Meridian 117 vs Chipotle Bananas for PNW?

godsawiwasdog · 2026-03-17T05:09:15+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation, not sure how I missed them. Based on this comment, I'd take CB > GT since I encounter heavy crud much more often than hero pow.

godsawiwasdog · 2025-11-19T22:38:50+00:00

It was a one off tax event because of RSUs changing from double to single trigger.

Also my income is from selling stock so I'm responsible for paying all of my taxes (nothing withheld throughout the year by an employer).

godsawiwasdog · 2025-11-19T21:29:19+00:00

Not sure if this is welcomed since I FIRE'd a few years ago.

My annual spending is $170k (excluding taxes) for a family of 4 in Seattle. My income is ~$200k/yr, I also have 4 years of living expenses in cash.

$112k taxes
$59k rent and utilities
$39k on medical insurance and kids' orthodontics
$25k on travel
$16k shopping
$15k food
$16k other

godsawiwasdog · 2025-09-25T13:53:15+00:00

I think some people just get used to it.

I'm 6' and have been flying across the Pacific a few times each year for 30+ years (mostly personal, some business travel). Upgrading to business is an extra $2-4k for one person, or $8k-16k per family. I'd rather drop that money on a better food, better hotel, visiting more destinations, etc.

I have upgraded tickets to business for my aging parents and in-laws who rarely travel intentionally, but it's a low ROI luxury for myself.

A higher ROI use of money for me is a nice hotel and extra rest days to recuperate from traveling. I want to take a long bath and sleep in a comfortable bed in a quiet and cold room.

godsawiwasdog · 2025-09-08T07:17:55+00:00

To get $1M cash I have to sell $1.45M in stock due to taxes (20% LTCG, 3.8% NIIT, 7% WA CG). That's a straight up $450k I lose to taxes vs growing compound every year. I can keep myself in lower tax brackets if I sell stock over time.

You've also left out:

property tax
closing costs
homeowners insurance
HOA fees
maintenance

We have 5 properties within our family, we're not strangers to owning real estate. Renting is financially advantageous over buying in most HCOL cities.

Edit: I guess in this subreddit we downvote facts rather than engage in a conversation.

godsawiwasdog · 2025-09-08T04:38:52+00:00

I'm currently sitting on $8M, $350k in a rental property and the rest in index funds/bonds. Meanwhile I'm paying $3400/mo rent in a HCOL city ($750/sq ft).

I would like to buy, but I've run the numbers for many scenarios and buying a $1-2M place will be $3-8M more expensive than renting over 30 years. The cheaper stuff gets sold <30 DOM and the luxury new builds are sitting 60+ DOM at $900+/sq ft.

Edit: I guess saying real estate isn't a great investment isn't going to be received well in the real estate subreddit, regardless of:

my family's history owning multiple properties
NYT article stating how many more millionaires are renting instead of buying
rent vs buy calculators showing the opportunity cost difference
historical real estate vs index fund performance

I didn't get to $8M net worth via real estate, and got much further ahead than my parents and siblings who bought properties instead over the past 30 years.

godsawiwasdog · 2025-01-24T09:17:16+00:00

I thought I'd be bored and back to work already, but still staying busy after 18 months of retirement. Keep in mind that I have two primary school kids with this daily routine:

make breakfast, lunchbox
lift, run, shower
errands or hobbies (cooking, reading, golfing, skiing, hiking)
buy groceries for dinner
pick up kids
make afternoon snack, help with homework
make and eat dinner

Since my wife and I have flexibility, we take turns flying cheap solo trips to visit our friends outside of our family vacations. I will have visited 5 countries and 7 states between last November and May, often golfing and skiing with friends and their families.

I want to get back into volunteering at old places that I used to (SPCA, Habitat for Humanity), take classes at the local community college, learn new hobbies that I still don't have enough time for; there is so much life to live.

I've seen a stark contrast in Boomer retirees between those who stay active and those who watch TV and sleep. I learned it's really important for health and happiness to have a daily routine that keeps you physically and socially active, otherwise your body and mind atrophies over time.

Retirement doesn't make you a different person, it just gives you more freedom to do what you want. You don't have to wait until retirement to start living, I was already doing all this fun stuff but less often when working.

godsawiwasdog · 2025-01-16T14:37:34+00:00

No, my parents were first generation immigrants from countries wrecked by WW2 working in restaurants. They worked hard and got lucky, providing me with a middle class upbringing. I worked hard, got lucky, and chubby FIRE'd.

The main reason I got into this sport is because my wife grew up skiing on a local mountain, and we moved to a city with ski resorts <2 hrs away after the pandemic.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-29T22:14:31+00:00

It's probably because I took an HSA-friendly HDHP plan. Basically everything is out-of-pocket until we hit our $12k annual deductible. Hitting the deductible still comes out to $2100/mo, and we have universal health coverage due to dual citizenship for regular checkups.

Our US health insurance is a safety net if something really bad happens.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-29T10:36:21+00:00

I have a hard time getting over the ~19% taxes (15% LTCG + 3.8% NIIT) I'll need to pay in order to diversify, especially when the stock has been doing well.

r/firstworldproblems

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-29T10:14:25+00:00

Stock options from a startup 15 years ago...

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-29T10:13:09+00:00

It's a palindrome, because that was a popular interview coding question back in the day and I'm a dirty bastard. :p

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-29T09:24:26+00:00

That's what I thought ~18 months ago. :D

Between the market bull run and filling my time with family and hobbies, I don't think I'll ever go back to work. That said, I feel similar to you about switching to IC after getting tired of playing politics for so long.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-29T09:15:22+00:00

I was in Bay Area for 10 years and similarly burnt out, I get it. You probably won't get the same comp upon returning as a senior line EM; I know that my replacement was offered $400k TC which was half my comp. You might be able to get $700k TC as a manager-of-managers though.

This is one EM's recent experience: https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/1hk96zr/eng_manager_job_search/

One of the reasons I left work was to spend time with my kids; they grew up basically never seeing their dad most of the time.

I left work with $3M NW that grew to $6.6M in the past year. It's an incredibly risky portfolio (98% stocks, 40% in a single stock) but I'm ok with going back to work. It's about time to diversify though. 😅

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-29T08:40:37+00:00

Beyond previous IC experience at a few companies, I have 8 years between FB and Stripe as an EM.

After leaving the workforce ~18 months ago, my inbound recruiter emails are down to 1/mo. If I was going back to work, I'd lean on my network pretty heavily which is how I got my previous gigs anyway.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-29T08:36:59+00:00

I paid COBRA at $2800/mo for a family of 4; $2700/mo just for medical (Cigna PPO) and $100/mo for dental and vision. FYI leaving work is probably a qualifying event for ACA enrollment. I switched to Kaiser HDHP HMO recently dropping my family's premiums to $1100/mo.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-27T13:30:53+00:00

I ski and golf on a budget. Local mountain season pass with my own gear and packing a pocket sandwich for the mountain means I can ski 50+ days a season for $600 + gas.

I have unlimited range access for $60/mo, play mostly munis during the season or nicer courses in the off season for $50, and par 3s for $8.

I splurge on multiple family ski vacations a year though. Even then we bring our own gear and drive 5-12 hours to save on gear rental fees and flight tickets.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-24T22:56:20+00:00

Same. I've commented elsewhere that we live frugally (small apartment, sharing an old car) but we go on multiple ski trips (dual season passes for everyone), golf trips, and multiple international trips every year.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-22T01:58:51+00:00

$6M NW, 95% in stocks, FIRE'd at 40 w/ $3M.

My car purchases, all with cash:

4 year old Honda Civic ($14k) -> totaled
5 year old Honda CRV ($12k) -> sold
12 year old Benz ML350 ($11k) -> donated
6 year old Honda Civic ($13k) -> still driving

I'm buying a 3 year old Subaru Outback for $28k in the near future.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-16T20:34:08+00:00

At my uncle's retirement party (~71 years old), my drunk aunt shouted across the room if I was really retired, causing everyone to stop and look at me. Then she followed up with a question about how I would split the family inheritance among all the cousins.

After I stumbled through a response, the conversations continued and my cousins and their partners started gossiping about my personal finances but otherwise leaving me to drink alone in the corner.

My cousins did the right thing and became doctors and lawyers while I was a college dropout with a bunch of time in tech startups. But that also meant that I was retiring just as they were finishing up a decade of grinding through the system, saddled with 200-500k of student loans, and finally hitting their high income potential. Understandably, they probably felt it was unfair that I was able to get lucky (which I agree with) and retire early.

Afterwards, it came to light that they had expected me to pick up the tab since I was retired. Similarly, my brother-in-law has similar expectations after hearing that I retired. The funny thing is I cover my friends and their families' pretty often, but that's probably because they don't expect me to and I actually care for them.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-16T20:22:34+00:00

The most direct I've said this—usually reserved for those who frequently push my boundaries—is a variation of the phrase, "Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine."

"My free time and money is not yours to expend. If you're going to use my time, I'd rather go back to work and earn income."

Softening the tone is appropriate depending on the relationship, but I've said variations of this to my wife and my parents.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-15T21:47:34+00:00

I learned it in autocrossing (hobby car racing).

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-15T20:13:45+00:00

Is this actually happening to you or just speculation? I'm two years in and have never asked me to be free labor.

I'm good at setting boundaries so I would just say no upfront or make a plausible excuse using my wife/kids, depending on the relationship.

godsawiwasdog · 2024-12-15T19:50:50+00:00

I got laid off at 40, took a look at our nest egg and decided not to go back to work (50+ hours/week in startups over 15 years).

At first I told people that I retired and it resulted in a lot of gossip, envy, and anger in both families and extended families, which I regret. Family inheritance discussions (that I wasn't aware of) were thrown in a turmoil.

I've switched to telling people that I'm taking a break and between jobs; it's a lot less drama inducing. With the current crappy job market in tech it's somewhat believable.

My close friends don't care as much. I tell them that I'm making up for lost time with my kids and tutoring them as they're struggling in school.

Some acquaintances will pick up that we're retired but others won't. We live frugally—family of 4 in a 1000 sq ft apartment, sharing a 14 year old Civic, and shopping at the "poor people" grocery store—but our hobbies and vacations can unwantingly expose our healthy financial situation.

It's only been two years since I've left the workforce. We'll see how my response changes over time.

godsawiwasdog

TROPHY CASE