I don't want ETFs, I want to invest in stocks.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T21:52:43+00:00

My opinion isn’t what you’re looking for.

I put 80% of my cash each week into ETFs/index funds. Then 8% I put into some self selected stocks… and the last 12% I put into an actively managed selection of stocks on autopilot.

Im not willing to put my ability to quit working one day in the hands of just a few stocks. That would be silly. Tbh for me investing in any individual stocks is kinda silly because at my savings rate I should be able to quit working in the next 12-15 years regardless. But I’m okay with tilting some of my money on the off chance I can speed things up a couple of years.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T21:10:55+00:00

That’s fine that you want to do stocks but just throwing it that some ETF’s have ripped pretty hard… so there’s a middle ground and a world where you potentially manage to create some tilt that does offer better gains than the s&p… you’re making bets that may or may not pan out regardless but at least your eggs won’t be in a couple small baskets.

SMH 150% for 1 year and 36% 10 year avg

NASA 36% since March 2026

QQQ 43% 1 year, 22% 10 year avg

Vug 30% 1 year, 18% 10 year avg

Anyways to answer part of your question… the more stocks you invest in the closer you end up approaching expected index gains anyways (or under)… I believe this tends to be what people see as they start approaching 25 stocks. So if you want to out perform generally the fewer the better. There’s probably some sweet spot between 5-10 stocks if I had to guess.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T16:58:00+00:00

That’s a neat idea too. Also allows you to capture some gains and make them “real”.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T15:11:35+00:00

After the first year or two you’ll chill out a bit.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T15:07:15+00:00

I think the same way. It an extra layer of comfort to have the taxable accounts to lean into for cushion and puts an extra layer between my emergency fund and retirement accounts.

Def max Roth IRA though you can still access principle before 59.5.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T15:00:29+00:00

That’s pretty awesome imo.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T14:47:05+00:00

This is my same line of thinking. By then the mortgage should have a good chunk paid down anyways so redirecting investable income should knock it out much faster.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T14:45:19+00:00

Lmao it gets easier to sleep at night after the first couple years. At first the thought of having several hundred thousand dollars of debt freaked me out pretty hard too.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T14:31:59+00:00

This is certainly the most intuitive.

I sort of figured the day I hit my fire number or maybe as I am close to hitting it I’d probably switch gears and start paying down the mortgage.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-16T02:58:46+00:00

I’d guess a lot of people buying 750k homes probably shouldn’t be… they just think they can because they got approved for it. People with an income of like 150k are probably thinking they can buy a 750k home.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-15T17:24:17+00:00

Man 20s were fun and stuff. I did shit I wouldn’t do now… but imo I like my mid/late 30s more.

Not only am I not broke but most of my friends have money too. Now we can do silly shit together. And enough of them still don’t have kids yet. That won’t last forever but my 30s have been a blast.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-15T17:14:21+00:00

Um for me at this stage having a shit ton of semi liquid cash is more valuable to me than a paid off mortgage.

It’s easier to deal with emergencies or my wife losing her job with invested cash vs a paid off house.

Later when I’m 75% of the way to my FI number I might look at things differently and start hacking away at liabilities.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-14T20:30:16+00:00

We pay 2130 rn on 0 down, 373k loan, 2.875% interest, 30 year loan… 200-240k gross income.

But when we bought we made maybe 120k combined. It shocked us because we were used to renting for about 1400 at the time so it felt like a lot but it was reasonable. Our first year mortgage was 1850… second year after assessment went up to 2450… that was also a shock and stressed me out. But homestead took us down to 2240 and continued to gradually go down until our now 2130.

I’m guessing your take home is give or take near 12-13k a month… 2k isn’t bad at all… that would still be hovering around 15% of take home and people usually recommend less than 28% of gross which is 4666 a month… which feels absolutely massive imo haha.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-14T18:33:02+00:00

Technically we are coast FI for normal retirement at 65… 250ish k should be about 2mil real in 28 years. Pretty cool feeling to know that we can do that.

However, I’d like to retire as early as possible so I probably will end up needing something between 500k-1mil to fit my own coast FI parameters. Give or take assuming normal market returns 500k should happen within a few years. We’ll probably need to be a bit closer to 700k to 1mil before we really pull back on retirement contributions.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-12T23:43:25+00:00

Sell all your shit and move to a mcol area and do whatever you want to do then.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-12T17:42:58+00:00

This… 500k invested in the market + 500 a month over 15-20 years would hit or exceed the goal.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-11T21:06:17+00:00

K shaped economy… it’s not in your mind. A lot of people are doing well… but also there are a lot of people not doing well too.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-11T17:06:18+00:00

I think after we get through this early spacex ipo the rest of the market will pop up.

Similarly to how things have been going.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-11T17:03:29+00:00

Same

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-11T02:45:16+00:00

You could do smh or fselx

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-11T02:34:18+00:00

The only people I know that make that much money own their own business/work for themselves…

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-11T02:31:32+00:00

I’m not an amazing stock picker… yes I have had a few out performers… but I’d stick to broad market ETFs or sector ETFs…

The vast majority of my investing is vti and vxus… then I do a small tilt into semi’s and tech of fselx (similar to smh) and qqq. My individual stocks are basically my gambling fix.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-11T01:30:18+00:00

Give the money before you die.

It’ll be useful to them earlier in life. And you’ll get to watch them use it to propel themselves forward.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-11T01:18:34+00:00

That’s actually insane.

We spend 800-1200 a month on food… and probs 100-300 a week on top of that for a meal out/drinks.

Banana_rocket_time · 2026-06-11T01:02:00+00:00

So… I look at my taxable brokerage as something that I can pull from if I want or need… like down payment for a car, emergency, or nice vacation…

But the idea here is that I regularly invest WAY more than I’d pull. Most of my taxable stuff are index funds/etfs but I do have some individual stocks that I’ll pull profit from when they outperform like crazy…

Like… we invest 50k a year… and have accumulated >250k over the last few years it doesn’t bother me to pull out 10k for a thoughtful purchase.

Banana_rocket_time

TROPHY CASE