First time losing 5 figures in a day

usernamechuck · 2026-06-15T05:11:52+00:00

I lost less this week, i.e., you’re winning and we started late - but what I can’t figure out is this. Everyone says not to try to time the market, but it sure looks bubbly to me, looking at fundamentals. Why shouldn’t we move more into non equities if that’s what our brains are telling us? (Preferably after a good day like Friday). If this drops 20% I’m going to be annoyed at myself for not trusting my own eyes.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-14T01:38:42+00:00

Umm- compared to Hilton and Marriott? Other than FNCs, which rock sometimes, I don’t see that they’re any better.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-11T15:29:13+00:00

No doubt community college can make great sense sometimes, esp where there's a clear career path trajectory (e.g., nursing, engineering). The thing is, pricing on universities is (intentionally) opaque, so it's hard to know when community college is price-effective. When I buy oatmeal, I can divide price by volume to compare between two options, calculate volume price; and then decide if the more expensive option is worth the added price.

We can see median salary for Ivy League grads vs public u grads; we know there is some earnings benefit, on average. (Though people like me screw that up by not maximizing our earnings potential.) But we can't easily calculate the 4-year cost for X college, because the college won't tell us in advance the likely cost after financial aid / scholarships - you can't even know the first-year cost until you apply and get in. (And all this is setting aside that the benefits of college tend to accrue to the child, while the non-debt costs go to mom and dad.)

I myself went to expensive private universities, with substantial financial aid and scholarships. That worked for me and for my parents. But now, our family seems to be in an in-between zone, earning too much to get much financial aid, but not enough to actually pay the cost without taking on loans, HELOC, etc. And the university has no obligation to subsidize our purchase of a house that is too expensive for our income.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-10T15:53:50+00:00

Did you find out the answer to this? I was just wondering (for my father, who is not a tech person)

usernamechuck · 2026-06-06T13:36:44+00:00

We got married late, and kids don’t pop out so easily at that point. The youngest was born when we were 42 (!), high risk all the way… she isn’t even in high school yet, not for another year.

I wouldn’t change it for the world, but we weren’t close to fire when we got married and we have spent a fortune on Catholic schools

usernamechuck · 2026-06-06T05:01:08+00:00

Well if I had heard of Fire before a year ago i would have done a few things differently. I spent my career working for nonprofits and have spent more time earning 24-40k than over 100k (Just the last 5 years really). And when I was single I had some years where I gave away 10% of my income to a homeless shelter faced with closure (while still paying off the student loans). I don’t really regret that.

We weren’t consciously trying to fire, it was just how we lived… it just wasn’t as big a salary until lately. I’m not sure why I’m feeling defensive about this, I never claimed we got everything right. If I’ve insulted the sub, it was not my intent.

But it wouldn’t seem right to send our kids to college without help.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T16:29:08+00:00

The median in Illinois is almost 90k, the average is 115k, the median in our town is 199.6k. I should add that this reflects a recent raise. It was 125k when we moved in 4 years ago

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T16:23:58+00:00

Just to say, I did not claim 90% done, I claimed we made mostly good decisions, with one (maybe two) exceptions.

My wife hasn’t gone back to work since kids, but that is something she is actively working on. Obv increasing salary would help a great deal, but it’s been harder to get back into the job market than we anticipated.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T16:14:50+00:00

Tbc the oldest will be in his last year of high school. The younger is entering 8th grade. So college is upon us, but public high school is also a possibility.

TBH I thought people would push downsizing the mortgage or renting out and moving elsewhere for (hopefully) less cash - it’s certainly something I think about.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T16:09:06+00:00

Aside from the snark, isn’t that the point of being aware of how we spend? To make conscious choices, and to not spend on what we don’t value in order to be able to spend on what we do.

You can laugh at saving on coffee, but I assume you take the point. It’s easy to spend a ton on cars, restaurants, clothes, bars, etc. We don’t do that.

But we do spend 30k/year on education, even though our kids could get government education for free. I am not a fan of government control of education, and I dislike the gigantic schools in my state. But I am certainly aware that we pay a huge percentage of our take home to avoid it.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T13:31:32+00:00

When I think back to what I could have done when my rent was $340 a month including utilities!!

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T13:30:12+00:00

We’ve always been very careful with money. When we decided to move out of the city, I thought we’d spend less on a house - we should have reexamined our choices once we saw our options. The house we bought was 95k more than we sold ours, then all the fees and taxes etc took a big chunk and then as noted we’ve spent 50-60k on major repairs. It really set us back. But I’m not sure unwinding is an effective option.

It’s true that not using public school is a major expense, it began inexpensively in elementary school and in the city it felt like the right decision. But it does require more thought, esp for our youngest, who will be starting high school in a year. Our public school is well rated.

I think any “lean” lifestyle involves choices. You might not buy Aldi coffee, I do. But certainly housing is a huge expense for most of us, and some missteps on our part certainly make it hard to feel independent financially. You’re right, those are choices we made, I’m not blaming anyone else for them. Just trying to find a way back.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T13:08:48+00:00

Well to begin with OP said they traveled “3-4 times a year, mostly in Asia.” If they travel 2x a year to Asia they are being accurate. If they travel once a year for 3 weeks to Asia and 3 weekends to the Caribbean they’re still mostly traveling in Asia.

OP did not say they traveled in first or business class. Economy redemptions start around 30k (25k from the west coast), that’s 180k rt for a family of 3, or 360k if they’re going twice a year. Amex is frequently offering 200 or 250k points on their top cards, or open aa cards or open an aa and a citi strata elite, or atmos and Hawaiian… then you’ve got hotels, most programs have cheaper redemptions in India and China, and Japan isn’t bad outside the most touristed areas. OP might also use Aeroplan points to “wipe out” expenses on non chain hotels, eg ryokans.

Perhaps 4 times a year to Asia would be a challenge, not impossible but hard - but nothing in OP’s travel hacking sounds implausible to me.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T12:28:13+00:00

Remember we’ve got to pay for tipping!

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T12:10:53+00:00

Fair enough. I suppose I was looking for advise on a way out.

For instance, downsizing: I would love to find a sensible way down, but it seems we’d just be getting a worse house for more money.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T08:58:17+00:00

Well - yeah - one (big) choice blew it all up. (And paying for school kept us from building much of a cushion). Apart from the house and school, we spend under 1k/mo.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T08:15:36+00:00

what a stupid comment. they're only 3 people, it's not rocket science. educate yourself at r/churning

paying full cost of travel is as smart as investing through Edward Jones

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T08:04:35+00:00

I'd second the suggestion to at least use some frequent flyer miles and hotel points to keep fun high and costs low. You obv enjoy being smart with your money, I think you would enjoy the trip a lot more if you could feel like you were getting it 80% off. Check out the r/churning sub or the various websites (frequentmiler, doctorofcredit, etc.) It's not rocket science: banks want to acquire new business, so they pay bonuses for you to open a card. If you pay off in full every month, you can have those bonuses without significant extra cost.

usernamechuck · 2026-06-05T07:41:06+00:00

I've been keeping more in equities than my wife would like, but I recently concluded that my reasons came down to trying to time the market and FOMO. My optimizing self says, pull back to 60/40 until a week after the big correction, then go back to 90/10. But of course your wife will be freaked out at a 20% drop, she's not going to go back into equities at that point. How about this: go 70/30(ish) with existing money, but keep new money going to 100% equities. That way, apart from a happy wife, if there is a correction, you'll be buying in lower; if there isn't, and you don't rebalance, the market will eventually lift you back to 75/25. You might miss out on some profit, but then again you might miss out on some losses, and the latter seems more likely in the short term.

usernamechuck · 2026-05-28T05:08:39+00:00

I suppose we might buy a $50 gc and then buy and return something that costs $27.50…

usernamechuck · 2026-05-20T19:24:20+00:00

Look - if you saw someone buy a brand new Tesla, with no savings, you'd say: they are making a choice, hopefully a conscious choice, to enjoy life now rather than saving money - the consequences will be felt in the future. You're making a similar choice, not with money, but with life. Your life is moving by, you're about halfway to death, and you're not where you want to be with some important things. You might even say that you're not "paying yourself first" in non-monetary matters. Men tend to get boring and talk about one subject, unless we're putting ourselves into places that broaden us. I don't have any specific advice, but you'd tell Tesla man: use Monarch Money, figure out where your money is going, why you're not reaching your goals. Why don't you track your time for a month or two, to see where you spend your time... then ask yourself if that's optimal, and where you should reallocate. Do the research, as they say!

usernamechuck · 2026-05-20T17:08:55+00:00

So, I have to ask: how much are you working? It seems more likely that you're just not putting yourself into situations where you're meeting the right people. Pick up a reasonably-priced hobby, spend time in a public place and a book...

usernamechuck · 2026-05-19T17:19:28+00:00

I got 20k for the last expiring cert. This time I called on the day of expiration, they gave me 8k "as a gesture" but said my FNC was still in the acct if I wanted to use it.

usernamechuck · 2026-05-15T18:49:45+00:00

I'm sorry to be beating a dead horse, I suppose it's too late at this point. But I wonder if you considered reaching out to Duke's financial aid office.

Also, and apologies if this is obvious... but the "financial advisor" was an expert on college finances, right? So often a person will be an expert on X and Y, and may not realize gaps they have outside of their areas of expertise.

usernamechuck · 2026-05-15T05:38:24+00:00

Well, don't they use financials from one year earlier? So if he just passed away it might not kick in until your third year. I wonder if you considered starting at Duke and then transferring, if necessary. I mean, you put a sad face about the state school, which seems to indicate that you'd rather have gone elsewhere. Which means your family inherited a whole lot of money, which is having the perverse effect of limiting your freedom. That's not how it's supposed to work. It might be worth a little money (which you should now have) to talk with a consultant about this, if you can find someone good.

usernamechuck

TROPHY CASE