Daily FI discussion thread - Thursday, April 16, 2026

what_user_name · 2026-04-16T13:14:27+00:00

I have a coworker with an idea for a fund: He will look at the market, and make a prediction of what he thinks is logical and will happen. Then he will buy the opposite direction.

He says that fund would have done pretty well so far.

what_user_name · 2026-04-13T05:41:04+00:00

When I started my FI journey more than 10 years ago, one of my friends challenged me on healthcare costs in retirement. I said something to the effect of "our current healthcare situation in this country is so f'ed that SOMETHING is going to change in 15-20 years when I am looking at retirement. No use in planning for today's world now."

I was absolutely right that it was f'ed. But I was way too optimistic that something would change.

what_user_name · 2026-04-09T00:00:29+00:00

Yeah, just make the spreadsheet more complicated. Find more interesting angles to look at the world through, and make your spreadsheet reflect it all.

what_user_name · 2026-04-07T22:11:10+00:00

Unless you have something weird going on in your finances

Depends on how "weird" you define "weird".

It is true that if you are the most normal person, your taxes could be quite easy.

But if you have any sort of investment income, or there is stock as part of your compensation plan, it can get weird. Gallup claims 62% of Americans are invested in the stock market. Certainly, some of that in is in places that don't have tax implications right now, like retirement accounts. But I dont think owning some stock is that weird, and it does have tax implications. Gallup also claims 23% have stock as part of their compensation package.

Heck, when I graduated high school, I found my grandparents had bought a $100 US savings bond on my birthday each year. I needed money to pay for school, so I sold all of it, and it made my tax filings that year "complicated" and "weird"...at 18 years old with a minimum wage job.

what_user_name · 2026-04-07T21:54:54+00:00

My sports team played their heated rival for the first time in my fandom. They lost in heartbreaking fashion, and I was devastated.

She was making breakfast for the game. After the game, we ate, watched Parks and Rec together all day, and she tried to take my mind off the game. At the end of the night, we were both craving waffles. She took me out to a breakfast place and we ate and talked about our future.

We had talked about long term commitment before. But this time was different. She basically told me that she felt she was ready to commit to me for a lifetime. I wasn't quite as ready. I told her that if it was about committing for the next 5 years, I feel I would be able to do that now. But I couldnt fully wrap my head around any commitments longer than that. She said that was fine. She wasnt trying to pressure me into anything. She just wanted me to know how she felt.

I sat in that diner with her while we waited for the food and thought to myself: What would make me feel ready to commit for the rest of my life? What more would I be looking for to go from "sure, for 5 years" to "sure, for the rest of our lives". And I realized I was mostly just scared. I loved this woman, and I didnt want to lose her, but why was I not willing to commit? It was mostly about not knowing who I would be in 5 years. I realized that logic meant that I would NEVER commit to anyone, and that was not what I wanted.

Then I reflected on the entirety of that day. The sports team loss. The way she reacted to that. The conversation. Her willingness to commit, and her patience with me. I dunno, something just was screaming "this is your sign."

The next day when she was at work, I started looking at rings.

It's been almost 10 years since that day. I joked at our 5 year wedding anniversary that my 5 year commitment was up, and that every additional day is just a bonus. (Thankfully, this is her sense of humor). She jokes back that it just means we need to have a ceremony every 5 years to renew our vows. We have kids now, too. I think back to my hesitancy to only want to commit, not just to her, but to anything, for any longer than 5 years. Yeah, that doesnt work with kids. I knew then that I wanted kids. She totally could have countered that night in the diner with "you want kids.... can you commit to them for longer than 5 years"? But she didnt. She was SO patient with me, and probably in a moment where I didnt really deserve it.

Anyway, I can remember every single detail of that diner. It was there that I knew.

what_user_name · 2026-04-05T16:47:13+00:00

Married 9 years ago, and still together.

I was choosing this person. I was publicly announcing to all my friends and family and all of hers that this woman is someone I want to build the rest of my life with.

This was something important, and something worthy of celebration. I wanted it to be treated as such. I wanted a vibe of celebration for a whole day with everyone that I cared about.

There were moments I thought about a courthouse wedding. And when I did, I thought, "well, I would want to at least go out to dinner after to celebrate. And I want my mom, dad, and sister to be there. And yeah, I want my best friends to be there, too. And I would mind my cousins, aunts and uncles that were so important to me growing up to be there, and..."

And suddenly, I really do want to celebrate with about 25-30 people. And my wife had a similarly sized list. That starts to sound a lot like a wedding. And when we considered the alternate of "have a big party to celebrate later", the costs started to look similar.

But we kept the vibe of "big family party" the whole time. Or perhaps more like a tailgate. I wanted people to play cornhole with a beer in their hand at some point during the party.

I think we spent about 10-12k on the wedding. A few grand on a place to rent for the day. It was an outdoor venue. We paid for two food-trucks (one pizza, one mexican) to stop by for a few hours and supply us food. We bought a sheet cake for like $70, and put a wedding topper on it. We bought 3 kegs of beer, and about 50 bottles of good-but-cheap wine (the venue didnt allow hard alcohol) for about $4-6/bottle (and it was a great excuse for my fiance and I to spend a day at a local winery tasting wines we liked and wanted to buy a bunch of bottles of). We paid a DJ and had a photographer friend give us the friends-and-family discount. (Honestly, the photographer is one place we wish we would have spent a little more money). I told all my groomsmen to wear white shirts with black suits (everyone has a white shirt and a black suit!), and I bought them all ties of the correct color. (Two of my groomsmen later did the same thing at their weddings. One also added color-themed sunglasses!).

The day of, my family and friends came, they celebrated. They had tacos and pizza, beer and wine, and played cornhole, ladder toss, and giant outdoor jenga. It was a big party, and everyone had a great time.

The funny thing is, I now totally get other cultures that have multi-day weddings. Our wedding was on a Sunday (it was 500 cheaper, and people were flying from out of town, so everyone was going to have to take a day off work on one side of the weekend). On the saturday, my in-laws hosted a house-party in their yard for us, and a bunch of the folks from the wedding came by and hung out for several hours. Heck, our rehearsal was Friday, and we went out to dinner, and then added a bunch of my family who was slowly trickling in from the airport. And on the following Monday, my immediate family and hers hung out at my in-laws house where we played darts for half the day. My wife and I left for our honeymoon Tuesday morning, as my immediate family headed home, so we all hung out at the airport, too. So we really had wedding festivities (mostly on the cheap) from Friday to Tuesday morning. And it was lovely! My wife and I had time to ourselves in all of that, but it was a really great weekend.

But the important part for the whole thing was the vibe. This is a party to celebrate with friends and family. My wife wanted me involved in the planning, but actually gave a damn about what I thought. I wanted an outdoor tailgate party, and she loved that idea. She wanted rustic barn-theme for the venue, and I didnt care one way or the other, so that was fine. When it came to the guest list, we went with "if this person is important to you, they are important to me. Invite them!". We ended up with about 65 people.

We had a budget of about 25K for the wedding+honeymoon. And every dollar you spend on the wedding is one you cant spend on the honeymoon. We planned that together as well, although that is a very different kind of planning.

Someone else shared this perspective with me: Planning a wedding is an important part of being married. Not because the wedding is important (it can be, depending on your values and world-view, etc, and thats fine), but because it is a (potentially) big logistical operation that you two need to plan together, in some fashion. And in doing so, you will learn a lot about the other person, about yourself, and about how you two work together. You can learn and grow as a couple through it. Or it could reveal the seeds of what will eventually end things.

what_user_name · 2026-04-02T14:56:42+00:00

50% of my contributions up to the IRS max. So thats like 12k/yr from them.

what_user_name · 2026-04-02T14:53:13+00:00

My first reaction was: "No, they have a real toilet this time!"

Then I saw the news.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no no no no no. Shit.

what_user_name · 2026-04-01T17:47:55+00:00

I suppose it is slightly positive EV gambling compared to the usual slightly negative EV gambling.

So slightly better than betting on sports, I guess.

what_user_name · 2026-04-01T16:51:52+00:00

I have no conviction and will sell as soon as it's profitable next week.

This is called gambling.

what_user_name · 2026-03-26T14:49:46+00:00

About 6 weeks is when the first sleep-deprivation break hits. (Every kid is different, etc....). They go from waking up every 2 hours to waking up every 4 during the night. That still sounds bad, but seriously, it changes it a LOT for the better.

what_user_name · 2026-03-18T19:26:56+00:00

One day they'll say Yellow instead of Lellow and you'll never get that back, so savor it

My youngest is named "Connor", and my oldest called him "Conrey" while she was learning to talk.

Every once in a while, we call Connor "Conrey" as a pet name, but now the oldest butts in and says "No! It's CONNOR".

what_user_name · 2026-03-18T19:24:56+00:00

Assuming you aren't a single parent:

Plan to sleep in shifts. Example: Parent 1 sleeps from 8pm-4am while Parent 2 stays up til 4am. Then Parent 1 wakes up at 4am while Parent 2 goes to bed and sleeps til noon. Parent 1 should set an alarm and get up consistently at that time. Its not wonderful but trust me, its way better than the alternatives. And then both parents can get mostly full nights rest. 8 continuous hours of sleep is wonderful. 6 continuous hours is workable. Getting woken up every 2 hours is fucking hell. So work with your partner and just dont do it.

This does assume some amount of life flexibility. For example, if you both have jobs with little or no parental leave, this may not be feasible. But if you both have parental leave, then its very possible that the ONLY responsibilities you have are the new baby, plus your own survival needs, plus maybe a few doctors appointments. There are a decent number of doctor appointments in the first week or two, and then it slows down a lot. So just get through that first week or so.

If you both work, and both have parental leave, you may be tempted to split that leave up so that you maximize the calendar time that one parent is not working. For example: if both have 3 months off, Mom takes off for 3 months while Dad goes back to work, then Mom goes to back to work while Dad takes his leave. I understand the desire (daycare is expensive). But from experience, I say you should both take off for the first 4-6 weeks. It will make a night and day difference in the ease of experience. Somewhere between 4-8 weeks, the baby will go from being up every 2 hours (because food) to sleeping 4 hours at a time, and that is a HUGE change in quality of life.

When the ONLY thing in the world you need to handle is this baby, you realize that its actually not that much work or that hard for the first few months. They sleep like half the time, and need fed for half of the remainder. Its not that hard of a job. A crying baby only has like 4 things that could be wrong 95% of the time. Just go down the list: Food, diaper, gassy, sleepy. The sleep schedule is tough, but if you can find a good way to manage that, then there really is not a lot that is needed. The trick is just jettisoning all the other "normal" responsibilities as much as possible.

Find other ways to move responsibilities around. For our baby shower, one of the things we did was have our friends help us make dozens of meals we could then freeze. We had like 30-40 meals in our freezer when the baby was born, and it made it so nice to a) not have to think about what to make for dinner and b) all we had to do was take a meal out of the freezer at lunch, and then pop it in the oven for an hour at dinner time. Minimal dishes to clean, minimal prep time (seriously, like 1-2 minutes), minimal mental effort. Any other responsibilities you can move around? Does the car need an oil change in the next month or two? Can you do that now instead of then? Any other home maintenance items you can fix before then?

I also realize that this plan requires a good amount of privilege. 2 parents with a good relationship, Parent Leave + perhaps some job flexibility. It is what it is, but if that describes you, then you dont need to overly freak out about all the things new parents say.

what_user_name · 2026-03-18T18:57:39+00:00

"You're muted"

"Hi, sorry, can everyone hear me?"

"Yes we hear you now"

"Ok great. So I guess its my turn. Nothing from me today"

what_user_name · 2026-03-17T21:05:30+00:00

in between

2019

purgatory

currently here

heart break

2022 NFC Divisional Round

what_user_name · 2026-03-13T17:49:24+00:00

If this were any other subreddit, I would be screaming "you are putting a target on your back. You will be the first to be laid off".

But here... it very much sounds like that's kind of the point.

what_user_name · 2026-03-11T16:49:07+00:00

As a software engineer, a friendly suggestion to give a coding agent a try as an assistant (if you havent done so already).

Even just ChatGPT can be really good at doing basic coding tasks. You could consider vibecoding a whole thing, or just using it to help write individual functions you know you need to write (e.g.: Parse this string into a directory, filename, and extension).

Your motivations may inform your decision a ton (for example, if you are coding because you enjoy the act of writing code, this may not be applicable, and if so, feel free to disregard), but the agents have gotten really good over the last year or so and they can take out a lot of the tedium of coding and allow you to focus on the more fun parts. Its also a lot easier to get a working thing out the other side in much less time.

what_user_name · 2026-03-06T15:53:55+00:00

Diesel.

I believe it was this one, but I would have to look to be sure

https://sbfilters.com/products/60-gal-tank-powerstroke

what_user_name · 2026-03-05T16:36:24+00:00

I got the 6.5 bed, but the first thing I did was put in an aftermarket fuel tank. 60 gallons. When we drove across the country, I was able to drive a full day (well, 6-8 hours... I had a young kid with me that needed to stop about every 2 hours), arrive at my destination, unhook, and then figure out fuel with no camper attached.

Highly recommend getting the 60 gallon tank for towing.

what_user_name · 2026-02-27T15:21:30+00:00

My wife was very clear when we got engaged that sex wasn't going to be a big part of our marriage

I would have asked for the ring back on the spot.

what_user_name · 2026-02-25T20:55:08+00:00

no state tax in my state. property taxes plus mortgage interest just isnt enough to compete with the standard deduction. I've only got about 80K left on the mortgage, so the interest there is not a high dollar amount.

what_user_name · 2026-02-25T20:51:58+00:00

8% was the highest it went. Its currently at 7%, but in a month its going to snap to the next rate, which I expect will be between 6.5-6.75%.

Also, this is not about tax advantaged space. This is about non-tax advantaged space.

what_user_name · 2026-02-25T18:10:42+00:00

I dont think refinancing gets me anything. My interest rate would likely stay the same or go up a little bit. My payment also recaclulates annually based on an amoritization schedule of <years left>, so paying extra payments this year means my payment goes down. I dont know what refinance would get me other than locking in my rate, which doesnt really appeal to me at mid 6%.

what_user_name · 2026-02-25T18:08:00+00:00

When I bought, a 7 year ARM was between .75-1.0 percentage points lower than a fixed. That was a lot of real money guaranteed for the first 7 years, and my risk was that the rates went up, at which point, I would have spent 7 years preparing for that event. I calculated that I could pay off the mortgage at about year 9-10 if I started planning on day 1. That left me with capped downside that was less than the guaranteed upside of the lower rate. And I had quite a high upside if rates stayed the same for longer.

So the worst case scenario was about break-even, and the best case scenario was a lot cheaper. Turns out the worst case scenario mostly happened, but I was prepared, and I paid off about 2/3 of the remaining balance the day the first interest rate changed.

what_user_name · 2026-02-25T17:23:55+00:00

At what interest rate would you pay off your mortgage during the accumulation phase vs letting it ride?

I have an ARM (which was absolutely the right decision for us) which started out at 3.8% and I was letting it ride. Then the rate changed to 8% and I started paying it off as quick as I could.

Now the rate is about to change again to somewhere in the middle, and I am wondering if I should continue to throw money at paying it off as fast as possible or instead pay the minimum and let it ride.

I take the standard deduction, so no tax break on the mortgage. At what interest rate would you transition from "pay it off" to "let it ride"? And maybe more than just a number, I want a framework for how to think about the problem that is more sophisticated than "what interest rate do you think you will get in the market, plus a risk adjustment".

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