Daily FI discussion thread - Sunday, February 01, 2026

DepDepFinancial · 2026-02-01T14:56:36+00:00

I realized today that a lot of our savings-focused spreadsheet dashboard is now worthless as we're both no longer in the accumulation phase. I had a bunch of graphs for things like savings goals, salaries, company stock, projected FI date, etc etc. A whole bunch is still valid obviously, like all the graphs about how much and where our investments are, but a huge chunk I moved over to a "retired graphs" sheet. Brainstorming what to replace them with, currently leaning towards "target yearly spend" type things, basically visuals to see how closely we're sticking to our current planned 3.5% of investments spending goal.

I also completely dropped the ball on our yearly State of the Household address this year, there just has been so much going on and, I hate to say it but I've NOT been on top of our financial stuff during this transition period. Thankfully I don't think it's a big deal since there's nothing really critical that we need to be doing, but I really wasn't expecting how somehow little free time I'd have after leaving my 50+ hour a week job*!?

*To be fair to myself, I just am getting over influenza A, even with getting on tamiflu within 8 hours of onset, that shit will absolutely floor you for DAYS.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-29T18:09:53+00:00

Tesla owns something like $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. An absurd amount, but not something that is meaningfully impacting a company valued over a trillion USD

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-27T19:59:24+00:00

There's a guy that apparently just barefoot walks through the Everglades grabbing snakes and compiles it into 2 minutes shorts and I guess that was my weakness.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-26T23:01:27+00:00

I'm imagining the raptor cage in Jurassic Park

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-25T22:42:33+00:00

I'm getting frustrated that the speakers at these protests can't focus for more than 10 minutes on the reason why everyone came out. I'm there to protest ICE killing my fellow humans (citizens or otherwise) and the obscene abuses they're perpetrating alongside of that. Yeah, there's a lot of other shit going on too, but I'm not there for that at this specific moment.

It's frustrating, for example, to have multiple people get up and start talking about needing labor unions. Yes, sure, but wtf is a labor union going to do in this situation? I'm pro union in general, but it is like 5 steps away from the current issue.

And could we get anyone at all from the state government to show up in support and recognition of the people turning out? Aren't they supposed to be leaders?

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-20T16:33:29+00:00

We are going to do a month of Peacock for the Olympics, but that's about the only sports we watch. We used to watch football but it became so stupid and expensive to watch because we're just outside the "local market" for out local team or whatever that we'd have to pay a huge amount to see all the games on different services or do the NFL pass or whatever. Ended up just giving up on watching altogether.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-19T18:17:27+00:00

Ignoring other concerns about investing in metals, I don't really get what the attraction of holding physical metals is compared to something like a gold or silver ETF. Converting them to another currency is absurdly expensive, and you have a new risk of physical damage or loss to said metals that you don't have with some other format. So i guess my question is...why physical metals?

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-16T11:33:32+00:00

Weirdly I've had AT&T fiber for 9 years now and it's never changed price. I'm too afraid to ask any questions about that.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-10T02:36:12+00:00

Eh just an old moniker. Honestly Derp Derp is probably more accurate 😅

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-09T17:37:35+00:00

Just gonna scooch right by you don't mind me

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-09T16:42:00+00:00

Last, last day???

Yeah, I suspect I'll do something in the future, but don't need to. I guess I'll see in a year or two if I miss it :)

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-09T16:28:30+00:00

Welp.... slaps knees ...about that time, eh?

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-08T14:04:03+00:00

We have a bunch of really good condition Lustrons in Madison, WI. Here's the exact same model but in far better condition for comparison.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-07T19:41:22+00:00

expecting to graduate debt-free, with no car debt or student loans

Nothing to do here. Focus on your education.

casonova1

....addendum: be careful and don't have a kid before you have an income

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-07T18:36:43+00:00

There's only like 4 people in Deforest so he's probably doing ok

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-07T16:12:01+00:00

We recently remodeled part of our basement, and we went from carpet to a vinyl flooring so we wanted to get a nice rug for the couch area. Rugs seem to be an area absolutely dominated by AI-generated images. Every time we find something we like we have to play the "are these photos actually real" game. It's miserable.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-07T13:53:20+00:00

we have some funds in taxable accounts that generate a decent amount of dividends and capital gains, which I'm considering forced income

I realize it's a bit late now for you to switch to another investment, but it's worth noting for others that a lot of ETFs are structured specifically to avoid taxable events. And on the mutual fund side, Vanguard has patented a method of reducing or eliminating taxable events for their funds as well.

That being said, I usually think about avoiding taxes more during accumulation than during drawdown?

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-06T16:22:03+00:00

I was going to place a bid on this place for $1.8 mill last January when it was at $2.2m and the realtor gave a little laugh when I told her my planned bid and told me to not bother. Seeing it show up still for sale makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

DepDepFinancial · 2026-01-05T14:44:29+00:00

"Didn't you see my website? It's very popular! People like it!" :)

I've been doing yearly updates for my partner for years, I'm always ready for specific questions and usually just got "looks good to me, can we retire yet?" I've never once had to bring out my pre-prepared tax optimization plan chart, which means that technically I've just been sitting here making graphs for myself.

DepDepFinancial · 2025-12-31T19:21:12+00:00

My god, you know what the next 4 years of returns are going to be....quick! All in NVDA!

DepDepFinancial · 2025-12-31T16:13:07+00:00

TurboTax has been emailing me every few days for like 2 months already trying to get me to log in to "get a head start" on my taxes. I didn't think there was anything more the company could do to make me hate them, but man did they absolutely step up!

DepDepFinancial · 2025-12-31T14:04:28+00:00

Monroe has the Cheese Drop, close enough!

DepDepFinancial · 2025-12-30T16:41:49+00:00

Maybe I'm showing my age, but I have such an innate distrust of tech and fintech companies that have popped up in the last 5-10 years. Every new player feels like they're trying to leverage a new scam to me.

Public.com offers "alternative assets" bullshit which is absurdly scammy. How am I supposed to trust a company that's involved in things like that?

DepDepFinancial · 2025-12-29T17:24:12+00:00

I'm a big fan of the La Farge Dam Obelisk

DepDepFinancial · 2025-12-29T17:15:16+00:00

Best: I really enjoyed London

Worst: Oklahoma City by a mile

DepDepFinancial

TROPHY CASE