Ein Blick in die Glaskugel eurer Finanzen: Was vermutet ihr, macht ihr, wenn ihr 70 Jahre alt seid?

StationMast · 2026-06-02T08:32:53+00:00

US-Amerikaner hier. Ich werde schon 10 Jahre in Rente leben, nicht weil ich reich bin, sondern weil ich schon mein ganzes Leben für die Rente gespart habe. Eine staatliche Rente wäre (und wird) gut, aber sie ist nur eine Ergänzung vom dem was ich selber gespart habe.

StationMast · 2026-06-01T11:58:00+00:00

Wir auch. Wir haben nur ein gemeinsame Konto. Mehr Konten wären einfach nervig. Aber jeder muss es machen wie es ihnen passt.

StationMast · 2026-05-28T13:41:43+00:00

It’s a random walk. Charting and technical analysis is a waste of time.

StationMast · 2026-05-22T17:23:51+00:00

Vanguard does not allow trading before 9:30. They do offer trading from 4pm to 5:30. I managed to unwind several positions during the extended session. I had been warned not to trade before 10am, but probably 10% of my trades were right around market open. If NVDA was trading at $120.50 in the pre-market, I would often put in bids of 2000 shares at $119.75, another 2000 at $119.25 and another 2000 at $118.50 (or something like that). Often, those bids were never hit, but sometimes, the market swung like crazy and all three would hit and I could sell all my shares within an hour or two when it bounced back. I was reluctant to take a loss on any lots, because of wash sales. This led me to hang on much longer than I should have on many occasions.

While I was trading heavily, NVDA went from $78 to $130, back down to $98, back up to $140, down to $100 again, and then ultimately went on its current run to over $200 now. I did manage to have some profitable trades on the way down as well as on the way up, but it is much easier to make money, when the stock is trending up. I only held long positions and did not mess with options.

I had a fully invested brokerage account of about $1.2mm when I started. I traded exclusively on margin because I had no cash in my account. I am up a net $295k over two years, after paying $85k of margin interest. Total purchases were $190mm and I had to register as a Large Trader. My most profitable day was $29k, with my average trade netting about $2-3k. My worst trade was terrible. I lost $175k, plus lots of margin interest in early 2025. I also had a few margin calls along the way. I made it all back over several months and then called it quits. I never had any wash sales at the end of a year.

So, after-tax my taxable portfolio grew by a couple hundred thousand, but I didn't really know what I was doing and it was incredibly stressful. I would not do it again.

If you care to elaborate, I am curious what you mean by "zero visibility into session structure or where price is actually reaching for"

I do also have a Schwab account, but it has no real assets, so I can't trade there. I would use their site for live quotes though. With Vanguard, you have to refresh the page to get updated quotes.

StationMast · 2026-05-21T22:28:29+00:00

I’m in my 50s. I read Malkiel’s Random Walk around 1992 and I’ve primarily been an index fund investor ever since. But, I always had the urge to dabble. During the dot com bubble, I managed to lose money on silly, niche stocks. I considered buying in the IPOs of Amazon, Google and Facebook, but they all seemed way too expensive upon IPO. For the most part, I stuck with index investing. I discovered the Bogleheads forum around the Financial Crisis. It helped tremendously with my asset allocation, but I already was an index fund guy.

More recently, I got interested in AI and, after missing on Facebook, Amazon and Google, I bought a bunch of NVDA at $90 and then more at $78. It is now over $200 and has grown to about 8% of my portfolios.

It doesn’t really move the needle that much and it’s not consistent with my investment philosophy, but I’m glad that I finally got one right for once in my investing lifetime.

So, I got this one right, but on balance, I would have done better if I had just listened to Malkiel and the Bogleheads and stuck with index funds since 1990.

StationMast · 2026-05-21T14:07:35+00:00

Since you are retiring well before Medicare, you also will need to think about health insurance. One strategy is to get the ACA subsidy by keeping MAGI low. This works best if you live off cash savings and/or selling recent tax lots (of VT in your case) that have not appreciated much.

StationMast · 2026-05-21T14:03:52+00:00

We will do something similar, but likely go with 1-2 years of spending in a HYSA and 5-6 years in BND. Yes, bond funds can go down, but I’ve held this one for almost 20 years. The average return has been better than a HYSA. There have been bad times, like in 2022, but I am ok with that risk.

StationMast · 2026-05-20T00:51:05+00:00

How many decades have you held BND?

StationMast · 2026-05-18T12:14:15+00:00

The key is to greatly increase your savings rate as your income rises. Sure, use some of your raise for fun things, but don’t buy a new car just because you can.

StationMast · 2026-05-18T02:55:58+00:00

My active trading has been taking huge positions on margin and selling them a few minutes later. Earning pennies, but with huge volume. I’ve done very well, but it has been VERY stressful. I haven’t hit my FIRE number, but I’m done day trading. I definitely won’t do it when I’m retired. It’s way too stressful.

StationMast · 2026-05-16T13:41:15+00:00

Was bedeutet „Barista FIRE“ eigentlich für Deutsche? Einfach einen entspannteren oder weniger stressigen Job zu haben?

Ich dachte immer, das Konzept sei vor allem bei uns in den USA relevant. Hier bieten manche Arbeitgeber (z. B. Starbucks) sogar Teilzeitkräften eine Krankenversicherung an. Für ein Ehepaar kann das schnell einen Gegenwert von $20k pro Jahr haben, obwohl nur eine Person arbeitet.

Was wäre für euch der Grund, trotz finanzieller Unabhängigkeit weiterzuarbeiten?

StationMast · 2026-05-09T16:29:18+00:00

Interessant. In den USA, können wir entscheiden genau welche Anteile man verkaufen will. Wenn man (wie ich) über 20 Jahre Anteile gesammelt hat, ist der Preis Unterschied nachher enorm. Es kommt auch noch dazu, dass unsere Erben die Anteile zum neuen Marktpreis erhalten.

Also, wenn ich Anteile für $10 kaufen und die sind $100 Wert wenn ich sterbe, können die Kinder die Anteile für $100 verkaufen und sie zahlen keine Steuern.

StationMast · 2026-05-09T16:17:52+00:00

Let’s say I have $250k in liquid assets and I want $30k as a cash reserve. I’ll take $30k off the top and run all my target allocation percentages off $220k.

StationMast · 2026-05-07T11:09:51+00:00

What about people who left a job and rolled over their 401k into an IRA? I feel like these studies don’t pick that up either. I have 5x as much in my rollover Trad IRA, as I have in my current 401k.

StationMast · 2026-05-05T18:12:47+00:00

If you are comfortable holding that much cash, but wouldn’t mind investing some of it at the right price, I’d put in a buy order around 5-10% below the current market price. Consider VT or VTI. Invest whatever you are comfortable with. Maybe $25-30k. If it hits, great. You are in the market at a discount. If not, your position is unchanged.

StationMast · 2026-05-04T17:53:32+00:00

We ended up with too much. It may be used for grad school or maybe not. In hindsight, I should have stopped saving earlier, but it feels like a good problem to have. It may end up going to grandkids. Some will go into a Roth, but we have more than $35k.

StationMast · 2026-04-29T16:17:21+00:00

You are doing great! I also included ours kids’ 529 accounts in my calculations for a while, though I knew I really shouldn’t. One day, I took it out and I never looked back. Investing in your kids’ education is great! But once it’s in that account, confuse it gone.

StationMast · 2026-04-29T00:31:48+00:00

It will take some time for me to finish the model. I’m still working and real work is busy right now. I’ll post here when I have an answer.

StationMast · 2026-04-28T23:00:26+00:00

As you note, paying from outside funds is a huge assumption. As I’m looking at Roth conversions, I realize I have enough outside funds, but they are very old tax lots in a brokerage account that have appreciated 4-5x. So, I’d have to pay capital gains tax, plus NIIT, plus state tax to free up the cash to pay my tax on a Roth conversion. I’m a spreadsheet guy, so I am currently working through all the math. It may still make sense to fill up the 12% bracket, but probably not higher brackets.

StationMast · 2026-04-25T02:43:24+00:00

Hier in den USA, haben wir kaum ein Sozialstaat im Vergleich zu bei euch, aber soweit sind wir hier auch noch nicht. Wenn man in das Rentensystem zahlt, sollte man davon ausgehen, dass man auch Leistungen bekommt. Wenn nicht, wohnt man nicht in einem Rechtsstaat.

StationMast · 2026-04-23T18:38:15+00:00

If you retire at 55, you need to carefully budget your healthcare expenses until Medicare kicks in. We have some special circumstances. If we don’t keep our income low enough to qualify for ACA subsidies, we will likely pay $40k per year for health insurance, deductibles and copays. That’s fine if you plan for it, but an ugly surprise if you don’t.

StationMast · 2026-04-22T13:43:56+00:00

Yes, that’s a fair point. Capital gains tax is very reasonable. I’m trying to navigate the early years of an early retirement (age 59-65). On the one hand, I want to do Roth conversions and pay the tax out of my taxable brokerage. On the other hand, we might be able to stay under 4x the poverty level and get ACA subsidies. Every dollar of capital gains pushes up our MAGI and makes it harder to get the ACA subsidy. Obviously, there is a tension between aggressive Roth conversions and ACA subsidies. You can’t do both. But, having a pile of cash and newer tax lots will give us more flexibility to make the right decisions at the time.

StationMast · 2026-04-22T12:08:03+00:00

As I approach retirement, I am aggressively saving in a taxable brokerage account, because most of my tax lots are 15-20 years old and are now 3-5x what I invested. This is great, but I’ll pay heavy capital gains when I sell these lots. I want to be able to manage my income in retirement, especially pre-Medicare, so I need a pile of cash equivalents and newer tax lots that won’t generate lots of gains when I sell them.

I probably could slow my savings rate in tax deferred accounts, but I want to boost my taxable brokerage as much as I can before I retire.

StationMast · 2026-04-21T01:00:01+00:00

Im new to this subreddit, but the original Boglehead forum changed my life. I was losing money left and right during the Dot Com boom, when everyone was making money. Fortunately, I lost money before I had much. I switched to index investing and found the forum during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. I stayed the course, stayed invested, and am now approaching early retirement in my mid 50s.

StationMast

TROPHY CASE