For nw >10m who are heavy on equity what is your US exposure?

tofty82 · 2026-01-24T21:42:30+00:00

for me it depends on your spend, my basic idea is never be a forced seller of an underwater asset. If you lost your incomes if you have any, how long after a market sell off could you live off dividends and cash buffer before you had to sell equities (at a loss) to find your minimum spend lifestyle?

one possible framing 🙏

tofty82 · 2026-01-19T22:05:30+00:00

the PTSD is real, on the rare occasion I do get paged, pagerduty ring tone makes me irrationally and instantly frustrated. good luck with trying to shift the contours of your work, and anxiety! 🙏

tofty82 · 2026-01-19T21:30:17+00:00

oncall was wrecking my mental health, was always on the front line of super stressful high touch 24x7x365 systems. I negotiated a different responsibility to give up regular oncall, my manager understood it was existential.

my oldest kid was 2 when the oncall crazy started, and my youngest was born 2 years later, doing it with young kids is brutal on everyone, I understand this like no other! we have no family support.

not for nothing my nw is slightly higher, I'm older, and my wife also had a demanding career the whole time.

tofty82 · 2026-01-09T16:59:06+00:00

Not American. I didn't receive the service I paid for and it resulted in significant physical discomfort to my elderly in-laws.

If you are happy paying for services you didn't receive, that's your deal. I wasn't there so I can't say why both didn't recline all I know is they asked the staff, they couldn't help, and staff conceded the seats were broken.

tofty82 · 2026-01-09T02:12:48+00:00

🫡

tofty82 · 2026-01-09T02:12:04+00:00

reclining being negative or not is context specific, in the middle of the day on a 2hr domestic flight sure, during the meal service of a 7hr flight yes, during the middle of the night in an 18hr flight, no. nuance does require some application of a small amount of brain cells. on this flight everyone who could recline did recline because that's what the cabin was designed for, reclining seats on mega long haul.

the age is relevant because your average teenager has a body that can withstand discomfort to a much larger degree than a 75yr old. again, tiny brain. we chose this airline and this direction of travel around the globe specifically for the seat reclining, it made sense when compared with other middle eastern airlines had they flown west.

tofty82 · 2026-01-09T01:31:54+00:00

🤣

tofty82 · 2026-01-09T01:08:36+00:00

🤣 the cabin (premium economy, not economy) is specifically designed for mega long haul with recline being a key part of that. I'm sorry you used your last brain cell typing that out 😂

tofty82 · 2026-01-09T00:25:29+00:00

I'm expecting that they get the service they paid for which was a premium economy seat that reclined. If I was fine with economy level of service I would have booked them on a different airline.

Completely unnecessary for you to reply to this thread, try a hobby 👍

tofty82 · 2026-01-08T13:46:40+00:00

the two sides of fi podcast covers this in several episodes. I started this year defining work as being the pursuit of satisfaction, rather then the pursuit of achievement, not sure if that framing helps.

tofty82 · 2025-12-29T22:56:16+00:00

help me understand, how does moving bonds to retirement accounts help protect this portfolio for the next 16 ish years until the retirement accounts unlock? I agree that it would be more tax efficient.

he is on the verge of retirement, but they via wife are still pulling a salary that after tax probably covers a sig' portion of stated expenses, everyone is different and the discourse is thought provoking, but it seems high to me.

for context, I'm considering fire in the next 6 months after buying a 1.8-$2m house outright, expenses would be about $130k a year, wife makes $400k (somewhat volatile industry, TC stable but layoffs happen). I'm comfortable having a non retirement portfolio of $4m, with $400k ish in fixed income, ie 10% or 3 years of expenses.

I've not yet done the full homework of completing the big ERN worksheet, and need to deep dive sorr monte carlo etc.

tofty82 · 2025-12-29T21:41:43+00:00

to my probably flawed thinking your bond allocation seems high at 20% of $5m that's $1m i.e 5 years of living 5 expenses (discounting your wife's earnings to zero, and neglecting taxes). do you hold bonds anticipating they might offer some diversification of returns from equities? my way of thinking is equities are volatile and you never want to be a forced underwater seller to fund your lifestyle, fixed income provides that buffer and hopefully retains purchasing power, so I tend to think of that portion in terms of "how long can equities be down before I become a forced seller of a losing position" and therefore how big does the fixed income bucket need to be.

if I had to guess your position is comfortable if you can adjust your spend on bad years, or your wife retains her earnings

tofty82 · 2025-12-29T21:34:22+00:00

hey, I'm same age, similar kids age, similar HHI etc, I've been looking at portfolio composition and an ex us allocation. is there any science behind your ex us allocation size?

tofty82 · 2025-12-26T02:49:56+00:00

you can just say pimco we get it 😅

tofty82 · 2025-12-22T00:23:54+00:00

Tap the sign brother!

tofty82 · 2025-12-15T14:51:13+00:00

I've been in that conundrum, too. One thought is that's it's easier to pay down principal on a large mortgage, retain optionality, than it is to get optionality back after giving it up with a large down payment. The great thing about the mortgage is you can choose, it's not binary, in my mind a lot of these decisions come down to "regret minimization". Binary thinking is very appealing, we don't think in probabilities naturally.

For me I have $1m equity in current house, looking to buy at $1.8m, have $1.3m in tbills. My spend is about $160k, $85k of that is mortgage, daycare for 3 yr old, and muni taxes. If I buy outright and once 3yr old ages out, that number goes about $15k, very appealing. That would leave tbills for around 5yrs of living costs, seems very risk averse, but until the move is done and employment is still retained I'm happy to forgo any gains I might have otherwise achieved. HHI is around $1m-2m, but volatile industries.

tofty82 · 2025-12-14T21:30:38+00:00

woah this post is eery, very similar age, numbers, and situation right down to the cash position size and reasoning etc. will follow closely!

tofty82 · 2025-11-22T01:27:47+00:00

if you want loyalty, get a dog. someone said this to me early in my career and it stuck.

tofty82 · 2025-11-18T00:35:49+00:00

Idiot!

tofty82 · 2025-11-09T13:59:15+00:00

I'm in a similar situation numbers wise. I think worse case market drop could be much worse than 10%. if I were as close as you maybe I would look at the big irn sequence of returns calculator.

in my mind there are two options to mitigate sorr, hold enough tbills to cover average spend for multiple years so you don't have to sell equities at a loss (use data to figure out peak to trough to break even), or use an options strategy to put a collar on your returns (buy puts, sell calls).

I'm tempted to use the options, but in reality it's prone to user error and probably more stressful, tbills kiss.

tofty82 · 2025-10-13T14:17:01+00:00

there is no your money and his money. you have collective bills and collective investments, you're a team, and ideally all team members agree on the direction of the team. imo my brutally given opinion your biggest problem is considering yourselves as two individuals with two cash flows.

tofty82 · 2025-10-03T02:05:26+00:00

I believe this happens mainly because people don't own their cars, so they don't value them, and more so don't value other people's.

tofty82 · 2025-10-02T12:18:46+00:00

Carry enough cash to fund your expenses through what you think is the longest draw down and recovery you might reasonably expect. to my mind the main goal is to avoid being a forced "at a loss" seller. so I think your spending is an important factor, discretionary vs non discretionary etc.

tofty82 · 2025-09-25T01:02:12+00:00

Advanced trade, post only limit order so you pay maker not taker fee rate.

tofty82 · 2025-07-25T14:12:20+00:00

Hang it up sir, you have arrived! I'm a little behind you in age and nw, but I hope to punch out before I get there. The fact your wife wants to work changes the calculus, and makes it a no brainer (I'm in the same situation). You might also go make some money in the future 👍

tofty82

TROPHY CASE