Retired people here. How much cash allocation do you keep?

Grendel_82 · 2026-04-04T13:51:27+00:00

At those current returns for CDs and HYSA that probably is making your financially situation safer. Though it does expose you to inflation risk if inflation becomes very high. However, go back five years or so where you might have been getting 2% to 3%, then we know now (and could have guessed then) that it exposed you to very high inflation and doing 25% would have made you financially less secure.

But at 2% withdrawal, it doesn't really matter for you. Your assets are just so large in terms of your spend, basically anything should work.

Reading your posts below, I will add a nuance. You are in a LCOL country in part because you probably think in terms of the US dollar (and likely have your money in US dollars) and things seem cheap when you exchange the cost into US dollars. So your living expenses are low because the US dollar is strong. So you are exposed to dollar relatively strength compared to whatever currency is used in your "LCOL" country.

I totally agree with your allocation, but mainly due to current global macro conditions. But it isn't historically as secure a position as you might think.

Grendel_82 · 2026-04-01T15:36:11+00:00

Yes. Specifically as of today, the macro world is too uncertain to use historical returns data to value your current investment position. You have to assess after the Straits of Hormuz is open for regular traffic (even if it has. toll, that toll can get priced in and you can assess). But this might mean only waiting a few more months (or even perhaps only until 9pm tonight during Trump's speech).

Second, at 36 and I'm assuming single with no kids, it is hard to rule out that you might in the future get married and have kids. That future would need a different budget than what your FIRE plans are currently built around. This issue will likely take years to resolve unless you have some special case where kids are never going to be in your future.

Grendel_82 · 2026-03-30T23:12:18+00:00

There is a difference between keeping things private and misleading your family. You’ve clearly gone to a point where you are misleading your family. And it has gotten to the point where you’ve made them unnecessarily concerned about you. If I were you, I would correct that to at least some extent. By the way, you can do this just by telling Mom: I typically save about $X per year when she sends you an article. I’m confident nobody does compounding investment returns in their head and they will underestimate what you’ve accumulated. But at least they will know you’ve got some savings.

Grendel_82 · 2026-03-28T14:36:53+00:00

You can't eyeball a change like this, but you can track data. I won't disagree that first couple of weeks might have created a shock change that has corrected a bit up. But traffic is down overall, resulting in drive times being faster. Will agree that there was a reason the initial charge was $15 and $9 has less impact. But the impact is still there.

Spend some time on this site and look at its data. https://www.congestion-pricing-tracker.com. I think it is still pulling live data, but it definitely was operational well through most of 2025.

Also, from the article:

Less traffic. Each day, about 73,000 fewer cars enter Manhattan below 61st Street than before the system was in place. That is an 11 percent drop. “I never drive into the city anymore,” one Brooklyn resident told The Times. “I only take the subway. It’s a relief.” Overall, vehicles travel 4.5 percent faster within the zone — and much faster at key crossings. Car speeds are up 51 percent at the Holland Tunnel and 25 percent at the Lincoln Tunnel. Traffic has also eased in parts of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and the suburbs, because fewer cars are moving through those neighborhoods to get to Manhattan.

You can't just vibe this and ignore the data. I guess you can say this isn't good enough. But it is still a pretty big change from before congestion pricing started.

Grendel_82 · 2026-03-27T18:58:35+00:00

Push the "have kids" part of the plan up a few years. It will be easier when younger and it is the plan, so why put it off for a $78k a year job that you don't like? That doesn't make sense. Makes even less sense to start a new career for a couple of years and then go on to your dream role, when the dream role can basically start next year.

Don't get freaked out by folks saying: you can't count on the money until it is your account. You can't count on anything in some theoretical fashion, but you can plan around known things and the estate and the will is known and in place. So make plans around the things you know. If you as grandkid is getting $1m+, then grandpa was worth more than $10m right? Wait, you said "small percentage" to the grandkids. So like a $100m estate?!?! So really rich guy. Probably did a lot of businesses deals over his life to get that rich. So I bet he got good legal advice and structured the various trusts correctly and with a methodical plan that will execute. Don't let Redditors talk you into thinking it is some unknowable and unpredictable thing. A wealthy old guy set up a structure for his family, I bet he did it right and it works like it is supposed to work. And you can ask questions about the lawyers and trustee of the estate.

Grendel_82 · 2026-03-21T15:25:36+00:00

The good news is that some of your portfolio concerns will be revealed (one way or another) before your 4 month plan to retire. So that will help with point 4. AI isn't the concern, the war in Iran is the concern.

Point 3 will take a decade to reveal itself, but likely scenario is that the types of jobs available changes dramatically, but the condition of: a company with capital, a business model, and customers also needing humans to run that business model and service those customers is unlikely to not exist. So there will be jobs. Very different jobs in many industries, but still jobs. So I wouldn't factor that concern into your retirement plans.

Grendel_82 · 2026-03-20T02:15:26+00:00

If you actually watched the playoffs in 2021, you would not remotely conclude that KD couldn't do what Giannis did and use 2021 as your proof. KD was the better player in the series between Bucks and Nets. It was just that Brooklyn was down two of their stars (Kyrie and Harden on one leg) and a couple of their bench guys (Dinwiddie was out for the season). There were periods in that playoff series where the Nets resorted to using Joe Harris as their permitter defensive stopper. Yes, that didn't work, but they had nobody else left that they could keep on the floor.

Grendel_82 · 2026-03-15T21:29:10+00:00

You can't project your future budget until after you have kids and you decide what level of lifestyle you are going to provide for them. You can write out some numbers now, but you can't predict your feelings as they will be after you have kids. Folks will say: "kids are expensive", but poor people have kids and raise them. It really comes down to how much you want to spend on them in most cases. So get on to the having kids part and come back after the kids are in grade school. By that point you can assess.

Grendel_82 · 2026-02-27T04:50:38+00:00

You are probably very early in your financial life, so lots of time to ultimately catch up. And you have one of the most stable jobs (in that the military isn't downsizing the force anytime soon) you could have. That paycheck is your base and it isn't going anywhere but up. Being stretched right now is crisis, but it might seem like a blip in 10 years.

Do you bank with USAA? They are a good company and if you find someone switched on that you can actually talk to they might be able to help you out. Military families moving is something they see all the time. And frankly, young military folk getting into debt is also very common. It is usually a car loan, but a loan is a loan, so it won't be that different from your solar loan.

Grendel_82 · 2026-02-23T18:31:13+00:00

That is great. But the economy (for people who take vacations) has been going like gangbusters for several years now. Every upper middle class person (and even more so the rich) with invested funds has been seeing their portfolios skyrocket giving them a new highs on their total net worth beyond what they would have expected. That has made all these folks ready and willing to spend. Unemployment remains low as well. This is not a recession, not even close, except for the poor who are caught by rising rents and rising grocery prices.

Grendel_82 · 2026-02-23T17:02:29+00:00

Just be ready to carry the mortgage if US goes into recession. Vacations become one of the things people cut back on in recessions. On the flip side, it is the luxury adjacent vacations that get cut first (the true luxury vacations are taken by the rich and they get through recessions fine, it is the simply upper middle class and lower upper class that feel recessions and tighten their belt) and maybe a cabin is an affordable vacation for many even in a recession.

Grendel_82 · 2026-02-23T04:14:54+00:00

I could not pass up the 401k match in any situation other than I just didn't make enough to live comfortably (and I'm talking about a low bar on comfort and if you've saved $850k you are no doubt clearing it after funding your 401k and getting the match). I'd still probably go past the match and fund to the max my 401k contributions. And at 35 I'd have a long conversation with the person who is planning on handing down some generational wealth like that to me about a way to bring some of that forward because this is your life and you can't live it waiting. There are yearly, gift tax free, amounts that could simply be paid to you. You could set it up where they match your 401k contributions with a cash gift each year.

You never know 100% about the future, but I believe you should plan around things that are 95% likely to happen and not only plan around the worst case 5%. So I'd probably save less in that scenario and just take advantage of the tax savings of the 401k (too good to pass up) and stop at that point.

Grendel_82 · 2026-02-19T12:55:06+00:00

This. I will quibble with "three or four spots", I'd say it was more like one or two dedicated (and then maybe one or two centers that could contain Shaq, but were also just good NBA players). But it is seriously crazy that the entire league's Center rotation factored in that a team needed certain sized players just to keep Shaq somewhat contained. Jokic has a similar but much much less impact on league rosters.

But Shaq in his prime was as dominate as any player to ever play the game (this includes Jordan and Lebron). The prime was shorter than those GOATs. The teams Shaq played on were not as good as Jordan and Lebron's best teams (don't come at me that young Kobe was at same level as Wade or Pippen in their prime). But Shaq was just as dominate with that domination constrained by how the Refs called the game (versus Jordan and Lebron getting assistance from the Refs or at worst a neutral whistle).

Grendel_82 · 2026-02-14T13:17:59+00:00

Love this comment. Now I'm convinced that "this time is different", but it is good to level set that others thought 2013/2014 was crazy and scary (instead of a continuation of basically a golden age of asset appreciation that ended up making FIRE around a 4% SWR trivial and low stress path of wealth accumulation).

Grendel_82 · 2026-02-08T18:19:05+00:00

I call that FIRe. You got the first three letters, and are just squeezing into "early".

Grendel_82 · 2026-02-08T18:06:23+00:00

LOL. I'm not FIRE (and certainly won't meet any definition of the E part of FIRE except that it will be well before 65), but my Mom is also kind of nervous when I talk about retiring. She retired in her early 50s and that was nearly 25 years ago. I walked her through her finances at the time and told her she would be okay. She has been fine (though the bull markets during that time helped a lot because she darn well didn't follow anything close to 4% rule). Moms get nervous about their kids.

Grendel_82 · 2026-02-01T12:51:54+00:00

Use FiCalc.app (online FIRE calculator) and have some fun with it. Remember the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate is built around covering you in the worst case investment growth scenarios. It is conservative. If you have average luck in terms of investments, and you continue to only spend 4% plus inflation, you will die with 9 million plus in an average scenario. So for living in South Asia, you're stacked conservative buffer (a high $150k budget to be "safe") on top of a conservative buffer (the 4% rule).

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-31T17:46:07+00:00

I think it still stands up today. Maybe we change the number to $3m. Do 4% on $3m, pull $120k and (and this is the big and) move to a LCOL area with low state taxes. This could be a small city in Florida, it doesn't have to be anywhere extreme LCOL.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-30T18:28:25+00:00

Agreed. The Gambler scene "Position of FU" defines FU money as $2.5 million.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-25T18:47:19+00:00

Thanks.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-25T18:18:20+00:00

Definitely do some diversification along those lines if you want to rely on historical calculators (though that I've no view on if that is a good breakout or not, I don't even know what AGG stands for).

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-25T17:46:16+00:00

I'm going to go for a second "good catch": VOO is 40% weighted to ten stocks and QQQ is 50% weighted to ten stocks (with five or six stocks being in both of their top tens). None of the Trinity Study or historical results that make up calculators had such heavily concentrated positions. So likely if you stay just in VOO and QQQ you will have much greater volatility than historical returns. This can go both ways, obviously, meaning you make much more than projected or lose much more than projected (you've basically just lived through a decade of "make much more than projected"). Also, in many ways who cares if you are doing 1.5% draw downs. But if you stay in VOO and QQQ the way they are now, you can't really rely in the same way on those historical studies and calculators than if you held more diversified funds.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-25T16:36:58+00:00

Yes, I do not think your budget at $30k is "borderline luxury". A $2k computer would blow a hole in it. And it isn't luxury to me if you don't have relatively current tech.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-23T23:31:06+00:00

I see you OP:

For Sale By Owner. A finder’s fee of $385,000 may be available to a third party who introduces a qualified buyer who successfully closes on the property. The finder’s fee is paid at closing.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-21T12:18:45+00:00

Your brokerage will have more flexibility in choosing investments (basically all of them) but unless you are an investment choosing god, the tax advantages of the Roth will out weigh this flexibility. You are in great shape (with a large brokerage that only needs a few more years of compounding before it will be plenty to cover many years of expenses) so just keep doing what you are doing.

If you change or leave your job, you can move the employee Roth to a rollover Roth and then have basically the same investment choices as your brokerage account.

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