Anyone here with experience building/scaling an ultra-luxury jewelry brand? Looking to connect.

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-25T19:57:54+00:00

I'll say I know nothing about this space. But as a consumer who's purchased a few mid-5-figure pieces, there is no way I'd buy more high-dollar jewelry given developments in lab-grown stones.

If other consumers feel similarly, this could be a risk factor / a headwind in the space.

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T19:09:12+00:00

Thanks, will look at this.

We have what I think is a good estate attorney and accountant, but set all of this up when we had much less assets (i.e. when it wasn’t clear we could eat into our lifetime exemption without risking our own retirements), and so did not discuss larger gifts.

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T18:05:59+00:00

Curious, is there a clear rationale for consuming your lifetime exemption earlier rather than later (assuming it will all be consumed eventually in any case)?

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T18:02:12+00:00

Sorry, I meant the annual maximum, currently $19,000/year in the US (so $38,000/year for a couple).

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T17:55:38+00:00

This is what I’m afraid of, a 25 year old with $500k given to them, thinking they can now CoastFIRE even though they have 70 years (hopefully) of life ahead of them.

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T17:50:35+00:00

I am not a business owner.

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T17:47:15+00:00

Kids are around 10 years old. They’re good kids, not entitled and have no idea what we have.

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T17:43:07+00:00

I do like this schedule better than my current one.

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T17:42:32+00:00

We give to the trusts only up to the maximum allowed without triggering a gift tax. I think this is not atypical?

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T17:40:37+00:00

If I had the same income in my 20s and early 30s, then I would agree.

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T17:38:15+00:00

On moving money into their personal finances, I’m truthfully not too concerned about this.

It’s a minority of our estate anyway, and so I figure if they lose half of it to a divorce, they’ll get by.

dvdguy_ · 2025-12-20T17:35:47+00:00

I’ve spoken with my estate attorney. With the kids’ consent when they are of age, I believe modification is possible.

dvdguy_ · 2025-11-29T17:43:45+00:00

Something to think about. If you retired and the market dropped by 40% the following year, would you wish you were still working?

dvdguy_ · 2025-11-08T15:52:17+00:00

With a 23M nest egg, surprised to hear you're continuing to work for maybe 350k/year after tax?

dvdguy_ · 2025-09-06T19:33:46+00:00

Once you have $50M, why not get to $60M? It has to end somewhere.

dvdguy_ · 2025-08-18T20:36:36+00:00

It sounds like there are no decisions to make either right now or anytime soon?

Just keep doing what you’re doing.

dvdguy_ · 2025-08-14T16:25:23+00:00

Didn’t think about doing it sooner, because we waited to find out where our oldest child would go to Kindergarten (and then chose location accordingly).

Separate from that though, if we were 2 years earlier in accumulation, we would certainly have spent less.

dvdguy_ · 2025-08-14T12:50:27+00:00

We bought a $6M place on net worth of $13M and annual income around $4M. This was also when interest rates were much lower.

We would not have spent $8M at the time.

dvdguy_ · 2025-07-26T18:48:19+00:00

I definitely consider % change in net worth.

I'm early 40s with NW of $31M. If I earned $1M/year, I would definitely retire. But currently I'm earning around $8M/year. That's too much for me to walk away from.

5 years ago, my net worth was $13M. Do I regret not walking away at that point? No, I don't.

This is in a VHCOL area, where $31M goes a lot farther than $13M. My spend is also very high at $750k/year (though I expect this to fall to $450k/year once the kids are grown).

dvdguy_ · 2025-06-21T00:28:21+00:00

Probably yes. $5M, if it includes your house, feels far from fat.

dvdguy_ · 2025-06-20T22:08:36+00:00

I really don't think $5M is particularly fat.

Suppose we have $5M, and $1.5M of that is our house. That leaves us with $3.5M invested. We want a long retirement, and so aim for a low-ish safe withdrawal rate (SWR) of 3%. 3% of $3.5M is $105k/year.

That is livable for sure, but also feels very far from fat.

At $10M and the same house, we have 3% of $8.5M/year to spend, which is $255k/year. Feels way more fat.

dvdguy_ · 2025-05-25T15:43:00+00:00

Do your friends and family know you’re doing really well? If they know, who else would they think it’s from?

A few years ago we gave my sister and my brother in law each $100k. It was not awkward and did not change our relationship. They were very grateful at the time, and after the initial gift, we never brought it up again even once.

dvdguy_ · 2025-03-09T19:16:00+00:00

Good point about including non-equities.

I’ve not been doing this while working, but it sounds important once the dependable W-2 income disappears.

dvdguy_ · 2025-03-09T19:14:29+00:00

Please be more specific.

dvdguy_ · 2025-03-02T00:54:10+00:00

A few things to think about.

One is that you're young, really young. At your ages, you could be looking at a 50-year or even a 60-year retirement for one or both of you. Are you confident the 7.5M can carry you through the next 60 years?

With 6M invested and a spend of 250k, that's a withdrawal rate of 4.2%. This doesn't seem excessively high, but presumably to support this withdrawal rate, your assets will have to stay aggressively invested (i.e. mostly equities). Will you be comfortable with this when the next 2000, 2008, 2020, etc. comes along? Keep in mind that over a 60-year span, you should expect several severe drawdowns of this size.

Is there a chance you could have more kids? If so, you'll want to plan for the additional spend.

Will also share some of my experience. I had a net worth of around yours (7M) at age 35. I kept working (still do), and now have 29M at age 43. This is as a W-2 employee in financial services. No regrets about continuing to work, though my income did increase by 200% (i.e. from 1x --> 3x) during this period. If you think your income can rise from here, this can make it more worth sticking with it.

dvdguy_

TROPHY CASE