My wife and I are 48 y/o DINKs who didn't meaningfully start saving until into our early 40s. Despite that, I can see a clear path to FIRE by some time between 4-7 years from now. We don't work in Tech and have (for now) our own student loan debt to pay off. I've seen an increasing number of 20/30-somethings in here and also older late adopters like us. So I thought I'd share this as a little nugget of hope. A few observations: Reddit has incredible communities filled with people who provide independent links to helpful insights. This and the various FIRE subs are invaluable. If you can a ..read more

Long time lurker, throwaway account just in case Found out through the grapevine yesterday that I’m gonna get fired later this month. Have been FI for a few years now and honestly haven’t been working as hard as I could be, so guess I don’t really blame them. That being said it was still kind of sudden/shocking so I don’t feel super prepared. Thought I had at least another year, but guess these things happen. Figured I’d use this opportunity to go ahead and try out RE, at least for a few years and see how it feels (For the curious, I’m in my late 30s, NW 3.6mm, annual spend hovers between 80 ..read more

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked. Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

I'm trying to decide whether to stay in Georgia or move to Seattle or LA. Some people say that the higher rents are worth it because you'll make more, which is what made me consider Seattle and LA. Even then though, I've found most of the jobs still pay similarly, or not that much of a pay boost for how high the rents are. There's a couple outlier jobs that pay 120 to 150k, but those require tons of experience. And it's not a given that you'll get a job that pays that much. I've even seen some tech jobs in Seattle and LA that only pay 60 to 70k. Which, in most cities isn't too bad of a salary ..read more

Long time lurker first time poster. Sharing my journey thus far partially for myself to reflect on my misguidedness and to update periodically, and partly for anyone who may resonate with my situation. TLDR and graphs at the bottom. For some background - I’m 31M and live in Toronto with my partner. I grew up in a small town and was the first person in my family to go to university. My parents struggled with work and likely instilled many bad money habits in me that I’ve been working to break (more on that later). At my lowest point only a couple years ago I had a NW of -212k mostly in a high ..read more

Married, 36 and spouse is 27. Our combined networth sits at 3m. We plan to retire early within the next 3 years. I am a self employed w variable income, spouse is a gov employee. Each of us makes roughly 120k, for a combined income of 240k My accounts: Taxable 2.4m (large capital gains) SEP IRA 60k ROTH IRA 60k HYSA 150k Spouse's accounts: Taxable 100k 457b 25k 403b 25k ROTH 60k DCP (tax deferred) 60k HSA 15k We are looking to buy a house in VHCOL to possibly MCOL (depending on financial picture and housing market) in the near future (2 years), and retire. My question relates to my spouse. Wh ..read more

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked. Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

Gov employee w access to the following accounts. DCP (7% EE 8% ER match) (pretax and tax deferred) Any funds contributed beyond 7% are considered post tax, with the additional benefit of being able to rollover to my ROTH IRA. Maximum allowed contribution for 2024 is 69k. This amount includes the pretax, employer match, and posttax contributions. 457b. Max of 23k. Can contribute pretax OR ROTH contributions. 403b Max of 23k. Can contribute pretax OR ROTH contributions. What should I be focused on maxing first? Currently I'm doing the obvious employer match 7/8%, and then stuffing all extra inc ..read more

(Posted this on FICan, then realized it has a wider than national focus / broader appeal) So I was forwarded this: https://www.richmondquant.com/news/2019/11/21/static-vs-dynamic-why-your-buy-amp-hold-portfolio-could-be-missing-its-mark ...by somebody who I think was well-intentioned. Essentially, this is a criticism of a "buy and hold" strategy with a fixed percentage portfolio strategy (e.g. a 60/40 portfolio that you balance every 6 or 12 months). The author of the article claims that one can look back 60 days to what is happening in the market, and then "dynamically rebalance" one's portf ..read more

Hi, I'm just wondering if anyone has expertise to share on bond funds. I'm conservative with my money and so I'm diverse, approximately according to Boglehead portfolio, so some bonds in there. But it feels like no matter what happens, my Vanguard bond funds go down. That must not be true, but the annual returns are ridiculous--VBTLX is down on the year, up 1.7% for 1 year, down for 3 years, and giving 3% yields since inception 23 years ago. VCOBX is down on the year, up 1.7% for 1 year, down for 3 years, up 1.5% since inception 8 years ago. My point isn't that I expect everything to do well ..read more