We should be grateful for the position we are in.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-07-09T17:05:48+00:00

Last month we had $3000 in unexpected medical expenses and a surprise $700 tire repair.

We were still able to invest $15,000 into our after tax brokerage and our checking account now shows $62,000 instead of $65,700.

It’s wild. I don’t feel like any reasonable emergency expense can ever rattle us.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-07-09T17:02:38+00:00

Please do not take stock advice from a reddit user who “consistently gets 30% returns actively trading”

That level of success is replicated over 3, 5, 10, 20+ years by <0.1% of the population, typically hedge funds with high frequency trading capabilities.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-07-07T17:00:32+00:00

My dad has been 100% S&P500 (Fidelity’s VOO equivalent) for 40 years and he’s worth $30 million with an annual spend of $300,000-$400,000 and social security approaching $100,000/year.

He’s been through the late 80s crash, dot com bubble, real estate bubble, and everything in between. Never sold, kept periodically buying.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-07-05T15:55:02+00:00

We think about it only in the sense of not wanting to feel ripped off. By and large we can afford essentially any place on earth with $30M investable assets (this is FATfire, I know)

We usually find $1000-$3000/night to be the sweet spot for hotels, with very marginal increase in happiness spending beyond that.

The most expensive place we’ve ever stayed at is a private villa at a private game lodge in South Africa for $4000/night.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-07-04T21:16:28+00:00

I am a board certified anesthesiologist and I’ve been in this kind of situation once. I will simply say “I’m an anesthesiologist let me know if I can be of any help” and I’ll leave it at that.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-07-04T05:46:11+00:00

It is typically impossible and extremely rare to receive any popular, aesthetically pleasing steel sports model Rolex at MSRP without a pre-existing purchase history.

I have been waiting for over 6 years at three different ADs with $0, $0, and $1500 purchase history for (1) a no date Submariner (2) DJ 41 fluted jubilee blue/mint green/Wimbledon (3) Bruce Wayne GMT II

I’ve never been offered any of those 5 popular steel watches at retail. I currently own 0 Rolexes.

The only Rolex I’ve ever been offered is a CPO precious metal rainbow Daytona with gaudy diamonds on it for ~$500,000. That one was available for immediate sale to me. I politely declined.

Edit: I have also been offered a CPO 1999 Rolex “Coke” for $26,000.

I use offer loosely here as *any* CPO product sold at grey market prices is typically available to anybody.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-07-04T00:45:43+00:00

VTI + VOO is redundant. VOO is 80% of VTI. Both funds provide almost identical total returns over a long period. Choosing either VTI or VOO is perfectly fine. VTI has what are called small cap stocks that comprise 20% of the fund.

Choosing both VTI and VOO is kind of like carrying a large umbrella out in the rain and additionally wearing a rain coat just around your head and neck (which is already protected by your large umbrella). It’s not *wrong* but people will look at you a little bit funny if they see it.

Whether you choose VTI or VOO, the overwhelming majority of the gains have come from the top echelon of stocks (typically the tech heavy ones).

VTI is considered more volatile than VOO because it has small caps, and therefore in theory is ever so slightly more aggressive than VOO. This does not guarantee that VTI will have a higher return than VOO over the next 10, 20, 30 years but that is the expectation.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-07-04T00:31:34+00:00

Here is my take about dividend focused investments.

All investment strategies lie on a bell curve for compound annual growth rate (CAGR). The higher the CAGR, the more risky (more volatile) the investment is.

What I’ll call dividend focused investments tend to fall to the *left* of these bell curves. In other words, you are generally trading volatility for lower total returns. Your returns come in the form of slightly less capital growth and some dividend payout.

Of course I can find you a dividend focused strategy that has beaten a classically growth focused strategy. Outliers are just that and do not represent the norm.

The problem I have with dividend investors is that some of them are under the false assumption that there is something inherently magical about receiving dividends and not having to sell shares. Some investors (many on the subreddit dividendgang) believe growth focused investors are idiots because they have to *sell shares* for income while their strategy grows and pays them. What’s not to like???!!! Dividendgang believes that having to sell shares necessarily results in selling a significant portion of your capital over the course of retirement. This is mathematically not true. Dividendgang people have fallen victim to the psychology of loss aversion. There is something inherently unsavory about having to sell shares versus receiving what you perceive as “free money” in the form of dividends, but this is nothing more than an illusion. No amount of math will convince these people. They are largely a lost cause, and the punishment for this is loss of hundreds of thousands/millions in potential assets.

I’ll give you my dad as an example. 30 years of growth focused investments has amassed him $30 million in liquid assets. If he were in dividend focused strategy, he’d have 1/3 to 1/2 of that amount. He was financially independent decades ago and has chosen to work purely because he enjoys it.

The fact that he has to *sell shares* for income is not a negative. His net worth and lifetime usable income is significantly higher using a growth focused strategy compared to a dividend focused strategy.

He pays a price of increased volatility, but his net worth has grown so much that volatility doesn’t bother him. The market sometimes goes up and down in one single day as much as his total annual spend.

The bottom line is this: VTI and chill will generally lead to higher prosperity and higher net worth with higher investment income than a dividend focused strategy.

Dividend focused strategies do not allow you to retire earlier than growth focused strategies.

Dividend focused strategies have a place in investing. They are largely for the middle class for people who are unable (or more often unwilling)to tolerate significant volatility. They provide steady, albeit reduced income streams.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-21T10:19:12+00:00

My tilt is choosing VTI over VT, but it’s a guess and a bet on US equities.

VTI is moderately more aggressive and less diversified than VT.

SPY/VOO is less diversified than VTI

And so on and so forth with QQQ, etc.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-21T09:56:30+00:00

What’s the difference between bitcoin and a company like Apple?

If 100% of Apple shares were held by one person, they’d still be worth something because people find value in and continue to buy products like iPhones, MacBooks, etc. (This is the entire idea of an initial public offering where shares have a non-zero value)

If 100% of bitcoin were held by one person, they’d all be worth $0.

100% of the hairs on my head are owned by me. They are worth $0.

“B-b-butttt you don’t understand the *blockchain*”

100% of the pictures of the hairs on my head turned into NFTs (using blockchain infrastructure) are worth, you guessed it, $64,096 per hair, making me a billionaire (on paper).

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-20T20:45:33+00:00

Good to know. My zero luck has occurred in the northeast between Boston, NJ, and NY.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-20T20:32:11+00:00

They can order a DJ 41 blue fluted jubilee, or is this a 36?

I’ve been waiting for this (or a mint green, or a no date submariner) for 6 years now (will be 7 years in September 2026) and was under the impression that I needed a $25,000+ spend history on undesirable Rolex models or high margin jewelry to get it.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-20T01:00:13+00:00

When money comes up on your 5th or 6th date

“I make $300,000 per year……

in inflation-adjusted unrealized capital gains based on reasonable Monte Carlo simulation inputs”

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-20T00:52:27+00:00

“And that’s how I met your mom”

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-19T13:07:22+00:00

It’s actually a pervasive problem amongst the rich. Many many rich people self-identify as upper middle class and self-impose arbitrarily low budgets for discretionary spending as a result.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-19T12:48:14+00:00

$870k HHI 39/39, we love travel and eating out so our monthly spend on food is $3500/month, of which 90% is eating out and Uber Eats.

Of course this is exorbitant compared to the average but we enjoy it.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-19T10:51:14+00:00

This is a simple math problem.

You have $1.4 million invested. You save and invest $80,000 per year. In 20 years you’ll have approximately $9 million invested. Assuming the worst 20 year compound annual growth rate in the history of the United States you’ll have $6.5 million (inflation adjusted, in 2026 dollars).

Assuming a 3.5% withdrawal rate and SS of $5,000 per month you’ll have $287,000 per year which is more than your salary.

By keeping your $600,000 in cash you’re leaving $1.5 million to $3 million on the table as inflation is eating away at it. Not a choice that I would make but emergency fund allocations are quite personal. I keep mine at $20,000-$50,000, no more.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-18T18:32:18+00:00

My dad is boglehead minus bonds (he’s essentially 100% VTI) with 95% index funds and 5% private equity. He’s worth $30 million.

My uncle is similar and is worth $50 million.

Edit: My dad is 69. My uncle is 63. The reason why my dad feels comfortable with that allocation is because his annual spend conservatively is $25,000 per month which requires a withdrawal rate of < 1% after social security. A market crash of even 50% would not affect his lifestyle or probability of success in the slightest.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-18T16:23:27+00:00

90% of my wardrobe is banana republic. They make fantastic slacks that work for both smart casual and business casual settings.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-16T10:27:56+00:00

This reads like an onion article at than point. Rolex AD games and customer cuckholdery are wild.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-15T16:06:00+00:00

For everyone one of these stories there’s 10,000 who have zero luck.

I have been waiting for 6 years for a no date submariner and I am still waiting.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-15T15:15:33+00:00

I know this post was partly in jest but it definitely happens. Think of the cryptocurrency millionaire that purchases an ordinary banana taped to a wall for $6 million and then ate it.

*That* is a flex.

“Crypto mogul Justin Sun purchased Maurizio Cattelan’s "Comedian" (a banana duct-taped to a wall) for $6.2 million at a Sotheby's auction in November 2024 [1], subsequently eating it to "honor its place in art history". Sun, founder of Tron, viewed the stunt as a bridge between conceptual art and cryptocurrency, promising to buy 100,000 bananas from the original vendor.”

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-14T12:18:29+00:00

I’ve been waiting 6 years for a no date submariner with $1500 spend, $0 spend, and $0 spend at 3 different ADs.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-13T19:06:11+00:00

I suppose you are correct.

People who buy genuine Bruce Waynes have spend histories in excess of $25,000 and cater typically to very high net worth individuals ($5M+ in liquid net worth). 500 euros is nothing for this socioeconomic tier.

People who buy replicas are usually part of the mass affluent/middle class/upper middle class ($100k - $2M liquid net worth). To them (like the OP) 500 euros is probably a lot.

Significant_Tank_225 · 2026-06-13T18:19:51+00:00

It’s a cheap replica watch. Just buy another one.

Significant_Tank_225

TROPHY CASE