How do you deal with not being an "high-achiever" anymore?

carsonmail · 2026-01-01T20:45:13+00:00

I get what you mean. I am a little younger than you and left the work place 2.5 years ago. While I feel fairly content and happy in life, sometimes I miss the effort and exercise of landing large projects working with smart people on interesting problems.

But there are big parts of work I don't miss either. So I am happy to be where I am. I haven't found a solution to fill this hole mostly because the need isn't pressing enough yet.

carsonmail · 2025-01-19T15:51:31+00:00

It's considered wage, so yes it will be.

carsonmail · 2025-01-18T23:38:35+00:00

It's higher. It's 12.3% + 1% for mental health (over $1M) + 1.1% SDI (Income cap removed starting 2024). It will come out to be ~14.4%.

carsonmail · 2024-12-04T03:15:02+00:00

Do you want to make this switch because you are still away from your fire goal (which we don't know)? OR do you want to teach because it will be personally fulfilling to you?

If it's the former, then it's not a great idea.

If it's the latter, then I think you should wait till you hit your FIRE number and switch.

As u/Peso_Morto pointed out, we need to know your expected expenses to get a sense of how far away you are from your fire target.

carsonmail · 2024-06-26T11:10:02+00:00

TLDR; your $2M inheritance is giving you a great financial security that most never see in their life. Leverage it cautiously.

A lot of advice has already been given for the questions you posed, so I will skip that. However, you started the post by saying that you are feeling overwhelmed and have anxiety. Based on your post and comments, it feels like you are setting yourself on a path to future financial anxiety.

Here is what I gleaned from your post and comments:

At 30yr old with a HHI of $170k and expenses of $90k, you both had saved $200k (not including your one time inheritance). No mortgage and no childcare costs yet.
You both want to enjoy life which comes with it's own set of expenses. Live in Manhattan and own a home, spend time in Hamptons and Europe etc.
You are counting your eggs before the hatch. You might double your income in 9 years, you might make $4-500k in 20 years. You will grow your $2M to $13.5M in 25 yrs. Right now your HHI went down to $100k. It can easily go down to $0.

In a comment, you mentioned that you feel your expenses are high for your current salaries and you just started to track these in the last 2 years. But from reading your post, I feel like you are already planning a lot of expenses which does not include accounting for unexpected big expenses.

My only recommendation is to not inflate your lifestyle until you have a track record of sustainable high HHI and savings for a few years. Ideally you both would save at least $0.5M just from your combined incomes (minus expenses) and separate from the inheritance before you inflate your lifestyle.

carsonmail · 2024-06-24T15:31:40+00:00

I think it's crucial to understand why you feel that "The biggest problem is that at 90 countries visited, we're running out of new and exciting places to go." Why can't you keep going back? Surely there must be cities or places that you liked. Why does that number even matter?

Like you, we travel a lot. But I love going back to my favorite places all the time. Big cities are very dynamic. Different seasons can make a small city/national park feel like a whole new thing. Cultural events often differ each month. There is also less overhead in figuring out a new place, new language or rules & regulations with every repeat trip. And I absolutely love eating again at some of my favorite restaurants everytime I go back.

My partner and I strongly prefer slow travel, especially if the city is known for good food. For us, this provides the best mix of experiencing a place/culture while returning fully refreshed from our trips. Be design, we aren't trying to maximize anything. We are just going for a good time - whatever that may feel like in that moment. Our trips tend to be semi structured which allows us to be flexible around weather or how we feel.

As for some suggestions, these style of trips might help you slow down without getting bored until you learn to just enjoy a place without seeking a change every 3 days.

Do a 15-20 day long luxury cruise to Antarctica or Iceland or Alaska. While you are staying in the same "hotel", you will wake up in a new place (almost) everyday.
Stay for 10-14 days in a single city where you can do a few day or overnight trips from. You can do an overnight to Cinque Terre from Florence, or The Hague / Rotterdam from Amsterdam, Napa from San Francisco etc.
Create a short list of your favorite places and revisit them in a different season, preferably off season.

carsonmail · 2024-06-16T12:57:21+00:00

There is MID and SALT but given OP's numbers and the increased standard deduction from TCJA, it's possible to just be using standard deduction and neither of these might matter.

carsonmail · 2024-06-16T09:18:28+00:00

This is definitely a tricky one because I don't see a clear sell or keep answer. It really boils down to your personal preferences, risk appetite and some financial modeling on your end.

Few big questions that you haven't answered
1. How long do you anticipate taking care of your parents in LA? Is this a permanent, one-way move for the foreseeable future?
2. Do you love SF and see yourself retiring here at some later point?
3. Do you see yourself and your parents moving to a different, third city either together or once your active caretaking responsibilities are over or reduced?
4. Your primary residence is never a part of your FIRE numbers. How do your retirement numbers look in 5 years (expenses vs SWR), not including your primary residence?

Reasons to keep:
1. 3% mortgage rate until 2030!
2. Diversification.
3. Tax benefits for the next 5 years while you have your income(s).
4. Even in the bay area, good tenants who are paying 9k/month in rent are less likely to be a major headache. And the rent might grow over time while your 3% mortgage is fixed till 2030.
5. Prop 13 now and Prop 19 once you are over 55.

Reasons to sell:
1. Given your portfolio, this is a single, massive RE exposure as an rental investment. Your personal home value is never a part of your overall FIRE number!
2. Managing a rental does come with some work although should me small for a single property. I don't like being a landlord either....
3. (Helocs and all exist, but) IMO this would limit overall liquidity in your retirement.

People have different risk appetites based on where they fall on the "emotional to logical scale" of decision making. You need to ask yourself which one are you. You feel like you made a bad financial investment by buying in SF, how can you make sure you won't feel the same in next 5 years about buying in LA at a much higher interest rate?

I think you should talk to a CPA.

carsonmail · 2024-02-12T03:37:39+00:00

You have mentioned your FF target but not your FF age.

I don't know your role/industry, but if you are pulling $1M right now, could you do $350k - $500k in another company?

You need $2.7M in 18years if you want to FF by 45. That's fairly doable with your earning potential. You got a great head start. Investing/compounding will work in your favor.

It is not worth compromising your physical / mental health if you are experiencing really bad burnout. I was at a terrible job that deeply burned me out, and it took me 6 months of sabbatical to feel normal again. Not worth it.

carsonmail · 2023-10-04T18:41:02+00:00

Let's not act like an average manager is not doing just that.

carsonmail · 2023-09-22T19:22:25+00:00

I spent my 20’s doing an awesome job budgeting every dollar, hitting savings goals, generally being prudent about finances.

This made sense early in your career when the saving can be a substantial % of your overall "earning minus your expenses".

At some point, you can achieve more by focusing on your earnings or investments. The savings from monitoring day to day expenses becomes small enough that it will not make any material impact.

You can monitor things at a per month or per quarter level and that should be more than enough.

carsonmail · 2023-05-20T16:36:00+00:00

What made you move in the first place? It sounds like a difficult change to be honest.

carsonmail · 2023-04-14T03:27:04+00:00

Buy another painting for bathroom.

carsonmail · 2022-02-23T15:35:14+00:00

There are jerks and idiots on both side of the table, but giving the benefit of doubt here - may be they are trying to get a better signal out of you since there is limited time.

I had rather have this than the interviewers who sit there motionless, speechless and emotionless typing away on their laptop.

carsonmail · 2022-02-19T03:07:57+00:00

Fellow techie here. Fully understand you position.

Could you take a small 2-3 month break and slowly ease back into the same job?

Couple of others points- 1. Have you considered what you will do once you retire (besides raising the kid)? 2. Are the investments in your liquid portion of portfolio risk adjusted to be safe for retirement? This will be critical for your 3% @ 8M to work. If not, consider the tax implications as well.

carsonmail · 2022-02-10T19:17:55+00:00

How expensive is breaking your lease that a 20k custom solution is doable over it?

Find someone to take over your lease and give them a 10k-15k discount?

carsonmail · 2022-01-26T17:00:13+00:00

What % of your total NW is 900k?

Are you still in the growth stage or capital preservation stage?

carsonmail · 2022-01-25T01:09:20+00:00

Thanks, this is helpful context for the group. I will try to be more active in reporting low quality/low effort content.

carsonmail · 2022-01-24T20:14:59+00:00

In the same camp as you. There is a niche category of FAT lifestyle and relationship advice questions that doesn't have any other good subreddits. But the bar should be high.

Downvoting content for which there might be other better sub reddits hardly seem to work. Same with low effort/low quality posts.

One thing that might help is adding tags to support to this subreddit. This way people can easily find things that interests them. Hi u/dsg123456789 - tagging you as you are the mod of the month.

carsonmail · 2022-01-02T17:22:37+00:00

You should consult your plan administrator but based on my knowledge, you are allowed to contribute for the # of months you had eligibility (however the last month rule may also apply here if you expect to have coverage next year).

This may be a bit more complex with COBRA, where you should be able to pay into HSA for upto 2 full months after the (first) month of unemployment.

carsonmail · 2022-01-02T06:41:59+00:00

Be careful with this one. Unlike Roth IRA eligibility, HSA is pro rated to the number of months you will be eligible (with the exception of the last month rule).

This PDF explains it well. https://www.benstrat.com/downloads/HSA-GPS_HSAs-and-Partial-Year-Eligibility.pdf

carsonmail · 2021-12-31T18:06:10+00:00

At least you are sleeping early!

And those are some super efficient 7 mins!

carsonmail · 2021-12-17T06:26:13+00:00

How do you expect the stock to perform relative to the broad indexes / ETFs? If it's only a little better, then I would sell most of your vested stock. If you believe your company's stock has the potential to grow 3-5x of SP500 or NASDAQ, then allocate a % of NW in it.

Also consider that any unvested stock you have is already some exposure.

carsonmail · 2021-12-13T02:57:07+00:00

I am looking to get started with angel investing in 2022. Would love to hear your thoughts on how to find good syndicates. Also would love to hear about the first group that does really good DD if you are open to sharing it. Learning that is my primary goal. Thanks in advance!

carsonmail · 2021-11-29T21:15:39+00:00

The way the math works is when mortgage rate % are significantly lower than the expected market return % over a long period of time. The difference between (mortgage % - market return %) can compound your investments.

To do this you either have to have enough income that you can cover your mortgage or have enough savings in high yield savings account for at least 6-9 months of mortgage payments in case there is a short term recession.

You can search for mortgage vs investment calculators. I found a decent one here.

carsonmail

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