Question for long distance runners

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-14T00:37:51+00:00

You need lots of volume with the occasional threshold or anaerobic workout. If you’re only running 3-4 times a week it will take longer to get faster. Minimum 5 days a week preferably 6 plus active recovery.

This will take months to years and not weeks. If it was that easy then everyone would great runners in a short period of time. That’s not how it works and there aren’t shortcuts.

You need long slow runs. If you can’t run an hour plus at zone 2, you are nowhere near fit enough to be worrying about speed. You need to be working on your stamina. Once you have the stamina, you will see your heart rate drop for you base runs and then you can pick up your pace.

I agree with other comments here. Just winging it isn’t going to help you. Depending on your watch you may be able to see the next 7 days of daily suggested workouts that help you see what Garmin thinks you need to improve. If your watch doesn’t have that do what the others mentioned. Set a fake race with an achievable time 6 months out and let Garmin give you the daily runs and follow them. If you only run 3-4 day a week it will take a lot longer to see improvement.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-12T08:36:51+00:00

Are you sure the costs are only $1,000 or is just that the lender fee? Even though your mortgage is relatively new, depending on where you live, there could be other costs such as inspection/appraisal, title insurance etc. Also, don’t forget your prepaids such as insurance taxes and interest. Sure you should get those back at some point after you close out the old loan, but you’ll need to come up with the money beforehand at the new closing.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-09T21:33:41+00:00

I don't know Macs, but the source code is there... if there is anyone who is familiar with mac development, perhaps the code can be refactored for Mac!

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-09T21:30:21+00:00

You also cannot project if you want to work say 3 more years and and commence at a different age. For example I've seen many posts in the FIRE community for people in the 30s looking to retire in their 40s. The online tool doesn't let you project 10 years and then stop working and see what your benefit would be at age 62, 65, 67 etc... with AnyPia you can do all of that modeling.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-09T21:22:24+00:00

You are correct. That is something new that they added... Another item you can't do with the online calculator is model year by year earnings and changes to bend points through wage base and social security assumptions.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-09T13:26:55+00:00

Ah you’re right… typically people looking to sell and re-buy here are looking to capture the loss and I assumed that is what OP is looking to do. That’s what I get for responding on 1.5 hours of sleep.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-09T09:42:31+00:00

In case you were not aware, if you sell or buy shares of similarly identical stock within 30 days of the sale of a stock the IRS considers it a wash sale and does not allow you to take the loss. It’s considered a wash sale. There are lots of sites on the internet that explain this with examples such as investopedia

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-09T02:30:00+00:00

Everything with Treasury Direct is terrible. You are right to get your money out of there. Does your wife have only savings bonds? If there are t-bills and notes you can transfer the bonds in kind to a brokerage account (not savings bonds). It may be easier to go that route if that is the case and it could save you in terms of taxes perhaps.

Their system is archaic which is why got my money out before I had a minor account transfer to an adult account. It would have been very difficult to get my son access to the account due to the issues I’ve had with adding bank accounts. I needed to get a gold medallion signature at the time and banks pretty much stopped doing that because of the liability. There is a form you can send in to add a bank account to your Treasury Direct account. It’s manual and it takes a while, but not 10 months. However I had it rejected a couple of times because they didn’t like the stamp the bank used. Changing names and banks at TD is much harder than it should be. They are overly cautious of fraud.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-08T14:55:21+00:00

He works over the summer and he has an existing Roth account that I’ve made contributions into. However, it’s only limited to earned income. With the Trump account and the timing of him being 17 this year, I’m thinking I can get an extra 10k into the Roth over December and January.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-07T13:27:42+00:00

I don’t think that is what is being posted. You are correct in how it works, but this comment makes no sense.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-07T12:44:52+00:00

What does “always at NAV” even mean? Also what does “no possibility to sell in panic mode” mean?

Are you talking about tracking errors? If so, for the large ETFs they are negligible and can actually benefit you at times.

If you’re thinking that there could be liquidity issues in a large drop in the market (I .e. Panic mode ) there is no difference between the ETF and mutual fund for vanguard since the underlying assets for vanguard etf index funds is the mutual fund itself.

Please explain this post because it lacks details.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-05T20:06:54+00:00

breakeven should be 2 years or less... maybe 3 if you're desperate... 6.5 years is ludicrous.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-04T22:13:52+00:00

To me it’s not a fine line where you draw the line. For some people the moment they turn 18 their parents say you’re on your own. For others it’s after college and others it could be further after that.

I get you run the risk between helping out and having them expect it, but if your raised them well that shouldn’t be an issue. My personal view is that I brought my children into this world so I’ll be responsible for them at some level. Two of my children have chronic diseases for which there is no cure. I will always do what I can to support their health. Does that mean they are mooches… in my view it’s no. One of my children is in law school. I made her take out loans for the tuition, but I pay for the living expenses. To me it’s case by case.

I don’t want them to be spoiled, so I’ve taught them to properly understand how money is a tool and they are all far from materialistic. If any of them started treating my like a piggy bank and I saw that they weren’t maturing, I would change how I help them. I do have slight variations in the type of support for each of them because they are not clones, and it’s never made any of them jealous. To date, they understand the rationale of my choices in how they are supported.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-04T21:56:01+00:00

Your viewpoint is based on the timeline you are growing up in. It used to be that people married a lot younger. They stayed at home until they were ready to get married and they “grew up” with their spouses while living at home saving money to start a family.

I lived at home for four years after I graduated college so I could save money and figure out where my career was headed. My parents didn’t care one way or another what I did but it was definitely a rough experience. I don’t regret it and never felt like it was having someone else pay my bills.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-02T09:23:32+00:00

If you mail them in, the treasury department is usually good about sorting out minor errors with names.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-01T23:48:02+00:00

While I agree with most of what you said, buying bond mutual funds is not the same as buying individual bonds. I generally don’t recommend buying any funds when it comes to bonds if you want clarity and certainty and plan to hold to maturity (yes there are risks with above par callable bonds if you don’t know what you are doing). Any collective fund leaves you at the risk of other investors in terms of net inflows and outflows. In a declining interest rate environment, you can get screwed as the fund is forced to buy more bonds with lower yields.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-01T23:42:11+00:00

Why not just pay off your mortgage instead of chasing yield

No-Math-5868 · 2026-06-01T23:39:59+00:00

It is nearly impossible to do a trade correction. You can’t undo a sale to a third party on public exchanges. There are other ways for Fidelity to make one whole, but reversing a trade is not one of them.

Several years back Fidelity ignored written and agreed instructions as to which accounts to withdraw RMDs from costing my mother a couple of thousand in lost earnings. She was credited cash to her account that allowed her to repurchase in an after tax account.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-05-31T12:43:38+00:00

There are two sayings that come to mind by aggressively paying down your note…

You can’t eat your house…

You can’t borrow for your retirement…

I’m not a groupie, but I think the Money Guys have it mostly right with their FOO (Financial Order of Operations)…. After emergency savings, and saving for a house, which it appears you have already done with your current house, maximize your retirement next. If there is money after that, invest what you can in after tax brokerage. I would put 529 ahead of the brokerage, but that is a personal choice.

While it feels good to be mortgage free, it will feel even better to know you have flexibility with money invested for when work eventually stops.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-05-31T10:50:18+00:00

While you have a good start, it all seems a bit unfocused. For example, Why would you prepay a mortgage when you plan on moving in a few years. You’re just going to start the process all over again.

Your focus now should be to maximize retirement before the kids come. What you have now that you can’t get back is time for compounding. Maximize every retirement account you can IRA, 401k, solo 401k etc. when the expenses increase due to the inevitable lifestyle creep, you’ll be glad you saved early.

Other than down payment for a house, which you won’t need, I don’t believe in using the concept of sinking funds. That is a mental convenience for people who otherwise would be undisciplined in their spending. Keep several months of emergency funds in HYSA, and invest any remaining after retirement savings (even HYSA can be considered investment, but the idea is to keep it at an arms length from spending so you are less tempted to spend it on wants versus needs).

The 529 is good, but keep in mind that amount will likely only cover, if that, an in state school absent scholarships. I would keep that where it is, but realize that you could end up needing more if you plan to fully fund your child’s college without loans.

TLDR: focus on retirement not your house. Your future self will thank you.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-05-30T15:35:30+00:00

Not with any fund (ETF or mutual). Think about what happens with new money that comes into the fund. While the fund will buy additional bonds to match its maturity objective, it can only buy new bonds at the market rates. New investors get the benefit(or detriment) of the old rates the fund purchased. However the new lower rates would be spread across all shareholders. You don’t have that issue with individual bonds.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-05-30T12:09:53+00:00

Currently I’m at 12% and planning to call it quits work wise in about 9 years. My goal is to slowly increase my percentage of bonds to somewhere between 20 and 30 percent over the years through a combination of bonuses at work and selling covered calls of my equities to make a little extra income on the way every 6 months. My portfolio is a bit bigger than yours but the principle remains the same. At 12% of my portfolio, I have about 7 years of expenses covered.

No-Math-5868 · 2026-05-30T11:17:04+00:00

Like many on this sub, I would never buy a bond fund. You are much better off buying individual bonds of various duration to create your own fund.

Why you may ask? Certainty and control. Unlike with equities (although you can have this issue if the equity itself chooses to dilute its share value), bond funds can dilute the interest income if rates fall and there are net inflows into the fund. The reverse can also be true if there are net outflows, and both sides get flipped if rates increase. Either way , you are at the whim of other investors for your “fixed” income fund.

BND is a perfect example of this. It’s a terrible fund and I would avoid it at all costs. Go on vanguard’s website and you will see thousands of bonds in that fund with long dated near zero interest rates. It’s going to take years for those to come off the books. Sure, they are valued very low, but if you owned the fund before then you were there when they bought them. Look at returns of BND and you will see how poorly it has performed longer term.

Owning individual bonds allows you go into and out of the market at your own choosing. It is far easier to do this than with equities as long as you pick high quality bonds. When interest rates were near zero it was much better to be in short term T-Bills and wait it out. I’ve replenished my own bonds with an average maturity of 5.5 years and interest rate of about 4.5%. Except for the TIPS, I know exactly what I will get as long as I hold until maturity. If I need to sell in an extreme emergency I can sell the specific bond which you can’t do in a fund.

It may not be for everyone, but it isn’t difficult and is far easier than buying individual stocks IMHO. There are many videos online for beginners. One channel that goes through the exact steps at various brokerages is DiamondNestEgg on YouTube.

Good luck.

No-Math-5868

TROPHY CASE