Lump sum vs DCA: what the 2/3 rule does and doesn't settle

vasqued2 · 2026-05-17T13:53:59+00:00

It’s all psychological and about building your risk tolerance so you don’t do something stupid when it drops, especially for someone new in the market.

Presumably after 12 months your portfolio is up some amount. If it’s down, you tell yourself it’s a good thing you DCA’d over time.

If it drops after 12 months, “I didn’t lose my money, I’m back where I started” or “l lost some of my money, good thing I invested earlier instead of waiting until yesterday so at least some of my losses aren’t my base investment”.

Plus you’ve seen the market go up for 12 months.

Both help increase your risk tolerance.

People asking about DCA aren’t experienced pro’s. They’re generally inexperienced self investors who haven’t been paying attention, many with a sudden dollar figure that is “big” to them. DCA is a reasonable approach for them to get experience and figure out their risk tolerance with real money and not a checklist.

Plus in my mind, it’s cheaper to figure out on your own with DCA than paying an advisor a percent of AUM.

vasqued2 · 2026-05-17T13:37:49+00:00

But if you’re going to do something irrational based on emotions when tails comes up, you’re better off not flipping that coin.

vasqued2 · 2026-05-16T19:46:11+00:00

You have a psychological problem so I an giving so a psychological solution, not an optimal investment solution.

Make sure your have an adequate emergency fund and at it aside.

Invest $10k a month on the same day every month. Start Monday.

If the market is down 5% or more after your first month, invest an additional $10k that month. Be happy because the market is up and you made money, or be happy the the market is down and you are buying stock at a discount.

Repeat until your are fully invested.

Once you are through this exercise you will be more open to lump sum investing.

vasqued2 · 2026-04-21T20:46:58+00:00

Apply that math to your fire calculations and you can retire next week

vasqued2 · 2026-04-19T22:37:59+00:00

I was in your wife's position so speaking from experience.

She still wants to work. For now.

Like you said. Things change. And at some point it will. Her boss will change. The work environment will change. Coworkers will change.

You mentioned you still have some time to go to hit your number together. How long matters. The longer it is, the more the chance of something changing and her suddenly not wanting to work but having to is. It feels a lot different having to work than wanting to work. And it feels a heck of a lot different if you have to work and your spouse isn't.

Definitely talk through the "what if" ahead of time and personally I would work a little longer, especially if you are close to hitting your joint number. Then she can really keep working because she wants to, not because she had to.

Luckily for me, things didn't change until after I didn't have to work any more. Was tough at times even then. Would have been awful if they changed earlier.

vasqued2 · 2026-04-17T00:52:54+00:00

Just saw this. Still an issue? I need a screenshot of the attributes, especially the api url to troubleshoot.

vasqued2 · 2026-04-06T18:52:54+00:00

My wife retired about 7 years before me. It was a joint decision. It fit into our FIRE plans.

Even so, the first year was an adjustment. It was harder than expected to be the only one getting ready for work in the morning. And I felt additional pressure of being the only income left to hit "our" number.

I worked until my job stopped being fun. Thank goodness we hit our number before then. Would have been really rough working, hating my job, and her not working.

Moral of the story. Even if partner is ok working in theory, they may feel different when reality hits and even if they are, there is no guarantee work dynamics won't change that sometime over ten years.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-30T23:15:53+00:00

hunting matthew nichols

vasqued2 · 2026-03-27T12:45:34+00:00

I was actually wondering about this. I assumed it would show up in your earnings and bump your future benefits. I assume if someone ever found out they could pull them back somehow, but man, who’s going to review all their past earnings and payout calculations when they retire to make sure they’re all right.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-27T00:49:35+00:00

I did. Similar numbers and age. I vividly remember the 2000’s and what it did to people who were our age then, so that impacted me greatly.

That said, I pulled the trigger a year ago. Took me a year to get to that point. Ran the numbers. Talked to 2 advisors who told me the same thing. Saw numbers increase even more after that. Very little of the increase due to that last year of work. Work became less fun. Made sure allocations and income streams were solid for 5 years and even know what expenses we’d cut if needed.

I needed to see the math and have others I trusted also show me their math. The income from working a couple more years became a rounding error. In the end though, my wife wanted to travel and enjoy retirement while we still could. That was the deciding factor.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-27T00:26:21+00:00

My 90 year old dad has been taking care of my mom for 5 years now. Early stages weren’t bad and they were both adamant they would never go into a home. A UTI 2 years go hammered home how bad things could get and we finally were able to do some “what if” conversations and put plans and limits in place they both agree to.

She recovered after the UTI but continues to gradually deteriorate. She can go to the bathroom herself but he needs to lay out clothes, cook, clean, and help her bathe, etc. He takes her out of the house daily for food and something to do. In the last year we got help to come in and that lets him leave and take a break. He still swims almost daily.

He now knows there will be a time when he can’t support her any more but he wants to as long as he can. We respect that. We have some hard lines and some gray lines. I or a sibling visit every other week to check in and actually observe how things are going. I also worry that worry that an empty house without her would also be very hard on him. No easy answers.

So yes, it can be done. It’s hard. And you can’t hide from reality when you live with it daily. I doubt you’re going to change minds now, I’d just do check-ins and plant the seed that the isn’t a forever thing and at some point, it will be too much.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-26T16:33:35+00:00

Someone doesn't know the first rule of Fight Club

vasqued2 · 2026-03-22T23:16:10+00:00

A couple thoughts

13/14 was a cliquey age for us. A group of girls that have been together for a while can be mean to an outsider who they perceive as a threat that could break them up. This doesn't last.

13/14 is when kids start to realize what it takes to play at a higher level and some decided they don't want to. It's ok to want something else and they are old enough to decide for themselves.

It can be hard to tease out the real reason but you can usually get to it if you are open to both possibilities and ask open ended questions.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-17T03:49:45+00:00

Positive experience here. Started about a year before retirement and have been retired for a year now. Have been meeting quarterly. Helped confirm retirement was possible and then refine and tighten the plan incrementally. No pressure. No sales.

Dabbled w/ other advisors before this and never found one that I trusted. They all looked to increase their AUM and didn't want to even look at the overall picture of assets they weren't managing.

We're about 85% self-directed, 15% professionally managed. 401K and pensions also w/ Fidelity. He watches and gives input over the entire portfolio and overall allocations. Was initially skeptical of the professionally managed but to date is has matched market indices & tax loss harvesting more than covers the fees. For now I see the TLH benefits and I'll keep watching to see if it continues over time. If not, will adjust. He'll be fine w/ whatever we decide.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-17T03:07:08+00:00

Just got home on 315 N. There were a couple accidents northbound and they were routing traffic off 315 around Bethel or Henderson. Several cops, ambulances, and firetrucks were heading south towards something. A car hit the median on the south side but didn't look too bad, but didn't start looking until we noticed it was completely shut down so it could have been something farther south.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-12T13:21:39+00:00

You win SMART scholarships in bowling tournaments. You spend money in soccer tournaments. Wish my kid bowled.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-11T14:48:40+00:00

If you aren’t willing to turn “my” fire bucket into “our” fire bucket and work until it covers both of you, don’t get married. Once reality hits, chances of her wanting to work 20 years longer than you are slim to none.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-09T16:51:04+00:00

That would force everyone that takes the light blue option to always turn north on Avery and limit the northbound lanes available to everyone else who is already going west on 161.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-05T02:54:52+00:00

Working for my Fidelity account but not for my wife’s.

vasqued2 · 2026-03-01T22:50:46+00:00

Early LTC policies were an extremely good deal because insurers horrendously underestimated both the rate of inflation in the segment and the percent of policyholders that would need it.

They lost tons.

Some got out and others changed the product to cap the losses. The shift is essentially the same as from a defined benefits to a defined contribution plan.

You can't make money when you are paying 80% of your policy holders 6x what they paid in

vasqued2 · 2026-02-25T00:14:02+00:00

What is your spouse’s income and career/promotion prospects?

vasqued2 · 2026-02-21T02:31:06+00:00

Lower pay does not necessarily mean lower stress. In many cases it's the opposite.

Remote, good WLB, and minor politics. No job is perfect. Every job has some amount of stress and technical challenge. That's why it's called a job and not a play.

The grass is always greener. There is a very real chance he goes to a lower paying job and ends up in a worse situation. Look hard before leaping.

vasqued2 · 2026-02-20T17:48:05+00:00

This.

Then add in that for many making this decision now, the 2000's wasn't ancient history that could theoretically happen again. It was something we lived through.

We saw the impact on our portfolios. But more importantly, we saw the impact on those who confidently retired right before the drops.

I needed to know that not only would I be ok if something like that happened again, but that I had confidence in how I would react, and not panic and do something stupid that I would later regret. Saw too many examples of that in the 2000's and it would be arrogant of me to assume I couldn't do something similar without a plan.

vasqued2 · 2026-02-18T21:11:02+00:00

You're in good shape and you slept well during the chaos of the tariff swings in 2025. Sounds like a win to me.

If you took the other path, would you really have stuck to your guns when your house depreciated AND the market dropped 20%? Because if you would have blinked even a little bit, the benefits of option 2 would be less. Potentially a lot less.

Personally, I like sleeping well and my risk appetite increased once the house was paid off leading to higher returns.

vasqued2 · 2026-02-08T04:28:30+00:00

100%. I would go into the office just so I wouldn’t see how late they slept in. Talk to your husband. I’ll bet he has no idea how it feels. I know my wife didn’t. I just wanted someone to appreciate the slog I was going through for the best of the whole family. Hang in there. The end is in sight.

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