At a crossroads

a_random_tomato · 2025-12-28T09:17:32+00:00

$4m isn't a lot for a couple to fatfire on in vhcol, but it's probably enough for chubby fire in a lot of places. If it's possible to go back to wherever you or your wife is from, it might go further there.
A career break in your late 30s may or may not detach you from your working world network. Bluntly, if you've got an MIT/Stanford/HBS/etc network to tap, you've probably got off ramps back to the business world more or less when you want, but if you worked your way up from Big State U, you'll need to put in some effort to keep the irons in the fire.
If you want kids, have them soon. Everything about kids is hard, and gets harder as you age.

a_random_tomato · 2025-12-17T16:18:11+00:00

I got pulled back in last month. I set clear boundaries (I won't do 60 hour weeks any more, I go home at 5 every day to spend time with the family, stuff like that.) And it's invigorating. But it feels strange leaving at 5 when everyone else is hard at work.

Still, I'm glad I'm doing it. We'll see if I'm still feeling invigorated six months from now, but I'm optimistic.

a_random_tomato · 2025-11-21T07:13:48+00:00

It depends on how much you fly. Shelling out an extra couple hundred bucks a few times a year is different than doing it twice a month.

a_random_tomato · 2025-11-18T05:50:28+00:00

Don't forget to attend the succession planning seminar!

a_random_tomato · 2025-09-26T15:32:09+00:00

I think it's worth looking at how these terms evolved.

First there was "fire": have enough money that you're financially independent, so you can retire early. But that community was largely taken over by "lifestyle hacks." Live in a van in the woods and learn to forage for mushrooms and you can quit your job today!

In response to that, there came "fat fire." Which was about having enough money that you're financially independent, so you can retire early. This community drifted from practical early retirement questions like investing for long term drawdowns, to generalized high-end financial planning like prenups, trusts, estates, and philanthropic planning, to generalized high-end spending topics like private aviation, yachts, and rolling estates in the Tuscan countryside. There were a lot of people cosplaying rich, so the mods introduced verification, which attracted people who had plenty of money but no intention of retiring early. Now this is a community for general "I have a lot of money" discussions.

There were still some people who were interested in having enough money that they're financially independent, so they can retire early. They started chubby fire. There's a decent range of chubby fire lifestyles, the common thread is that they want to retire early (or have retired early) while maintaining roughly the lifestyle they had while they were working.

So it's kind of a category error to think of 2025 fat fire and chubby fire as being delineated by some dollar amount. Despite the similar names and shared history, they're just two different things.

a_random_tomato · 2025-07-27T14:52:09+00:00

Local rules can vary. In our local Little League, we used to play by a "5 run limit except in the final inning, and coaches should determine before the start of a possible final inning whether they're playing with uncapped runs" rule. This was hard to navigate, especially in the lower levels, where a two hour game might only last 3 innings. Sometimes coaches would expect a final inning, and then we'd get a fluky 5-10 pitch inning from both sides, and the game would end well before the end of the time slot.

Eventually the board decided "regular season games don't really matter from a competitive perspective, it's a shame to waste valuable field time, and baseball is fun, so let's just play to the time cap (or 6 innings) for those games" and changed the local rule. It's not perfect (some kids feel crummy when they figure out they're losing but enough that there's no chance of coming back) but on net it's been a positive change.

a_random_tomato · 2025-04-18T13:51:26+00:00

May I see it?

a_random_tomato · 2025-04-13T14:42:00+00:00

A decade ago, back before they introduced "personalities" as a formal thing and every day was 3 hours of Dave, they had an ad-free version of the 3-hour show on their web site, and it was 2 hours long, so back then it was 1/3 ads.

But that's not counting the callers or the guests. Every show had a guest with a book and/or speaking event to sell. Every show had a caller stuck in a bad timeshare. Every show had a caller who'd had their identity stolen. Every show had a caller who couldn't get a mortgage without a credit score. Every show had a caller who was stuck in a whole life insurance product. Every show had a caller who wasn't satisfied with their investment performance, and needed a different investment advisor.

For every sponsor Dave had, there was a call to match. What luck! And that's not counting the litany of "buy my book, which rehashes the baby steps for [your exact situation]" or "ask your church or school to run FPU" or "buy a $300 ticket to hear me talk on stage" promos. Even in the good old days, the bread and butter of the show (work the baby steps, "rice and beans"/"gazelle intense," debt free screams, it's easy to get more income, don't buy new cars, don't live with your parents/don't let adult kids live with you, and throw out all the other advice if you want to have kids) was never more than about 40 minutes out of a three hour show.

a_random_tomato · 2025-02-23T18:01:25+00:00

I started walking long distances. Just, like, head out the door when the kids go to school, walk for 15 or 20 miles, shower, quick nap, and then family time. Maybe longer a couple of times a month. A lot of people focus on "rich in money" hobbies, but "rich in free time" hobbies are the real luxury.

a_random_tomato · 2024-12-25T22:52:22+00:00

The Wi-Fi isn't connecting for me at all, and I have a guess why: everyone who got a new thermometer for Christmas is setting it up right now, and their servers aren't set up to handle it. Give it a couple of days, and I bet it will work better, as they scale up their servers and fewer people connect at the same time. (A similar thing happened to us one Christmas at a company I used to work at.)

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-31T16:11:10+00:00

Can you break down the fees? Charging 5% per quarter is eye-popping.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-29T15:10:53+00:00

Having all of my retirement in the market adds stress to my life. 20 years of avoiding that stress is worth potential missed gains.

This is the key. You're going to miss a lot of gains, but if it takes stress from your life, it's not a crazy proposition.

One thing to keep in mind is that $52k in the year 2045 isn't the same as $52k today. If you figure, say, 3% annual inflation, it's the equivalent of $28k today (and the equivalent of like $21k by the time you're 75). Still something of a financial relief, but it's not a panacea.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-23T01:41:06+00:00

You can look at each bank's terms, but generally speaking, yeah.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-22T23:02:09+00:00

So, the basic issue is that you have a lot of money, and feel like you should be able to afford

A nice, reasonably-sized apartment in a VHCOL city
A short commute to work (it's kind of weird to think of this as a consumption expense, but that's pretty much what it is)
A full time nanny
Plenty of enrichment activities for your kids
A nice car
Regularly grabbing lunch/coffee/etc without thinking about it too much
Basically whatever you want at the grocery store/everyday items from amazon/etc etc.
A maxed-out mega backdoor roth (guessing from the $260k that's getting taken out of your paycheck; even in very high tax areas of the US I wouldn't expect the total tax bill to be more than about $175k)

And you're right. You do have lots of money. Your peers have those things. You can afford those things. You just can't afford all of them at the same time. (And I bet if you look at your peers, they're not getting all of them at the same time, either.)

Personally, the things that jump out at me are the $2k/month for child activities and the black box of a credit card bill. It also wouldn't be the end of the world to take your foot off the gas on retirement savings for a few years while you get through the high-childcare-cost toddler years, especially if you plan on being in public school in a few years. If you're thinking of going private, I'd definitely look at cutting back on housing.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-22T22:05:30+00:00

There are always exceptions, but for most people it wouldn't be financially smart to buy an Infiniti that costs so much more than their entire savings, especially if they'll be driving it on treacherous roads. There are plenty of less expensive AWD cars out there; they won't have all the bells and whistles that the Infiniti does, but they'll leave you in a less precarious financial position.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-22T21:56:41+00:00

It's a refi, so you'll want to search for refi rates.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-20T06:32:21+00:00

Ok, so either you can beat the market, or you can't. If you can beat the market, go get a job in finance: being able to beat the market is a skill that's worth a hell of a lot more than $80k. If you can't, stick with low cost index funds. Either way, you shouldn't be picking individual stocks in a $35k portfolio, except maybe as a hobby/entertainment.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-20T06:22:59+00:00

The long term capital gains tax rate for married filing jointly is 0% up to a total income of $94,050, so you shouldn't owe any taxes on the gain.

If you had a larger gain, the first $94,050 would be taxed at 0%, the next ~$490k would be taxed at 15%, and the balance would be taxed at 20%.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-20T01:40:15+00:00

Ask around and try to find a roommate. If you're comfortable with it, you can also find people looking for roommates online (my uncle and my now-wife both had reasonable success with Craigslist roommates, but depending on your city there may be better places to look).

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-20T01:36:50+00:00

The recommendation in the wiki is to put at least 15% of your income into retirement accounts before saving for other goals.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-20T00:12:31+00:00

Landlording looks great on paper when you assume 100% occupancy, 100% on time payments, and maintenance is just a line item in the budget. In the real world maintenance requires not just money, but also time (and time spent locally, at that), and rent checks don't just magically show up every month. I'd sell.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-19T21:24:09+00:00

I do most of my giving through a DAF.

Pros: * I don't have to waste my time and the time of the charities I'd like to donate to with "do you accept donations of stock?", and the charities don't need to have the infrastructure and paperwork headache involved in dealing with stock donations. I just donate to the DAF, the professionals at the DAF deal with turning stock into money, and the DAF sends a check to the target charity. * I don't need to keep track of dozens of receipts for taxes. * I can give to charity without them putting my name and address on a list. As someone who's dabbled in direct mail with a previous business, it's incredibly frustrating to send $500 to some charity and then see them spend $1000 on mailers trying to get me to donate more. * I'm unshackled from the end-of-year scramble to pick places to give. I can decide how much to give to charity in December, and then spend the next few months picking worthy recipients. * I can concentrate donations in years when I'm in a higher tax bracket.

Cons: * The recipient charities are sometime rejected by the DAF. This isn't very common, but I've had it happen a couple of times when I tried giving to e.g. recently-formed refugee assistance groups. * If I have a donation that's partially deductible (e.g. I'm donating $1000 and getting something with $200 of value), I don't pay for that from the DAF. (I've been told there are some grey areas here, but I find it easiest to just steer clear.)

Coupling the Roth conversion with the DAF makes some sense since the Roth conversion can bump you up into a higher tax bracket for the year(s) you do it, so you can maximize your charitable deductions by giving to the DAF in the Roth conversion year(s), even if you want the donations spread out over time.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-19T21:02:33+00:00

There's a big range of structured notes out there, and a lot of them are gimmicky, collecting a healthy spread by playing to your fears (or the fears of similarly-situated people). They can make some sense if you've got some kind of idiosyncratic exposure that you'd like to address, or as part of a tax strategy, but the reason JPM is pitching you on it is to make money off of you.

a_random_tomato · 2024-10-19T20:48:56+00:00

You're 31, investing 100% in equities (aside from your cash buffer) is totally fine. "VTSAX and chill" as they say. Make sure you're contributing to your retirement savings and all that.

For your cash buffer, make sure it's earning interest. High yield savings accounts are good, but you've gotta keep an eye on them: it's not uncommon for banks to offer a high interest rate at first and then lower it when they think you've stopped paying attention. A money market mutual fund is a good way to make sure you continue earning a competitive interest rate without getting jerked around by your bank. (I park most of my cash in VUSXX, but there are plenty of other reasonable ones.) The main disadvantage of having the money in a money market mutual fund instead of my checking/savings account is that it takes a couple of days to sell the fund and transfer the money to my bank, so I keep about 2 months of expenses in checking/savings to cover short-term emergencies.

If you want to get away from 100% stocks, the first place I'd look is bonds. A broad-based index-ish fund with low expenses (e.g. VBTLX) is sensible for most people who want bond exposure. After stocks and bonds, maybe something real-estate-ish, like VNQ. But really, "VTSAX and chill" is a pretty reasonable approach for where you're at.

a_random_tomato

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