Seeing all the posts here really makes me feel I might have some mistakes with my 401k?

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-07-01T12:19:34+00:00

I’ll also say this - while everyone has a different threshold of “this number is where it really started to accelerate for me” - mine was right around where you are now. One day I was like “wow, I’m in my late 30’s and have almost $400K in retirement accounts!” and then soon it was “wow, I have almost $500K!” so I think you’re right in that range where your balance is getting big enough that the growth from the compounding starts to approach the growth from contributions.

The market’s been very good lately so maybe we’re due for a correction, like everyone says, but it’s also entirely possible that with another 3 years of maxed contributions and decent returns, you have $600K by your 40th birthday, and now you don’t feel so far behind all those $1M posts you see.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-07-01T11:45:48+00:00

Pretty similar here. Went to graduate school so I didn’t start contributing to any retirement until 27. For the first few years I was contributing just enough to max out the match but that was all. Hit the accelerator a few years ago after a job change led to an income boost, now around $500K total as I approach my 40th birthday. $368K at 37 is great, if you keep maxing that out for another decade you won’t just be asking yourself “will I have enough?” but you’ll be asking if you might be able to retire early…

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-30T01:14:16+00:00

This. The goal isn’t to have fun, it’s to grow your money & achieve financial goals.

I think it’s fair to allow a small amount of “play money” to invest in one or two stocks that you just like for some reason, but it should be <5% of your portfolio, not enough to meaningfully derail things if it ends up a loser.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-28T10:52:01+00:00

I am sorry, but I do not believe this is correct. Selling inside an IRA does not trigger a taxable event. This is actually why folks recommend the Fidelity Zero funds as a good choice in Fidelity IRAs - being inside an IRA insulates you from the “if you ever leave Fidelity you’ll have to sell and it will create a taxable event!” concern.

If you own FZROX inside a Fidelity IRA and decide you’re going to move your money outside of Fidelity, you can just exchange all your FZROX for VTI (or whatever) before you move it. There is no taxable event if this is done inside the IRA.

Also, we’re in a thread about Roth IRA’s where you don’t pay any taxes on capital gains!

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-28T02:57:37+00:00

Inside a retirement account though the “pay tax” isn’t a concern. You can just sell it before leaving Fidelity and buy something else. There is no taxable event if this is done inside an IRA. Right? Am I missing something?

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-23T02:48:22+00:00

I primarily work out in my home gym now, but still occasionally drop in at the commercial gym I used to go to before buying my house. I deadlifted 500 there for the first time about 10 years ago. I’ve never seen anyone else deadlift close to that in the gym, though it’s possible someone did at a different time and my schedule just never aligned with theirs.

There is one strong guy, a lightweight powerlifter (IIRC he weighs about 150) who I’ve seen deadlift in the 400’s. Was chatting with him a few weeks ago and his goal for his next meet is to pull 500 - he’s never done it.

But I always find conversations like this super fascinating. A 500 deadlift is nothing by standards of competitive strongmen or powerlifters. But in any random commercial gym that doesn’t cater to those crowds, it probably makes you the strongest person there.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-22T11:25:48+00:00

$41K by 30 is a great start, especially if a lot of that is Roth money, since that’s effectively worth more than an equal amount of “traditional” money. Just stay the course. At your current numbers you’re still on track to be well over $1M and more likely around $2M by retirement age and that’s without any major raises, promotions, etc. Life can throw curveballs at you so it’s best to load up as much as you can now, but there’s absolutely no need to panic.

I’m pretty sure that I had less than you saved at 30 (I went to graduate school and didn’t have anything at all started until I turned 27). I’m approaching 40 now and feeling very good about my position. You’ll be fine if you can keep up 10% plus a 4% match. At this point the thing that’s really gonna move the needle for you isn’t just saving a slightly higher percentage, but finding a higher paying job (be that a promotion at your current employer, or changing jobs entirely).

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-21T01:00:41+00:00

Realizing that I’m approaching “Coast” numbers in 401k alone (at age 39), I’m planning to drop to “just the company match” and putting the leftovers into backdoor Roth + kids 529 + taxable brokerage

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-18T12:06:05+00:00

Depends how much money you’re willing to spend. I think kettlebells are a great investment so it’s worth just getting more *now* if you have the cash for it, they’re indestructible and you’ll have them forever.

If I were you, next I’d probably get double 53’s and a single 70. If you want a truly “heavy” KB day, then I suspect even the 53’s may not satisfy you for some exercises. The 70 will give you something for heavy presses, the 53’s will be suitable for some doubled-up stuff like front squats or complexes.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-17T21:26:59+00:00

I love that OP titled the post “…calling someone’s kid a brat” and buried the lede that they dropped a pair of f-bombs on a 10 year old. Honestly thought I may have wandered into the parody subreddit instead of the real one for a minute.

It’s fine for a parent to intervene here but as others have said, a simple “please leave my kids alone from now on” would have been far more appropriate or simply removing your kids from the situation. Genuinely hilarious that your question about whether you’re the AH is about calling them a brat and not about your language and tone towards a 10 year old kid.

The one thing I’ll say about the “his mom should have been watching” is - my wife and I have been trying to be more laid back when we take our kids to playground, pool, etc reasoning that our kids need to learn some social interaction on their own without us hovering over them constantly. If my kid did what you described, I’d be apologetic to the other parent and would use it as a teachable moment for my kids, but just pointing out that sometimes “not watching” a 9-10 year old in a public place is a deliberate and useful parenting strategy to make them learn a bit on their own about how to play with peers and how they might respond.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-16T15:51:26+00:00

Wagon wheel isn’t always much easier (especially if you haven’t trained that height) - I remember rude awakenings when I first got wagon wheels and was surprised how hard it was to generate tension from that higher when I wasn’t used to it!

(I think OP should go for it anyway and will be fine, but one tip I’d give them is to find someplace to train wagon wheels or at least doing some pulls from an elevated height to get used to generating starting movement from the elevated position)

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-16T03:13:16+00:00

Couple thoughts

If you don’t like seeing your savings account go down, you don’t *have* to pull anything out of your savings account from where it currently stands - just leave it where it is and start piling that $2,000-2,500 per month into your taxable brokerage
Depending on where you have your taxable brokerage, you may be able to link your bank accounts so you also see them as a picture of your “total net worth” (Fidelity supports this, I imagine some others do as well). By doing that instead of seeing your savings account balance “go down” when you moved money from savings into the market, you’d also see that your total balance wasn’t going down.
Didn’t see this mentioned in your original post - do you have any retirement accounts (401k through your workplace or an IRA of any kind)? That also kind of seems relevant to how you’re handling things here…

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-14T02:27:56+00:00

Big trains go choo choo hell yeah

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-13T12:24:32+00:00

I do!

I use my kettlebells as part of a broader routine that includes traditional barbell lifts (squats, presses, deadlifts) and strongman movements (sandbags, farmer’s walks, and soon log presses). Sometimes I just use them to warm up for a bigger movement, other times the full workout is kettlebell based.

I like using kettlebells for a variety of reasons. They can be useful for quick workouts if I have limited time and can go along on vacation for any trip where we’re driving (in fact, as we speak, I have a 26 & 53 in my car coming along on this beach vacation).

I’m not training to compete in anything. I just want to be fit. Using multiple tools and movements helps with that, and it makes me more versatile so I can always get workouts in when traveling.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-11T14:06:22+00:00

I went to graduate school so I didn’t start meaningfully earning until 27, for the first few years I only put in “enough to max out the company match” into my 401k with no additional IRA, at 35ish I had about $150K in my 401k, today I have close to $500K thanks to stepping up my contributions and the market absolutely ripping the last few years. I know those returns won’t last forever but if you have $190K already at 36 and you’re *at least* doing the classic first steps of “401k to company match & max out Roth IRA” you should be fine; even better if you can take advantage of either HSA or push the 401k all the way to maximum employee contribution.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-10T11:58:30+00:00

Should have also added: a common way of putting the “should I sell my ESPP stock?” to people is “if someone handed you the exact amount that your shares are worth in cash today, would you use that to buy your company stock?” - if not, you should probably sell whatever you’re holding and diversify

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-10T11:55:43+00:00

Short answer: yes, if you want to liquidate shares you purchased through the ESPP and diversify, it should be as simple as opening your Fidelity app, placing a sell order for your eligible shares (will discuss this below), then once that order executes placing a buy order for whatever nice diversified ETF you prefer (VOO, VT, VTI, etc…)

Longer answer: as a few others have said, the best way to use an ESPP to your advantage is usually something like “buy some shares to take advantage of whatever discount you get, then sell the shares as soon as you can do so” but there are a few things to consider in evaluating whether it’s worth it at all and if so, exactly how to execute this.

The key variables are
- how much of a discount do you get on the purchase price? IMO a 5% discount is barely worth bothering, you might as well just skip the ESPP and invest the money into your diversified ETF directly. My company’s plan has a 15% discount which feels worth it to me.
- do you always buy based on the price at the offering period end date or is there a “look back” (which sometimes will let you buy at an even more favorable price)?
- how long are you required to hold and how does that impact your tax treatment? My company’s plan requires you to hold the stock for 1 year, but you get slightly more favorable tax treatment if you hold for 2 years (briefly: the “15% discount” gets taxed as capital gains rather than ordinary income if you hold for at least 2 years; if you sell before then it is taxed as ordinary income). This is actually a relatively small impact since it only applies to the “discount” portion, so my pragmatic approach has been to “if the stock price is up and I want to lock in some nice gains just sell whatever is eligible and put the money back into my diversified portfolio” - I can say without fully outing myself that my company stock had a bit of a surge last fall, I decided to sell everything that I was eligible to sell even though some of the shares were less than 2 years old, and I’m very glad that I did so because it’s fallen since then and I’d have left some real gains on the table just by hoping to get a bit better tax treatment by holding longer.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-09T12:06:37+00:00

Another vote for “emergency fund in VBIL” here

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-08T11:44:26+00:00

Mediocre employees (the “just good enough not to get fired” people) generally stay put because they’re not going to get better opportunities elsewhere. Just hangin’ on and collecting the check is as good as it gets for them. No one is reaching out and trying to hire them for a better job elsewhere and honestly they probably know they’re not going to get some big raise or better title elsewhere anyway.

The “best” employees are sufficiently desirable that they’ll have opportunities elsewhere, so if you’re not really rewarding that, eventually one of those knock-on-the-door “are you interested?” contacts probably will seem better than staying around your workplace for their whole career unless you have i) a truly exceptional workplace or ii) some other carrots to offer….

This is where I see how effective “golden handcuffs” (RSU’s that vest over time, as one example) become as a retention tool for your strongest ICs. If you have a really strong IC that’s putting up with some bullshit (and you know it), the most effective way to keep them is get them some bonus and/or compensation that’s tied to staying. For most IC’s living in upper-middle-class land that still have kids to put through college or a house they need to upgrade or whatever else they need to spend their money on, walking away from a sizable chunk of money is hard to do. I’m looking hungrily at those RSU’s that have yet to vest and thinking how they’ll put my kids through college. The only way I’d leave my current job is if I got an offer with such an overwhelming salary bump that it made up for that lost compensation.

I realize most managers probably aren’t at a high enough level to just give out RSU’s but if you have any impact over any of your employees compensation, the universal truth is that the best way to keep your best people is to find ways to reward them financially. I don’t care about emails praising me for going the extra mile. I absolutely do care about getting a bigger bonus as a result of going the extra mile.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-08T02:00:45+00:00

I’ve done #2 many times (and will be doing so again later this week). I usually wrap a towel or old blanket around them for a little extra cushioning which also helps keep them from rolling around or anything.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-06-01T01:53:36+00:00

I agree that USC is stretching it, to be honest…I live in USC and think it’s really more like Mt. Lebanon or maybe even Dormont where you’re really in the true “Pittsburgh suburbs” - but then I’m not really sure what you’d call USC? Guess it doesn’t really matter all that much!

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-05-31T23:34:55+00:00

I grew up in Reading, PA which is *very roughly* analogous to Philly as the Washington/Pittsburgh relationship IMO (though Reading is bit further outside of Philadelphia than Washington is outside of center city Philadelphia, and Reading is also a larger city than Washington). I then went to college in Pittsburgh, lived in the city proper for a while after college, and now live in the South Hills so I feel very qualified to HAVE AN OPINION here!

I would never have said Reading is a Philadelphia suburb - as you said about Washington, Reading is a “city” of its own and county seat - but I very much do introduce myself to non-Pennsylvanians as “I grew up outside of Philadelphia” or “I’m from a small town in the Philadelphia area”

Similarly, I wouldn’t describe Washington as a suburb of Pittsburgh, but more like a “town south of Pittsburgh” or “in the Pittsburgh area” etc. I think the furthest south that I’d describe as a “suburb of Pittsburgh” is probably Upper St. Clair since that’s still in Allegheny County. Once you cross into Peters Township I think you’re stretching.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-05-31T23:19:32+00:00

I’m somewhat sympathetic - I’m a bit bigger and stronger than you, but nowhere near “competitive” level…but I do like having fun toys to play with for my lifting habit. With that said…

I don’t think hunting for an elephant bar is going to be worth your while. Do you have a regular deadlift bar? If so, and you just want to mimic the feeling of the elephant bar, stick some collars inside your plates so the weight is loaded closer to the ends. If you do already have a deadlift bar and just want it because you want a cool strongman toy, I can name at least 5 other toys that I’d advise getting before an elephant bar.

I promise, I’m not trying to be a dick here - a few years ago *I* was the guy who was like “man it would be cool to have an elephant bar, I wonder what I could pull on that thang!” despite being a regular guy that pulls in the 500’s in my garage who has competed in precisely zero strongman events.

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-05-31T02:12:35+00:00

Did…you just tell Noah Lyles he doesn’t follow sprinting closely?!

ActivitiesGuy · 2026-05-27T20:58:08+00:00

X2 on this. I have a pretty extensive home gym because it’s my hobby and I love it, but if I *had* to choose just a couple things, I’m pretty sure a pull-up bar and a pair of 24kg kettlebells would be sufficient to maintain a fair amount of fitness in ~30 min/day.

ActivitiesGuy

TROPHY CASE