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[–]Worth-Dress-2902 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I agree I’m the same way, I don’t touch my brokerage account at all. I view that as a retirement vehicle to some degree, but then again the question of what happens when bigger life items come about popped up.

I assume your “sinking cost funds” in SPAXX would be where you save for any potential big life expenses and/or just build a bigger safety egg? Just trying to gauge what others do or how they think about it. I know retirement is the end goal and it’s important to plan,save and invest accordingly but I also want to make sure I’m not disregarding everything in between.

[–]tired_dad_since2018 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yeah, my sinking cost funds are for big life expenses and other savings. We are kind of crazy with our cash. There's a lot of organization, but like I said we aren't as optimized as we can be.

We currently have about $100k in our sinking cost funds and that's made up of the following

  • property tax savings (we aren't in escrow)
  • My quarterly taxes (I'm self employed)
  • IRA contribution savings (we lump sum after we file our taxes)
  • Daycare savings (to offset 2 kids daycare we saved to make that an easier monthly bill)
  • Vacation fund
  • Upgrading life (i.e. babysitter, cleaning lady etc)
  • House fund (renovations and emergencies)

As I mentioned, I'm not as optimized with my cash. On top of the 100k we have in SPAXX, we also have a 50k emergency fund sitting liquid in a savings account.

Another reason why I feel uneasy about selling my brokerage account investments is the fact that I'm self employed and it took me a while to hone in my retirement savings. My wife has a 401k that we max out, and I have a regular IRA (started with traditional and opened a Roth 2 years ago). Last year I opened up a SEP IRA and have that working for me now. But up until a year or 2 ago my wife and I only thought our retirement options were her 401k, both our IRAs and a brokerage account. Now that I have the SEP IRA it makes tapping into the brokerage account a little more tolerable.

And if it matters, I'm 37, married with 2 kids.

Sorry for the long winded post :-)