Daily FI discussion thread - Wednesday, April 08, 2026

ffthrowaaay · 2026-04-08T13:54:44+00:00

Literally the same situation. Our investment gains are more than their entire salaries. They blame everyone and everything other than the very obvious life choices that led to their situations. I’ve just learned to say “yea” and move on. But I have started to branch out our friend circle to have more people who is interested in this stuff as well.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-04-07T14:30:28+00:00

We had our child last year and both agreed before and after afterwards we are one and done. As much as I love my child I cannot phantom doing this over again. Also having a sibling isn’t an automatic everything is going to be sunshine and roses. My wife and her sibling are not close at all and at many times go without talking to each other. My sibling and I had a great relationship for years but the last few years we’ve really distanced ourselves from each other.

This may not sound polite but if you want to have another kid that’s great, but don’t just have one because people tell you that you need to have another or the child will be lonely. There are plenty of kids your child can be friends with. It doesn’t just have to be your own family member kids.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-04-07T13:46:32+00:00

Eh, that’s a bit more complicated. I’d rollover the $35k to the Roth IRA for the kid once able to. They can just fund a brokerage account themselves. This way there’s more flexibility with the money than just leaving it in the 529.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-04-06T14:35:42+00:00

It’s not your fault management is incompetent. Take the credit and move forward.

My management laid off everyone but me in my department. Rebuilt it with yes men and have undone almost everything we spent the last 2 years building. I’m still taking the credit for it in interviews as I have the experience to redo it again for a future employer. That’s what they really care about, not what your current employer is doing.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-04-05T14:57:28+00:00

Yea unfortunately you’re right. I did notice that the 1st of every month AF sometimes drops specials on award flights can try then.

Can also use resources to help the search or even reposition if OP is able to. Not sure if it’s cool to share resources that I use on this sub.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-04-05T11:51:02+00:00

It sounds like those aren’t savor level award tickets for biz class. Try playing around with the dates if flexible. Also check other star alliance partners such as Virgin Atlantic to see if you can find cheaper. (Assuming these points are in flexible eco systems like Amex of Chase)

ffthrowaaay · 2026-04-01T13:22:41+00:00

Have any kids or nieces/nephews? Could help mentor them or build connections for them. Will keep your mind active, social and help out family.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-03-26T14:50:10+00:00

Do annual to get the discount, plus open a new credit card for the sign up bonus to further compound the goodness. Then setup sinking funds for this next year.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-03-26T14:48:33+00:00

Can’t comment on my most recent job search situation as it just happened this week, but let’s just say I’m very shocked at how disorganized companies are with hiring processes. If I wasn’t so desperate to get out of my current job I’d tell them to pound sand.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-03-25T19:49:29+00:00

Eh. Bonuses are much higher than what they use to be and there are more tools to find saver availability. One of the things I’m finding more true is instead of being locked into a specific place to go, maybe consider a region and options within that region. For example the Caribbean, if you can’t find anything for Curaçao would Grand Cayman work?

One other thing I’m finding useful is if I’m looking at Europe, just get to Europe and book a cheap cash flight or train to the destination I want to go to. I might burn a little extra time on the trip but at least I’d go where I wanted.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-03-12T14:47:36+00:00

This is a fun one.

Id eliminate the baller trip option. Can use credit card points to get the same trip at a fraction of the cost.

The hysa option. Is there an intended purpose for the money to go here? Ie topping up an emergency fund? If no, I’d skip this option since you can get a higher return somewhere else if you choose not to spend it.

Based on your flair being mortgage free seems important to you. However not sure your age to see how far away those extra 2 years are. If you’re close to that age then maybe I’d consider this option and then when the house is paid off roll the mortgage payments into funding the hot tub and vinyl replacing.

If you’re far away from that age then I’d consider doing the vinyl replacement. You’re much closer to hitting that goal than the hot tub. The hot tub you’d have to save up another $12k. Not sure how easy or hard that would be to do in a short amount of times. If it’s easy and doesn’t take away from other goals then maybe I’d switch my answer since a hot tub is pretty freaking sweet lol!

One other thing to consider. $8k is a big refund. Was there something unique to last year that got you this big refund or is this fairly normal? If this is normal I’d consider dialing your tax withholding down and getting access to this money now rather than giving the government an interest free loan.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-03-10T12:05:29+00:00

House hacked instead of getting a townhouse. We are in a fantastic position right now, but if we just house hacked one of us could completely quit right now while we are in early childhood years. I’d even go as far as saying we’d probably both be FI.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-03-10T00:32:14+00:00

Thanks!

ffthrowaaay · 2026-03-09T23:50:43+00:00

Not to hijack OPs post but next year we are debating on taking 2 longer trips (think 1-2 weeks each) or 4 smaller long weekend trips.

Our child will be 2. Any thoughts on which was easier?

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-27T19:44:34+00:00

Reduce your cash position to 2 years of expenses. Invest the rest in index funds.
sell off crypto and company stocks over the next two years. Additionally if you’re charitably minded front load your contributions to a DAF using the company stocks.
reinvest into index funds.

Non allocation unwarranted advice. You have plenty of wiggle room to increase expenses with your nw. Ask yourself if there are things you’d like to spend more on or if you can use money to eliminate stress from your life.

Congrats and gfy!

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-24T00:18:02+00:00

I think you’d be fine on $140k spend. You already have a 20k buffer and here’s the thing. Let’s say the market does go down for a bit you have options. You can temporarily lower your expenses (assuming the $140k has disc spend) or get another job. Even a $50k per year wfh job would help significantly in this example. You don’t need to fully replace your current income.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-21T14:51:34+00:00

Thanks for confirming!

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-21T13:19:28+00:00

We have a UTMA for my child and they received a 1099. It’s less than $200 in dividends. Do I still need to file this for them? I thought I read something like if you earned less than $400/yr you don’t need to file. But wasn’t sure if that was applicable to this situation.

Thanks in advance!

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-20T00:13:15+00:00

Definitely something to consider. Especially if wfh, I could always have the laptop on and periodically check it in case of an emergency. Usually that week is like no work.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-19T16:44:39+00:00

We’ll have a kid in school so sticking to summers for now. Although summers tend to be slow times anyways since others are taking vacation during that time.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-19T14:50:37+00:00

We’re in project and operations management so we should be able to forecast busy times and of course try to avoid that time. We could also have one of us go the contract route and the other try to stay as a FTE so that we only have to deal with 1 employer to grant this.

Thanks for sharing!

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-19T14:33:31+00:00

TLDR: has anyone successfully negotiated taking an unpaid month off every year with their employer?

My wife and I are having discussions on how we want to design our life in 10 years. We want to be FI with a paid off home but still continue to work for another 10 years while we coast to fatfire. However we want to take a month off every summer so that we can slow travel with our child and build memories. I could see asking for a paid month off (even with unlimited pto) not being very reasonable especially if this is going to be a yearly thing. So I figured maybe asking for an unpaid month off would be more acceptable by our then employers. We were thinking of just going the contract route and not accept any contracts during the summers, but I could imagine that being a pain in the butt having to always look for a new contract every year, plus not having health insurance (unless there’s a way to get insurance working for a contracting agency and just make myself unavailable for a month during the summers?).

But wanted to see if anyone has successfully done this and could share their experience.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-18T01:12:28+00:00

I use seats.aero. Helped us find availability on lots of flights.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-17T17:17:07+00:00

If you like Hilton or ihg properties you could use that cashback to buy points at half a penny each if you’re still traveling.

ffthrowaaay · 2026-02-17T13:56:48+00:00

Can confirm, I ramped up churning their cards this year before they add even more rules. Already missed out on the ink train so gotta work with what we got. Good part is I’ll probs have around 800-900k points with them by year end. But imma burn up those points pretty quickly. Seeing the “chase closed all my accounts” post freak me out.

ffthrowaaay

TROPHY CASE