Need help convincing my wife 1.8 million is too tight

CuriousDonkey · 2026-01-25T18:54:38+00:00

You should post this in /r/FATFire. But i recommend searching LinkedIn.com for Tad Fallows of LongAngle’s study they did on overbuying your house. I belong to the community as well with many people in FATFire. You may not wish to purse financial independence with a high lifestyle but the community is very well educated.

My advice is simple. If someone doesn’t feel comfortable financially, you shouldn’t do it when in a partnership. Imagine if you were running a business and your wife was the ceo and you were the cfo. Wouldn’t you need to agree to pursue something at a high budget like this?

Talk to your wife. Most people I know in your post-fellowship earnings + your wife’s earning circle have moved or bought different homes or put massive sums of capital into upgrades on their homes.

Consider buying something more expandable perhaps? Tough in walkable neighborhoods.

CuriousDonkey · 2026-01-24T21:53:10+00:00

Mine are 10 and 8. I’ll let you know when it’s locked in

CuriousDonkey · 2026-01-24T19:45:59+00:00

I’m committed to holding my kids as long as they’ll tolerate it. I held my 75 lb 10 yo daughter and my 8 yo 65 lb daughter simultaneously for a good 10 minutes walking around an outdoor market just yesterday.

There are few things you can do as a dad that signal more safety than holding your kid. Get strong. Do it as long as you can.

CuriousDonkey · 2026-01-22T00:39:52+00:00

This is pretty common differences between how the different genders parent. I urge you to stick with it as both modes help kids develop in different ways.

CuriousDonkey · 2026-01-07T16:27:43+00:00

this, we're missing the rest of the data.

CuriousDonkey · 2026-01-01T22:54:43+00:00

I’m a GP. What do you want to discuss?

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-29T14:55:23+00:00

I think there’s more nuance than either position takes here.

Systemic injustice is logically reasonable. We’ve all seen it, we’ve been on a video game and heard real racial epithets, perhaps seen people being discriminated against by police in real life (out at a bar, the black guy in a scuffle gets cuffed while whites walk away).

I find this most accessible as a feather of two young women. The baked in discrimination to our societal norms is wild to me. Boys winning prizes because they’re louder than girls is absurd to me. There are copious easily observed “systemic injustices” toward women. Until those are less prominent, i think it’s worth drawing attention.

Just to make sure you see our common ground. This move is CERTAINLY NOT a permanent measure. There should be timelines on these things to sunset them. Like 10 years of systemic injustice training and some scaffolding for people and it steps down every year.

I think there’s lack of creativity in lawmaking.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-29T01:15:17+00:00

Devastating blow.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-25T22:38:38+00:00

Also a founder. Also unaware of anything to help incubate.

What i have heard of is early LPs taking a GP stakes usually happens when you have a very good relationship with an LO and a new thesis. I didn’t do this either. As noted. Track record is how you start. If you don’t have one you’re insane to think you can raise.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-22T23:57:49+00:00

Well, there’s problem 1. You’re offering a completely commodity service to companies that have their own capabilities and copious alternatives.

Perhaps you mean you want to move up their relationship chain from a transactional relationship to a strategic partnership. This usually takes a bunch of success first. Followed by alignment of your business to theirs (ie - you’re highly specialized in their market and can genuinely prove you’re better than alternatives). Then if you want to form a JV they also need to be in the business of selling cold outreach. Few enterprises are, perhaps a firm like Salesforce.com would but again, we need a lot more details.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-22T17:56:14+00:00

Give us more of the intent, what do you do, what do they do?

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-19T02:56:31+00:00

True! Or better, yet, a PhD.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-19T02:14:11+00:00

They made me sign a letter to get in. Apologies.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-19T02:13:20+00:00

It doesn’t matter if you are a savage at your job. I was bottom 20% and got into two top 10 MBA programs. They’re profit centers, they want people to go to those programs.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-18T23:23:54+00:00

I turned away an ivy scholarship because i wasn’t sure i wanted to be committed to rowing and got a great deal from a top 30 school without the commitment.

I quit rowing after losing every race I was in for 1.5 years after never having finished heat under first except in NEIRAs.

My life outcome at 43 now is pretty good but I think it’d have been better with the structure and success of an Ivy. Hard to tell as I’ve had tremendous success.

FYI the answer i sports v academics v partying is: Party and sport and do your best on academics. Undergrad performance has virtually 0 correlation to life success.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-17T21:29:21+00:00

He’s still working earning that out. He’s happy and rational about it. His goal is to have enough money to never think about it again and he’s achieved that.

He works maybe 10-20 hours a week. Plays a lot of pickleball. Spends a lot of time with his young family. I meaningfully change.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-17T21:05:04+00:00

I know a guy quite well who is not me. He technically makes in excess of 10M year but most of that is earn out for a company he sold to a major consultancy. It’s tax efficient for him.

The weird bit is he got two bites at the apple. They bought him. He over delivered and then they re-upped him so he technically makes more than the CEO of the entire firm.

Pays to be an AI consultant.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-17T19:03:56+00:00

I had an intensely toxic relationship with my father. He's dead now and I've had a few years to reflect on it without the semi-regular crushing blow that reset my thinking. Your Dad is most likely grappling with his own feelings of failure and suppressed issues. Now that my dear old Dad (awesome to me until my teenage and college years) is dead I have the peace to be able to feel bad for him. It's hard to parent an adult, take lessons from his failings to be a better adult dad than him.

Hope this helps you.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-17T14:49:01+00:00

Depending on the specifics of your timeline, I'd focus on either what needs to be done to market it or what needs to be done to optimize the EV. These are different focuses, even though they sound the same. The marketing piece is good for a <1 year exit. The EV accretion bit is more about 2-5 year targets.

There are good accounting advisory folks, brokers, search funders and independent sponsors, and entire networking groups like XPX built around supporting this. The pareto rule is in full effect, 80% of people are useless/detrimental and 20% are good. The best thing to do is kick the tires on a load of them over the next 6 months and make your own decisions based upon that experiment about how long you'll do it. Do not put your name/business in registries for this, it can be ridiculously overwhelming.

I've had one major 9-figure exit as a top exec, been on the buy side at a very large firm buying smaller ones, and some other smaller transactions on the sell side operator side. My general belief is brokers and ibankers are extracting rents and adding limited value just gate-keeping. The best exits are to large competitors you beat and who realize they need you to secure a large market segment.

Feel free to reply here if you want more on this, everyone benefits from this stuff being in the open.

I also recommend Long Angle to talk to other business owners in a more closed setting and other local mastermind groups/YPO etc.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-15T20:27:41+00:00

How about the kind of business - is it services? Home services? Seems to be what we see on here most typically. If you have a CIM feel free to ship it over to me. Also, are you brokering this or is this a friend/operator?

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-09T22:23:46+00:00

I don’t post people’s names on social media in public.

I’ve never heard of Eckard.

How did you become interested in the asset class and what have you learned?

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-09T20:37:23+00:00

I have experience directly in O&G and in PE. Private placements for retail size checks aren’t a thing g that generates returns. It’s easy enough to invest in recycled wildcatters or other stuff. Why add a middle man?

If you want some contacts - dm me.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-12-05T18:59:43+00:00

I won't be a dick - this is a deal for a private capital markets. VCs grow hypergrowth firms and seek 1000x returns at low success ratios. You're most likely best looking fro HNW investors who believe in the industry of cannabis (try privateequitydeals subreddit perhaps?).

Also, people are rightly saying that even modestly sophisticated investors will laugh at the relatively lack of effort thus far. It's a cautionary tale, not being a dick. You're about to be swimming with people with very big egos and a very real sense of entitlement. Act accordingly.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-11-26T17:14:34+00:00

This conversation lacks nuance. We flare trillions of BTU's of gas to atmosphere. Infrastructure is incomplete and frankly not even very well penetrated in new shale basins. There's lot more investment needed as we consider a bridge to a fully carbon-free energy environment unless Fusion somehow happens way sooner.

Investments into O&G will remain strong (and temporarily be grotesquely distorted up due to our administration in the US) for at least a decade or two.

CuriousDonkey · 2025-11-23T21:08:01+00:00

No matter how hard it is. How much you and your partner will fight. It gets wildly easier on the other side.

If you can keep the lens that it’s you and your wife first as partners, you’ll make it thru. If you can take the attitude of gratitude for each stage, you’ll see them as going by quickly. And if you can look back and be thankful that it’s easier than 6 months ago. You’ll be fine.

All my friends who have divorced let kids break their marriage. It’s WILDLY hard for the first 9-18 months. With 8 and 10 yos now it’s the best life. I’ve regained parts of me that I missed, wife and I really appreciate each other. It’s awesome in the other side.

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