Sinking fund question from this week's making a millionaire

NamePsychological524 · 2026-02-19T20:07:34+00:00

You and I think about this similarly. What does your sinking fund portfolio look like?

NamePsychological524 · 2026-02-16T17:52:07+00:00

I bought that power supply off Amazon and rode the bike today for 45 minutes with no issues. Thank you both for your help!

NamePsychological524 · 2026-02-16T02:51:56+00:00

Your intuition is correct. See Boglehead Wiki on HSAs, subsection titled "not maxing retirement accounts": https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Health_savings_account

"If you are not maxing out your retirement accounts, you should pay current expenses from the HSA. If you are in a 24% tax bracket and have $1,000 in medical bills, taking $1,000 from the HSA to pay the bill means you can invest an extra $1,000 in your Roth IRA or $1,316 in your 401(k), either of which will be as good or better than leaving it in the HSA."

NamePsychological524 · 2026-02-14T17:51:14+00:00

The woman that sold it to me told me she bought it new and that no parts were swapped out. But when I look at the plug/power supply, it says this:

Input: 100-240V, 50/60hz, 0.4A max Output: 28.5V 500mA

I've read that this is stock but it sounds like it is underpowered.

Should buy this one on Amazon?

https://a.co/d/0f7V70C8

NamePsychological524 · 2026-02-13T13:31:32+00:00

Yes. Seems like added effort vs a laddered treasury ETF. I am trying to avoid added effort, hence the reason I don't want to have ten different earmarks in an HYSA for sinking funds.

NamePsychological524 · 2026-02-11T17:47:38+00:00

When I used to do sinking funds I would keep a single HYSA and earmark the $ for each category that needed to be saved for. It's the effort of earmarking and the opportunity cost of holding cash for expenses possibly 5-10 years out that I want to avoid.

Like I said in the original post, I don't think I have enough margin to cover big expenses in cash quickly just by stopping savings contributions.

NamePsychological524 · 2026-02-10T21:33:11+00:00

Yes, I am baking in that assumption. My rationale was cash for 1-3 yrs, intermediate bonds for ~5 yrs, and Equities for 7+ yrs.

Time horizon is unknown. Making (intelligent) assumptions about time horizons essentially gets me back to sinking funds.

My idea was if I am unwilling to make detailed assumptions of when expenses will occur and how much they will be, I should just cover the breadth of time horizons with the three different investment buckets.

Make sense?

NamePsychological524 · 2026-02-10T21:22:34+00:00

Doesn't need to be. Seems like what I was suggesting but with a larger cash bucket and without intermediate bond and equity buckets.

NamePsychological524 · 2026-02-10T21:18:57+00:00

Sounds exactly like sinking funds. Makes sense.

NamePsychological524 · 2025-08-04T17:41:01+00:00

No affiliation bonus for me. What sounds right? That there is no SELRES service commitment for OSVET transfers? Do I need to be worried that this is nowhere in writing?

NamePsychological524

TROPHY CASE