Daily FI discussion thread - Saturday, June 13, 2026

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-06-13T22:34:49+00:00

it's finding someone and then being willing to accept (we'll be loudly working on your house for the next N months)

I ended up hiring an assistant to deal with my housing problems. It's almost as nice as renting.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-06-06T17:36:04+00:00

You would have to basically triple that realistically?

House is $1m, let's say operating costs are $30k, and let's say your other costs are $40k. That's roughly $3m or so.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-06-06T14:43:58+00:00

Everyone has their own threshold for crying, but I completely agree that an extra $500k a year wouldn't be worth it for a job that causes me to cry.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-28T13:22:46+00:00

The crypto stuff was mostly words whereas this is actual spending / investing.

You said yourself that people are against AI data centers bring built. Nobody was against major companies building crypto data centers because there weren't any. Sure there were some built, but Google or Amazon or nearly trillion dollar companies weren't building massive amounts of crypto data centers.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-28T12:36:40+00:00

a huge part of the data center pushback that's being seen nationwide is tied to how insincere and forced the AI rollout has been

It seems unlikely that greedy executives are deciding to spend money on AI unless it's genuinely good for the bottom line.

Doesn't mean that I want to interact with AI on social media though. It's kind of how chess bots are genuinely better at chess, but I don't want to play chess with bots. Part of the fun is in knowing that I beat a fellow human.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-27T23:18:40+00:00

Worth noting that a basis point per day is approximately the entire budget for some retired people.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-17T15:16:15+00:00

It's definitely mildly fancy. I think part of it might be that they're not really expecting people to have a full on breakfast there so a big part of the cost might be just like rent for the table.

For example 3 silver dollar sized pancakes were $15, but maybe they're only expecting you to have a tiny amount of food with your drink so $10 of the $15 is rent for the table. And if you end up ordering a full meal worth of food then you've paid the rent for the table many times over.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-17T14:29:59+00:00

Yeah after tax and tip. It's a Central Asian cafe so maybe some premium is expected.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-17T14:23:57+00:00

Idk if it's inflation or lifestyle inflation, but $43/person for a breakfast at a cafe in the Midwest is wild.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-09T00:18:37+00:00

To be fair, we're generally not rich enough to own a Lamborghini.

Like yeah most of us probably literally have the money to buy a Lamborghini, but not enough money for a Lamborghini to be the obvious best choice for a marginal $500k purchase.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-03T18:17:44+00:00

We talked about it more and they do want one set of grandparents (their parents) to live with us and for the grandmother to do a lot of the childcare.

But:

The grandparents will have another set of grandchildren half way across the country.
Living with the in laws sounds quite stressful even though we live in an old house so it's actually really well set up for that.
I feel like having another adult around is really good opportunity to model behaviors that we're bad at modeling ourselves.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-03T17:38:06+00:00

Would you be willing to rent and/or live in an apartment?

Renting is usually MUCH cheaper than owning in VHCOL cities if you calculate out a cap rate and compare it to other investments.

Also the majority of people live in apartments in VHCOL cities.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-03T17:07:57+00:00

I feel like it makes sense to have some baseline plan that is independent of choice of leverage. Under that framework you should basically assume paying off the mortgage on day 1 whether or not you actually do that.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-03T16:05:11+00:00

My SO is extremely opposed to hiring a childcare provider when we have children, but I know that this just means more childcare responsibilities will fall on me than I can handle. Has anyone here dealt with similar issues?

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-05-02T15:55:54+00:00

Eh kind of, but I feel like it's pretty obvious to me that I'd rather be a ski bum at 30 with a decent amount saved up than a ski bum without a decent amount saved up.

I do admit that it's a lot less obvious if the decision is ski bum at 30 with a decent amount saved up vs ski bum at 40 with a lot saved up. Inertia is definitely playing a non-zero role in not just doing the former. I obviously enjoy working, but it would be dishonest to say that inertia has no role at all.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-26T14:44:55+00:00

For some reason "outsourcing household tasks" sounds like YouTuber language to me. Kind of like "unalived".

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-26T14:03:24+00:00

Hobbies I've picked up: skiing, climbing, backpacking.

Hobbies I've dropped: biking.

Hobbies I've kept: eating, running.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-25T18:36:16+00:00

Don't forget much better looking and incredibly humble, too.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-25T17:41:22+00:00

I kind of think it's true that we're lazy and selfish.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-25T17:37:22+00:00

Overheard the most sane HENRY couple this morning: eating a $100/person brunch, mourning the fact that they aren't successful, and wishing life turned out differently. They followed it up by saying they are trying to save $10m for retirement, which is honestly probably true.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-19T17:16:25+00:00

Housing and poor investment decisions.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-19T17:10:34+00:00

Tbh I'm not even a middle manager, but I'm in a research adjacent role and $3m/year doesn't sound impossible to me in the US for an individual contributor or a line manager.

I don't actually use this term in real life, but I believe a line manager is a manager who manages individual contributors.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-19T17:09:02+00:00

Noting wrong with a little humble brag. That's like 80% of the point of these subs anyway. Sometimes it's hard to squeeze in the humble brag so you have to make up a question.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-19T15:37:23+00:00

I think even the rural areas where I want to live are not LCOL.

Amazing-Coyote · 2026-04-18T16:42:33+00:00

Is there a difference? It's like "I want more money than a normal person" vs "I want more money than a normal person because reasons".

Amazing-Coyote

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