Financial Independence: Methods, Mindsets and Cloth Diapers

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Financial Independence: Methods, Mindsets and Cloth Diapers

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Evil Robot posted:

So $1m post-tax cash is what it takes to make it in a lowish cost of living part of America these days. No wonder a bunch of people live paycheck to paycheck - it can seem pretty depressing when you're up against that.

$1m post-tax cash is the estimate to "make it" if you define make it as a family of 4 with no one working at all.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2013 13:17

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 08:36

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Huttan posted:

The "official" inflation rate is around 2%. The administration keeps deleting consumer price indices and producer price indices that show higher inflation rates. Shadowstats has been measuring inflation and unemployment in much higher amounts than the official stats. If you measure the cost of groceries you purchase, and include the smaller container sizes (cynically called the "grocery shrink ray"), you will measure somewhere between 10 and 15% inflation.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts

One example of a deleted stat is Producer Price Index for Heavy Construction. An elected office I ran for was in charge of a massive transportation construction project. The cost overruns (more than 100% over budget) were due to very high inflation in project essentials such as concrete, steel and copper.

Just a quick FYI, but if inflation was 15% you wouldn't be able to hide it.

Shipon posted:

Is it even reasonable to extrapolate past trends into the future, given the troubles virtually every developed nation is going through along with impending issues in nations like China or India?

Everyone will be quick to point out past trends don't imply future performance for an actively managed fund but can't seem to apply it to the stock market as a whole. Also the belief that high risk = high return, whereas it's more like if you had a high return you most certainly were exposed to high risk.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2013 15:21

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Mofabio posted:

(this was a double post, but...)

A side note, it's kind of interesting how you guys are mocking things like replacing cable with netflix, going vegetarian, delaying or not having kids, making due with fewer possessions, and living in a small studio. The context here is charity, but these are common sense paths to FI, too.

I understand where the compartmentalization is coming from here, just thought I'd point out the disconnect.

I don't think having to read your posts is worth 1/180 of a person

# ¿ Nov 5, 2013 12:45

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Your amount of (either low or high) spending will probably have no effect at all on your happiness.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 19:27

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

SpelledBackwards posted:

I have a house maid. It's a friend from college who likes to clean on the side for cash, and my outlay for her per year is a lot more than obviously if I cleaned for myself, but 1/3 to 1/2 of getting a professional service to do it (and it's well under the annual federal requirement for calling myself an employer of a domestic worker), and since I know her I trust her with my stuff more than a stranger with a service. Bad with money, good with leisure/stress.

A maid is like $100 every 2 weeks or whatever. It's such a drop in the bucket I'd have to presume that guy was talking about a live in maid.

Although if he has a huge house I guess it's probably much higher.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2015 02:10

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Dr. Eldarion posted:

Nice and basic, but would be nice if you had one additional field for "amount already saved".

$2600 a year isn't really trivial for many people.

It is for this family that was making $700k

# ¿ Feb 27, 2015 02:52

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Cicero posted:

How are any of those 'vapid' or 'a bit obnoxious'? You think it's obnoxious when people learn other languages or travel, or volunteer? What?

I don't know if I'd say obnoxious, but they certainly are the common things that everyone seems to think they really want to do. Although to be completely honest if you aren't doing ANY of that right now then you probably won't suddenly start if you retired. Most people who have a passion for something will at least sometimes work at it. If that's all you can come up with and you don't have any proof that you do any of it now I'd say you don't really know what you want to do.

Now a guy up a bit talked about a personal project he spends a lot of his free time on now - that is an example of a passion that he would devote time to

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 14:27

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Mofabio posted:

I think I've honed in on what's been bothering me about MMM: he takes political questions and de-politicizes them.

Lemme draw some contrasts. MMM has probably written more about bikes than any other frugal habit. How many articles does he have making fun of SUVs, structuring your lifestyle to bike everywhere, modifying your bike? He fuckin' loves bikes. Notably though, in every single bike article, he mentions climate change. The guy cares about climate change. Doing a back of the envelope calculation, he's kept around 50,000 kg of CO2's carbon in the ground. Cool.

I've got a friend who also cares deeply about climate change. He cares so much, in fact, that in 2011, he took a train from California all the way to DC to protest (and get arrested protesting) Keystone XL. This was the protest that made the pipeline a topic of public discussion. For reference, the Alberta bitumen contains around 240 billion metric tons of future CO2, or 4.8 billion times what MMM has done personally by restructuring his life. Take however many derating factors you want, 4.8e9 >> 1.

There're a lot more examples. Instead of using all his free time to rally to fix his son's school, he's just taking his kid out and homeschooling him. Content of education is obviously a political topic, and is going in directions (more testing, more standardized curriculum) that he's actively trying to escape. As long as his son gets a good education though, everything's okay.

He (especially in his first articles) talked about the drudgery of a 9-5 and the joy of free time. At the beginning of the 20th century, most US workers put in 12-14 hour days, and it was only because of a 60-year labor/socialist campaign (and the adoption of their platform as the New Deal) that in 1937 we got the 8 hour day - the 9-5, instead of the 7-9. Kinda like with CO2, his personal actions help a little, but the hours that we work are a political decision. He could campaign for something radical like 20 hour work weeks or 5 months of vacation, or even loving paid sick days - god knows he has the time - but like with CO2, like with school, he's happy if he and his family get the benefits, and the rest of us don't.

It seems like one of the big benefits of FI is, if you care about issues, you can take greater action on them. You have the time, you don't need to care about your arrest record from a protest, and you can rally for issues that'd otherwise risk your job, like labor or voting for your boss or free speech rights in the workplace, or whatever else bothered you about your job.

tldr: It just gets frustrating to read him care about political issues, and either not know they're political issues, or not care enough to do anything about them.

In the grand scheme neither of them have an effect because eventually it will all be taken out and burned (unless the human race dies off but then who cares about climate change)

In the short-term, riding a bike actually prevents co2 from entering the air TODAY, whereas even if your friend singlehandedly prevented them from accessing it, the same exact amount of co2 would continue to be produced and eventually once prices got so high it would be mined anyway.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 00:30

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Mofabio posted:

What? I said he depoliticized political questions. This would also be true if he had different values.

I also said an advantage of FI is that, if you care about an issue, you can become an activist without the normal array of negative consequences, up to and including job loss.

Also... Obama just vetoed Keystone. Keystone became a political issue only after the extremely successful Aug-Nov 2011 string of protests.

Again... that has a zero effect on carbon emissions.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 05:36

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Sundae posted:

drat, three months of STD? That is some seriously impressive insurance, Queef.

I think every place I've ever worked is 26 weeks STD and it kicks in after your pto is exhausted.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2015 15:46

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

n8r posted:

http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Tax/dttl-tax-denmarkhighlights-2015.pdf

http://www.pkf.com/media/1954347/denmark%20pkf%20tax%20guide%202013.pdf

Please explain where the taxes are normally for unrealized gains? I'm genuinely curious how this is administrated.

Jesus dude. He explained it. In fact since there is a tiered capital gains tax it's actually good for it to be on Unrealized as well

# ¿ Oct 14, 2015 23:31

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Cast_No_Shadow posted:

Any substantial increase in average life expectancy will totally rock the financial world. I started with mortgages, if you live to 10,000 (actual life expectancy if we ever cure old age, cancer and associated chronic confitions) why have a 30 year mortgage when you can get one for 300 or 3000 years and let inflation do its job. But that would probably increase purchasing power which would increase prices and what about loans, savings, retirements.

The ball of string never ends.

Ive thought about this too much.

The difference in mortgage payment between 300 and 3000 is minuscule. It just approaches a perpetuity quite quickly depending on the rate. As interest rates go up the difference between a 30 and 300 isn't that high either.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 00:18

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

shrike82 posted:

Lmao

https://twitter.com/reformedbroker/status/845251220038193152

Who owns two cars in NYC?

Also, who lives in NYC and doesn't put "parking" as a (quite high) expense if they do own two cars?

That + the undergrad debt that very few (if any) are going to have at that level for "10-20 years" frees up about $50k.

I do just fine on $300k in NYC

# ¿ Mar 26, 2017 22:27

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Sundae posted:

My jeans get covered in mud, grease, drug excipients at work, salsa, etc etc. The mere idea of spending $210 on a pair of pants I know are going to be wrecked within 6 months is astounding. Jeans aren't (or shouldn't be) fashion statements in my opinion.

That's crazy - I take care of things I own so they don't fall to poo poo and I have to replace them.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 21:39

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Hoodwinker posted:

I, too, work in a white collar environment.

I'm pretty sure a pair of denim used by a rancher / farmer lasts a whole hell of a lot longer than 6 months. I realize being a farmer is probably not as hard on clothes as eating tortilla chips and changing your own oil, but it has to at least be somewhat comparable.

Vomik fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Apr 20, 2017

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 02:33

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Also the one that ended in 2001 was accelerated by 9/11 a non economic event so hypothetically outside of that the run was 1991-2007 which is much longer than current. It also assumes that recessions are "natural" and must happen

# ¿ Sep 5, 2017 15:03

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Potrzebie posted:

No it would turn you into a broken rear end in a top hat.

Don�t need billions of dollars to be a broken rear end in a top hat. Look at this forum, bunch of broken assholes and don�t make poo poo

# ¿ Feb 20, 2019 14:54

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

dexter6 posted:

(sorry/not sorry for bumping this thread)

I found this thread from the Long Term Investing thread, and I slowly read it all over the last couple of months. I've always identified with the FI concept and love all the opinions expressed here. It's really got me thinking about what I want to do with my life when I hit FI in the next 5-10 years.

Curious how everyone is doing and feeling now that we finally hit our market rollercoaster that we've been expecting for a while. Did anyone abruptly change course, go back to work, change their living habits or anything? Or were all you FI people comfortable enough that you're able to ride out this pandemic with out worrying too much about money?

Anyway, thanks for a thread and now I'm caught up so let some new posts start rolling in!

if a market drop makes you have to come out you were never financially independent.

I've been working so many hours for so long that this actually has made me decide that I may just retire now. I have plenty of money but I enjoyed the challenge of work but something about it seems so meaningless now especially because i've been separated from my fiancee because of travel bans for the last few months in separate countries.

# ¿ May 9, 2020 09:26

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

FateFree posted:

Someone made another nice portfolio simulator thing to visualize withdrawal options. Looks nice but take it with a grain of salt: https://fiportfoliodoc.com/simulator

this looks super high level but if you want to use this for a rule of thumb you'd probably want to also include some scenarios where there are very large negative deposits on certain dates in the future. imo, you can do any kind of fancy stochastic scenario or bootstrapped data set you want, but if you approach it from the "smooth" withdrawal assumption, your conclusions will always be suspect.

there's also some interaction risk where the periods of economic downturn are often related to periods of higher or unplanned spending to consider

# ¿ Apr 28, 2021 06:10

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 08:36

Vomik: Jul 29, 2003; This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan

Residency Evil posted:

Friend of mine is considering one. I learned that the insurance on these is insane and people get in to accidents all the time because:

1. If you're landing on water but have the plane set to land on land, you crash and die.
2. If you're landing on land but have the plane set to land on water, you crash and die.

Apparently screwing this up is very common in seaplane world.

i think seaplanes can only land in water but there are planes that can do both. imo just skip the insurance - if you wreck that bad boy doubt you're gonna care too much about the costs of putting it back together

# ¿ Aug 6, 2021 20:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Financial Independence: Methods, Mindsets and Cloth Diapers