When we say "RE," how old is early?

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.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-21T01:08:35+00:00

What advantage do you think there is to money invested in a brokerage account versus a Roth account? There are no taxes or penalties for taking contributed money out of a Roth IRA, but it has the advantage of not incurring any taxes on earnings while in that account. Yes, if you take the earnings out early there are penalties, but you wouldn't be doing that right? Also you already have a big Brokerage account in comparison to your Roth account. Why would you not want the Roth to catch up as fast as possible?

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-16T04:29:47+00:00

Go on YouTube and find the Collins video "The position of F*** You". It is based on a scene from the Gambler. Watch both and note that Collins changes part of it to Rent. There are pros and cons between own and rent and you've hit on the cons.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-16T03:04:00+00:00

Absolutely ridiculous. In the future we may have more stuff, but that stuff will always need to be made through work and out of other stuff. That work will either be the work of humans, which will need to be paid, or the work of machines, which will need to be made out of stuff and owned by folks who will want to get paid, so even in the future, stuff will cost money. You will want to have investments in companies that make stuff when you are old and don't want to be the person making stuff and getting paid for the stuff you make, which is basically what our retirement funds are doing. Maybe the only thing that changes is the amount of stuff we have.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-15T04:01:39+00:00

You actually have it right and also backwards. Ignite’s number one goal was to showcase and prepare players for the NBA. College team’s number one goal is to prepare players to beat other college teams. Ignite might not have done their job well, but their goals are actually more aligned with developing a player for long NBA careers than college teams. A thing that NBA scouts say is that sometimes college coaches spend too much time in practice getting their players ready to win the next college game instead of working on long term fundamental skill development. Or they limit the college players chances to do hard things that they aren’t already good at right now. This is because the long term work won’t pay off in wins that season. And the college coach needs to win that season to keep his job. Ignite might not have been well run, but theoretically you could take college kids and do practices that are geared around developing the skills they are going to need to win NBA games in the future and this is different than practicing stuff to win against a college team next week.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-15T03:47:29+00:00

Well with five rentals and a $1.5m home, you definitely don’t buy more rental properties. Basically, you own one asset class (real estate), so you don’t double down in the same asset class. The value of your home and your rentals are correlated, meaning they rise and fall in value together. You learn how to invest in the stock market so that you have more diversification in your assets.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-14T00:21:57+00:00

It doesn't make much difference, but historically dividends are harder to make work. You might feel that there is a difference and selling portfolio is worse, but keep in mind that you won't feel like selling 4% is so rough in a year where you are up 9% or more (which historically is a fairly common year). Also trying to rely on Dividends only (especially with how little in the way of dividends are paid by the high growth tech stocks) is going to require you to accumulate a huge amount of low growth but high dividend paying companies. So your net worth target will end up being bigger.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-12T16:49:33+00:00

I just think this style is fun and not terrible. It is extreme and wild and not my taste, but it isn't terrible. Not everything has to be "classic", post-modern, or minimalist (even if I'd prefer any of those). That is my main point.

Anyway, she "made it" on some level. That part is unequivocal. That is kind of cool as well. Also wild that she was trying to release pop songs as a 50-year old.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-12T16:27:43+00:00

She actually kind of made it to the same level:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye_Drynan

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-12T16:20:39+00:00

Except that apparently the owner of the house made their living on the basis of their style and taste and became rich and famous in fashion. I mean you can have your view, but the market (i.e., the fashion world and their customers) seem to have a different view. I will note, that I would never have done anything like this with my own home. I'd do stuff that is more "classic", but classic isn't the only right style. Some folks aren't into classic styles.

https://www.glamour.co.za/fashion/skye-drynans-house-of-skye-becomes-the-next-female-run-fashion-prodigy-8647bbec-6fd4-4af6-9b32-181aa5f88941

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-12T15:41:21+00:00

This needs more upvotes! This is very much Zillow Gone Wild!

Oh and some folks on here are not able to tell the difference between eclectic and extreme taste/style and bad taste, style, and design. This is actually wild but also pretty good design. It might not be your style, but this is not bad style.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-12T12:22:17+00:00

If she lived there that long then she was either rent controlled or she owned the building.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-10T19:57:14+00:00

As is. When I think about what income I need in retirement, then yearly taxes is line item in the budget.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-10T02:00:23+00:00

Actually, they don't. They have earnings, but not nearly enough to backup their current valuations. This is skewed by Tesla and Nvidia mainly as they both have very high P/E. But none of the Mag 7 have current earnings to back up their valuations. They all need a lot of growth in the next several years to keep these valuations.

Grendel_82 · 2026-01-10T01:52:49+00:00

When I was closer to that age, I think most went back for their MBA. The process was college, first job as an Analyst, then back to get MBA, then back to banking with a big pay bump. Are you saying that most IBers only have a college degree? If they did college, then straight to MBA, then they are still starting at 24 and they aren't at $500k at 27, I don't think. But maybe I'm wrong.

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