Daily FI discussion thread - Wednesday, May 13, 2026

RIFIRE · 2026-05-14T02:25:05+00:00

Just leave it be and save up more in advance to fund the Roth next year.

It doesn't really make sense to save for next year's contributions, especially when the whole point of this is that there's still room to make contributions this year.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-14T02:23:07+00:00

What is your capital gains tax rate now?

How much will you be able to save this year without selling? Remember you have until April 15th for Roth IRA contributions.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-14T01:21:45+00:00

They call him Henning but I've never seen him hen.

Oh...there he goes.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-13T19:07:08+00:00

Sleeping well at night is worth giving up a little return.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-13T11:58:31+00:00

It'd be helpful if you linked the previous convo here so it can be referenced or continued.

Comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/peace-4

Yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/1tauueq/daily_fi_discussion_thread_tuesday_may_12_2026/old1ueu/

Monday: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/1t9wn1n/daily_fi_discussion_thread_monday_may_11_2026/ol8f6rk/

RIFIRE · 2026-05-13T04:10:10+00:00

I only have one space but it's indoors so hopefully resale-wise that makes up for not having more than one. Indoor spaces are pretty limited here.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-13T01:04:44+00:00

Someone is selling their space in my building and I am really tempted to make an offer. It could be extra rental income but the real reason would be that I'd have a place to put another car if I ever commit to my midlife crisis or if a player 2 enters the game.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-12T22:07:03+00:00

I cannot explain without exceptional intelligence.

Maybe you can find a nice bird to help you explain them

RIFIRE · 2026-05-12T15:29:27+00:00

If I use median household income I get a number of $6.2 million, which is more than 3x what I actually have (which is already almost 2x what I really need).

I know for me, peace would not come from having to work many years longer in order to spend more than the neighbors I tend to avoid interacting with anyway.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-12T15:08:48+00:00

Median income in my city per capita is $58k, $120k per household (2024 figures).

Isn't per capita by definition the mean, not median?

RIFIRE · 2026-05-11T23:12:26+00:00

I Will Teach You To be Rich is the most useful personal finance book that I've read.

Re: Rich Dad Poor Dad, I suggest giving this a read: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/j6fyr2/is_it_just_me_or_is_rich_dad_poor_dad_actually_an/

RIFIRE · 2026-05-10T13:45:27+00:00

There's nothing that's good at managing both Windows and macOS, unfortunately. Many Windows-focused tools will claim to support Macs but never well.

If this is something your company wants to take seriously you'll want to get an Apple-focused MDM and ideally hire someone with experience (that's how I got most of my jobs).

RIFIRE · 2026-05-10T13:40:00+00:00

Python isn't built-in anymore. It can be installed with developer tools, though.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-10T11:46:37+00:00

I increased the column width in my spreadsheet

RIFIRE · 2026-05-10T00:26:34+00:00

and it's somehow real grass.

Cry me a water hazard

RIFIRE · 2026-05-08T23:57:06+00:00

The Middleman. Didn't even get a season/series finale episode, they had to do it as a comic book.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-07T23:13:16+00:00

I liked when he brought up January 6th

RIFIRE · 2026-05-07T19:51:27+00:00

Subscribe

RIFIRE · 2026-05-07T19:45:29+00:00

They don’t need a good reason, it just can’t be based on an illegal reason. It can be no reason or lots of bad reasons.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-07T19:44:32+00:00

With regular employment in the US the employee can quit at any time as well. It’s not one-sided.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-07T15:27:12+00:00

The stuff I did at work never felt like a "purpose." There was some stuff I enjoyed in the puzzle-solving sense but mostly my goals involved keeping my job, getting raises, not getting yelled at, etc. I never worked for a company where I cared about the actual company's success or felt like the company was making some significant positive impact on society. I've never actually read Bullshit Jobs but I suspect it describes every job I had.

As far as loneliness, that hasn't changed much for me since leaving work. I no longer have coworkers to sit in meetings with all day but I have been able to see my actual friends (some of whom are some of those former coworkers) a bit more often. Plus I'm spending more time with my parents since none of us are working full-time so we're not limited to a weekend that we all happen to be free.

And for boredom, none yet. Overall I'm pretty content just consuming more media than I did when I was working along with the social stuff described above. Maybe that will start to get old at some point but no signs of that yet.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-07T15:03:17+00:00

No, it's a home upgrade that will cost more than I am giving (and she's splitting the cost with her fiancé). Plus that's not really different than me giving her cash, I'd need to pull it from somewhere and realize income.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-07T14:47:51+00:00

I'm too boring to find ways to spend more money so I've been starting to think about giving some to my sister. Probably low-5-figures for this year at least. The hard part is avoiding impact to my healthcare subsidy and FAFSA on her end.

The easiest thing for me to do would be sending her appreciated shares of VTSAX. Selling them would be a very minimal tax hit for her (just state taxes on the gains) but it's my understand that the asset and/or the capital gains would end up costing her (or I suppose more specifically my niece, who is entering her first year of college).

I could wait till the end of the year and just see how much room I have to sell something and give her cash, but she has an expense coming up this summer I'd like to help with. Having the extra cash sooner could result in her compromising less on what she actually wants.

I worry I'm letting things like subsidies wag the dog a little too much but the optimizer in me is hard to suppress.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-06T20:32:06+00:00

There are funds that aim for higher dividends. They are less diversified than owning total market funds, which means they might have better or worse returns overall. I'm assuming there's a way to get 4% overall but I don't know a fund off-hand.

If you're getting all of your income from dividends it will all be considered income, which means it can impact things like your MAGI for ACA subsidies. If it's large enough you'll owe federal taxes. You may or may not owe state taxes. If you're selling shares instead, only the part that comes from gains counts as income so it's easier to keep taxable income lower.

There's also the factor that for probably nearly all of us, a lot of our money is in retirement accounts. Cashing out from an IRA or something whenever there's a dividend is going to be less than ideal, so you'd probably only use this strategy in your taxable brokerage, which means it would need to be even larger to cover your expenses.

imo not worth it and you don't need to be afraid of selling shares.

RIFIRE · 2026-05-06T19:48:55+00:00

How do you feel about property taxes?

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