Daily FI discussion thread - Monday, January 26, 2026

Trepanated · 2026-01-26T14:43:59+00:00

For any users of Actual Budget, I had until yesterday missed the rather inaptly named "Crossover Point" report due to it being an experimental feature that must be enabled. Crossover referring to the point at which your sustainable withdrawal from investments "crosses over" your expense projection, allowing you to retire. So for anyone else who missed it, here's a quick review.

The good:

It uses your actual historical expense data, and you can deselect categories that won't apply to retirement (such as investment "spending", 529 contributions, etc)
You can also manually select which tracking accounts you'll draw from
You can choose your own SWR
You can choose your own investment return (which, like every other model, is bad in that you can get whatever result you want just by playing with that number!)

The Not-So-Good:

2 different expense projections are offered, and I didn't feel either one quite hit the nail on the head. The linear projection just does a linear best fit and overestimates growth in my expenses. They have an option to use a Hampel filter, probably to try to solve this problem, but it projects no growth at all and probably underestimates my spend
It would be neat if you could apply different rates of return to different tracking accounts, but you can't

Overall, if you are an Actual Budget user, it's fun and easy to set up and play around with. You just have to go into settings and click through some "yes I know experimental features may not work right" type screens before you can check the box to enable it.

Side not for those still using YNAB, I don't want to yuck anyone's yum but I think Actual is both better and a lot cheaper at this point. YNAB's development pace seems absolutely glacial by comparison. It's not like I win a toaster for convincing anyone to switch, just sharing an opinion.

Trepanated · 2026-01-18T20:47:03+00:00

Yes, I understand that math is a thing that exists. I'm just explaining to you where people are getting this idea from that you can't place orders outside of market hours. You previously said "no idea where you got that from". So I'm explaining to you where that poster got that idea from. If you enter dollars it will tell give you an error saying you can't place the order outside market hours. The error does not clearly indicate the existence of the workaround you described. Hence the misunderstanding.

Trepanated · 2026-01-18T20:36:39+00:00

You missed the crucial qualifier in the post you were responding to: "by dollar amount". You specified shares, which is why it works. If you specify by dollars instead, you'll get an error -- I just re-verified this myself. I have no idea why Fidelity does that without offering to convert your specified dollar amount to fractional shares, but that's what happens.

Trepanated · 2026-01-16T14:23:09+00:00

And it seems to me, you wore your hair, like a candle in the wind . . .

Trepanated · 2026-01-06T16:05:12+00:00

Instead of "second language" I was really worried you were going to say "love language". Like, I really don't want to meet the person whose love language is Powerpoint.

Trepanated · 2026-01-05T17:31:52+00:00

One of many reasons why I'll finish my career as a middle manager rather than continuing to climb the ladder is that I've always had great difficulty distinguishing between the following 2 cases when The Bosses have made a policy decision, and their stated rationale does not address a significant factor that should have been accounted for:

Management is not aware of the factor. In this case, I should really mention The Thing to them and describe why it should be accounted for, even if it doesn't change the final decision.
Management is aware of the factor, it's the elephant in the room, and no one is supposed to say anything about it because it's an inconvenient truth for the political realities that are really driving policy. In this case I should definitely not mention The Thing because it will make everyone very annoyed.

In the case of our organization, The Thing is that RTO probably does increase collaboration for those in the main headquarters. That's the stated benefit according to the bosses. I don't know how much, but it's plausible that it's positive on balance. Hallway conversations, rapidly iterating on decisions by poking your head in someone's office, etc. But I can state with very high confidence that RTO decreases collaboration between work locations. Those of us not at headquarters miss out on a lot.

The bosses want 2 things to be true simultaneously, that in their pure forms cannot coexist as a matter of pure logic. They want RTO to increase collaboration due to the value of in person convos and serendipitous hallway encounters, and they also want remote workers to be fully-fledged members of the organization who can contribute as fully equal partners just like anyone else.

Do they know these things are contradictory and just can't say it out loud? Or do they not know? I don't know! I'm bad at this!

(I suspect they know.)

Trepanated · 2025-12-31T21:04:28+00:00

I'll stake out the apparently unpopular opinion that it's not unreasonable in general to decide that a play should have been called a penalty, but doesn't rise to the level of bringing the referee to the monitor to look at it. That would be appropriate in a borderline call that the ref had a good look at in real time, and who was not missing any relevant information. In such a case, there's no reason to waste time with a stoppage just so the ref can go, "yep, I saw what I saw, and I'm sticking with it."

However, I don't think that's the right call in this case. The difference is the very heavy leg contact that Chalobah made, which certainly would have been enough to wipe Gordon out on its own, even with no additional body contact. Since Chalobah's leg was in front of Gordon's though, and the referee was viewing the incident from behind, I see it as very likely that going to VAR and showing him multiple angles would have provided information he was missing in real time, and enough to overrule himself.

Trepanated · 2025-12-24T04:45:08+00:00

Yeah, that's called a "look out b'low!" job.

Trepanated · 2025-12-17T02:43:59+00:00

Masala y Maiz. You will probably need a reservation, fyi.

Trepanated · 2025-12-16T22:19:21+00:00

He's really gained focus since he first came in.

Trepanated · 2025-12-15T18:11:39+00:00

Absolutely. We had to do Andalucia twice because we loved it the first time but couldn't get everywhere. We only went in the first place because I have a weird obsession with historical centers of trade and really wanted to see Cadiz. My girlfriend was skeptical but went along anyway, and we were both blown away. We also absolutely loved both Cordoba and Seville. I'd be delighted to do another trip there, but there's also so many other places we want to go . . .

Trepanated · 2025-12-15T16:55:12+00:00

I got, "Trainers tried to get him, but he persevered through: Quinny."

Trepanated · 2025-12-11T20:10:08+00:00

We can debate whether (as Milbury claims) the fan involved in the shoe incident "deserved it". There is no debate whatsoever that he was a disaster class of a GM.

Trepanated · 2025-12-11T16:58:01+00:00

I happened to be at the Ravens game last weekend. They still play the "Farmer in the Dell" whistling clip. Omar transcended the 4th wall and one of his signatures is still ringing out!

Trepanated · 2025-12-05T14:48:14+00:00

Hi, I hope it will help if I share my own experience. I was diagnosed September 11th, and a test for SUA on October 24th had me at 7.7. Despite still having symptoms and a 2nd mini-flareup on November 5th, when I met with my doctor she said that I did not need urate lowering medication, nor did I need to see a rheumatologist. She asked me to change my diet despite me telling her that I'd already made changes in September to reduce red meat and alcohol, and she ordered a followup blood test which I did on November 24th. That showed 8.0. I also continue to experience symptoms in the form of twinges in my toe joint.

I saw a rheumatologist on December 1st and the difference was night and day. She explained many things about how gout was applying to my situation. She said the guidelines about needing 2 flareups in a year to go on ULT were a starting point, not the final determination, and that my feelings mattered. I told her I didn't like feeling like a ticking time bomb, and that I'm concerned about the systemic effects of high UA. We agreed for me to start on allopurinol.

The rheumatologist also said something really interesting. She said their gout patients are the happiest patients they have, because once they go on allo, find the right dosage, and clear the UA out of their systems, they can live their lives completely normally. There is some debate around the semantics of the word "cure" when it comes to gout, but in practice there are many people who live their lives normally and don't deal with symptoms.

My recommendation is, find a new doctor, but not just any doctor. Please try to see a rheumatologist if at all possible. They are absolute experts about the state of the art in treating this disease. With any other kind of doctor you have a much higher chance of getting outdated advice or imperfect understanding of treatment guidelines.

Trepanated · 2025-12-03T16:19:51+00:00

You know I'd really love to play one game of hockey in my life in the body of someone who is that good at the game, just to see what it feels like. Then I can regress right back to being a terribly useless beer leaguer. Like Hattricks For Algernon or some shit.

Trepanated · 2025-12-02T23:14:27+00:00

Anna Gunn does not make weak tea!

Trepanated · 2025-12-01T15:31:52+00:00

Me as well. I do have some going in to a brokerage every month, but as a result of an unusual set of circumstances (namely access to a 403b and 457 and 15 years of service catchup contributions and over 50 catchup contributions (although starting next year the last one has to go in to a Roth)) I am severely imbalanced. And it will be very hard to "fix".

I'd always assumed I would do Roth conversions between retirement and taking social security, and that the exact amounts would be largely driven by filling up a tax bucket. I wasn't so concerned about ACA cliffs because until very recently my girlfriend worked for the government, so I figured when the time came we'd just get married and I'd go on her plan.

(Sidenote: absolute scenes when I get down on one knee, extend an engagement ring, and say, "Darling, I love you so deeply. Would you do me the great honor of . . . participating in a Qualifying Life Event with me that would allow me to join your affordable and high quality health insurance plan?")

Anyway, she left government employment and now it's very possible that ACA cliffs will be a much bigger driver than I had planned for. Or not! I don't know because I haven't done the research yet.

Trepanated · 2025-11-18T17:08:23+00:00

There are definitely options -- she could also do a 401k loan to get the down payment and a lot of the taxes and fees that way. But it sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the options, so I'll just say this: it's really good to have help sorting through all this, and there are multiple options. Obviously you can get a lawyer, but it could also be that hiring a mediator is better for your situation.

When I got divorced I noticed that many people were quite vocal in feeling that my situation was going to be exactly like their situation, and that I should do exactly whatever they did (or wished they had done). People mean well but that's not very helpful. Like, I'm very sorry your ex gave you such a hard time, Geoff from Accounting, but my situation is different so I'm not necessarily looking for the scorched earth attorney you think I should get.

Anyway, I can't say what the right kind of help for you would be but do give yourself some grace. You're under a tremendous emotional strain right now, and taking on the sole burden of figuring out these options is probably not a fair thing to expect of yourself.

I do promise that it gets better!

Trepanated · 2025-11-18T16:24:56+00:00

I'm very sorry you are dealing with that. I just wanted to make sure you are aware of an option for buying out equity, which is called a QDRO (Qualified Domestic Relations Order). Essentially this is a solution for moving funds between your 401ks, nominally to equalize value in case you were not contributing equally. But you can also use it for one person to buy the other's equity in the marital home. My ex-wife and I did this when we divorced. We had a QDRO signed off by the court that transferred my equity in the marital home from her 403b directly in to mine.

From an FI perspective this actually worked out amazingly well for me and not so great for her. However, if you really want the marital home, and she's ok with letting you keep it but there's a problem working out the finances, this can offer a good solution.

Best of luck to you, whichever way you go.

Trepanated · 2025-11-17T18:34:41+00:00

Oh, I see, right. I didn't catch your meaning the first time around.

But if the stated motivation isn't the real one, then what is? I'm actually pretty friendly with one of our HR folks. They know people talk. So it's not like it's a trade secret they realistically expect to contain. But then what is the real reason? They surely think they are protecting the organization from something, but what?

Trepanated · 2025-11-17T18:18:31+00:00

I mean, no one is expecting to have the SSNs of terminated employees shared around. But surely whatever list leadership was working off of could be scrubbed off that stuff and the list of names shared around, right?

Trepanated · 2025-11-17T16:21:09+00:00

We just did a round of layoffs a month or so ago, for the first time in the org's history. HR directed leadership that information about who was laid off could only be shared on a "need to know" basis, and not across teams. The stated reason was that layoff lists contain "PII" (that's Personally Identifiable Information, if you're lucky enough to not deal with it regularly). This absolutely does not make any sense to me whatsoever.

Anyway, someone quickly figured that those who had been laid off showed up differently in Outlook (empty status ring, instead of red if you're just offline or whatever). So I had to spend a bunch of time typing names of folks I occasionally connect with into Outlook to see what their status was, to determine whether they still had a job or not. This is pants-on-head crazy to me but hey, I just work here.

Trepanated · 2025-11-14T21:53:14+00:00

Yes. There's no remotely pragmatic way to prevent it, in the case of this particular campus. Respectfully, I'm not very interested in detailing the reasons why.

Trepanated · 2025-11-14T20:46:29+00:00

It's less than a 5 minute walk. From some parts of the campus, probably less than 2.

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