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Alctel posted:Thank you for all the responses. I guess I have a lot more reading to do, hah. In the meantime, get your money into at least a high interest savings account (here's a list: https://www.highinterestsavings.ca/chart/) so it stops evaporating.
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Jul 11, 2020 19:49
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Depending on how long you want in to last and how much risk of ruin you are willing to bare 2.5% might he more sensible for longer horizons.
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Jul 11, 2020 21:30
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Alctel posted:Thank you for all the responses. I guess I have a lot more reading to do, hah. You’re Canadian, so this video series will be particularly useful to you. https://www.youtube.com/c/BenFelixCSI Ben lays out basic investment concepts, backed up with links to the literature, and is based in Ottawa so deals with Canadian issues as well.
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Jul 12, 2020 05:54
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One of the ways I think about things is to break up my life into sections. So, not being American, I can't do whatever magic you guys to back-dooring this or that to get access to all my money; my pension is locked away until 55 at the earliest and so is my wife's. That means I can partition out my life. My pension pot is the money that has to last from 55 until I die. My other money has to last from when I retire until 55. Why is this important? Well, it might not be the most mathematically best approach but the pension part of my income gets to benefit from a very long term time horizon and I know that part of my money has to last an 'indefinite' amount of time with little chance of anything being available to top it up once I hit that age. My 'retire early' money now has a fixed term of years which it has to last me, 55 - stop work age. Or if I want to be safe 60 - stop work age. That part doesn't matter if it hits zero as long as it hits it somewhere in the 55-60 area. This is also the stage of my life I'm most likely to be able to top up my income via other means. I know really its all just one pot of money being utilized in different ways but it really helps me to think about things and plan. I need my pension to end up at a big number and last me potentially 30 or 40 years (like a normal retirement plan) and it has the time to grow and compound to do that. I can project out with some confidence what that might look like because we're talking 20-30 years. I know exactly how many years my 'financial freedom' money needs to last me and the time horizons are close enough I can actually understand my costs and lifestyle much better than if you ask me what will I want or need when I hit 60. So I now have two portfolios, the retirement pot which I need to grow to a certain amount and can project out with reasonable assumptions and benefit from nice compounding and a short term 'make it to official retirement' amount where I can take more risks and every year worked takes a year off how long it has to last me. Especially once I have the pension up to a number I'm happy will see me in a good spot when actual retirement age comes around. Cast_No_Shadow fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Jul 13, 2020 |
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Jul 13, 2020 13:19
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pokeyman posted:In the meantime, get your money into at least a high interest savings account (here's a list: https://www.highinterestsavings.ca/chart/) so it stops evaporating. I was looking into these in the US a month ago and was seeing 1.25 and up to 1.35 at least, now it looks like everything is down around 1%. I don't have a point except this sucks. https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/best-high-yield-interests-savings-accounts/
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Jul 22, 2020 21:24
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Maybe a dumb question that I haven't seen answered in blogs I've read or (more likely) I have seen it answered and didn't recognize it: Once I max my Roth IRA and 401k contributions, where do I put the rest? A traditional IRA?
Fun Times! fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Aug 3, 2020 |
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Aug 3, 2020 10:02
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If a HSA, (depending on your situation) 529, or mega backdoor roth is available to you (you'd need to check with your HR), definitely do that. Otherwise, just buy index funds from a normal brokerage account.
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Aug 3, 2020 12:28
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Fun Times! posted:Maybe a dumb question that I haven't seen answered in blogs I've read or (more likely) I have seen it answered and didn't recognize it: Once I max my Roth IRA and 401k contributions, where do I put the rest? A traditional IRA? If you're maxing out your Roth, I believe you can't contribute to a Trad IRA. The $6000 limit per year applies to both.
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Aug 3, 2020 16:28
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Thank you both
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Aug 3, 2020 22:21
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As others said HSAs and 529s can be great investment vehicles depending on your needs. If you're emergency fund is only 3-6 months you could push it out to 1-2 years for rock solid security. You can start pushing funds into long term treasury bonds. For example, EE bonds double in value after 20 years. So if you put 10k a year into EE bonds between ages 40-60 you will be able to redeem them at 20k a year between ages 60-80. It ends up being kind of like a modest pension that nets you 3.5% interest per year over the 20 years. But you're set for retirement if your able to max out both your 401k (with a decent company match) and IRA over 20+ years. If you're employment is stable then I'd say start saving for short or medium term goals. If your employment is unstable then yeah, cram as much into retirement as possible.
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Aug 4, 2020 15:02
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Just stumbled across this on reddit. I'll just copy the redditors description. quote:LivingAFI was always the quiet, philosophical, somewhat tortured book-end to MMM during the mid 2010's. He wrote a lot less frequently, and never had any ads or recommended products; simply good, long-form, very introspective thoughts on FI and life. Never heard of the blog before but it's an interesting read. https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-retirement-update/ Sounds to me like LeanFIRE quickly becomes unsustainable if spending changes, which is obvious. But even so, just having leanFIRE money around gave him a lot of flexibility to navigate it all.
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Mar 17, 2021 20:18
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I was able to make it through half of that. I just couldn't keep on going when he nearly but not quite came to the realization that almost nobody wants to sit on nearly 7 figures of investments only to live in a rental with an income of basically minimum wage. He very quickly figured out that you run out of poo poo to do and go stir crazy. He also doesn't seem to have internalized that sitting on that much money while working is called having "gently caress you money" for a reason, and completely changes the relationship and power dynamic with any employer. If it doesn't for you  because you're doing it wrong.
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Mar 17, 2021 22:14
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Agreed. From reading between the lines I also got the sense that the guy pushed his Ex into lean-FIRE because he needed her income/savings to make it work. TBH, the guy seems pretty insufferable. His screed is basically all about why he didn’t fail and actually succeeded so where it all went wrong was because of the Ex.
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Mar 17, 2021 22:26
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And how everyone else is wrong for daring to not want to live on minimum wage with literally nothing to do all day long. I was also feeling the same as you in regards to pushing the ex into something she was not entirely onboard with. And then starting thinking how disingenuous all of this actually is if he was "living" on his $30k and she was doing the same with her own pot of investments. Because all the travel he was talking about sure sounds a lot more like $60k a year not near poverty line bullshit. And if it really was only $30k/$950k investments that just got cut in half when he divorced. Motronic fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Mar 17, 2021 |
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Mar 17, 2021 22:29
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I've actually read the whole blog, it's fairly funny in places and it was nice to read about someone's FIRE attempt without them selling me stuff. I vaguely remember his now ex-wife was never quite 100% on board with his plan. And it seems like he pushed for them both to stop working, and/or his ex-wife wasn't ok with just her working. Which is a pretty major difference in how to live your lives, so splitting up seems kinda inevitable. And I didn't take the update as "I'm not owned!" so much as "my financial models didn't take divorce and major health problems into account", which seems like a good cautionary tale?
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Mar 17, 2021 23:03
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He maybe seems a little defensive, but about stuff I couldn't possibly care about. I think it's a decent read and he makes it pretty clear that he can't really be impartial about his ex (reducing her to just wanting to keep up with the joneses is beyond unfair).
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Mar 17, 2021 23:07
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I didn't really get that out of it at all. He's a bit smug about the minimalism and keeping up with the Jones part of things. But I don't think it's fair to say you "run out of things to do" simply because you're not making a bunch of money or have a job. I mean, what does the average person do all day? File papers? Run the 100th mortgage application through the computer for an automatic accept/reject response, and then send out a form letter/email? I would make the point, when working a job you have no interest in (and what if you have no interest in any job) - what exactly are you doing with so many hours of your life that is so interesting? And if you say, "Find a job that is interesting," well, why? What is it about it being called a "job" that makes it more interesting than simply reading what you want, watching what you want, and doing what you want? I think there is merit to his underlying point - a lot of people sell their free time because they don't really know what to do with it. They are so ingrained with the notion of being productive, doing something meaningful, etc., that they simply work as a proxy for those things, when the reality is, tending your garden is likely more meaningful than most jobs the average person can get, even with "gently caress you money." The guy didn't go stir crazy. His wife did. That's the point. It does not necessarily make either of them wrong. But just as the wife isn't at fault for wanting something different for her life, the guy isn't wrong for being able to find meaning without working a job and buying poo poo.
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Mar 18, 2021 00:29
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That dude is misanthropic as hell. I don't think there's a single point in that blog where he says anything positive about any other person. He talks about his new partner in a positive way, but it's in contrast to all the Bad People. Oh I guess he's positive about his new therapist to a degree and expresses it in a throwaway line talking about how she prescribed him drugs. The misanthropy seems to be very common in the FIRE community, or at least in the FIRE blogger community, which is hilarious to me because they spend a lot of time bitching about how society judges them and nobody understands, while complaining about all the normie materialist sheeple.
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Mar 18, 2021 13:20
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While I didn't like what the author had to say, it was refreshing to read a blog post, for probably the first time in 5+ years, that wasn't full of affiliate links or guru self-promotion. I guess that's where he went wrong. To make lean-FIRE really work you have to have a little extra something to supplement the next egg. For most people its a side hustle/small business. For this guy it was his ex-wife's savings so when she left he suddenly couldn't afford his lifestyle and health bills on 30k/year.
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Mar 18, 2021 14:07
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laxbro posted:To make lean-FIRE really work you have to have a little extra something to supplement the next egg. For most people its a side hustle/small business. So, after retiring early...they work.
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Mar 18, 2021 14:08
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Pollyanna posted:So, after retiring early...they work. truely inspiring It was refreshing to see a post mortem about when things go wrong and planning for the future etc but I think what it really highlighted to me is that Lean FIRE is stupid wishcasting
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Mar 18, 2021 14:14
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Pollyanna posted:So, after retiring early...they work. For “lean FIRE,” in some capacity yes they will need supplemental income.
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Mar 18, 2021 14:18
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Yeah, as nice as it is to think of making enough money and reducing expenses enough to not have to work anymore, I think that’s missing the point. We hate work because of a combination of not enjoying it, and it taking up the grand majority of our time. The solution is to reduce toil, focus in wha brings us enjoyment, and for the love of god stop getting a hard-on for long work days and frantic finger pointing whenever someone’s like “man I need some time off/I’d like to not spend 1/3 of my day on this” like it’s the Red Scare. The problem is the Puritan work ethic America has shoved up its hole.laxbro posted:For “lean FIRE,” in some capacity yes they will need supplemental income. Then it’s not fuckin retirement!
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Mar 18, 2021 14:20
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:That dude is misanthropic as hell. I don't think there's a single point in that blog where he says anything positive about any other person. He talks about his new partner in a positive way, but it's in contrast to all the Bad People. Oh I guess he's positive about his new therapist to a degree and expresses it in a throwaway line talking about how she prescribed him drugs. FIRE people think they've discovered something really obvious (a lot of people sell a lot of their lives for money and things they probably don't need or really want). On the one hand, you could say that makes them very smug and misanthropic. You could also rephrase it positively, and say that they really don't understand why other people don't see what is so obvious to them. I tend to lean on their side (with a hearty occasional helping of, "Oh my god, maybe I'm doing everything wrong and it will all come crashing down some day"). I see people I know first hand who make really good money that don't seem to like their jobs (or openly complain about them and how miserable they are, especially as they get out of their 20s and 30s), but at the same time, they're constantly buying $50k pickup trucks, boats, and other big (and small) ticket items that literally mean they are selling 50 weeks of their lives for small enjoyment of those items for a few hours a year. That trade doesn't feel worth it to me. If it is worth it to them, that's great - everyone can do their own thing. But I do think that a lot of people don't really think about it, and don't realize that the vehicle that costs $30,000-40,000 more (and still is essentially a device to get you from point A to point B) is essentially bartering a year's worth of your free time for that vehicle. The big boat you take out four times a summer for a few hours is bartering a couple of years of your life. If it is worth it to you, then great! But I think it would help a lot of people to be more thoughtful about the trades they make. And armchair psychology, but I think a lot of the consumerist buying we do as a culture is a salve to our somewhat miserable daily work.
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Mar 18, 2021 14:52
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SlyFrog posted:The guy didn't go stir crazy. I think you need to read it again, and try to cut through all of the smug misogyny and inability to admit failure. laxbro posted:I guess that's where he went wrong. To make lean-FIRE really work you have to have a little extra something to supplement the next egg. For most people its a side hustle/small business. Wait....let me get this straight....when you try to retire early on poverty wages the sequence of returns risk as well as the likelihood of an unexpected change in spending patterns is so great that you should......have a job? How have none of these bloggers figured it out yet? Oh wait.....every one except for THIS one has, and they're just all really disingenuous with their categorization of what a "job" is.
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Mar 18, 2021 14:57
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SlyFrog posted:FIRE people think they've discovered something really obvious (a lot of people sell a lot of their lives for money and things they probably don't need or really want). On the one hand, you could say that makes them very smug and misanthropic. You could also rephrase it positively, and say that they really don't understand why other people don't see what is so obvious to them. Concur that people are not sufficiently introspective, but I don't think that's unique to the non-FIRE people. You can cut back and live a much less dependent and materialist lifestyle without going full FIRE. (I personally find that to be a better answer for me.) I think in many ways FIRE poo poo is just kind of another weird perverted consumptive thing - you just like to consume money and plan number go up and number go down rather than thinking about buying a side-by-side. It's entirely the same mentality, you just get off on comparing frugality rather than comparing pickup trucks. People are doing insane poo poo like trading "setting the thermostat at a comfortable temperature" in order to, well, I'm not really sure to be honest. Like that dude mentions that he now sets the thermostat at a temperature that is more comfortable for his partner. The things he was seeing that were "so obvious" were fantasies and delusions, at some level.
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Mar 18, 2021 16:34
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Like that dude mentions that he now sets the thermostat at a temperature that is more comfortable for his partner. The things he was seeing that were "so obvious" were fantasies and delusions, at some level. I like the idea that his ex was rolling her eyes every time she grabbed a second sweater to put on because "we're retired and we have a plan".
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Mar 18, 2021 16:39
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The thing that strikes me is the idea of saving 50+ percent of your income felt like this revolutionary idea back in 2012 or whenever MMM blew up but now it just seems normal for single people making 100k+ per year. Like this whole movement started because it made sense to save as much money as possible when you can (a great idea) and what I got out of MMM is it's just stupid to not save whatever you can. Is that just normal now? Is lifestyle adjustment for income increases less of a thing now for people <40 than it was in the past? Or was I just being dumb?
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Mar 18, 2021 16:43
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No Wave posted:The thing that strikes me is the idea of saving 50+ percent of your income felt like this revolutionary idea back in 2012 or whenever MMM blew up but now it just seems normal for single people making 100k+ per year. Like this whole movement started because it made sense to save as much money as possible when you can (a great idea) and what I got out of MMM is it's just stupid to not save whatever you can. Is that just normal now? Is lifestyle adjustment for income increases less of a thing now for people <40 than it was in the past? Or was I just being dumb? I'm guessing it is a bit more common now than it was 10 years ago but I don't think it is the default behavior at all. A lot of people like spending whatever money they can and I don't think that will ever change. But I do think FIRE is a great alternative path and I have liked seeing the community pop up around it. It's helpful to share ideas and get support while you're going through it, especially the long, slow middle part. Of course every group has some zealots and loonies and FIRE is no exception. I liked reading the post from yesterday and I sent it to my wife who is more of a passive rider in our FIRE journey (but totally on board and we don't really make sacrifices, we just are both naturally pretty frugal and happy with the spending/living levels we arrived at during grad school.)
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Mar 18, 2021 16:52
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I'll also admit I don't understand why it's supposed to be a "gotcha" that someone retired from their 40 hour+ per week career but supplements their income with some activity. They've clearly accumulated enough capital to change their lifestyle, is it supposed to be a contest after that point? Why argue about whether or not that actually counts as retirement?
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Mar 18, 2021 16:56
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Motronic posted:I think you need to read it again, and try to cut through all of the smug misogyny and inability to admit failure. I read just fine, thanks.
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Mar 18, 2021 17:05
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I will say I don't think I have the mindset to ever LEAN FIRE. Just seems too stressful and restrictive. FI to me is 2M invested planning to live off of 3-4%. Not sure when the RE part would happen, I would feel mostly comfortable retiring at that point but would prefer to work like 2-3 days a week each. I might start looking at a 4/32 schedule once the pandemic is over, which will slow our progress a bit but we're in a good enough spot that I think it's a viable option.
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Mar 18, 2021 17:07
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No Wave posted:The thing that strikes me is the idea of saving 50+ percent of your income felt like this revolutionary idea back in 2012 or whenever MMM blew up but now it just seems normal for single people making 100k+ per year. Like this whole movement started because it made sense to save as much money as possible when you can (a great idea) and what I got out of MMM is it's just stupid to not save whatever you can. Is that just normal now? Is lifestyle adjustment for income increases less of a thing now for people <40 than it was in the past? Or was I just being dumb? I suspect you're mistaken about how "normal" it is. Maybe during a pandemic, if you kept your well-paying job but lots of ways to spend lots of money become impossible or too risky, it happens by accident. But I also suspect it's becoming more normalized. The FIRE crowd doesn't seem like a small group of misunderstood misfits anymore, and some of the ideas are spreading even if not everyone declares themselves a member of the community. I don't think you're being dumb, but it takes time for ideas to spread. Especially ideas that are antithetical to mass consumerism.
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Mar 18, 2021 17:11
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No Wave posted:I'll also admit I don't understand why it's supposed to be a "gotcha" that someone retired from their 40 hour+ per week career but supplements their income with some activity. They've clearly accumulated enough capital to change their lifestyle, is it supposed to be a contest after that point? Why argue about whether or not that actually counts as retirement? I would imagine part of the issue people have is how it is presented. Like any of the FIRE bloggers that say they retired by age 40 by cutting out coffee shops and by making their own soap but don't acknowledge that they received massive financial support from their parents (e.g. being gifted a rental property). If someone said they saved enough money that they moved from full-time to part-time and that the reduced hours and more flexible schedule has improved their happiness, that is great. If some said it is easy to retire young and they don't mention that they still need to work part-time to make ends meet, that seems misleading.
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Mar 18, 2021 17:15
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Quick Stop posted:I will say I don't think I have the mindset to ever LEAN FIRE. Just seems too stressful and restrictive. I mean, like No wave was saying, it's no less valid to get to the point where you can comfortably work only part time or in a on/off model. The ideal should be to live in a way that makes you happy, not adhere to a rigid plan. Even if you initially plan to go full No Work, it's ok if you find yourself bored or want a bit of extra fun money and take up a side gig 
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Mar 18, 2021 17:16
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So back in the early 00s I remember being told like, just push 700,000 USD into a pile and live on the interest. Which leads to a very sensible question of, how quickly can you push 700,000 into a pile through frugal living? If that's all you need, couldn't you stop working. How quickly can you compound to that through re-investing gains and dividends etc? Now that # has gotten higher and higher over the years, but the idea makes sense to me conceptually. The elephant in the room for FIRE stuff is that without a health insurance solution until you qualify for Medicare any significant health event could wipe you out. Even with 2M or some other high number and an expectation of min 3%... how much medical debt could you eat before retirement age and still make it through at your lifestyle. Lean FIRE has always been kind of nuts, with people doing kcal counts on what type of beans are the best yield per dollar etc.
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Mar 18, 2021 17:20
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No Wave posted:I'll also admit I don't understand why it's supposed to be a "gotcha" that someone retired from their 40 hour+ per week career but supplements their income with some activity. They've clearly accumulated enough capital to change their lifestyle, is it supposed to be a contest after that point? Why argue about whether or not that actually counts as retirement? It's not a "gotchya", it's "not retired, rather I've started my own part time business or series of businesses" when you look at the way someone like MMM is doing it. Dude has never NOT had a job. He just stoped working for "the man" and pretends this is retirement. The whole thing is just disingenuous.
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Mar 18, 2021 17:23
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It's really strange to me that some of you seem to be classifying what they were doing as LeanFIRE - If he started with 950k and, as we have inferred, she had roughly the same... drat near 2m is just plain old FIRE by most definitions I think? At least in my area their 4% withdraw rate would be well beyond the median household income at that point. We aren't talking about 20k a year for a couple and eating beans in the woods all day every day, we are talking about ~75k at the start and possibly the option for over six figures at the end between the two of them. What it looks like happened to me is when his wife left the picture (taking half the NW with her) and the increased medical expenses came into play he had to make the decision between switching to LeanFIRE, moving to a lower cost of living area, or going back to work. Guy made his choice. Sure validate your numbers as best you can, anticipate the future as good as anyone can, and it's probably advisable to have some play in there for the unexpected. But unless you folks are advocating having 2x your actual FIRE numbers before pulling the trigger, in this case him going back to work doesn't seem that unreasonable to me given the circumstances. It's not like his life plan wouldn't have gotten shaken up in most any other case going through a divorce right after a life changing medical diagnosis... No Wave posted:I'll also admit I don't understand why it's supposed to be a "gotcha" that someone retired from their 40 hour+ per week career but supplements their income with some activity. They've clearly accumulated enough capital to change their lifestyle, is it supposed to be a contest after that point? Why argue about whether or not that actually counts as retirement? This is where I'm at with it. To start off the FI part was important for the "gently caress you" money. Looking at the RE I'm not exactly sure how that will look. The important thing to me personally is that what I do with my time isn't ruled by how much income it generates but instead being something I actually want to do. As much fun as playing video games all day sounds in theory, I really don't see that happening for long in reality - So if I feel like working for a non-profit that's important to me for minimal/zero pay, that option is there. Or heck maybe I'll really will miss my job but just want to do less of it and go back 50% or something. Or if I just want to go after hobbies that may or may not bring in some income. I've already largely destroyed one hobby by tying it to putting a roof over my head and food on the table, I don't really have interest in doing that to others. Just because whatever I'm enjoying doing with my time brings in a few extra bucks doesn't mean I've failed in my goal...
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Mar 18, 2021 17:24
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MMM also was a big proponent of "biking to work and not driving saved me a fortune" which is true. Living close to your job is legitimately good! But man, as a reader in the tri-state area commuting into NYC it was like... dude stfu
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Mar 18, 2021 17:25
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Darkrenown posted:I mean, like No wave was saying, it's no less valid to get to the point where you can comfortably work only part time or in a on/off model. The ideal should be to live in a way that makes you happy, not adhere to a rigid plan. Even if you initially plan to go full No Work, it's ok if you find yourself bored or want a bit of extra fun money and take up a side gig Yeah agreed, to me the value of wealth is flexibility. Having options makes it tough to decide exactly how to proceed but it's certainly worth putting yourself in that position and figuring out what works best for you.
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Mar 18, 2021 17:25
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