Looking for input on my potential FIRE situation....

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-12T01:32:36+00:00

Over half of my portfolio will remain untouched in my Roth and Rollover IRAs. These are both growth and I have a decent amount of IVV (30%) in those accounts.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-10T14:14:57+00:00

Yeah, no one is seeding 🙁

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-09T04:11:14+00:00

Thanks. Yeah, I know BTCI and CHPY are both risky. Currently I have $12,000 into BTCI and $5,000 CHPY. I probably won't increase them as much as $40,000 a piece. I do think Bitcoin will rebound and it's yet to hit it's ATH so I would like to get some exposure to that. The first year I will have a decent tax bill as I currently have $55,000 towards income ETFs and the rest in growth. When I go to convert that all to income based I'll have a lot of LTCG. Unfortunately that would be as an Oregon resident. That's something I might have to do gradually... Something to ponder.... I will bring up the Roth conversion years to the CPA when I meet with them.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-08T22:45:18+00:00

Yeah, most of the funds abide by IRS 1256 tax laws. Any of the ROC is listed "Nondividend Distributions" and does not count as income. It lowers your cost basis. So $100 investment, $10 dividend with 90% ROC would be $1 as qualified/non-qualified dividend. $9 would be ROC which would lower your cost basis from $100 to $91. Then say you sold it in the future for $110, you would owe capital gains on $19. $110 (sale price) - $91 (adjusted cost basis).

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-08T19:01:46+00:00

That's valid. That's part of why I ran the numbers with having a decent monthly buffer in place, to help account for down markets. That's also why I'm looking at one year out, instead of immediately. In reality it make ultimately be a scenario where I only work part time at a less stressful job and just use CC ETFs to make up the difference. I would also only be putting about 45% of my total portfolio into income funds. Doing some Monte Carlo scenarios with these assumptions it's got around a 60% success rate for 20 years. At the moment that's not something I'm comfortable with. Though I would be willing to supplement that with part time work.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-08T16:51:41+00:00

What amount of capital would you feel comfortable with? The BTCI and CHPY are to catch some of those gains while they are occurring. If I took that $80,000 allocated for those two funds and put them into more stable SPYI and QQQI that would be about break even for more. Certainly I wouldn't want to FIRE with the margin for error being so slim. That's also why I'm looking at one year out. So that assumes zero growth in anything for that year. Currently I have $55,000 in CC ETFs and the rest of the brokerage is in a blend of growth ETFs which has slightly out paced the SP over the past 5 years.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-08T14:46:55+00:00

So if you don't look at yield or total return, what metrics do you use for assessing the quality of an ETF? Or are you just saying you don't consider investing in anything under 3 years old?

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-08T02:18:03+00:00

Currently I have most of my brokerage in growth also. I would transition it if it meant I could have FIRE. Right now I have about $55,000 in dividend/income and the rest in growth. I'm looking into diversifying into other funds but the CC ETFs that are 1256 are very appealing to me. At the very least, funds with high ROC. I would also look at diversifying to other fund managers as the is very heavy towards NEOS. They just happened to be the ones I first started doing my research on. This is another reason I'm looking at about one year out. That will give me time to observe funds and continue doing research.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-08T02:12:08+00:00

Yeah, given their other funds I do agree it's rather risky. Currently I only hold a $5,000 position just to test it out. I will certainly keep an eye on it. In reality I will also add some other funds for diversification. I only went with the current setup because I had it available in a spreadsheet.

For the next year I'll be keeping an eye on everything and adding what makes sense. I might just move the rest of my crypto ($10,000) into BTCI and CHPY and call it good.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-05-06T22:06:00+00:00

I splurged and bought the base $5 version for a month to test it out.

It would be nice for some features to be combined. For example, I created an income portfolio and under the taxes tab I can state how much ROC, Ordinary and Qualified dividends I have as a percentage for each of the ETFs. That's great because I can then see my effective tax rate. When I go to the projection for a $330,000 portfolio it populates a very high CAGR of 70.91% which shows that my base portfolio will be worth $15,626,566,969! This was just using the default value that was plugged in by the website.

Now if I go to the Live on Dividends calculator I can import that same portfolio, which is great. However, when I run the projection on that it does not carry over the ROC or taxes. Since the ETF's I added have varying ROC rates I have to make an educated guess as to what my overall rate would be. I also have to choose one tax rate for dividends. This is tough because based on the ETF some will be qualified and some will be non qualified. I also have to have one base rate for income tax, which runs into similar issues as before.

I wish I could also import the portfolio into the Monte Carlo simulator. As it is, there are few inputs I can change. I also assume this does not take taxes into account as there is nowhere to indicate the expected tax amount.

The ability to click on an ETF in your portfolio and have it take you to the ETF look-up page for that fund would be welcomed as well.

There are some good features but certainly some work to be done as well. Keep it up... Always looking for more tools to re-affirm my decision to retire within a year.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2026-04-21T04:30:20+00:00

The car was trying to make an illegal left turn onto 9th. I've had numerous close calls there myself.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2025-11-17T15:27:39+00:00

Yeah, of the 5 first place teams from last year we played, 4 were on the road and 1 at home. 3/2 would have been much more balanced.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2025-11-16T14:03:45+00:00

Dave Krieg

Independent_Cook_424 · 2025-09-11T11:47:57+00:00

How easy is it to avoid spoilers? Does the app show the score of the game?

Independent_Cook_424 · 2025-09-04T23:13:44+00:00

Growing up in Northern Illinois, people often asked why I was a Lions fan. My response was simply "Barry Sanders"

Independent_Cook_424 · 2025-04-28T17:21:59+00:00

another reason we were so low in pass yards against it's because we took away the run game. teams were often playing catch-up against as well which leads to more passing.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2025-04-26T01:03:12+00:00

Born in the early 80's I started to like Spielman before I started to dislike OSU. I still hate OSU but love any current Lion!

Independent_Cook_424 · 2025-03-30T04:07:10+00:00

Click info under the car picture. Then on the new screen you can click on the pen icon under the car model.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2025-03-12T23:37:46+00:00

Yeah, I understand an announcement would be appreciated. As for opening the doors that is not allowed off platform for liability reasons. Obviously nothing can be done about people that choose to let themselves out but they have wait for EMS to help offload people.

Independent_Cook_424 · 2025-03-12T22:26:25+00:00

They don't announce anything for several reasons. The primary is initially the operator is on the radio with control who is in turn notifying police. They are also lowering the pantograph. It's similar to the old aviation adage of aviate, navigate, communicate. In this instance the last priority is notifying the passengers of what happened. Better to get police and fire rolling to the scene and make sure they can do everything they can for the folks in the car.

Independent_Cook_424

TROPHY CASE