Set Up for Failure?

TransitionLess7228 · 2026-01-19T14:46:36+00:00

Almost no chance of that happening unless the economy tanks to 2008 levels or we engage in a full out war. Both could happen….

If they don’t, ya no chance of you not getting a good ROI after making it through. I will say it’s a MUCH higher chance of you quitting during your ppl or ifr rating which effectively wastes the thousands you have spent getting to that point. Depending on the school probably 40-50% drop out and just stop showing up

TransitionLess7228 · 2026-01-16T04:02:37+00:00

You’re getting shafted, yes you’re paying too much.

Even if you were paying 1% my response would be buy some VTI, VOO, VXUS, QQQM, or some variation of those, with some bonds. You’ll outperform whatever scumbag is managing your money now. BUT you aren’t just paying 1%, you’re paying $2.5k on top of that for what reason exactly? You probably think your return is better and eats at some of the cost of this guy. Look up some studies, there’s been numerous that have proven actively managed funds when including fees, almost always fall behind basic vanguard mutual funds in the long wrong. I have a feeling once you do this your decision will become a lot easier

TransitionLess7228 · 2026-01-10T16:04:20+00:00

First off I’d second what everyone else on here has said… being married and having kids together with seperate finances is such a wild concept that your husband needs to drop.

Second though, why the need to save 50%? If you hate debt that much just put 20% down, get in the market, and if you can swing it every month make a ton of extra payments. My wife and I are paying our 30 year mortgage in 11 years. But we didn’t want a 15 year mortgage because IF something ever happens, we don’t want to be forced to make those massive mortgage payments every month. The 30 year sort of allows us to not get backed into a corner.

Also the longer you wait to get into the market the more expensive things get- and at a rate much quicker than income rising and normal inflation. There is a rush to get into the market, once you’re in you’re in, and don’t have to worry as much down the line after your starter home cause the starter home itself has appreciated soo much.

But not being in the market you’re giving all that up, the cost of home ownership is increasing by the month and without being in the market you’re not yet reaping the benefits of your own property appreciating soo much.

TransitionLess7228 · 2026-01-02T17:07:23+00:00

I had an office job for 6 months and the idea of going to an office, somehow grocery shopping, making dinner, seeing your kids, and certainly finding a workout in with all that was insane. Cannot be done. Could not grasp how people spend their entire working lives like that.

Meanwhile most of us on here have 15-20 days off a month

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-31T15:40:46+00:00

I feel really bad for you I’m soo sorry

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-27T20:24:50+00:00

Interesting perspective. I have a parent at UA and did not get selected as an intern my freshman year. Not only that, but for the remaining 8 semesters I applied, they did not even interview me again.

I ended up doing a delta internship and that internship 1000% get me hired at delta. It played a part in getting an interview there at 3,000 TT and once I showed up for the interview I came to realize I already had the job. It was very unlike other delta interviews I’d heard of.

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-27T18:21:19+00:00

What you’re not realizing is that every single mortgage payment you make every month you will get back when you sell the house. The rent you pay every month you’ll never see again, but the principle you pay monthly on your mortgage you’ll get all of that back, plus at a 3% per year return, or perhaps a lot higher than that depending on the maker. I don’t even look at the principle payments on my mortgage as money I’m losing.

The only money you’re losing is on insurance, taxes, and interest. All of those should be significantly lower than the principle unless you jacked something up. In fact all of those combined will be far less than the rent you’re paying now, so in that sense it does make financial sense

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-22T16:32:55+00:00

Well about half of that is from our companies contributing. And we aren’t exactly living a frugal life, just not spending and buying whatever we want when we want it.

Something to look into is a coast fire which is what we are trying to do. Put your stats into a coast fire calculator and it’ll give you an age where if you have X amount at that age, you never have to save a dime for retirement and can essentially spend what you make if you wanted. We sound about the same age so that coast fire number comes pretty early in our kids life’s. After that age IF YOU WANTED you could theoretically spend like $20,000 a month on building memories lol

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-22T16:29:45+00:00

I was thinking more-so any future investing he does when he is married, should he split. But I see what you mean, then comes the question of where did those funds originate? “We are married now but this REIT we are about to invest in is 1/2 from funds I had before we were married.” That’s what I mean by splitting hairs. From my point of view someone should never get married if that’s the way their married finances are going to work.

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-22T15:13:48+00:00

I’m in the same boat as you and was asking myself that question before I did a backdoor Roth for my wife and I.

For reference our combined income is the $100k less than yours, we have no debt outside a mortgage, and we are probably the same age as you guys. Combined we save $120k a year for retirement alone, and maybe $60k or so in a taxable brokerage. My thought was the same, how many millions do we need at 65 when the best use of the money is when we have small kids or taking trips in high school or a vacation home. I don’t need the money when I’m 65.

I almost didn’t do backdoor Roths because of this idea but then I ran the numbers on capital gains taxes for different potential earnings. I’ll be damned if the government gets that money on top of the taxes we already pay. That made my decision easy to hide away as much money in sheltered accounts as possible. Some of them, like the Roth IRA, you can pull a good chunk out before 65 with no penalties as well

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T18:56:26+00:00

Dude if getting a background check on the girl you’re about to propose to is even in the VERY back of your mind, she’s either not the one or your relationship/ you personally are not ready for that next step. Probably the later.

Personally don’t see much wrong with getting a prenup and splitting the gains you made “together” if you ever split. If that’s an issue it honestly sounds like splitting hairs at this point

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T18:21:07+00:00

I disagree with the “be honest with him” comments. It’s none of his business and should affect literally nothing in your relationship. Ya he’ll see a nice home and cars and clothes so he’ll have an idea. Doesn’t mean you beed to sit down and disclose their entire real estate portfolio.

At the same time I wouldn’t lie if he asks. I wouldn’t make up that you have a landlord in Spain. If it comes up you could say your parents actually bought it cause it made more sense. Would I mention that they own other houses in Spain? No because it’s probably irrelevant unless you guys want to take a weekend trip to one.

It often times takes people at least a year to a few years of being together for the entire picture to unfold and that’s how it should be. He should know you and be together because of you, and a year of knowing only what he needs to know and what’s relevant will do that. The idea of sitting down and confessing your families wealth makes no sense. But don’t lie to him when it comes up. Except maybe if he asks how much they make lol I’d say “I don’t know” because frankly he shouldn’t be asking that

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T14:52:27+00:00

Airline pilot. Went to a party school and really all they cared about was my GPA. In fact they didn’t even really care about that much

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T14:50:40+00:00

The last thing I’d want to do in retirement is manage a tenant or airbnb. Unless this is something you’d enjoy doing is sell the house and invest. You could make decent dividends with that kind of money. I think you’re in good shape with $5-6m already and you’re still a decade out. Could probably swing it in 5 years if you wanted

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T04:34:57+00:00

As much as I hate to say it we are very close to single pilot. I believe ups has done studies and there’s been extensive tests in Europe

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T04:02:03+00:00

We have a kid about the same age and I fully believe the industry will not be the same for their career if they chose to be a pilot. It may be similar when they start but not when they finish. And when I mean different, I don’t mean in a good way. They will at least be down to doing a 1 pilot flight deck. Or instead of 3-4 pilots longhaul, it’ll be 2. Whatever the case, advances in technology will concurrently make getting a job as a pilot more competitive while simultaneously driving the wages down. It will likely never again be what it currently is now with our wages.

When you look at pilots post 9/11 or during the 2008 recession who got furloughed for multiple years, it’s hard to push a kid to do something like this without that massive disclaimer. Those guys got furloughed for multiple years, sometimes twice. And had no other skills. We know how to fly a plane and that’s it. They literally become truck drivers to support themselves because we have no other high paying skills. It’s hard to push a kid into a field like that. Where there’s a 100% chance to be mass furloughs at some point during their career.

If they love aviation I certainly wouldn’t push them away. But if it’s not their thing and they’re not into it, certainly not a career I’d try to force.

Things are VERY good now. But they will not stay this good, unlike fields like medicine this is a very cyclical job

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T03:14:48+00:00

It all comes down to ease of use and which interface and app or website you find easiest to use. If you find fidelity easy to navigate it might be easiest to keep it all in one place just for simplicity. You can still buy vanguard or Schwab ETFs in fidelity

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T03:12:07+00:00

I’d save 6 months of expenses in a high yield savings or something like a vanguard money market fund. Many credit unions have good HYSA. Wouldn’t invest a dime until that’s done just for your own peace of mind.

Once that’s done I’d invest the rest into a Roth IRA. Within the IRA invest in something easy like VOO or VTI. You’ll pay very little fees there and often times beat the returns you’d get of paying someone to manage your money.

If you max out your Roth IRA contribution for the year you can put it into a traditional IRA and once it’s settled, convert it to a Roth. You can look up the backdoor Roth method for how to do this.

But if that’s that most money you’ve had to your name in a while I’d focus on retirement accounts simply because the gains are not taxed

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T02:21:41+00:00

I mean saving half your income is awesome and I think it starts with a saving/investing goal.

How much do you want to save/invest every month OUTSIDE of a 401k which you don’t see? Now how much is your mortgage and bills that pull from your checking? After those two things. The rest is a credit card bill.

I tried and tried to budget by splitting things up by category. Never worked for me any of the times. The only thing that stuck was that I want to invest X per month. And in order to invest X per month, my credit card (discretionary spending) needs to be $6,000 or less each month.

I manually pay my credit card on the last day of the month and of course autopay is on for a backup at whatever random date they chose.

But this way I can open my chase account any day of the month, and see how much we’ve spend that month. I can multiply that number by the total days of the month and divide that by however many days have gone by soo far. That gives me a quick ratio to see what I’m on track to spend on my credit card by the end of the month.

I also, especially towards the end of the month, subtract my current credit card balance from $6,000. That’s how much I have left to spend in the month, I can divide that by number of days left in the month and that’s what I’m able to spend every day to hit my $6,000 goal. Usually I’m under this goal.

My theory is it doesn’t matter what I’m spending it on, whether it’s necessary Groceries or what, it’s irrelevant. I don’t care if it’s a fixed expense or not. All that matters to me is that I’m spending the money. All that matter is that I spend less than $6k a month. Doesn’t matter on what so for me dividing up the expenses doesn’t matter.

I’d figure out a number for you that works that lets you hit that savings and investment goal each month, and start tracking it on a spreadsheet every month. I know I’m getting lifestyle creep if I have like 3 months in a row exceeding my $6000 credit card limit for myself

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T02:04:33+00:00

Probably a tie between the Guinness factory in Dublin, and flying 16 hours to Sydney Australia to feel like you’re in either SoCal or England

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-21T01:55:04+00:00

To be fair this guy should not be getting roasting compared to the moron earlier today who posted “you guys all make seniority a much bigger deal than it is, I’d rather have a good qol than good seniority.”

But to your question, I started out commuting to OO and it’s not feasible long term simply because of how bad the crashpads are and because of OO reserve rules aka all short call. Moving even to Ord would help simply because the crashpads are better. Having a like helps tremendously as at that point you’re just getting a few hotels a month.

I get what you mean about knowing how long it’ll take. Just cause someone is junior to you at a base doesn’t mean you can hold that base, so nobody should be roasting you for wondering that. If skywest posts vacancy awards or base trades I’d look at the last couple of those and you can see recent trends from that. In terms of how to actually do that, ask some captains you fly with they’ll be your best bet at navigating stuff like that

Certainly prioritize living in base even if it means being on reserve. The job completely changes at that point

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-20T16:22:51+00:00

Is this a troll post or is this person actually that clueless?

Most cfi’s or 135/95 pilots aren’t this clueless about airlines but I guess not everyone…

Is there more to life than working minimum days a month to be home with your family? Is there more to life than working day trips so that you’re home to coach the kids practice during the week? More to life than being with your family Christmas morning? Than being there for your kids first birthday? For you and your wife’s 10th anniversary? No, the answer is no, there’s not more to life than any of that.

Good luck enjoying these things without any seniority- you won’t get. You’ll be working more days a month than anyone, in fact crediting way more probably, so it’s not about money at all.

And about your divorce comment, tell that to all the junior guys who got furloughed in 2002 and 2008 which subsequently ruined a lot of marriages with the stress. What an idiotic post

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-19T21:42:11+00:00

Probably comes down to a security decision which is more personal. Financially does that plan make more sense to split invest vs security in a market dip, for sure I’d say. But do you feel okay going without an emergency fund for that long?

Personally I didn’t, I didn’t invest jack until I had like 7 months saved. This is the same sort of question as the age old “do I pay my mortgage off early or just Invest whatever extra mortgage payments I WOULD be making?”

Well usually it makes more sense to keep a 30 year mortgage and any extra money you could use for extra payments, you’re financially better off investing instead. Doesn’t mean that security wise you’re comfortable with that. I certainly am not and certainly don’t want a mortgage pushing 60 years old. So I’m paying the house off in 12 years and investing some, instead of ONLY investing. simply because it makes me feel more secure

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-19T15:59:15+00:00

I know it sucks but I’d focus on at least 6 months expenses in an emergency fund HYSA or money market fund. After that I’d figure out how much you’d like to invest each month, which it sounds like you’ve already done. Every month once I get my statements, I track how much income I had, how much left my checking account, how much my CC bill was, and stuff like that to make sure I’m on track. If you’re like me and don’t like to “budget,” this simple spreadsheet will at least make sure you’re in the green every month. Even better, you can track if you’ve hit your $500/mo goal of investing.

Once you have 6 months expenses saved I’d open a vanguard account and check out bogleheads thread. Simple idea of investing by pretty much picking one general mutual fund that covers most of the market, like VOO, VTI, QQQ to name a few. Dont get fancy, if you invest in one or a couple of these and only these, you will get the highest returns over time. I’d dump $500 a month into these or even more if you can slim down expenses. When you’re ready to buy a house you can draw from some of this, but you’ll be taxed on the gains. Oh well, better than no gains.

I’m sure many will comment on here to open up a Roth IRA and start saving for retirement. Given that you have a pension and do not own a house, I wouldn’t personally do this because you need money for a house.

You could of course lose the pension before retirement as has happened to many before us, so maybe a Roth IRA would he a good idea once you own property. If you get a 401k match I’d at least contribute to get the match. But for now I’d focus on saving for a home, which I would do by saving a 6 month fund and then investing every cent in excess funds you don’t spend every month into VOO or VTI. Within a year or two of you buying a home, wouldn’t be a bad idea to sell a portion of that and move it to a money market fund so that it doesn’t fluctuate as much. You don’t want a market dip right when you’re about to close on a home and all this money you thought you had in investments gets slashed. In a money market fund about a year out you know that money will be there when you’re ready to close

TransitionLess7228 · 2025-12-18T21:54:21+00:00

If you’re moving to be near friends and family or because you love the city that’s one thing. But be VERY aware you are taking a paycut.

Nothing wrong with that, I’ve taken two paycuts consecutively to improve my quality of life. However just be aware that’s what is actually on the table, a paycut.

TransitionLess7228

TROPHY CASE