earn $15k bonus, not factored in) Debt - $0 (Own Home, own a new car) Total NW - $1.97M *Home not included, but paid $375k for it Retirement Accounts (401k, Roth, Trad IRA) Me - $849k Wife - $335k Brokerage $564k - Mainly ETFs, Mutual Funds, a few stocks $130k - annuity. i have to cash this out in 5 years. basically composed of large cap funds here, tech focused funds. this was inherited. Cash $100k Annual Expenses - $65-$75k depending on if we take a proper vacation annually. with all that being said, we don't really have a plan for early retirement OR what to do afterwards (which is a major problem and something only we can figure out). we both hate working. that is fact. financially, i'm confident we've hit "coastfire" but the ideal of working a menial job isn't appealing until we can draw retirement funds. i have never worked a retail/service industry type job but the idea of it sounds pretty bad. we both intend on riding out our current jobs (remote, tech, relatively chill) as long as we can, and then that's it. if we didn't have to work, we'd travel (thinking one long extended trip a year), and continue hobbies (i like gaming, growing weed, probably get back into playing instruments). after writing all that i don't even know what the point of this post is. i think we need to figure out what would we do if we coastfire'd (don't think we've achieved true "fire"), what type job could we get? health care/aca tax implications w/my annuity and other investments that i might need to tap into (brokerage accounts) anything else? edit - saving a lot of feedback/thought starters from everyone to go over with my wife/self!! submitted by /u/Crafty-Potential-995 [link] [comments]

I'm looking at doing a Roth conversion, but my rollover IRA has been open for only a couple months. I can't find where that's a problem. But many converting folks have probably had their IRAs for a long time. I know there have been changes in other areas via SECURE and SECURE II. Anyone read or experienced any issues? Thanks! submitted by /u/rainbikr [link] [comments]

More of a coast fire situation than full fire, but I always appreciated the insights of this sub more than other FIRE subs I am leaning towards quitting my job this January (after bonuses). I'm looking for thoughts/feedback/validation. General info: Newly weds. Both 31. The idea would be to use my wife's income for our expenses, while letting what we have grow. We are thinking of having children soon, so when that comes I would be SAHD. So this 1-1.5 year period will really be the only time in my life I would have little responsibilities, and it is important for us to make this work. Yes my wife is totally on board. She's actually pushing me to quit more than I am. Most of our NW comes from me; FIRE has always been a goal of mine. She always assumed she'd work until 65, so the fact that she can likely be done in early 40s is great for her. I've switched to part time recently. I've taken my vacation. Just really disliking work right now. Even though on the surface, it is a pretty good gig... I've been doing very little for a long time now. Still, very demotivating just green manning it. I have plenty of hobbies/interests outside of work. And who knows, maybe this is just a sabbatical, maybe I'll get bored after a couple years and go back to work. But want to plan as if I do not ever have income again. The numbers Expenses: This year we're at $128k. It is pretty wild for me to see that number. Most of my fire journey I was in the 20-30k range. However with marriage, lifestyle inflation, buying a large house, that is where we are at now. A decent amount of that was our wedding this year, so I'd expect less in the future, but for safety I just assume keep it where is it. Another slight caveat.. a large part of that (~50k) is P+I on the big house. So rather than an FI number of $128k/0.035= 3.65 M, I look at our FIRE number like $78k/.035 + 640k (what we owe on the house) = 2.9 M. Which will look like 2.3M + a paid off house. Assets: Total NW = 1.22 M House equity = 70k (710k - 640k) Liquid assets = 1.15 M (115k HYS/CDs, rest is standard index funds) Income: Wife currently at 155k with a small bonus. Raises and bonus coming next month, I expect about 165k income for 2025. For "what if" calcs assuming I work, I'm at 145k now, lets say 155k next year, part time would be 27/40 of that. We'd plan to lower my wife's 401k % to 6%, the lowest to get the full company match. I've run a bunch of calculations on my scenario, here are some of the highlights: Expecting to be negative cash flow for a bit. ~10k year 1, ~5k year 2, start to break even after that. I have plenty in HYS for this purpose (when I sold my first house, I kept the money in HYS with the purpose of having it ease the transition to one income). From my calcs, my wife can probably quit (if she wants, it is very possible she never quits) around 40-41. If I kept working part time, that number goes to ~39-40. If I kept working full time, we could both quit around 37-38. This was interesting to me, the conclusion being that time is the biggest factor in our NW gain at this point. Contributions are starting to matter less and less. I am modelling in 1) asset growth 7%, 2) 401k contributions (our 6% + company 10% =16% of total salary), 3) salary growth of 4% per year (reality is probably more than that, but this is safe assumption) What do you think? Feedback? What am I not thinking about? Does me quitting sound reasonable to you? submitted by /u/dusyk [link] [comments]

I (30M) am considering taking at least six months off mid-next year, but I'm only 8% to my FIRE number. I'll have enough cash savings to sustain myself for a year if I quit by my timeline, with investments to tide me over for longer if absolutely necessary, but it feels insane to take a career break at this point. On the other hand, I'm seriously burned out with physical symptoms (on anxiety meds for the first time in my life) and there is a passion project I've had to put on hold that fills me with existential dread to delay/abandon. I've looked up all the sabbatical anecdotes I can, but a lot of the folks are either not of the FIRE mindset, or took sabbaticals way later, like around the halfway mark of FIRE. For anyone out there who's taken a career break sooner, any regrets? Would you have delayed it? Advice? Edit: I wasn't able to answer everyone, so just want to give a blanket thank you here to everyone who commented for all for sharing your stories. This has been hugely encouraging coming from a like-minded community and you've all given me a lot to think about. For anyone else finding this thread in the future, hope these answers can help you as much as they did me. 🙂 submitted by /u/iPugXR [link] [comments]

What are the downsides of using a CD ladder for your Emergency Fund? Say my monthly expenses are $10K and I want 6 months of EF. Instead of parking $60K in a HYSA at 4% why should I not ladder 6 6-Month CD's at 5%? I've (thankfully) never had an emergency that cost me more than $10K, and if I did, I have a credit card that could bridge me until the next maturity date without paying interest. I imagine it would look like this: $8,570 - HYSA (or minimum balance for rate) $8,570 - 30 days till maturity $8,570 - 60 days till maturity $8,570 - 90 days till maturity $8,570 - 120 days till maturity $8,570 - 150 days till maturity $8,570 - 180 days till maturity $59,990 - Total Obviously if you can get a HYSA near a 6mo CD rate then it doesn't really make sense. I'm seeing about a 1% difference at my banks. submitted by /u/TheDrunon [link] [comments]

TL;DR: You guys were right 2 years ago, my husband resented me and left me, I hate software engineering, my FIRE dreams are crushed. Spoiler: Sike, we're happier than ever and the career change is going well Previous threads 8.5 Years of Tracking– College/Grad School, Working, Marriage, and $200k NW @ 28 9.5 Years of Tracking – Career Break and $250k NW @ 30 Note: Imgur lost the previous charts over the years, but the charts below will show the historical data too. Only change is that I removed cars from our NW numbers. About us Self Former Civil engineer Current BS Computer Science Student + Software Engineering Intern College paid for by scholarships + parents, immigrant parents fled communism and poverty Spouse aka u/NewtSpousemander Software Engineer College paid for by scholarships and minimal loans, immigrated as a child to flee a different flavor of communism We currently rent an apartment (housing costs are <10% of our income) and share a single vehicle Cost of Living Index of our city: 90 Charts Summary Table Self Net Worth Plot Self Total Retirement Plot Self vs Spouse NW Plot (not accurate, just for fun) Notes: For NW calculation purposes, joint assets are split 50/50 and added to each individual’s NW. Individual NWs just reflect which account each of us log into for convenience (e.g. HSA accounts), not who would own what in a divorce. Low "Gross Income - Self" in 2022 is due to quitting partway through the year. Drop in "Single Net Worth - Self" in 2022 is due to moving pre-marital cash into marital cash intentionally to increase cash buffer while I'm not working. Total wedding reception cost was about $22k for 100 people. 100% worth it. About Money KISS - Keep it simple stupid. Newt maxes out his 401k and the family HSA account. We make too much to contribute to Roth IRAs and are choosing not to backdoor Roth IRA to build a bigger house down payment after I graduate. We've reached CoastFI anyways. We barely think about our finances at this point. Our combined networth is up ~$320k (+75%) since the last update 2 years ago. Wild. About Life I'm not going to rehash old history (you can click into the previous threads for that). In the last two years plans changed a lot and we pivoted often. But at the end of the day, I've been a computer science student for the last year+, doing great and enjoying my classes, I even TA'd a class this year, and was blessed with 6 software internship offers for 2025. I'll be working from January through August. I'm psyched. I'll be making the same hourly rate as I did as a full time civil engineer in 2021 ($35/hr). Hoping to graduate by Summer 2026. Newt has been doing great with his career as well, all while being my biggest cheerleader. We've traveled, are constantly trying new hobbies, still doing therapy, and still saving up cash for a future house. We've both enabled each other to become better and more successful versions of ourselves over the years, and we're reaping the benefits. Words of wisdom? Don't listen to the opinions of others, especially on reddit Build the life you want, then save for it Newt says "Marry somebody who triples your income because she introduces you to good people and who handles all the finances to make you rich." I say "The best way to get your spouse on FI is to make a post where people insist that there will be spousal resentment. He'll instantly make an account and start getting involved in the comments." I'll leave you with a meme submitted by /u/nifFIer [link] [comments]

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked. Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

To reiterate (and clarify) our no politics rule - we do not allow any discussion of specific politicians or other individuals in government except in the explicit context of specific, actionable policy that is far enough along to be more than theoretical. If you want to discuss individual members of the upcoming administration and what they may or may not do, you are welcome to do so - outside of this subreddit. Even if they have made general statements about their desire to enact policy that affects you or your finances. Once there is either a proposal that is being voted on by Congress - simple bills before a committee aren’t sufficient - or in the rule-making process otherwise, we will allow tailored discussion to that specific proposal. In particular, if you have a burning desire to post something along the lines of “Due to Hannibal Lecter being selected as head of the Department of Underwater Basketweaving, I am concerned I may be laid off. Here are my financial considerations for a potential layoff”, this will be removed, and you will be encouraged to repost missing the first clause. “I am concerned for a possible future layoff, etc” is acceptable. “I am concerned for a possible future layoff due to the appointment of Krusty the Clown to the Department of War” is not. submitted by /u/Rarvyn [link] [comments]