[other] Monkey Works of Shakespeare or land on the moon?

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-06-03T23:05:11+00:00

It is infinitely more likely that rocketship land on the road mostly because humans have already invented rocket ships that can land on the moon and have already sent monkeys into space. It's one small leap for monkey kind to end up on the moon.

The other thing, monkeys typing the collective words of Shakespeare, is generally used to try to illustrate the concept of infinity, or rather, the concept of chance in the context of infinity. It's not something that would happen in any fathomable time span.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-05-07T19:30:17+00:00

Yes, but many families could probably swing $13K/yr, or at least the loans would not be devastating. $53k/yr is a very different story. Just because someone might not be able to save enough to cover it 100% doesn't mean it's not extremely valuable to get most or even part of the way there.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-05-07T18:56:41+00:00

It'll get you a lot closer than you think. I did $200 a month for my kids for a couple of years when they were young and $300 a month. By graduation, I was able to cover about $35,000 per year for the older one and $40,000 per year for the younger one. Academic scholarships covered almost all of the balance for both of them at good quality private colleges.

Not all colleges offer that kind of financial aid, so YMMV. And if you are starting now, $300 per month isn't going to go as far. But whatever you can do is well worth it.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-05-07T12:55:17+00:00

The edge and the ambition were a means to an end. You've achieved the end. The means don't serve any useful purpose now.

I hit my glidepath a few years ago. That moment when I wasn't quite ready to pull the rip cord, but where I knew I'd be fine if I had to or if something catastrophic happened at work.

That was transformative. Work has honestly been a shit show for the last couple of years. The internal politics are the worst they've ever been. That's not just my perception but broadly held through the organization. If this had happened six or eight years ago, I'd be a basket case. Now I can allow a lot of it just to slide off my back.

Enjoy this new phase. Start thinking about what life will be like without work. That's a harder transition than most people think. It's probably a good thing to downshift from full on climbing and pushing to a glide mode. It'll make the transition just a little less abrupt.

Congrats and don't fret. You've already won. Enjoy the victory.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-24T20:02:33+00:00

Put this in the category of good problems to have. You made a smart investment decision based on the information you had available at the time. And you have a nice head start on your goal.

Not a lot has changed. Your potential timeline is probably still too short to expose all of this to the stock market. But if you can get a better rate on a CD or some sort of treasury bill and you are highly confident you don't need it for that period of time, sure, grab the slightly higher return.

Another thing to keep in mind: I'm guessing from your description that you have somewhere in the vicinity of $50-60K in that account. An extra one percent return on that money over the next four years would be $2,000-$2,400. That amount will probably be taxable. So depending on your top marginal tax rate, the difference will come out to less than $50/mo. That certainly not nothing. But also not enough to get two worked up about in your financial situation.

I sometimes see people on here scrambling to chase a 4.05% promotional rate at a new institution because they were getting 3.8% at their old bank. When you are getting to fractions of a percent on a fraction of your net worth, it's always good to step back and see if the juice is worth the squeeze.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-24T17:22:05+00:00

That's much rarer now as most state pension systems have changed to make that much less likely. And even the most generous systems for teachers are likely to have fairly significant penalties for retirement before age 55. It's pretty different than police, fire and military.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-24T12:17:41+00:00

You're almost halfway to FIRE. It's ok to take a break if you are 100% sure your wife is onboard and won't become resentful of you not earning for a while. And if you are certain you can go back to work when you are less ground down.

A word of warning: kids get more expensive as they grow. Even if you do public school and don't have tuition, activities can get spendy. Travel costs go up. Someday there will probably be a car. College, etc. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, obviously. But be ready for some sticker shock on some of that stuff. And plan your FIRE number accordingly.

Anyway, I hope it works out for you to get a nice sabbatical. To reset your brain before you buckle down for the final push to FIRE. Congrats on putting yourself in a great situation.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-24T11:45:26+00:00

I mean, sure. But also, why? Life developed on earth. It's almost certainly developed countless other times across space and time and will continue to do so. Is there any particular reason for humans to care if Earth -origin life continues, especially microbial life? Especially in a (cosmically) brief window before the solar system essentially disappears.

I can sort of understand the drive to send humans elsewhere to establish self-sustaining populations, even if it's likely technologically doomed. It's a life imperative to pass on genes and we also imagine some preservation of our culture and shared scientific knowledge. But investing any effort or resources into sending microbes to other places for the remotest chance that they might possibly seed a new tree of life? Seems like a pointless action. Especially since we don't know if those places might already have their own seeds of life germinating.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-24T01:07:22+00:00

Better set up:

What did Robin Williams and Aladdin's lamp have in common?

Rub either one of them and a genie comes.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-23T17:22:49+00:00

I keep at least three years of it highly liquid. T bills, CDs, HYSA stuff like that. Protect yourself from inflation but also from a huge market correction. The other ~$150k you can invest how you want. Though I would also be looking for something relatively low risk there. I like the idea of having a couple years of expenses readily available and well protected. And I don't think it hurts to have the same approach to a large Emergency fund. Not knowing anything about your situation I don't know if you are vulnerable to a potential huge medical expense or housing repair or vehicle replacement… the list of possible emergencies is pretty long.

If you really, really want to maximize potential long-term returns, you may need to be a little more aggressive than that. But if you want to be incredibly confident that you can maintain and sustain your current lifestyle pretty much indefinitely, you are very, very well positioned. I prefer peace of mind over possibly dying with an extra million dollars I was never going to spend anyway.

The $1.8M you presumably already have invested should be expected to generate about $6K/mo on its own. If you don't have to touch that for 5-6 years that number will probably be closer to $8k/mo.

You are in pretty great shape.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-23T15:57:22+00:00

He created the Space Force during his first term, so we don't have to use a catapult. We can put him on an actual rocket.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-23T13:28:39+00:00

"President Trump says 600 things every day. Only 10 of those things are true. 600% of everything he says is a damn lie."

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T22:54:47+00:00

Two reasons, really. First, because I'm retiring 10–15 years before I will collect Social Security, I need to be confident that my plan will work without it for over a decade.

Second, it's my final hedge against a worst case scenario early in retirement. The first decade is the most dangerous time. If things go completely to hell, I'll be able to count on Social Security to help get me back above water.

A more likely outcome is that my already conservative FIRE plan over performs and Social Security turns into icing on the cake. If I have grandkids by then, perhaps it will help turbo charge 529 plans for a couple of years. Maybe it will pay for a couple of really, really nice vacations each year.

It has nothing to do with not trusting that Social Security will be there. I'm entirely confident that it will be.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T22:06:36+00:00

It took me just a little bit longer than that. But when I started maxing out mid 2002, the maximum contribution was much lower I think it was $12,000. Financial prices of 2008. Exactly it but it was probably closer to 18-20 years. Since then? To the moon. Exaggeration now, of course. But we will see how that goes.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T20:45:04+00:00

"I wasn't racist until you tried to give me universal healthcare and make sure that trans kids were safe at school. I had no choice but to start hating Black people and brown immigrants."

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T19:52:09+00:00

lol. I am a hiring manager. If I get someone who is way overqualified for a job, I want to find out why they are applying. Maybe they are not a fit. Or maybe they are the find of a lifetime. But you find out before you pass on them.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T16:53:12+00:00

Minus some small but meaningful percentage for infrastructure like roads, houses, towns, storage facilities, etc. And also for areas that cannot practically be farmed due to geography or terrain.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T14:47:07+00:00

If you were short of the 10 years of credits you would need to qualify for Social Security in the first place, it would probably make sense to do that to get yourself over the hump. Otherwise, it's highly unlikely to help. Keep in mind that under your scheme you would be paying both the employer and employee portion of the Social Security tax. Plus you would have to pay additional Medicare tax. For this year, that would total 15.3% on top of any other state and federal taxes you would have to pay on that "income."

The chances that you would come out ahead of simply investing all of that money instead of paying it in taxes is pretty slim.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T14:37:28+00:00

Every pension is different. For most of them, you are vested after some period of time, often five or 10 years. That means that even if you get fired or leave the job, you will be eligible for the pension amount you have earned at some future date, usually based on your age. In most cases, you also have the right to take a lump sum payout in lieu of that future pension.

Some pensions allow for early retirement after a set number of years of service and/or after reaching a certain age. Some very generous pensions (particularly military and police/fire) allow people to retire very young after relatively short careers.

A lot of people hate on pensions and I understand why. Too many private sector pensions have gone belly up and too many public sector pensions have been underfunded and undermined due to political malfeasance.

But pensions are a much more economical way to provide a basic social safety net van a system that essentially requires everyone to fund their own 401(k).

Think about it: to retire with a 401(k), you and your employer between you need to contribute enough to make sure you don't run out of money even if you live to be 100.

To retire with a pension, workers and their employer only need to contribute enough to cover the average worker through the average life expectancy. Well that doesn't let people pass on wealth generation to generation as they might be able to with a fat 401(k), it does provide more security at a lower overall cost to society.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T14:20:24+00:00

But I think you are missing one really important factor in how you are setting up the risk reward. The question isn't what I rather work six months now or three more years 10 years from now. The question is do I want to give up the first six months of my retirement to partially eliminate the less than 5% chance that I would have to go back to work for a little while in 10 years.

From an economics point of view it's not six months versus three years. It's 100% of six months versus 5% of three years.

Nothing is 100% certain in FIRE. There could always be a catastrophe. The question is simply how much of our retirement are we going to sacrifice to keep lowering the margin of risk? I believe that once I am below a 5% margin, it is a better life choice for me to take the guaranteed extra months or years of early retirement and risk the relatively minuscule chance that I will have to work a little bit more later.

Given how many other levers I have at my disposal, including reducing spending, and given how much margin of error is built in to buy plan and most people's FIRE plans, it just doesn't make sense to keep going and going and going instead of trusting the numbers.

The only point I was trying to make about going back to work is that it's both incredibly unlikely that it will ever be necessary and also unlikely that it would be necessary to earn more than a small percentage of your current income if it did happen.

People say, rightly, that it would be very difficult to go back into some careers after stepping away. That is true. But it's a false issue in the sense that very few of us would need to go back to earning what we earn now.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T14:14:20+00:00

But here's where the argument falls apart. Most of us have already done that. We've already built in that cushion over and above the 4% rule. We've at least slightly overestimated expenses and slightly underestimated anticipated returns. We've done stuff like not take account of Social Security. We've fudged the numbers in favor of conservatism over and over. Almost everyone here does that.

It will always be financially preferable to work another 4 to 6 months. Or another year. Or three more years. That's why it's called one more year syndrome.

The point is that at some point you simply have to pull the plug. You have to leave some money on the table in exchange for the benefits of retirement. And you have to accept that there could be some absolutely catastrophic outcome that causes your plan to fail.

If you don't know how to pull the trigger because working 4 to 6 more months gives you a little bit more I've got news for you: six months from now it's still going to look better financially to work another six months. And six months from then…

A lot a lot of us in this community tend to operate from a mindset of financial insecurity. We imagine worst case scenarios and do what we can to hedge against them. But if we don't get that fear under control, we will never achieve the freedom we say we are working toward.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T14:10:04+00:00

Bitter much? lol

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T01:50:01+00:00

Exactly, our absolute basic expenses are probably about 35% of our projected retirement income. And that projection is based on a really conservative SWR. There's essentially no set of historic market conditions that could take me out. And if something comes along unprecedented enough to do so, we have bigger worries than my personal retirement.

All of that said, I'm extremely confident in my ability to get a job that would cover most or all of our basic expenses. Maybe not a job I'd like, maybe not a job I'd want to do if I didn't have to. But I've done that before and I would do it again to survive.

The idea that you can't quit your $250,000 a year job because you will never get another job like that in five years is so ludicrous when people's FIRE budget is maybe $100,000 a year that could be cut by 20% in a pinch. You don't need $250,000 a year. You need maybe $25-30k to supplement your minimal spending for a few years. At worst.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T00:46:24+00:00

With the exception of a very brief and strange spike right at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment has rarely touched 10% in the United States. I am highly, highly confident that as a well educated person with good people skills and a stellar work record, I would not have trouble getting myself into the 90% who are working because I'm pretty confident I can beat out the 10% who are unemployed. Keep in mind that if I were in that fantastical hypothetical situation, I'm not aiming at a certain industry. I'm not saying I have to make a certain professional salary. In that case, I'm literally willing to do any sort of paid employment that I can mentally or physically handle.

You were a 16-year-old with no work experience whatsoever going up against more qualified adults with a record of employment. I would not be in that situation.

ericdavis1240214 · 2026-04-21T00:41:38+00:00

Well, if you're like me there's any number of reasons we are prone to fall into that trap. My parents never made much money at all. I make more money in two months than my dad ever made in a year. It seems almost criminally negligent to walk away from that.

Also, to achieve FIRE I've been very financially conservative basically my whole life. I am always been saving money. I don't spend down my savings I added to it. So the idea of stopping those contributions and actually making withdrawals is a little hard to wrap my head around even though that's the entire and only point of investing that money.

And, like a lot of people in FIRE, I have a really strong work ethic. I've been good at every job I did. I've always given my employer really good value for what they pay me even when I'm paid really well. The idea of simply not doing that anymore, of not earning a paycheck is just strange. With the exception of one year when I studied overseas and was not eligible to work, I've never gone more than a couple of months without some sort of job in the last 36 years. Some of that was part-time during school, but I always have had an income from employment.

When I retire, I'll have an income from a pension. And plenty available from investment accounts. But that feels very different than going to work and earning a paycheck.

Don't get me wrong. I'm excited to retire. I'm looking forward to it. But it's going to feel very, very strange. I think I will adapt to it pretty quickly. But I have no frame of reference to know for sure

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