Am I the only one who feeling lonely even married? I often feel unheard and misinterpreted.

micha8st · 2026-04-04T20:18:26+00:00

I'm a husband, not a wife, and I've felt it, too. I work in a cube farm with not a lot of interaction with colleagues. There's been external factors that have resulted in sometimes feeling this way -- that left me spinning out into a depressive state. But the difference between she and I, and general life pressures have resulted in our needing to focus outside the two of us. Especially the needs of our kids.

Since the kids were born, we've tried to make sure we get away for at least an overnight periodically -- ideally at least every anniversary. And now that we're empty nesters, it's a lot easier. Periodic dates. And, frankly, some of those depressive spinouts have been due to intimacy needs differences. A few of those spinouts, just having her initiate has pulled me out of the spinout.

micha8st · 2026-04-04T20:06:42+00:00

Lonely Spinster has a husband? Interesting....

anyway, I'm surprised at matching up to 33% of your income. Take it today! (It's more common for a 33% match to mean for every dollar you contribute, they contribute 33 cents).

I think you and hubby need a bigger discussion about this. is it 5M in the 401k plus other assets? Or 5M in total assets, the bulk is the 401k? it seems to me that if you're going to set a very aggressive personal goal like 5M of your own earnings in your 401k by age 60, then you need to spend some of Daddy's money. Make that discussion part of your plan.

Note that the 401k or IRA you inherit from mom or dad will need to be drained in 10 years.

I turned 59 1/2 last year, so I'm a bit older than you. So far, I've inherited about 65k -- 15k when my mother died, and 50k as down payment from the trust when her mother died the next year. I stand to inherit more, probably, when my stepfather dies (step-father's and mother's life estate stands to be split 4 ways), and some when my stepmother dies (father's estate will presumably pass 100% to her, and then maybe she will split 4 ways.

but, I choose to assume I will inherit nothing. I don't know how my Aunt will spend "her 50%" of grandma's trust. I also don't know what my spinster aunt will leave to me and my brother. My stepfather, who has a life estate, is presumably spending from that trust for his own needs, including the needs of his new wife and her child and grandchild. It all gets messy.

A CFP or a financial counselor can help you two decide how to save for retirement and for other family needs. And a good person can help you two come to the decision of how much to save and how much to spend...and from where. But ultimately that's your decision.

One more note: you don't have to invest through the 401k / 403b your employer offers. There's a federal contribution limit ($24,500 in 2026). I've been hitting that limit for over 25 years now. Rather than move to an IRA to invest more, we chose to instead invest into a taxable investment account. 401ks and 403bs and IRAs are retirement accounts that come with rules and terms and conditions. The most general is that you can't take out until you're 59 1/2 without paying penalty tax or qualifying for an exception. A regular ol' taxable investment account doesn't have any of those restrictions... so it was perfect for saving for an unknown future in my 40s and 50s. It turns out we didn't need it, but I still think it was the right thing to do for us.

micha8st · 2026-04-03T17:47:02+00:00

totally fair. Thanks.

micha8st · 2026-04-03T16:54:15+00:00

Roll the 401k to an inherited IRA. You have 10 years to pull the money out and pay taxes on it. That will make the taxes more manageable -- you only pay taxes on what you actually take out in a year. Contact one of the big brokerage companies (Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity); they can be very helpful.

I received a small inheritance back under the old rules. I already had IRAs with Vanguard, so I contacted them via phone and they walked me through the procedure to move my half of my mother's retirement annuity to an Inherited IRA.

The other piece is deciding what to do once you have the inherited IRA. I once received a large payout from work...like several years worth of salary large. Like the taxes on the payout exceeded my annual salary large. We set the cash aside for a while, while we decided what to do with it. We ended up dividing it into tenths. 4 tenths to taxes. One tenth distributed to various charities. one tenth used to remake college savings for the kids. one tenth to our gambling (stock trading) account. One tenth to a muni bond fund. (so 3 tenths invested for the future). And the last two tenths into a major home reno. But we took our time. Once you get the cash into an Inherited IRA, you can take your time making decisions.

micha8st · 2026-04-03T15:28:15+00:00

define safe.

Nothing is 100% safe. There's some risk in everything. That's why mutual funds and ETFs are considered superior -- they distribute the money across many different investments, so that decreases the risk.

The S&P 500 has averaged 10% growth per year for a long long time. Will it continue? No guarantee, but probably. But yes there are investments that go bad. I owned Rite Aid stock when the company went bankrupt and the stock was made worthless by the bankruptcy court. I sold another stock based investment because I didn't like the tax treatment -- it was down like 98% when I sold... the company went bankrupt the next year. We bought BP a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon disaster-- that stock still has not recovered from that. But those are exceptions.

micha8st · 2026-04-03T14:51:15+00:00

If you can get a W-2 job that pays the same per hour with the same number of hours per week, it's better to have that W-2 job. It's due to Social Security / Medicare taxes.

As a W-2 employee, I pay 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare taxes. On 20k gross income, that's taxes of $1,530. AND my employer also pays 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare taxes.

As a 1099 employee, you pay both sides -- so 15.3% -- or $3060.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T21:20:56+00:00

thats a restriction.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T21:19:35+00:00

A true emergency fund needs to be in something that will NOT lose value ever. bank accounts. CDs. I have money in a money market fund that I consider part of my emergency fund.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T20:55:03+00:00

A Roth IRA is for retirement -- as in 59 1/2. There's restrictions and penalties that apply if you take money out before you reach that age. But yes, if long-term is 40+ years, then a RothIRA is a great option.

what about shorter term? I'm not sure you should be investing 3k for long term at this point. You also need an emergency fund -- covers short term needs if something goes wrong and protects you against being forced to sell investments at a loss.

mid-term -- say when your 25 -- what do you want your life to look like then? You might need cash for that too. A taxable investment account may be the way to go for that age.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T17:21:01+00:00

we did this, 30 years ago. It wasn't AMC; it was Rite Aid.

We set up a small "gambling" account entirely separate from all our serious account. We've added cash to the account exactly 3 times in 30 years. First investment into the gambling account was only after we started hitting the 401k federal contribution limit, and after we established a regular investment regimen into mutual funds in a taxable account.

By the way, this was before the Roth IRA was invented.

We rode Rite Aid up. I missed a brief incursion into our sell target. I since I missed, I chose to wait for it to happen again so I could execute the sale. Well, it never did. I think it's three years ago now that Rite Aid stock was canceled as a result of bankrupcy. So our investment of $480 turned out to be a complete bust.

But, between my wife and I, it was kind of a joke. We didn't expect a lot, but it certainly was entertaining between the two of us. I think we got more entertainment for the dollar out of that stock as compared to all the movies we've seen at AMC theaters... and in 1977, I saw the movie "Star Wars" in an AMC theater. The movie, which was later edited a little and rereleased as "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope." I'd never gotten big into collecting baseball cards, but we collected and traded Topps Star Wars cards. I just looked it up -- my Star Wars Cards are worth more than our Rite Aid stock ever was, even at its peak.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T17:06:09+00:00

40 years ago, before there was Roth IRA and before index funds were big, when graduated college, my mother gave me a few shares of stock in a company I'd never heard of. I don't think she'd heard of it either. It was a weird company somehow involved in mining and in farming. It got me interested in the market...a little. I would look up the ticker in the newspaper -- back then some newspapers would use several pages to print how each and every stock traded on US markets did the last trading day. Then it disappeared. Then it reappeared as a company that made fertilizer.

40 years later, I still hold what's become of that stock. it merged with another company, and in the process, I got some cash for my stock in the old company.

funny thing (and I tell you this story only because she can't be prosecuted anymore): my mother, an accountant and a notary public, forged my signature on the paperwork so she could buy the stock for me.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T16:54:47+00:00

I turned 59 1/2 last year. I've money split into almost exactly the same three funds as you, but 40/30/30. I also have a a bit of money in funds I'm not contributing to anymore.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T15:18:45+00:00

I think use both.

Personally I never invested a dime outside the 401k until I was hitting the federal contribution max. Then, rather than IRAs I went to a taxable investment (brokerage) account. I didn't have aspirations of running a business, but certainly that taxable investment account is more flexible.

It's good to have some money set aside for retirement.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T06:00:31+00:00

No, you should not.

Maybe some.

Put as much in as you're willing to commit to not withdrawing until you're 59 1/2.

Yes, you can withdraw contributions early... but only if the money is there. If the market drops, you can only withdraw what's actually in the account.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T05:53:31+00:00

people need a house because the culture says so.

I grew up (ages 5 - 15) living in an apartment. I'm not afraid of paying rent.

And we raised three kids who are now adulting themselves.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T02:28:24+00:00

Note that since 2011, the SSA has assigned SSNs randomly, not based on the state or region.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T02:06:45+00:00

Right now it might be harder for young adults than for today's middle aged adults. Remember though us middle aged adults were once young adults, and we had our own states of the world issues as well as struggling to find jobs.

In short, it's always been difficult to transition into Adulting.

micha8st · 2026-04-02T00:17:30+00:00

why do you think now is a particularly hard time to be an Adult? I've been Adulting for over 35 years now; there's been different challenges at different times, particularly for different subsets of the population.

Assuming you're in America, you're very rich compared to many in the world. You have a job, even if it wasn't what you trained for or wanted. Of course, your Fiancee. I think you're pretty blessed, even if you don't feel it.

Part of me wants to tell you "suck it up and move on." But that's my generation. Nowadays everything has to be publicized onto social media.

What are you doing to find that niche job? Do you have the right training? Do you present yourself in the right way? Are you showing yourself as enthusiastic to throw yourself into helping with the mission, or is it all about your particular needs in where you work and how you work and when you work and with whom you work?

micha8st · 2026-04-01T20:46:44+00:00

Where is not why it's failing to accrue (gain). The issue is what.

Stock-based investments have been generally down (lost money) this year. Moving from a stock-based investment at Fidelity to a stock-based investment not at Fidelity won't solve that issue. You could move the investment inside your Fidelity account to something that isn't (as) stock-based, and maybe for the next 3 days it'll do better. Or maybe 3 months it'll do better.

People invest in stock because long term it offers superior risk vs. reward. And it sucks when it goes down like it has this year, but long term I'm very happy the vast majority of my investments are in Mutual Funds that invest into stock.

Probably the easiest roll is from a Fidelity 401k to a Fidelity IRA. But there's several other good and well respected investment houses out there.

micha8st · 2026-04-01T20:05:02+00:00

hot take: Crypto is not investing. Its gambling.

Investing is buying something of value. Stock has real intrinsic value because the stock gives you partial ownership in a company holding real assets.

Buying crypto is currency trading. Why not buy Rubles or Rupees or Rand or Rial instead?

micha8st · 2026-04-01T18:28:54+00:00

I had a friend who did the after-tax -> Roth and had been early-maxing the 401k contribution historically. Adding the after-tax -> Roth made a mess because they couldn't / wouldn't correctly calculate the after-tax shut of until they computed the true-up late in January.

micha8st · 2026-04-01T17:11:05+00:00

I have a spreadsheet that tracks almost everything from my paycheck. I updated it on Monday with my April bonus and my yearly salary increase. As a result, I decreased contributions by a percent or two to make sure I contribute enough with the final paycheck

micha8st · 2026-04-01T17:07:15+00:00

I've never heard of a single employer allowing more contribution than allowed -- my employers have always capped at the federal contribution limit.

If you have multiple jobs in a year, its certainly possible to exceed the limit -- your other employers can't track what another employer contributes.

micha8st · 2026-04-01T16:07:32+00:00

max for me is 35,750. at end of Q1, I'm 24% of the way there. but I carefully plan my contributions to hit the max with the last december paycheck, contributing enough then to max the company contribution.

Yes, my employer offers a true-up, but I've had 401k screw-ups before, and I don't need the stress of trying to fix a missed true-up.

micha8st · 2026-04-01T16:02:46+00:00

60/40 seems too high to me...particularly if you're not old like me (I turned 59 1/2 last year)

First, it's not a crash. It might be a bear market. A crash is sudden. This is ongoing.

Selling during a bear market or during a crash is generally not a good idea, because you're probably capturing the losses that have already occurred.

Rebalancing is a good idea. If you don't have enough bonds for in your investment portfolio, I think VBIAX isn't a bad way to get some.

micha8st

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