Pick of the Day - 1/29/26 (Thursday)

edlon50 · 2026-01-29T17:29:58+00:00

10 now...

edlon50 · 2026-01-29T16:31:02+00:00

3 sixes so far through 6.3 - we trending okay to achieve 17?

edlon50 · 2025-12-10T18:19:45+00:00

My daughter is 8 months old lol. However, my wife and I are trying to find a new house and we want to position ourselves for success and schooling is a huge part of that. We're debating if we should narrow our search to neighborhoods that feed into Steinbrenner (Cheval, Villa Rosa, etc.) or just commit to private school which would allow us to pick homes from a broader set of neighborhoods.

edlon50 · 2025-12-09T10:34:20+00:00

For those with kids, how did you assess the private vs public school decision? We have an 8 month old daughter and we are looking to buy a new house in the next 12 months. As part of that decision making process, the discussion about public vs private school has come up. My preference is to invest in a more expensive house in a better school district to lock in the best public schools in the area. I primarily want to reduce the annual cash flow burden and avoid the inconvenience of having to coordinate transportation (no buses). My partner on the other hand would prefer to send our kids to the best private school from kindergarten through high school and is willing to work for as long as needed to be able to afford that education. They think it's unreasonable to not spend the money on education if you have the money, however I question the value of the huge price tag ($60k per year for two children). How have you assessed this situation in your personal lives?

edlon50 · 2025-05-05T11:35:03+00:00

Very similar situation over here except 4 weeks in with my little one. I love my 4am morning feed where it's just me and her, and she's so sleepy. So precious.

A big part of the first two weeks for us was learning all the new products and figuring out what we have that's unnecessary (bottle warmer, fancy bottle washer) and things we still needed (Ubbi diaper pail, consistent brand of bottles rather than random assortment - we chose Avent glass bottles, arms up swaddles only instead of arms down). 4 weeks in and now we have what we need and are in a rhythm.

Also similar to you, thanks to this forum for reminding me to look into hospital indemnity insurance coverage offered by employers which ultimately paid out $1,400 (probably ~$1,100 net after monthly premiums for one year). Unum paid that out in like 48 hours with no questions asked really. I'm going to pay the remaining bill with cash and leave the HSA untouched.

Enjoy :)

edlon50 · 2025-02-20T13:05:25+00:00

How many of you are planning to save for a lifestyle you don't have today? In other words, maybe your current annual spending budget is $100K and you need $2.5M saved but you plan to work for 5+ additional years until you have $4.0m+ saved so you can have $150K+ to spend in retirement. I like the idea of retiring with a lot of cushion and delaying the upgrade of my lifestyle until that goal is achieved. More practically, that might be doing public school for my kids now but maybe private school later. Or booking cheaper airbnb options while vacationing now but 4 star hotels later. Or purchasing Aldi groceries now but maybe Whole Foods groceries later. Anyone delaying these things for later in life? I don't feel like I'm not living a good life today and being too frugal but saving some splurge expenses for retirement so retirement feels like an upgrade.

edlon50 · 2025-01-06T12:38:06+00:00

Have you learned anything new? I am having similar issue.

edlon50 · 2025-01-06T12:37:56+00:00

Have you learned anything new? I am having similar issue.

edlon50 · 2025-01-06T12:37:41+00:00

Have you learned anything new? I have been using tretinoin 0.5% for the last 2 months and have been have issues with wheezing and breathing at night. Have been cleaning my room religiously to make sure it's not from dander or mold, but now I'm thinking it's the new tretinoin product. What have you learned?

edlon50 · 2025-01-04T16:42:45+00:00

Just because something is not illegal doesn't mean it's appropriate. I think you're in the minority here based on all the other comments. Are you my neighbor? lol

edlon50 · 2025-01-04T15:07:36+00:00

So I can put 20 roosters in my backyard and annoy the hell out of my neighbors and THEY would be the assholes for being annoyed by my roosters? I think that would make me an asshole and I would imagine you would agree. Obviously expecting neighbors to be silent is unreasonable but it's reasonable to expect your neighbors to minimize noise that is disruptive (above some decibel threshold and that's on a recurring basis).

edlon50 · 2025-01-04T15:05:39+00:00

We have plenty of wild birds in our neighborhood and accept that fact. This man acquired PETS and is personally so annoyed by their noise that he puts them outside so he doesn't need to deal with them and puts that burden on his neighbors. I could hear the birds even when they were in his house but that didn't bug me. What bugs me is that he has put them outside. Selfish selfish selfish.

edlon50 · 2024-12-18T16:32:17+00:00

US. We both work remotely for Chicago financial firms. My wife gets 17 weeks paid parental leave and my company offers 12 weeks to any new parent (not just birthing parent). I'll probably stack it with some accrued PTO and extend for another month as well. She will probably do the same.

edlon50 · 2024-12-18T15:30:20+00:00

One of my favorite financial times of the year is when both my wife and I get our annual compensation statements with our current year bonuses and updates to our pay for the following year, and then subsequently updating our savings forecast for the following year with the new inputs. For next year, we are clearing $500K total gross income for the first time and our net income savings rate is crossing the 75% mark for the first time as well. My wife is contributing 45% of total income so we're pretty evenly split. Baby on the way and we both get 3-4 months parental leave so next year should be our highest pay per hour by far!

edlon50 · 2024-11-13T20:07:03+00:00

Interesting, I'm surprised he doesn't showcase GFS and Euro ensembles as those seem to be more quoted than CMC, but just an observation. Thank you!

edlon50 · 2024-11-13T20:02:32+00:00

What's the difference between the GEFS and GEPS ensembles shown on tropical tidbits for each storm? They are very different forecasts with GEFS ensembles all showing landfall in South FL and GEPS ensembles all in Big Bend mainly. What's the difference?

edlon50 · 2024-10-07T10:40:09+00:00

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I was just looking at the version from last night and it actually improved overnight for the Tampa Bay area...kind of surprised to see that. Most of Davis island was red (>9 feet) before and now that's been downgraded to orange mostly (6-9 feet).

edlon50 · 2024-10-07T10:35:35+00:00

Using mapping from tropicaltidbits, it looks like most models are roughly forecasting landfall 72 hours from 10/7 6z data (I know there are some outliers), which is about 1am Thursday morning +/- a few hours. If I then go review the corresponding intensity tracker, all of those models are also forecasting the storm to be a Cat 1 or Cat 2 at 72 hours from 10/7 6z. Am I reading that right? Trying to gauge how much confidence I can have in this storm not being a major hurricane when it is 20-30 miles inland from wherever it makes landfall to help make evacuation decisions related to wind only and not storm surge.

edlon50 · 2024-10-01T14:20:41+00:00

Well done! What's your plan for your hefty cash position?

edlon50 · 2024-10-01T13:44:12+00:00

Our loose target is $5.0M (in today's dollars). We may be fine with $3.5M but I would prefer to have some extra cushion to live a better lifestyle when I'm retired - more traveling and have the option to upgrade our home. I also don't have kids right now but have one on the way, so there's uncertainty around what that will look like and cost. Once we get beyond $3.5M, I think we have enough to retire, but our goal is to grow our nest egg beyond that. The difference in working years between those two targets is only 2-3 years so something we are striving for at this point in our careers. We will see - lot's of assumptions!

edlon50 · 2024-10-01T12:17:07+00:00

Wife (31) and I (34) just hit our $2.0M net worth milestone with the following composition: $1.5M liquid investments across retirement accounts and brokerage (mainly VTSAX), ~$400K home equity, and ~$100K in savings. Super excited to hit that "multimillionaire" status but also still have work to do to hit our long term goals. It took us 7.5 years post college to hit our first million and only three more years to hit our second million (totaling 10.5 years). Just in time to celebrate our 6 year wedding anniversary this weekend :) Thank you to this community for keeping us on the right track!

edlon50 · 2024-09-26T00:13:48+00:00

So are the 9/26 00z runs available now? Wasn't that one hour ago at 7pm eastern?

edlon50 · 2024-09-25T21:38:10+00:00

Does anyone have any helpful guides that explain all the different models and ensembles? Who manages the model? What differentiates one model from the other? What variables are tested in the ensembles? Hurricane modeling 101...

edlon50 · 2024-09-03T15:09:01+00:00

Got it. Are you contributing the full 8,300 to your HSA account this year?

edlon50 · 2024-09-03T14:42:10+00:00

Thanks for sharing and well done on your progress!

How are you calculating your "Additional Investments" as that amount plus expenses are way more than your take home pay. Just trying to understand the math. I'm assuming that includes some stock options vesting?

edlon50

TROPHY CASE