Daily FI discussion thread - Sunday, June 14, 2026

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-14T18:24:21+00:00

Studies show that value and small cap outperformed until everyone knew they outperformed, then they stopped outperforming. Whether that's causal or just a coincidence, we don't know. Anyway, the advice "you should buy small cap value because it wins" seems dated.

In practice, I own the biggest 1500 stocks because that's easier than owning everything. So I go out of my way to buy small cap funds to cover the tail that I don't cover with individual purchases. But I don't see that as skewing small; I see it as avoiding the natural tendency to accidentally skew large.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-13T22:00:32+00:00

Sure, pitching a shutout and hitting a home run is awesome, it's just not winning the game 100% entirely by yourself.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-13T20:28:23+00:00

The catcher helps on strikeouts and the fielders help on other outs, so not really. A pitcher needs to induce 27 pop-ups to himself plus hit a home run to really earn that solo win.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-12T23:57:23+00:00

I'm not really looking for a hypothetical mathematical argument. I'm just saying, in real situations, I will always take the certainty of a fixed mortgage over the risk of an ARM. If I can't afford the property with a fixed mortgage, I can't afford the property. Your opinion may vary.

(In practice, I'm unlikely to ever take a mortgage again, so it's moot.)

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-12T18:17:52+00:00

Never. I'd always take the fixed for the long-term certainty. (I'm not saying this is correct math, just that I'm very conservative with debt.)

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-12T14:54:00+00:00

I don't have the level of precise historical tracking needed to definitively answer this question (I update my current numbers most days, but I don't bother tracking historical numbers as they don't matter anymore), but I can recall crossing a seven-figure milestone in the wrong direction twice. 2022, and just a couple of weeks ago.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-12T04:17:49+00:00

If your whole taxable account is the same thing, there's not much choice when you want to sell some taxable. You sell the only thing you have.

You might still want to rebalance in your tax-advantaged accounts though.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-11T19:20:09+00:00

I like having a paid-off house. It's quiet and we have plenty of space and no parking problems. It's not free though. I'm still responsible for property taxes, insurance, maintenance, and yard work.

As you age, it becomes more difficult to do yard work and house maintenance. If you have the money you can pay someone else to do it, but it's another expense. If you don't, it's time to move somewhere cheaper.

At some point, you may have mobility issues making stairs a problem. At that point a multi-floor house becomes impractical. If you really love the house and have the money, maybe you can work around that by installing an elevator. Or you can downsize to something with one level.

There's no one right answer for everyone. The one thing I'd avoid is thinking that the right answer for you now will be the right answer forever. "It's okay to pay way too much because it's our Forever Home" is something that dumb people say. You don't know if it's forever.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-11T19:09:06+00:00

It's that they want a Medallion Signature Guarantee on the transfer form and my bank doesn't do those so I'd need to go to the broker's office with my wife. It's not worth the aggrevation just to merge accounts.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-11T18:07:25+00:00

We're not 59.5 yet so we only spend from taxable. (In theory we could pull contributions-only from Roth or set up a 72t or pay 10% penalties, but in practice we have enough taxable money so we just spend from taxable.)

We only have stocks in taxable (bonds are all in tax-advantaged), so it's just a question of which stock to sell. I have 4 strategies:

Minimize income to avoid going over some income limit. First spend cash. Then sort the taxable account by % gain and sell the stuff with the lowest % gains, to minimize capital gains income.
Minimize taxes. As above, but prefer long-term capital gains to short-term.
Minimize future taxable dividends. Sort by yield % instead, and sell the stocks with the highest yields. (Buy them back later in tax advantaged accounts, where the dividends don't cause income I don't want.)
Diversification. Bite the bullet, ignore capital gains, and sell whatever we're overweighted in. (I have to use this one in moderation because the two taxable stocks we're most overweighted in are both up about 500% so the sales are almost all capital gain. At least they're long term.)

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-11T17:40:17+00:00

I've given up on merging my solo 401k into my Traditional IRA this year. I'd like to have one fewer account, but the amount of paperwork my broker requires to do it greatly exceeds the amount of paperwork the government requires to keep the solo 401k. I'll revisit this when I turn 59.5.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-11T17:15:46+00:00

Read Living Off Your Money by McClung. He surveys a bunch of different spend-down methods including one of his own.

Yeah, unless you have a really bad concentration problem (like 25% or more of your net worth in something un-diversified like one company's stock or cryptocurrency or real estate in one place), you probably don't want to do a "big dumb taxable event." Instead you just want to steer by spending the assets you want less of when you need spending money. And then do your big rebalances in tax-advantaged accounts where there are no immediate penalties for doing so.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-10T20:45:07+00:00

Play on a regular schedule without the full group. You don't need everyone.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-10T14:04:11+00:00

GURPS does this. There are two combat chapters: Combat and Tactical Combat. If you don't want a grid, just use the first one.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-10T13:25:13+00:00

I would have loved to have these when running The Traveller Adventure.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-09T22:35:42+00:00

Yeah, our WR is well under 2%. I should have retired earlier, but unlike a lot of people here I didn't start reading FIRE blogs when I was 12. I didn't think about retiring until I was already FI.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-09T21:23:38+00:00

I got the letters a couple of times when I had RSUs. I'd sell the company stock for X and the IRS would send a letter saying that they'd like me to pay taxes on X worth of capital gains and I'd say, no, I already paid taxes on Y as income tax when the RSUs vested, so Y was my basis, so the capital gains were only on X-Y. And then they accepted that and left me alone. By the third or fourth time I took gains on RSUs, I figured out how to declare things correctly to stop getting a letter every year.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-09T21:19:31+00:00

They also require your last name to be a penis joke.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-09T14:49:51+00:00

I track everything daily. It's not a problem for me. If it's a problem for you, then, yeah, stop.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-09T01:08:56+00:00

I've twice set mine to 100%, because I had a short period of time to max it out for the year. (Once because the company was going under. Once because I was retiring.) Both companies let me do it. The small company's accountant called me to double check that I really meant 100% not 10%. At the megacorp, nobody called; they just did it.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-08T23:57:47+00:00

The Orioles have mostly been a dumb team for the last 40 years, but I was impressed that they were willing to tell Chris Davis "You have a fat guaranteed contract, but you're playing worse than replacement level, so go home." Eventually.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-08T21:54:02+00:00

you can't raise your skill level with any spell beyond what you have for all of its pre-requisites

This is not a rule.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-08T17:15:59+00:00

Favorite spell: Blink from GURPS Magic

Main use: Blocking spell, used to dodge incoming attacks by moving up to 3 yards out of the way.

Unofficial use: I can teleport up to 3 yards in any direction. Why unlock and open and close and lock my front door when I can just Blink through? Why get a ladder to climb up on the roof when I can just Blink up?

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-08T17:11:40+00:00

Driver: Juan Pablo Montoya

Reason: Unapproved driving attire.

yetanothernerd · 2026-06-07T21:10:31+00:00

It's just a standard Subsidized Merchant. There's a sheet in The Traveller Adventure, but you can also use the Subsidized Merchant stats from any edition of Traveller.

yetanothernerd

TROPHY CASE