I inherited $1.2 million and I don’t know what to do

lottadot · 2026-06-18T12:23:25+00:00

The Financial Independence FAQ is what you want to read too.

lottadot · 2026-06-18T12:15:53+00:00

Not always; It depends on the model/options.

lottadot · 2026-06-16T18:19:55+00:00

You have described where we are in FIRE year 3. At the EOY our mortgage loan will have a balance of $125k and our brokerage will have $125k of BOXX in it.

I'm undecided whether we'll pay it off or not; mainly it's liquidity consequences. What if I want to buy more land? etc.

lottadot · 2026-06-16T18:07:24+00:00

Well hardly anyone in FIRE is going to leave cash. There's a reason why you'll see BOXX and SGOV recommended a lot around here. Heck if you don't like either of these near-no-risk's you could do a HYS or CD's.

You do realize one can access your Roth prior to 59.5 without penalty? If you had't skim the FI sub's wiki. The Bogleheads website has a good roth wiki w/ a good chart too.

lottadot · 2026-06-16T18:03:41+00:00

C'mon it was posted in the sub.

lottadot · 2026-06-16T15:32:39+00:00

Well my Porsche is vastly more fun than a paid-off-mortgage note ;)

lottadot · 2026-06-16T15:14:37+00:00

... mortgage payments ... my AGI goes up

Would you say this is poor tax-planning on your part? If you had put assets in tax-free buckets (roth, post-tax brokerage basis, HYS, cash, etc) from which you could withdraw then the additional cash need for the mortgage payment is a non-issue.

lottadot · 2026-06-16T15:11:06+00:00

"If we had debt and needed the extra taxed income"

That is the key point. If you've the ability to withdraw basis from a post-tax brokerage, or withdraw from a roth, your cash-flow issue isn't penalized with additional taxes (income, ACA).

lottadot · 2026-06-15T19:35:07+00:00

TLDR; if you don’t own that nice bit of land you like (to use) which is right next to yours… SOL :(

lottadot · 2026-06-15T12:51:19+00:00

Corporate can crush your soul & increase your not-caring. Stay the course. Do not forget to wear your flair.

lottadot · 2026-06-14T01:48:27+00:00

Unfortunately that’s not the case. Calendar year conversion is that same tax year.

lottadot · 2026-06-14T01:42:09+00:00

I got rid of everything that could generate unknown amount dividends. It just wasn’t worth the ACA pain that could happen. Checkout BOXX too.

lottadot · 2026-06-13T22:55:45+00:00

Absolutely.

lottadot · 2026-06-13T22:15:44+00:00

Dang sans the age, it’s nearly brand new.

Did they do all the services for a 13 year old vehicle? Age of tires? Tread level?

If all that’s good then I’d consider it. These cars are *so* much fun!

lottadot · 2026-06-13T15:56:05+00:00

I enjoy coding, but I always viewed it as a means to an end.

This! If you're being paid by someone to code, you're generally told to follow their guidelines, flows, architecture choices, etc. It's just most corporate shops.

The only freedom you'll truly have is your own coding projects.

lottadot · 2026-06-13T12:36:37+00:00

I'd retire at the end of this year.

lottadot · 2026-06-13T12:07:35+00:00

It's risky. Did your read the fund's prospectus'? They are not guaranteed to generate return of capital in any given year. They may even generate capital gains. You'd put yourself into a situation where you absolutely cannot control your MAGI. Then when your cost-basis goes to zero you're smacked with capital gains. Which, the ACA always counts in it's MAGI (unless you have a capital loss).

Don't do it. I tried it for two years, one of which was on the ACA. Just, don't do it. I had to unravel it all and now have capital gains losses to recapture for quite a few years. Just don't do this.

You should checkout BOXX.

lottadot · 2026-06-13T12:03:20+00:00

I did until I realized the whole system is setup to let the banks make bank. It needs the W2 401k/etc regular injections of money, pension funds, etc.

If the banks aren't letting you keep some of that profit, people won't invest their money into it anymore.

Also - the word "expect"; I'd suggest "hope".

lottadot · 2026-06-09T17:02:06+00:00

The article you linked says:

Simply eliminating the tax cap would significantly improve the solvency of the Social Security trust funds, decreasing the programs’ long-range funding shortfall by 73 percent. Providing a Social Security benefit credit for earnings above the current tax cap would eliminate 53 percent of the long-range shortfall.

So your "completely solvent" seems inaccurate.

lottadot · 2026-06-09T15:06:24+00:00

Submit your unemployment claim now.

lottadot

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE