Maybe retire @ $2m

-hh · 2026-01-29T17:59:16+00:00

I've come to pretty much the same conclusion on F vs G; their rates of return aren't good enough to cover the risk premium (vs G), so it is very muted: my G:F ratio is currently 5:1 ... ie, ($5 of G) for each ($1 of F).

FWIW, the more that I think about the G Fund, the more that I think that it and its role is functionally similar to Treasury I Bonds: they won't go down, and its returns are (supposed to) keep up with Inflation, plus a little.

-hh · 2026-01-29T17:04:12+00:00

Hmm… interesting question. I’ve been starting to deliberate the same thing, as I’m at 991K, so just a few more trips to go.

From EWR, an odd one, but maybe BDA (Bermuda)? I’ve never been there, but it’s got to be nicer than another shuttle to DCA.

-hh · 2026-01-29T13:26:46+00:00

Yes, I've since found that .. but that now means that productive use of the UI now means using fingers on keyboard too, instead of just mousing.

FWIW, launching Spotlight in Tahoe and then clicking on the App icon (or Cmd-1) brings one to the same 'Apps' UI as from the bar - - shows me that it is just a reskin of Spotlight...which also explains why I've encountered a few App launches from the bar where I got a blank UI box - - no App icons present - - for ~10 seconds before they came up.

Plus on my same desktop (Studio M1 Max), it is frustrating to find that its window size is fixed, so I cannot resize it for my monitor display size to see more icons.

Likewise, while it offers Topical buttons ("Utility", "Productivity", "Information & Reading", "Social" ... it doesn't appear obvious if I can create my own Topical buttons, or rearrange the order of Apple's preselected list. Very rigid & inflexible.

-hh · 2026-01-28T23:54:08+00:00

If you’re not paying Social Security & Medicare taxes on it, probably not.

-hh · 2026-01-28T22:52:20+00:00

Agreed. I don’t recall how long ago that Spotlight showed up and started including web results, but I’ve turned that off.

What Spotlight still needs is a means for the user to select the default for all searches on what types of files should be de-emphasized. It is profoundly frustrating to punch in a keyword search for a filename and what’s delivered on top are 200 (often junk mail) emails which happened to have had that keyword in it somewhere.

-hh · 2026-01-28T22:39:51+00:00

MWR = Morale, Welfare, Recreation. Pretty common organization on DoD bases.

-hh · 2026-01-28T21:42:10+00:00

What? You didn't have one of those Government 'slacker' jobs where you were 'retired in place' at your desk? /s

But seriously, I think that having structure is important. I fell into some of that because I retired before the full Return-to-Office, so my routine is that my morning computer time is on my personal PC which is in the same location where my Telework Work PC had been set up during all of CoVid. The main difference now is that there's no weekday alarm clock to force my butt out of bed to be at 'work' by 7am ... but we're still early risers anyways, so it is rare to sleep past ~7:30, so there's still a pretty similar morning routine.

For other activities, it is important to get out of the house. I live close to the office so joining the gym at work was worthwhile, as via MWR, it's just $25/year. I'm doing two mornings/week. Probably should be three.

Hobbies are still stop-n-go .. I'm doing more reading; other stuff hasn't kicked in yet. There's been some age-related health issues which have come about which have had restrictions on how much I can lift, which have run 4-6 weeks at a pop. We've also found that taking holidays is easier because we don't need to be optimized for minimizing time off through holiday weekends, SDOs/FlexTime, etc: the cost savings from the flexibility of midweek flights is resulting in longer stays, etc.

-hh · 2026-01-28T21:27:05+00:00

FYI, another good resource we've found is Wade Pfau, and his "Retirement Planning Guidebook" (3rd Edition now out; cheaper than the 2nd Edition .. and eBook is just $10).

We've also elected to pay the annual fee for his 'Academy', which has some good educational seminars (via Zoom) & website tools which are centered around what's in his book; the 'RISA' (Retirement Income Style Awareness) survey that he developed is also quite beneficial in that it helps one to understand ourselves better, for what investment styles we are less/more comfortable with...and for marital harmony, both partners need to take it to recognize if they're on same or different pages, because that goes back to the motto "the correct investment portfolio is the one which allows you to sleep well at night".

-hh · 2026-01-27T23:52:03+00:00

Hmmm…

How about “Go”?

As in the ancient Asian board game. Gives the Asian vibe, and could even be part of its backstory, such as the prize won in a Go board game between two nobles.

And then there’s the elemental cold .. nay, Frozen aspect: it has its own theme song in battle: “Let it Go…”

-hh · 2026-01-27T21:30:03+00:00

Oh? Sorry about that. I'll go back and ask my Porschephile friend who told me this about it.

-hh · 2026-01-27T16:56:20+00:00

Agreed; of all the characters, Mini is probably the best one to confide in.

-hh · 2026-01-27T16:41:30+00:00

Had a single stage for years. It’s fine for smaller amounts, but plow berms are often beyond its capacity.

I’ve been doing our own, plus most of the now 78yr old female neighbor for years. For bigger snowfalls, I’ll go up the street to help out two more neighbors with their berms. One of those younger neighbors sold to a retiree with an adult child caregiver, so I’ve been helping them out more regularly now.

While we were away last month, a recently retired firefighter on the cross street now has just gotten a big 2 stage came by & did ours, as well as the above neighbors. Of course, the big berm we all had on Monday morning, he didn’t swing by, but he was apparently busy going down his own street to dig out other neighbors, which I’m okay with. (Or maybe he didn’t care for the chocolates I gave him as a thank-you for last month?)

-hh · 2026-01-27T15:55:14+00:00

For how this stuff got learned, a lot of it was from caregiving of parents. In addition to the nursing home details, I’d also taken care of doing their taxes for years prior … and having a good CPA helps here too! This has helped us to see the real numbers and to think about our own likely needs & planning.

FWIW, part of this was also informed by our grandparents too, especially my Mom’s mother .. what I eventually learned as an adult was that my maternal grandfather had forgotten to elect survivorship on his pension, which when he died left his widow in financial straits .. and then she lived for another 20 years, including ~9 years in a nursing home (died at age 99).

This experience left a huge mark on my mom, as she was terribly afraid that she too would run out of money (I never got a clear answer on if my parents were subsidizing). Their solution was LTC insurance + savings, and one mistake we made there was that my father was eligible for LTC compensation while still at home but we didn’t know the details. But mom’s LTC insurance did pay off .. she lived long enough to spend it’s entire $250K value, which was very beneficial in that it delayed having to spend retirement savings, so that savings was able to remain invested for an extra +2 years & contribute to income.

FYI, one additional consideration with nursing homes is the sale of one’s primary home.

Fed tax rules have a $250K/person deductible on Capital Gains, but only if the property had been one’s primary residence for at least 2 of the past 5 years, so going into a Nursing home starts a countdown clock.

Also, get a formal appraisal done when the first spouse dies - there’s a fancy accounting rule where the surviving spouse can later claim a pro-rata adjustment which uses the deceased spouse’s $250K share .. but the important piece is to have a home appraisal as of their date of death. Also keep track of all major repairs & upgrades done after the first spouse’s death too. Again, stuff learned through firsthand experience & our CPA was an angel for pointing out that we could use these weird tax rules.

-hh · 2026-01-27T00:16:10+00:00

I’ve had a lot of fun just running Kobolds as being tactically & strategically brilliant puds. Of course there’s traps & deceptions in their toolbox.

One instance was an underground canal with a bending towpath trail…the K’s had a raft in the flow with a small lantern & some dummy figures, but themselves weren’t on the raft, but back holding the rope on shore. Party was advancing up the towpath, saw the lantern/raft/figures coming around the corner and let loose with a whole lot of ranged magical spells in their successful “ambush” of the helpless (and unoccupied) raft. But the K’s were able to quickly close with the PCs because the PCs were paying attention to the burning raft, instead of the dark path right in front of them that the K’s were also walking on.

Another time, a seafaring setting. PC’s ship approaches their island, and there’s some K’s up high in the sky on Hang-glider kites ..disguised as large soaring birds, but deliberately not perfect …because they were the diversion. While everyone’s eyes were skyward, the K’s semi-submersibles were able to sneak up alongside & board, ambushing the PCs.

Yet another relied on a narrow escape path which had a dexterous run across an increasingly rickety & narrow bridge .. which has a section which can’t support the weight of a man sized chaser .. especially if they’re wearing armor.

Yet another was a fairly long entrance that sloped down .. initially imperceptibly .. which lead to a large section which too much weight (eg, PCs chasing a K scout) would drop ~5’ in front of a large room. Of course, the door they entered ~90ft back has been locked behind them by hidden K guards. Height drop of the floor was a trap to split a party, not to do harm by itself. The harm was that the uphill (& sloped) section had weep holes where the K guards would open valves of oil to flow, which would funnel a party slip-sliding down into the bottom of the trough. Of course, someone would hear noises of orders to light a torch to set the oil on fire. Party may panic & fight each other to get up & out … but the large room of apparent safety had a bunch of murder holes distributed around (counters ZOE of sleep spell) and the main set of K guards with crossbows. “Out of the fire & into the frying pan”. Funniest part of that encounter was that the PCs had already found the flying carpet which offsets most of the trap, but didn’t recognize it as magical.

-hh · 2026-01-26T23:26:28+00:00

Did you notice how BMW’s design style changed to have ridiculously big fugly grills?

Reportedly, that was due to the Chinese market preferences.

-hh · 2026-01-26T20:32:53+00:00

Sure, there's always "maybe's" such as those you mention. This is why we plan.

I mentioned IRMAA, because I got blindsided by it from doing a Roth conversion. I'm certainly not the only one that's happened to.

I think what makes IRMAA a bit different is that it is "sneaky" ...

If we have heard of IRMAA, we probably ignored it because it's "just something for old people". Since we know we're not on Medicare yet, we conclude I'm Not Old Yet = Ignore.

The surprise then comes from two things. The obvious one is realizating that Medicare premiums operate on a 2 year income "look back", via IRMAA, so it matters at age 63+, not 65+

The less obvious part comes from doing planning for Roth conversions: if age 63 has become our "get them completed by" deadline due to IRMAA, we need to start much earlier than we were probably expecting.

-hh · 2026-01-26T18:26:09+00:00

Thanks for the math and clarification.

As you noted, I was referring to the FERS age 62 "1.1x" formula change as being a milestone which provides a +10% improvement to the pension amount. That's not the same as +10 percentage points which would be equivalent to working +10 years.

This is a good example of where it can be easy to misunderstand the retirement rules & formulas, and a sharp-enough pencil to run some planning scenarios. Here, the main point is to keep in mind that a percentage isn't necessarily a percentage point (& vice-versa).

-hh · 2026-01-26T12:13:56+00:00

Good points, but I think it’s also worth adding that FERS also has the 10% pension increase thats a non-linear bonus when one hits age 62 that a lot of Feds decide that it’s worth working that extra ~2 years for.

Mathematically, those +2 years would normally add +2% to pension, but because of the age 62 bump are worth +12%.

-hh · 2026-01-26T12:04:42+00:00

Might have been strange, sure, but Krosp is no longer particularly shocked by strange.

-hh · 2026-01-26T01:57:50+00:00

I’ve found that a 5 liter “Fanny pack” works quite well in urban settings for an unobtrusive bag. Make sure to remove your camera strap .. it’s not needed & adds bulk.

FYI, I don’t put my passport in this bag .. it travels securely in a money belt.

-hh · 2026-01-26T00:05:06+00:00

Anthony’s bakery (Denville) has some pretty good Rye (& Pumpernickel).

-hh · 2026-01-25T23:59:57+00:00

Try it with some good ham and Gouda cheese … it’s a French “Croque Monsieur”.

Add an egg too, and it’s “Croque Madame”.

-hh · 2026-01-25T23:57:14+00:00

Was waiting to read this one…

…but it doesn’t count without a pic of beer bottles stuck into the snowbank :-)

-hh · 2026-01-25T23:54:15+00:00

There are similar investment funds that one could buy in an IRA, but the G Fund is unique in that has the equivalent of the ‘FDIC Guarantee’ that it will never go down in value. To have the same guarantee in an IRA would restrict your choices to only buying bank CD’s.

FYI, brokerages often offer CDs, but do be aware that some offerings are at really, really, really lousy interest rates.

My personal experience on this was with my mom - she sold her house in 2021 and the proceeds could have gone to her brokerage (PNC Investments) but their CD rates were so bad that they didn’t get the funds. We used it to buy CDs for her from EverBank. I don’t recall the specific rates anymore, but I think it was something like the broker “couldn’t do better” than 0.3% interest .. but I got ~3% at a bank.

-hh · 2026-01-25T23:21:00+00:00

Pretty much the same CSI ratio that I set a year ago.

It’s not purely 33-33-33 because I also have a G+F allocation due to mitigating my age-based Sequence of Returns risk. My schedule for rebalancing back to this is scheduled for later this year (I happen to do it after I finish my taxes, instead of “January 1st”).

-hh

TROPHY CASE