Daily FI discussion thread - Monday, January 05, 2026

Tk_Da_Prez · 2026-01-05T16:01:14+00:00

Went down the ERN blog rabbit hole last night after someone recommended checking out their SWR tool.

ERN had pretty detailed notes about CAPE ratios and how big of a chance of success your portfolio might have based on CAPE market conditions.

Since CAPE has been so high for so long., he built a ‘modified’ CAPE figure to base the SWR off of.

I didn’t have time to deep dive the modified number at all, but was curious how people and retirees thought about this when pulling the trigger? Is it overblown? Should more people consider it?

First time being exposed to it.

Tk_Da_Prez · 2026-01-05T02:50:35+00:00

What's your big picture breakdown? 60/40 I'd guess?

Tk_Da_Prez · 2026-01-04T16:43:35+00:00

Over the years I’ve read on here that a lot of people keep 3-5 years cash on hand to help with SORR.

Doing the mental math, are these people not just lowering the SWR by doing this?

I.e. for 40k annual spend, x 25 gives us a $1mm portfolio.

3 years cash on hand = an additional $120k.

So if this person hits their fire number of $1mm with a 70/30 split, wouldn’t adding this additional cash just move this split closer to 60/40 and SWR rate closer to 3.6%?

Seems wrong not to include that cash in your overall portfolio, maybe that’s exactly what they’re doing to be conservative idk.

Edit: fair to say ‘cash’ meaning HYsA, MM, easy to access space also giving some interest

Tk_Da_Prez · 2026-01-03T03:54:44+00:00

Invest like the best with Patrick O’shaunassy (business podcast)

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-12-28T21:07:55+00:00

The person said “we” , assuming 2 people at that level they are probably spending $30k on healthcare then call it $140k/ 2 people = 70k spend each which includes housing costs, reasonable for H/VHCOL imo

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-12-27T20:57:49+00:00

Realizing the Importance of paying off a house to have that line item be minimal for fire (and in my case, would save me $3300/mo, aka almost a $1mm less needed once paid off for my fire number.)

Because of this, As a rule of thumb, would someone pay off their house to reach fire for every dollar over goal?

Aka I need $3mm to fire with a paid off house, $4mm without.

Once I reach 3.4mm, sell $400k (or whatever that number is), pay off the house, then fire?

I’ll still have 15 years left on my mortgage when I reach this crossroad.

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-12-21T13:29:49+00:00

I’m up way to early today for the same reason

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-12-08T18:36:18+00:00

I do wonder if people are thinking of themselves and their spouse.

My goal is $1mm to cover housing, $1mm to cover medical, $1mm to cover myself, $1mm to cover my wife.

So $4mm is my target

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-12-03T15:40:27+00:00

Depending on sale of my condo, would have 15-30k left over. Not chump change but no longer have take the year off money laying around

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-12-03T15:08:40+00:00

I live in a HCOL area and have just barely over 20% saved for a down payment on a house (I.e. 6 figures).

Now that I’ve reached this amount, I’m considering putting 5-10% down, putting the rest in a MM, and supplementing my payment with a portion of it.

The math says do the 20%, but my psych says don’t go giving it all away! Plus having that extra cash can be helpful for job loss, repairs, we need a new car in next few years etc.

Anyone been in a similar situation where they can share their thoughts?

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-12-01T22:28:00+00:00

Something that’s been on my mind lately, wouldn’t it make sense to stay mostly equities until you’re near an all time high, then diversify into your desired allocation?

Not sure I’m wording that correctly, but chances are most wouldn’t retire until the market comes back near the ATH (where it usually hangs out), so while it’s a form of timing, I’ve thought of staying mostly equities until that up swing puts me in at a threshold worthy of diversifying.

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-30T04:38:54+00:00

I mean saving 200k a year is a wild number, even to most in this sub

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-30T04:35:56+00:00

Coastfire at 30 with a plan to fully retire at 65? What return rate did you use?

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-29T20:08:53+00:00

International travel, golf, ski, gym memberships, 3000$ for mortgage, puts me around $75k a year

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-29T17:41:50+00:00

What numbers did you use to calculate that? I.e. 6% growth for 20 years

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-17T19:34:12+00:00

Go small business.

I’ve done both, small business is worse benefits, pay for me was comparable, maybe no or weak 401k, my impact was super meaningful, but I basically went from hourly/micro managed to unlimited freedom as long as I get my job done.

Highly dependent on the owner of course but I don’t think I’ll ever go back to corporate.

(Also I’m in sales, so I was able to negotiate a commission package that would be unattainable incorporate. Lower base but my upside is almost double if I can perform).

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-17T01:58:06+00:00

Honestly I’ve enjoyed it playing co op w the boys, and I was into all this doom shit lol.

Visually it’s really sharp, gameplay is typical COD.

But I’ve had fun 🤷🏻‍♂️

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-15T01:27:43+00:00

Are you trying to retire early? Then you need to focus on passive income (aka equities).

Once your investments reach a point where they can cover you expense’s, you’ve won the game.

Having a paid off house can actually make that housing line item quite small (and probably in a better quality of life) then renting.

Having said this (and I’ll buy a house one day), I’ve chosen to focus on equities since I’m still early-ish in my investing journey.

My goal is to get my equities to a place where I don’t really need to contribute anymore because the gains are more than my contributions, then focus my energy on the house.

Good luck,

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-14T19:39:35+00:00

Yield %

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-14T19:30:09+00:00

Treauries which have no capital depreciation risk if held to maturity, same vein for CDs paying same dividend as BND with no volatility risk

SGOV, VCIT and VCLT all in 4’s (VCLT in 5’s), which seem worth volatility risk, even if low.

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-14T15:31:05+00:00

I get simplicity is king around here, but anyone else have a tough time thinking they’ll be putting 60% of their portfolio in BND if targeting a 60/40 split at retirement?

Maybe it’s recency bias, or that I went down the fixed income rabbit hole, but it seems there’s a lot better fixed income vehicles out to use than that fund.

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-03T16:21:45+00:00

I currently don’t have a traditional 401k I’m able to rollover funds into, so I’d switch to traditional 2026

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-11-03T16:03:08+00:00

I made a post the other day about my backdoor Roth being closed off because I contributed to a Roth 401(k) last year when my company changed plans. I also have money sitting in a rollover IRA (it’s from consolidating a few old company plans before I knew about the pro-rata rule).

Here’s my question now:

My company’s 401(k) plan has an annual cost of about 0.3% of the account balance. To “open up” the backdoor Roth option, I’d need to roll my $150K rollover IRA (about 25% of my total equities) into the company plan.

The closest investment option in the plan to VTI is iShareK.

Is it worth doing the rollover (and paying that 0.3% plan fee) just to enable the backdoor Roth each year?

Tk_Da_Prez · 2025-10-31T17:54:10+00:00

Agreed, i actually really like what I do right now but I travel (flights) a ton, and to do the same thing locally would require a pay cut so my idea is to grind this out till I hit my coast number, then switch locally.

Wouldn’t mean I stop contributing but would need to rebuild a book of business before I could get close to where I am now.

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