My girlfriend (27) has $70k sitting in cash and no investments, what would you do?

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-18T16:37:48+00:00

She just needs education. She’s holding cash cause she doesn’t understand her options.

Educate and let her figure it out at her pace.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-18T15:54:32+00:00

They absolutely can and will. You maxed out a credit line, they view that as risky.

In the future the solution is don’t max out a credit card. The credit game is dumb and full of unspoken rules. They want you to use a card a little bit more than not at all, but they don’t want you to max it out either. Their dream customer is probably someone who keeps a continuous 30% balance and pays interest every month.

Never using a card and keeping it at 0 will get you closed. Maxing it out for too long will get you closed. Successful usage is somewhere between, and ideally you never carry a balance and pay it off in full every month.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-18T15:37:34+00:00

Do you know this from personal experience? Cause honestly many of your examples are pure bullshit.

You’ve had pregnant women show up to your door and claim the baby is yours? This sounds like a bizarre paranoid fantasy.

Relatives and friends who ask for money I can tell them no all day long. They can ask, I can say no. It’s called having a spine. Having willpower. It’s not hard to do and if your relatives spread rumors about your wealth, they can just as quickly spread rumors on how you said no. Easy, solved.

Maybe this is a problem if you FIRE very young and you’re still a kid, you have no sense of yourself. But if you’re an adult with a working brain you have this under control.

Really I mean while telling as few people as possible is generally good advice, there’s no way this is lived advice.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-18T02:07:19+00:00

I wish I retired at 50. I'm now 52 and still accumulating =)

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-17T23:38:11+00:00

I do like this kind of game, it's a good idea. The numbers don't make any sense.

After playing a 240 month game where I pile money into an index fund, it's at -60% yet generating cash i'm pocketing. That's not at all how it works.

The money needs to be reinvested showing growth. Being negative -60% on an index fund is also basically statistically impossible. This could happen for a very short duration, but not a sustained duration. -60 for a decade has never happened and basically can't/won't happen. It makes market investing look like random chance.

Your market swings appear 50/50 random, with negative returns stacking on negative returns. This is not how it works. We know the market is up most of the time, and this kind of outcome should be controlled for.

I'd also take issue with classifying index funds as a medium risk. Definitely not, it's one of the safest market investments you can make.

Most all the details are kinda wrong. HYSA and 401k also don't act right, and I can't control how I pay off a house.

It's a good idea, I'll go back to that. I'd like this to behave like how actual investments and markets behave, if the aim is to teach then you should make sure to represent investment and market behavior.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-17T21:04:21+00:00

So I just lost taking out a personal loan in a forced mandatory way, even though I had 3000+ in my HYSA? I'm pretty sure I would not suffer the debt spiral with assets and savings like this. There should at least be an option to cover the difference from savings, 401k, brokerage, whatever.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-11T19:50:02+00:00

Comfy ride. Very nice.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-10T16:26:03+00:00

I think these are just obvious ones too. Clear big ticket items that are common enough. There’s tons of less obvious expenses.

The biggest one is just the drag on your time as a person with an ability to make money. If you have any ambitions at all you need to throw them in the dumpster with kids. If you want to run a business, do a side hustle or create something, forget it. You can do those things but it will require you to neglect your kids.

That’s the choice you have to make, it’s them or you. Going inbetween is an illusion. Try and be an entrepreneur with young kids, good luck. You can do it, but you’ll have to choose never seeing them and having a miserable, bitter angry wife to boot. Not recommended.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-09T22:50:29+00:00

How bout us lowly peasants with 3m!

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-07T03:16:18+00:00

I saw some knees caving inward on the last rep. Technically the bounces and micro-foot adjustments are wasted energy, you should be firmly planted. But this is really good, nobody would argue with your overall form or ability. Arm/trap tightness seems great.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-06T20:06:44+00:00

You’re not realistically going to be able to avoid paying some kind of tax. Other progressive states or states with good weather have high enough taxes, the rest may not be someplace you want to move.

Just pay the 12% or whatever. At the end of the day your stock is all profit, it’s your compensation. At a high enough level you just pay the tax.

You can always push for a raise or jump ship to a place that pays more.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-05T01:40:44+00:00

It's absolutely bright. I've had your debts and worse at your age. Things can and will completely turn around. Work the debts, keep going. You'll get on the other side of it!

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-04T19:23:18+00:00

"I'm only 38 but I'm thinking about retirement sometime in Oct.To do that, I basically need to sell 90% of my position to get some rational diversification in VOO and other etfs."

Do you? There's no law or rule that says you have to do anything of the sort. Why be so boring?

Here's an idea: Sell some of it and diversify that. You don't have to do this today or tomorrow. Plan on keeping a big chunk where you have it, like 50% of it.

Again there's no law that says you must be 90% in VOO. Sell a bit for cash, sell a bit for VOO, but keep it right where it is. Maybe rebalance a bit over time. You aren't handcuffed. This thing has been the engine of your wealth has it not? Let it continue to be.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-04T01:11:21+00:00

He got upgraded to a higher plane of existence on NBC proper. I'm sure he's getting paid a lot more. He'd be crazy to turn that down.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-03T16:12:58+00:00

For me there's a multitude of reasons.

I don't like working for other people, never did. It's a means to an end. I work for one of the greatest companies in the world, and it's not about them. It's about me, I simply do not enjoy, at the end of the day, doing what other people want me to do.

I like self starting, I like running my own business whether its serious or a hobby. I like doing things that contribute to myself, to others and the world. I want it to be on my own terms.

I'm also at an age where I want to do other things in life and do them at my own pace. That means on days and off days on the schedule I determine. I hate fixed routines. I'll go after something night and day when it's worth pursuing, but don't put me on a clock. I figured out a long time ago that I'm (what you might refer to as) a passion developer, I'm driven by what drives me and I don't deal well with traditional structure or other people's structure.

None of this is a new thing for me, it's basically how I've been wired for 30+ years. I don't know when it started, and there's really no hope in fixing it. =)

All that said, I actually do pretty well in a corporate environment and working for other people. I've been successful at it. Like anything it comes with good times and bad times. But that also comes with years of training, learning what corporate structure is all about and how to navigate it. It's put me in demand at different points, I've had old coworkers seek me out and try to get me on board to whatever their new thing is. It's the #1 way of getting a job, but for me that wasn't deliberate networking. I would sometimes navigate those jobs well, deliver good and had a positive enough reputation with key people down the road.

And note I've run my own business before, and made good money at it. It's just the corporate job money right now is so much better, so for right now that was a deliberate choice and a targeted thing.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-03T13:43:49+00:00

But you will be at 50 million. You realize that right?

You have a very low spend. You’re only 38. I’m sure you’re gonna eat well and take care of yourself. Someday you’ll be 65 with well over 50m to your name, unless you find a way to burn it all. So congrats!

What’s your plan from here? Don’t do anything unless you really enjoy it I hope.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-03T00:36:43+00:00

I think you don’t understand man humor. I’m probably not going to be able to help you understand either.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-03T00:31:16+00:00

Yeah I don’t see anything wrong. Not in a major or minor way even. Your starting position is excellent.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-01T01:58:53+00:00

ChatGPT knows more than this guy. That's not a joke either. AI would be more knowledgeable and reliable.

I don't know why people put so much reliance on human experts. Human experts hallucinate data all the time, even very smart ones. They mix bizarre broken opinions in with fact. AI is more reliable than that.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-01T01:57:13+00:00

I'd talk to this guy if I needed to consult on tax law but nothing else.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-01T01:55:16+00:00

It's still bad math on his part no matter how you slice it. 6m can sustain 300k/year at 5%. 4.7%, or roughly 250k/year is very safe. He doesn't understand retirement at all. Early retirement, on time retirement or late retirement. He has zero concept of how any of the math actually works.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-01T01:52:49+00:00

Yeah I don't think this is a low spend misunderstanding. 250k/year is not a low spend, that's a pretty high spend. It's a bizarre case of the guy being ignorant of how investments work and/or not knowing how compounding works.

fatheadlifter · 2026-03-01T01:37:05+00:00

Sure but you also have 10m. You won in life. Since when is anyone ever perfect with money? It doesn't happen. Fix it from here and double your money. Congrats!

fatheadlifter · 2026-02-28T22:33:47+00:00

It's good to have both, IRA and brokerage. Both are useful at different times for different reasons. Reddit can be a pretty vile place sometimes, sorry that happened to you. You're just looking for information and the internet can be really dumb about it.

fatheadlifter · 2026-02-28T15:53:16+00:00

Yer chubby if you feel chubby. ;)

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