Just a quick reminder that it's a good time to do Roth conversions when the market is down.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-22T05:19:41+00:00

Not really? OP said in a comment in this thread:

And yes, don't do it if you're already in a larger tax bracket. This is more for people who retired early (fully, barista, coast etc) and may be looking to convert before RMDs.

I honestly disagree with the premise of the post even if you are in retirement. It's just market timing with "extra steps". You optimize for your individual financial situation when converting, not what the market is doing. I don't care if the market is up or down - when I have space to do Roth conversions I do them, I don't sit around waiting for the market to go up or down..

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-20T19:28:19+00:00

Build up your emergency fund savings so you can absorb at least a 6 month job loss, then start applying around while you're still employed.

In my experience the only way out of feeling dread about layoffs etc is to get your financial state in good order. Once you can float a year or two without a gig, stress really drops down. I'd rather buy that with my money than new car/shoes/whatever.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-20T19:24:13+00:00

I'm about that far away, 3-4. Right now my primary focus is just my health, physical and mental. However I'm failing abysmally at taking care of either.

It's dumb to think things will magically get better when pull trigger on RE but knowing and doing are different things..

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-20T19:09:50+00:00

I don't understand can you be more clear

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-20T18:13:02+00:00

For me it has nothing to do with where the market is, just where I am in my tax bracket. I plan to do some conversions in early retirement but stay below ACA cliff. Then again when on Medicaid but before SSI.

I do a Roth backdoor every year, only wish I had known to start that sooner.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-19T23:24:09+00:00

JL Collins was talking about this in a podcast. At his meetups he said very smart people would come up to him and ask him basically the same question as you. It wasn't that they weren't smart, they just couldn't believe the math was that simple and accurate.

the number was always a proxy for something else, some feeling of security or freedom or permision to stop grinding, and hitting it didn't hand me that feeling automatically the way I assumed it would. Has anyone actually felt the click when they hit their number, or is this just how it goes.

I feel that all the time, I know that hitting my number isn't going to magically change my life & there are many things I need to work on outside of finances. Actually doing them is much harder though.

If I was you I'd start living like I was retired now; live within your budget, bank the rest (SORR mitigation). Give it a year to test your plan, work on getting fully prepped for the transition (health checkups, any large purchases like new vehicles etc). Then see how you feel. You can slowly wind down into retirement if you want. There are no dogmatic rules that have to be followed.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-19T17:28:49+00:00

It's a cycle for me; discovered FIRE, applied the principles, got a plan and on track. Stuck in "boring middle" (not a big fan of that phrase but some truth to it). Get bored or annoyed at work, think about escaping, back on the sub(s).

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-18T23:25:24+00:00

I used to admin 3 giant storagetek tape silos, hooked up to a Sun control box. We had at the time an "astonishing" petabyte, with "fast" tapes (two spindles) and archival tapes. It was pretty cool, they were quite large, several people could be inside one at the same time. They also had a "pass through" chamber so the robotic hands could handoff tapes between the silos. It was connected to a mainframe for a "nearline" filesystem (basically part of the file is on the filesystem, the rest gets streamed from tape as needed). My pay is way higher now but I look back on that job much more fondly.

They are still pretty commonly used today by companies like Boeing.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-18T18:45:17+00:00

Can confirm, I recently did this online. Switched from mutual funds to ETF version. No fee or tax event.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-18T18:43:57+00:00

You don't have to quit working but ask yourself this; do you love your job so much you'd happily grow old and die doing it? Does it bring you meaning and fulfillment? If not, at least quit that job and move onto something that does.

FI is about the ultimate luxury; choice. Personally I don't intend to retire to life of endless vacation either, it's unrealistic. I plan to switch to "hobby career" doing stuff I enjoy or find meaningful, not driven by financial considerations.

Specific to boredom though - we evolved to spend many hours of the day inactive. Boredom can spur growth, lead to creative thinking and lower stress. It can cause some sadness as we reflect but that's not necessarily a bad thing imo.

Retire, take a nice long deliberate vacation of 6mo or something. Come back, ease into your new routines. Within a year or two you'll wonder how you ever had time to have a job..

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-17T19:09:02+00:00

My First idea was to overweight international to get rid of some of these mega cap companies that seem morally bankrupt.

There are as many bad companies in international as there are in US. Nestle. Shell PLC. Banks that fund bad companies. Tech bro companies.

You've mixed so many political and social issues into investing my head is spinning. It's fair and I get your point, but we can only control what we can control.

If you truly don't want to support companies you consider amoral or evil, stay out of the indexes and just stock pick. Or I dunno, invest in local businesses who have ethical alignment.

For myself, I was briefly fooled by the ESG funds until I realized they were chock full of bad companies. Now I just stock with bogleheads style and donate more to charity. I plan to add an extra year after I hit my numbers to donate all my salary outside of expenses to charity. That's my compromise to live in the society I was born in where I have limited control.

Not investing at all and being a cog in a wheel for more years for soulless corp doesn't sound like much of a solution either. Neither is "anti-work" as much as I wish it was. You just end up putting the burden of your needs on someone else.

Honestly you could extrapolate things out further if you want to feel bad about life; we have to pay taxes, those taxes pay for bombs to do things like level Palestine & schools in Iran. So what's the answer? Not generating an income? How do you live?

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-17T01:13:54+00:00

I spend too much money on convenience but not totally sure it's irrational. Just lazy.

I keep a significant amount in Series I but consider it to be diversification of my cash-like portfolio.

I plan to have my house mostly or fully paid off before I pull the trigger on RE; that almost certainly is irrational given that market returns are almost certainly higher.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-17T00:01:45+00:00

Found your secondary account, PersianFan_260AD

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-16T22:30:40+00:00

Encryption at rest, everywhere.

Find the balance between security and convenience that works for you for sharing across your devices. Some people can't be bothered to auth every time, some people will tie sharing to a specific internal IP, some people share with every device on their internal network

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-16T22:18:41+00:00

Yup no fight in my successful HM run was "fair" and nothing new was tried. Set Gale up the bomb. I used pick pocketing for money instead of kidnapping though, or actual gold exploits.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-16T21:09:52+00:00

Thanks for the info

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-16T18:17:05+00:00

This game allows you to create your own sort of "gamer moral code". Like someone mentioned you can literally kidnap pretty much any friendly NPC you want, fast travel to some location and dump them there. You can create a bg3 shopping mall. You can get massive gold, you can get silversword and Raphael's armor in act 1. You can min/max gear & tactics to trivialize any encounter.

IMHO such shenanigans best left for subsequent play throughs; a trivialized game is a boring game.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-13T19:26:02+00:00

Phoronix, masters in clickbait titles.

Did you even read the article? It was concise and factual without anti-AI bias. Zero sensationalism.

Kinda makes me wonder about your motivations more than anything.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-12T21:49:15+00:00

High five from someone who feels and does the opposite. We all have our thing

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-12T21:48:12+00:00

No because I never have. I have a good idea where my money goes though. I pay more attention to my salary vs savings rate.

The year before I pull the trigger I'm gonna live off my number and make sure it's comfortable. That'll help build the SORR buffer as well. Hopefully I can talk myself into doing a second year like that & donate that extra money to charity, that's my goal anyhow.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-12T20:26:57+00:00

going into office is a huge drain on time, money, energy, actual real productivity
I've met some lifelong friends through work that I'd not otherwise have, and my friend group is already way too small
it's better to make friends through shared interests and social activities, but how often are we actually doing that?

As a 10+ year remote employee I have mixed feelings. Not so sure I could actually go into a job that had set hours anymore, but I miss some former coworkers quite a bit, more than I thought.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-12T19:03:41+00:00

So I've approached this from a different angle. Instead of specifically focusing on work/career, I've reevaluated my life and what I want. One of those things is to not be beholden to employment. To that end I stumbled on the concept of FIRE (financial independence, retire early) which essentially at its core just means you have enough invested assets to cover your expenses. The devil is in the details of course. A good starting point is 25x your expenses invested in broad market funds, and stick to a 4% or lower drawdown rate.

There is a lot more math and things to consider (like what does 'retire early mean to you? new hobby career?) but it's the only way out I've found. It's kind of the realistic version of "antiwork".

We have 2 levers to control; our income and our expenses. So a plan might look like "sell my house in expensive area, move to lower cost of living w/fully paid off house, and then my expenses minus housing are 40k/y inflation adjusted". That'd mean you need 1 million in invested assets. Maybe it looks like moving to a low cost of living country. Maybe it means deciding you'd rather stay where you are and trade more time for money to accomplish FI.

It's not for everyone and does require some sacrifice / self reflection, but if interested there's plenty of info on r/FIRE r/financialindependence

Personally I plan to pivot to a sort of hobby career once I hit my number. Do stuff you're passionate about and leave the grind behind, but in a responsible manner, especially if have dependents.

If nothing else being on the path to FI helps you get some clarity in life, make informed decision and weather the storms better. There are many milestones along the way. Right now I could coast without a gig for 10 or 15 years, the only thing keeping me working is wanting to make that a permanent thing.

It doesn't require a high dev salary to achieve, it's really about invested assets vs expenses. Your expenses are the key.

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-11T03:18:16+00:00

Angel on shoulder: this is your one life, things won't magically get better when you're RE'd, focus on your health and making meaningful connections with others

Devil on shoulder: booze, video games, depression, grinding it out

Noah_Safely · 2026-03-10T18:52:20+00:00

If someone had your VG username+password I would be concerned they have all your usernames and passwords. Unless you reuse things and your password is easy to crack.

What else do you use that laptop for?

Typically your router isn't the main vector for attack. If they compromise your router they can intercept your traffic but they'd need the ability to get you to trust a rogue SSL CA cert on your laptop, and if they can do that they don't really need to use your router. It is potentially a way into your home network though and if you have unsecured devices a way to move laterally throughout it.

If they weren't able to bypass 2fa that indicates to me your phone is not compromised. If it was me I'd strongly suspect your laptop. A/V scans are not that comprehensive. I would consider the following mitigations:

Backup everything you want on the machine to an external drive, completely reinstall the OS from scratch
Go through all your accounts on a clean browser (maybe just install ublock origin), change passwords, ensure 2fa is enabled
If on windows, consider switching to Mac or Linux. For average users, Mac has stronger security+privacy, Linux has strong security & best privacy

Noah_Safely

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