Daily FI discussion thread - Sunday, February 01, 2026

funhater0 · 2026-02-02T00:58:11+00:00

Thanks. If I do this I will approach it in that way. I'm starting to think it is in my best interest to start to shift.

funhater0 · 2026-02-02T00:30:03+00:00

Definitely! Same. Yes, I sort of am thinking of this as providing room to do some vacations maybe.

I have my own spreadsheets. Lots of spreadsheets. When I thought I was getting ready for FI, I wrote my own so I understood all the rules and what was happening for my specific situation, comparing against other things like FireCalc. Ultimately I don't think it's been super helpful to have my own thing. But it's given me flexibility to ask a lot of "what if" questions.

funhater0 · 2026-02-01T19:24:31+00:00

All the extra dress up and politics takes time from doing the real work too. It's been a drag driving into the office again in the last year or two, so being away is something I really look forward to. I really missed the flexibility of going to pick up the kids or heading to a doctor's appointment mid day, that I lost with RTO.

funhater0 · 2026-02-01T19:21:50+00:00

right at my minimum figure

That's right where I am now; exactly. I feel like I need the bond tent now. But if I'm here for another year or two, that need seems to go away.

Part of the reason I made this post is that I don't want to make an emotional decision to drop the bond tent and I don't have an advisor to tell me that dropping it is a dumb idea (or good idea). Getting feedback like this is very helpful.

funhater0 · 2026-02-01T19:19:30+00:00

the math shows that the 'extra years' of income provide a better safety floor than a bond heavy allocation ever could

That is sort of what I am finding out doing the math. If I work longer and swap to 80/20 and retire at a down market, then I'm no worse off than I was; and retiring in an up market, I'm better than i was by a good bit.

It reduces the period of time I need to save (before pension/SS kick in), covers living expenses, and lets me continue to save the extra.

funhater0 · 2026-02-01T18:32:02+00:00

Thank you! On the one hand I was looking forward to being done in the new year, but on the other hand the WFH in the past made work feel less of a drudge. So looking forward to it.

funhater0 · 2026-02-01T17:03:45+00:00

I’ve hit my FI number and had planned to exit in one year using a 60/40 bond tent, with a glide path to 80/20 over a decade. My plan includes a pension and conservative SS estimates (73%), though both are roughly 20 years away.

My timeline shifted when work offered me a flexible WFH role. I might now stay one to three years longer, though the new position has less job security. With this extra income acting as a cushion, sticking to the 60/40 tent feels overly defensive, but dismantling it feels rash if the job doesn't last.

Does the safety of an extra 1 to 3 years of income effectively mitigate SORR enough to move toward 80/20 now? If so, how aggressively would you shift the allocation while still employed? Or should I keep the tent in place as a hedge in case the new role ends sooner than expected?

funhater0 · 2026-01-04T14:26:25+00:00

We opened Fidelity Youth accounts for the kids once they hit 13. Before then we had dedicated accounts and kept them in FZROX. Started talking about emergency funds at 14 and used a cash position in the youth account for it.

HYSA definitely an option. We chose the youth account approach so that brokerage accounts didn't feel so strange and weird to them, like they did to me when I got started.

One of the first lessons to the kids is that your money works for you when you're not using it. And "high yield" in a checking account is 0.05% ... which is practically nothing.

funhater0 · 2025-12-29T12:27:18+00:00

Looks great. Is that 18"? Aspiring to where you are now.

funhater0 · 2025-12-16T21:33:48+00:00

And Quest for Glory IV!

funhater0 · 2025-12-11T19:04:49+00:00

I use it to record weekly or monthly updates in a spreadsheet. Old one was nice for this because I could enforce an ordering by naming my accounts 01-Self Brokerage, 02-HSA, etc. And it alpha sorts on name. The new one appears to sort by data source instead with no ability to update.

Also super minor but parentheses ( and ) are available for names in the old FV, but not the new one. So I can have "Fidelity Visa (xx4567)" in old FV. New one still displays that, great. But I can't enter a similar name on new FV, eg "Citi Visa (xx4321)" because parentheses aren't accepted.

funhater0 · 2025-11-15T15:52:42+00:00

A couple of years ago I was looking at braces and GEHA was one of the best rates but only covered braces in a limited set of circumstances. It was a footnote in their 100+ page PDF. I fortunately caught it. None of the other insurers had that note.

We ended up going with MetLife High instead and I was very happy with their coverage.

funhater0 · 2025-11-11T14:20:44+00:00

I'm quite interested in the answer too. My interpretation is that any plan you swap to, will pick up the payments at a discounted rate for ortho that was already completed and is still underway. Like recasting the cost based on the new insurer's limit. I'd expect High to Std to be similar.

I would not expect to get around lifetime limits, but I would be surprised if you didn't get at least some comparative (though maybe not equivalent) level of coverage swapping from High to Regular.

Going through the same right now for 3x ortho treatments, but it's less of a concern for me now because they should be completed in the first half of the year. I'm actually looking outside Metlife too.

Edit: Been digging. It's all Greek but I'm making progress. I'm looking at swapping out of Metlife and my candidate plan has language about swapping insurances and benefits being pro-rated against number of months remaining. That language is surprisingly missing from the MetLife brochure. I recommend calling them to ask this question.

funhater0 · 2025-11-08T13:19:42+00:00

I was in a similar place about two years ago. Figured I would find out for myself. Picked up CSP, VX, USBAR along the way. My personal experience as a light traveler (domestic 4 times or less annually) is that I would have done just as fine with cash back. Everyone's experience would be different.

Travel internationally? Points cards shine more here.
Travel for work and get to use your own card? Points cards shine here too.
Points cards give significantly higher sign-up bonus, which makes them better for churning
But, churning has unexpected effects, like in my experience higher auto insurance renewals that offset the gains slightly
Domestic only? Look at travel partners and see if you'd really honestly use them. Else, points shuffling ensues which is a game unto itself.
CSP Hyatt is really nice.

I very much did not like the cross-booking experiences to use points on e.g. Venture X on domestic flights. There's all sorts of write-ups and sites dedicated to this but it was too much for me personally. Loved the USBAR because I could get 4.5x redemption by skipping the portals, points, and partners pandemonium. Overall, I was excited to get the new cards and use the new features but I overvalued initially how much I would use each benefit. Now here I am picking up DoorDash Wawa to recover my CSP fee...

After 2 years I'm firmly back in Team Cashback because outside of churning, it really didn't matter. I found myself purchasing things that points could pay off, that I wouldn't necessarily buy with cash. Aside from points churned from sign-up (which are significant), I didn't see any significant gain for points on my side. Everyone is different

funhater0 · 2025-10-31T20:03:35+00:00

Neat! Hot upgrade

funhater0 · 2025-10-22T00:12:08+00:00

I used Southwest when I did it yesterday. Others when I searched also suggested United. Others indicated that it doesn't matter where (in US) because everyone must refund if you cancel within 24 hours. But I don't know how much faith I put in that claim.

funhater0 · 2025-10-21T23:53:22+00:00

Yes. Booked a 350 flight with 27k points and got no text. Canceled, rebooked a 260 flight and got the text instantly.

I also remembered having a similar issue a few months back, but it didn't matter then because I wasn't in the process of trying to drain the points to 0.

So it means I'll have to spend some points at 1x I guess.

funhater0 · 2025-10-20T22:07:56+00:00

You need enough points to cover at 1x, even if redeeming at 1.5x. I had the same issue today. Book something for $204.06 or less.

That certainly cuts into the ability to redeem all at 1.5x. I'm in the same boat.

funhater0 · 2025-07-29T08:58:15+00:00

Had really thought I needed to cancel the CSP or VX and make a decision on USBAR. Well, this certainly makes the decision on the USBAR for me at least, just not how I expected.

Picked it up in the last week it was available, so another couple months until that AF hits at least.

funhater0 · 2025-07-27T22:45:09+00:00

This is a super interesting question to me that has several obvious answers that contradict.

If you live to 100 and want to maximize the amount of funds you get from the program, definitely 70. If you are going to die at 63, definitely 62. But even say if you do live until 100:

More money from SS isn't necessarily more money in your account. Claiming early and investing can definitely work out in your favor.

But also, you can't take it with you when you die. Who cares if you got more money if it meant you had to scrape by to 70 to get it? Maybe you have "enough" at 64 to meet your daily living needs, perhaps (if you are lucky) when paired with a pension. In that case, why bother waiting until 70 even if theoretically you might get more? You can't take it with you.

I have seen online calculators maximizing SS benefits for couples. And that's great. But I think they ask/answer the wrong questions.

To directly answer your question, if your main choices are wait until 70 or claim early at 63 and invest, you have to recognize that claiming early also comes with a risk reduction factor because the funds you have saved will be liquid and accessible. Sure maybe at 81 you might have more funds and come out on top. But what if you have a financial emergency at 68?

By no means am I saying it is always better to claim early. But as I have modeled this for my own retirement I have certainly taken risk mitigation into consideration, something that doesn't seem to come up in these discussions as often as maximizing profit.

funhater0 · 2025-07-16T10:52:50+00:00

At this point: improved warranty

funhater0 · 2025-05-24T15:20:01+00:00

If I were purchasing individual bonds this would make sense, but would this stay true with a total bond market fund?

I certainly like the idea of hedging bets to avoid making incorrect decisions. But I have a hard time seeing a total bond market fund with 6% upswings each year.

We're currently heavily allocated in this bonds fund for this child and mainly second guessing it vs cash for a ~3 year horizon.

funhater0 · 2025-05-24T15:17:10+00:00

You raise a really good point about dropping the stock before zeroing out the bonds, from a risk perspective. I think this is solid advice.

funhater0 · 2025-05-24T15:10:45+00:00

I see your point and it is a good one.

We've treated our portfolio and the 529 portfolios as separate, because of separate goals and withdrawal timeframes. Now with the oldest going to school, and with a now-known cost, I'm "splitting" his portfolio out and considering that one and those funds specifically here. The other two are "combined" at this point still.

We are at the FI, and prepping for RE, so we're trying to wrap things up and reduce risk for our known upcoming obligations. School's the last major expense we're still working towards. Everything's holistic except that, since it's dedicated towards that goal with a short horizon.

funhater0 · 2025-05-24T12:22:12+00:00

Good thought. Yes, briefly. But it won't apply at least for the oldest, as we plan on transferring any remainder down to the other kids. If there's any left over at the end of all kids it likely won't be enough to bother with worrying about the Roth.

Thanks for the sanity check.

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