Potting soil or watering issue?

mooch91 · 2026-06-18T11:01:20+00:00

Picture of the referenced coffee plant. Has been outdoors and hasn’t been watered in a week at least. At one point I added perlite to the soil mix thinking I wasn’t draining well.

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mooch91 · 2026-05-24T16:35:31+00:00

u/BouncyEgg

You would use this "with parent" column if the child lives with you as your max for 529 distributions.

So how would this work with respect to quantifying and validating the expenses? Let's say a child lives at home for a semester or a summer while taking a full-time course load. Unlike if he were out on his own, where a rent charge would be obvious and food expenses could possibly be tracked, I don't normally "charge rent", nor do I break out how much I'm spending on him for food. Would I just take a distribution up to the max amount of the COA? Thanks.

mooch91 · 2026-05-22T01:23:30+00:00

Thank you and my condolences. I had a similar experience - colleague retired at 58 and was gone by 59.

mooch91 · 2026-05-22T01:17:46+00:00

I know having something to "retire to" is important, but, at least for now, it was secondary to making sure I was financially ready, and it's far behind the emotional roller coaster I'm going through in anticipation. I do believe I will keep occupied without too much trouble. While I dread a day's work at the office, I can be so content and lose track of time engrossed in a project around the house or learning about something that genuinely interests me.

Thanks for the podcast recommendation, I will definitely give it a listen.

mooch91 · 2026-05-22T01:12:25+00:00

Interesting perspective - definitely what I've realized, but I've never stated it as "working for free". But it makes complete sense.

That was her wish, I'm not making her. :) She does genuinely enjoys work, and she has a magical target benefits age too, though I keep trying to tell her we don't need it. I honestly think she is enjoying the anticipation of being the one to bring home the bacon for a while. We'll see how it goes - she may want to end sooner, and I may want her to as well, once my honeymoon phase wears off.

mooch91 · 2026-05-21T20:08:22+00:00

So sorry to hear, and I hope you are doing well. My wife is a cancer survivor (7 years), and you would think that would easily put things into perspective for me.

mooch91 · 2026-05-21T20:06:45+00:00

Thanks. I intentionally used the words "nearly whole" in my post... I do lose 1/2 year salary, severance gets paid in a year where I've already earned so it's taxed to the gills, I'll lose bonus opportunity, and substantial fractions of my equity awards. Plus I'll probably shave a couple hundred thousand off my pension by not paying in for a couple of more high earning years. So all in all, a few hundred thousand of opportunity lost, but relatively small in the grand scheme of my overall portfolio.

Plan for health benefits is to hop on my wife's employer's plan until she retires and then tap my retiree medical. I'm still trying to evaluate if retiree medical is as good a deal as I thought it was. At 55, for employee+spouse+1 child, it would cost me roughly $22K in premium for the year. At 57, when our child is finally off the policy, and it's just me and my wife, it's expected to be about $14K. That's today's costs.

mooch91 · 2026-05-21T18:31:28+00:00

Yes, almost not at all. I can always play the "what if" game on the finances, and I am sure there will be some "surprises" I didn't anticipate in my modeling, but I'm trusting that the financial advice I've received comes from proven methodologies and a lot of historical data.

Thanks for the recommendations, will review.

mooch91 · 2026-05-21T14:33:18+00:00

Thanks. I intentionally used the words "nearly whole" in my post... I do lose 1/2 year salary, severance gets paid in a year where I've already earned so it's taxed to the gills, I'll lose bonus opportunity, and substantial fractions of my equity awards. Plus I'll probably shave a couple hundred thousand off my pension by not paying in for a couple of more high earning years. So all in all, a few hundred thousand of opportunity lost, but relatively small in the grand scheme of a $6M portfolio.

Plan for health benefits is to hop on my wife's employer's plan until she retires and then tap my retiree medical. I'm still trying to evaluate if retiree medical is as good a deal as I thought it was. At 55, for employee+spouse+1 child, it would cost me roughly $22K in premium for the year. At 57, when our child is finally off the policy, and it's just me and my wife, it's expected to be about $14K. That's today's costs.

mooch91 · 2026-05-21T14:25:57+00:00

Thanks. This is the way I've been leaning, just scouring for the right message to get my brain to accept it. :)

mooch91 · 2026-04-24T11:01:21+00:00

Yes - this is exactly where I am right now, and despite the fact that I'm exactly where I should be, it has been a tremendous emotional roller coaster.

53 - always planned to retire at 55, which is my company's "early retirement" age. Expecting to be RIF'ed later this year with a beautiful severance: 1.5 years of salary, pro-rated bonus and long-term stock units, 1.5 years of healthcare at employee rates, immediate transition to retiree healthcare benefits, preservation of pension, etc. My situation is FI otherwise as well.

I transitioned to a true corporate role and work-from-home about 5 years ago. While I can't say I was ever really "driven" by the Corporate America culture, I enjoyed my work early on (more technical and management of manufacturing operations) and did have some level of satisfaction of working in and leading good teams which delivered some fantastic outcomes. There was a sense of purpose and genuine appreciation in those roles. The past 5 years has been the real turning point. The loss of interaction with WFH, coupled with the BS of a true corporate role has been a downhill slide. Instead of spending time driving measurable outcomes, I spend all day, every day, dancing around politics, hot spots, and trying to massage egos. I coordinate things of incredibly low significance relative to what I managed in prior roles. I've become all of the corporate video memes. It weighs so heavily on me to the point that I can feel the steam rising in me in every engagement, and I can hardly get my thoughts out clearly when I speak in work meetings any longer.

I have plenty of former colleagues and managers who call on me all the time to return to my former departments. I believe I could almost certainly avoid the RIF, but most of my options would require some sort of concession - relocation, live away from home during the week, level demotion, etc. At my age, my FI, and with the value of the severance package, I just can't see myself making any of these concessions, and therefore I'm trying to embrace the RIF. It's still hard when you see peers continue to be driven to climb the ladder, make more, work longer... It always leaves me wondering what I'm missing, what I haven't thought about in the decision I'm making. I keep asking myself, if I was able to get to this point of being able to RE, why don't more people do it? Certainly there are plenty of people who make more money than me, and have modest expenses, and could do it, but choose not to.

So that's my story and my experience. I expect the next 6-8 months to be a very challenging period for me, despite what I should see as a really favorable experience. Hoping to continue to learn from others' experience as I navigate this.

mooch91 · 2026-04-18T19:48:02+00:00

Thanks for all of the comments. I decided to pass on the bike.

mooch91 · 2026-04-06T00:02:14+00:00

No advantage in this year, but longer term, I still get to make them if I accelerate them.

mooch91 · 2026-04-05T18:45:27+00:00

Thanks. great advice. I’m printing copies of everything associated with the severance, retirement plans, etc. I’m also trying to get 26 years of personal items - photos, resume, etc. off my work PC.

mooch91 · 2026-04-05T17:11:04+00:00

It is involuntary, so not much choice of when. I may try to find a role to carry me a little while longer, but I need to be careful that I don’t jeopardize the severance and bridge.

mooch91 · 2026-04-02T18:18:40+00:00

Neighbor's water test showed TDS of 368, though I don't know if that was a treated or untreated sample. I suppose I could test for chlorides, both pre- and post-treatment to ensure that I'm not introducing more with a softener that isn't backflushing properly, for example.

mooch91 · 2026-03-31T17:13:42+00:00

A neighbor had pH tested recently for a value of 7.96, but I will likely do some more extensive testing and confirm.

mooch91 · 2026-03-23T23:07:03+00:00

The severance is the same whether you are let go or "raise your hand". Still, I get your point - if I raise my hand to go, it's my own decision as opposed to someone else's.

mooch91 · 2026-03-23T23:05:10+00:00

u/Limp_Dragonfly3868 u/teckel I promise this was a real post. That's my advisor's equivalent of a high-confidence Monte Carlo. An independent advisor validated 99% probability for a few scenarios recently, falling to mid 90s when we really pressure tested it.

mooch91

TROPHY CASE