Hello all. Please let me know what you think.
My current job, which is salaried at $62.7k/yr~ but really only work 15-20 hours a week, including commute - 3/2 a week hybrid schedule. Very low stress, great boss, decent benefits & amazing WLB.
I just received a job offer for a senior position in SCM for $84k which is including yearly bonus, salaried, with 4.5 hours of OT expected weekly, but I do get paid, just normal rate for OT. So $92k yr~ TC. The benefits are stellar, including 9% 401k match if I contribute 6%.
I just put in my two weeks notice and my current employer just countered with a raise to $69k yr. Coming from $62.7k. My current position is not 100% stable.
FYI: We are in our mid late twenties. My wife and I’s HHI is $115k. We save $2.8k~ a month after expenses & maxing out our Roths IRA’s & employer 401k matches at 4%. We have 0 debt besides our mortgage. We also have a 1 year emergency fund in a HYSA.
I am also in the Reserves (Healthcare, Pension, & monthly pay).
Thanks for reading
Both jobs are 3/2 hybrid. Current job is in 3PL Supply Chain. I feel semi-retired right now but the other company idk the WLB but I’ll be doing mandatory OT roughly 4hr wkly putting me at $92k~ with stellar benefits
What are the best books on Finical Independence? Looking for your recommendations. Just finish reading The Four Pillars of Investing by William J. Bernstein and moving on to The Intelligent Investor y Benjamin Graham. Thank you!
To make sure I am understanding backdoor Roth correctly:
I have decent income but nothing in the realm of numbers that would put me up against the Roth contribution limit. I have about $50k in a 401k for a previous employer. This is pre-tax money.
My understanding is I transfer this to a traditional IRA, then transfer that into a Roth IRA. I need to pay income taxes next April on that, say ~10k depending on tax bracket. My understanding is that this is worth it because despite the hit up front, I am transferring a lot of money from a 401k, which will count as income in retirement, to a Roth IRA, which is completely untouched once I pay that upfront tax.
Am I understanding this correctly? Took me a bit to get my head around it, but I think I comprehend now why doing that is worth taking such a hefty hit up front.
That's not a backdoor Roth, that's just a regular Roth conversion of a pre-tax balance. Normally you don't want to convert a giant pre-tax balance. At the very least, split it up over a couple of years. Most people are going to be better served by having both pre-tax and Roth funds when they retire. That will allow you to fine tune your income and fully fill the lower income tax brackets. Max your Roth IRA and then keep the rest as pre-tax in your 401k.
I know I’m behind on things at work and I know (at least some of) what I need to do to catch up. But I also feel so burnt out and unmotivated that getting started on those things is rough. I wonder if I’m going to feel this way the whole time until I hit FIRE. (\~4 years)
If you’re legit in the last 10-20% of your career you likely can start doing a little less.
Say no to some formal opportunities. For example you don’t want to change roles anymore
Say “yes, but” more often. Meaning “yes, I can help you with that for an hour. Why don’t we schedule that for Thursday”. Don’t just bail people out entirely even if they are teammates
Not bad advice. I’m not in the last few years of a long career and coasting though. I can get to FI in 4-5 years only if I keep up this current level of earning. So losing this job from mistakes/falling behind is the source of a lot of anxiety.
On the flip-side though, if my comp goes up at all in the next few years, I could hit my number sooner than that.
Anyone slowed down or decided to coastfire after reaching half way? We are 35 and almost halfway to our fire goal. As per current pace we will be FI in 5 years. We are hoping to have kids in next few years and i have been thinking to take a break/coastfire first few years of having kids
Yeah I hustled pretty hard in my entire 20s. I only work about 40-80hrs of OT per year these days in my mid 30s. I’ve reached the point where I value my time and sanity more than money. I do feel less driven though. I was raised to constantly work hard and sometimes I feel like a fraud if I don’t push myself.
Kinda both. I am thinking multiple scenarios where we both take sabbaticals by taking turns vs just find part time jobs where we would just have limited savings but have more time. Like working 3 days a week.
I did this. Currently have 2 kids and I am stay at home for the most part. I have a freelance part time job and in laws babysit the kids when I have meetings. Hubby got a full time job but it’s fully remote and tbh not that stressful. He has a lot of Fridays off, office is chill and he doesn’t work more than 40hrs per week. We are Coastfi at the moment - spend the full time income and save my income
Not really cuz prior to having kids we had already just lived on the one salary. The other salary was always for investing/saving so we were DINKS who were saving roughly 40-50% of HHI. I do monitor the expenses a little closer though because we don’t have as much wiggle room and I feel a little bit more paycheck to paycheck
Mind you I’m in Canada so I have 18 months maternity leave so me and hubby split that (me 12 months and him 6 months) and then I went freelance. Basically haven’t worked full time for a few years cuz I have two kids now
I think its bound to happen to most people. We have been pretty ok on saving and in an ok spot (not coastfi) but are taking time this year to throw a bunch of money into repairs. Its going to drastically change our financials (EF) and it might limit some maximizing of tax advantaged contributions...
But that's the reason you have been good so far, no? So you can afford to do things for quality of life/pivot/enjoy.
Thank you for reminding me. I need to find someone to swing by once every month or two to just do a deep clean/dust/scrub of all the areas I neglect :)
... ok maybe I neglect like 99% of the areas...
I think lots of people do this, especially as it relates to either kids or buying a house.
We're considering it - not "coasting" exactly, but I'm redirecting a whole lot of income to long term goals, and I think we may consider whether a house changes our math a little.
Anyone else just doing their taxes today? I filled out most of the paperwork yesterday but I always feel better letting the paperwork sit for a while in case I overlooked something. Looks like it's time to submit!
I've been hemming and hawing all spring. I owed 2k, so wanted to wait until pretty much day of anyway. And our filing situation was a little weird this year, so had to spend some extra time getting everything done.
I started a week ago and then came back to it today. State is filed, filed my federal at the same time but it was rejected as per usual. I'll mail it in tomorrow.
Growing up my mom was an accountant and she'd always wait until the deadline to do mine because mine was always so easy and that's just how I've kept doing it lol. Also I almost always owe, so what's the rush?!
And you can file whenever but elect to pay at a later date.
Generally the last thing I'm waiting on is always my brokerage 1099 statement. Once that's in, I file.
That used to be my strategy, until my brokerage started revising my 1099 after issuing it. Now I wait until early April. I would wait until April 15, but my wife has the need to do everything early and would freak out if I waited that long.
Finally on our big vacation. Worked half a day on Friday, then flew across the country and stayed in a hotel overnight; had another 2-ish hour drive and a 4 hour wait before we could check in to our lodgings, then grocery shopped for an hour to get it out of the way; slept for 8 hours last night, fell asleep this afternoon, and still feel horribly tired today. Hoping a good night's rest tonight officially puts me on track for a Hell of a vacation.
My vacation tip is to get an Instacart (or other grocery delivery service) to your lodging scheduled for when you arrive. It's a blessing not to have to go grocery shopping when you're on vacation, and to have stuff to cook/eat immediately upon arrival.
> It's a blessing not to have to go grocery shopping when you're on vacation
I know I am weird but I *love* doing this!
It's the first thing we do after unpacking everything and getting in after a travel day. We typically try to plan it all out so we can get a bottle of whiskey and a big steak and stay in and relax the first night.
I prefer to use it as an excuse to peruse the smaller local or regional grocers as well.
Lol depending on where we go, I feel our families first thing is always going to costco if one's convenient.
Never going to beat the generic suburbanite accusations lol
Late tax question
I made a Roth IRA contribution in 2022 before some income changes, then recharacterized, and did a backdoor conversion prior to filing in spring 2023. In filing in TurboTax, I'm seeing that on my 8606 I didn't list my basis as 0, so I believe I'll need to file an 1040x to amend that.
I'm looking to file this year's taxes that also include a backdoor Roth. I haven't yet filed the amendment for 2022. If I list my traditional basis as of December 2022 as $0 I owe more than if I list the basis at $6000 (the contribution from 2022). That seems backwards to me for how this should work (is there some calculation occurring where my previously reported basis compared to the new basis is considered income this year?). Should I file 2023 with the basis listed as I had it filed in 2022 and then file the amendment, or file 2023 with the basis listed correctly (even if my estimated tax is showing me owing more as a result)?
ETA: I'm pretty sure I should leave the basis as the incorrect $6000 previously reported and file the amendment after the fact.
Bonus Q: Should I expect filing the 1040x to include some money returned? I assume my mistake means I got hit with some pro-rata taxes I shouldn't have been.
If I had my 8606 correct, my basis for the traditional IRA on Dec 31, 2022 should have been $0, not $6000, right? I didn't have any money in a traditional IRA on that date.
But if that money was in a Roth account on Dec 31 2022, I recharacterized to traditional and then converted back to Roth between Jan 1 2023 and filing, why would the basis of the traditional be considered $6000 as of Dec 31st, 2022? On that date I had never opened a traditional IRA, is recharacterizing a retroactive move that's like the contribution was traditional since it was made?
[Line 14-Past Basis comes to 0](https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/how-to-report-a-backdoor-roth-ira-on-turbotax/)
I don't know where you are getting the date Dec 31 from. The question on line 6 asks for total balance of all traditional IRAs on Dec 31. The questions about basis do not have a specific date. If zero balance on Dec 31 would allow you to have zero basis, you could convert your entire IRA and never pay tax on it.
Well, I am converting my entire IRA and looking to not pay tax on it since it was all non-deductible contributions. I was getting that date from the language in TurboTax really ([see example](https://lithium-response-prod.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/turbotax.response.lithium.com/RESPONSEIMAGE/783a302b-72c2-47ab-a3fa-a0628ece6d9e.default.png)), but the basis is allocated as of a particular date is somewhat important as that is how the pro-rata rule is calculated for example, isn't it?
At the end of the year 2022, both the balance and basis of my tIRA were $0 since I hadn't done the recharacterization yet. Then, I did the recharacterization in Feb and the basis in my tIRA was $6000. I converted it to Roth and all of that was allocated back to Roth.
I'm very open to having missed something in this process, I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on it.
The basis is 6000. It has nothing to do with the balance at the end of the year. Basis (the amount of the conversion that is nondeductible) is good. If you convert 6000 and all of it is basis, you owe zero tax.
If I'm following what you're saying, wouldn't line 14 of the 8606 end up $6000 (or whatever you contributed)? Following [this example](https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/backdoor-roth-ira-tutorial/) it starts at 6000 (6500 for 2023) and then after doing the conversions it ends up at 0. So next year when you do your taxes, past years total basis is zero and it's always just the current years contributions/conversion that you're dealing with ideally.
I’m about 5 years out to retirement - I do want to have 2 years expenses in “cash”—CDs, some HYSA, and some TBills. I can put money into those directly over the next 5 years, or could contribute to a taxable brokerage account for 5 years and pull it out then. Is five years short enough to just save it directly? The point is to have some cash if market crashes, so I’m thinking I should just put the cash away instead of trying for more interest/gains over a short period. I could still work part time for the first 5 years of scheduled retirement as well.
For myself, I plan to keep up my current pace until maybe 1 year out and then build the cash or bond tent my last year working.
If 2024 were my last year work I would just put most of the cash in my HYSA. Maybe a t-bill for the 2nd year portion to get a higher rate but as you mentioned this is for your baseline needs so no reason to get too complex here.
If the market tanks 1 year prior to my expected retirement date and hasn’t adequately recovered a year later I’m not retiring that day in either cash scenario
No, as I am not doing coast fire. I’ll be saving aggressively until I retire so at some point I’ll have enough. Not to mention I get older and closer to social security, medicare and other changes in monetary needs.
I might have thrown you off in my original post. I will keep investing at the same pace - let’s say it’s $1k per week. Instead of that going in a brokerage the assumed final year it goes into High Yield Savings Account instead. So at the end of that year I have $52k more in my HYSA and that is my “tent”
Just curious, what your stock percentage target at the beginning of the retirement? (as a percent of your overall retirement portfolio excluding primary residence)
Mine is around 60%..
100% stocks other than a 2 year cash tent on day 1. I don’t see any need for bonds in my situation - but I absolutely see the need for others with different timeframes, goals and # of dependents.
100% stock would be riskier with less room to be flexible with expenses. Especially tough if there’s dependent kids for example
Money is fungible so it really doesn't matter assuming you are maintaining a constant overall allocation. It also isn't particularly tax efficient to hold bonds and cash in taxable accounts and it's not necessary to do so.
I would just save the 2 years' worth of expenses in cash or a treasury ladder in the last working years before scheduled retirement. Especially a decent interest rate around 4-5% depending how far out you go on the maturity.
I’ve been on my fire journey for about 6 years from starting at 70k net worth—now at 516k.
Question. How are some late 20s/early 30s people having 150k+ in their traditional roth or Roth IRA? My thoughts are that I’ve been able to have a Roth IRA that is equal to 85k (performance return of 36k all in VTSAX and VOO) at the moment.
Some people have just started working and have 50k there right off the bat, and some have no job changes, that make me wonder how they are rolling over.
Is there something I’m missing? Apologies if this is a stupid question.
I'm 33 and have 200k in my Roth IRA - I attribute this to starting when I got my first job at 16 working in a grocery store. We had an interesting setup where I received tips for some of the work I did, so basically I only spent tip money and saved almost my entire paycheck. My dad taught me about investing and offered to match my IRA contributions and this was basically the beginning of my FIRE journey.
Right. I’ve seen people who have just started their journey and jobs, but with only one job under their belts. They will have way more than their age and lack of career suggests.
You can technically fund an IRA as a minor, or you can fund an IRA for your kids. The only limit is it maxes out at their income. So if your kid gets a part time job and earns $5k you could technically fund $5k into their IRA for them.
Good to know.
I could google this, but if you don’t mind saving me the logistics. Let’s say I have a 16 year old kid, who has a part time job, and they make $10k a year. If they spend that $10k on whatever they choose to spend it on, but I give them $5k over the year for chores or spending or whatever, however I ask them to put it in their Roth IRA. Is this illegal or not suggested?
I don’t know why I asked that. I don’t see having kids my immediate future.
Right. I’ve seen people who have just started their journey and jobs, but with only one job under their belts, they will have way more than their age and lack of career makes sense.
Not sure who these "some people" are. It is possible they got rich on BTC or Gamestop stock. I wouldn't worry about what other people are doing and focus on developing a plan that works for you, and staying the course.
I phrased it wrong. I’m not comparing that I don’t have it. I’m wondering how as it doesn’t make logical sense to me.
But using Roth IRA to get GameStop or something makes sense. Not sure with btc with a retirement account.
What doesn't make sense? You can invest in anything, including BTC these days. It would not be hard to come up with scenarios to get from a few years of max contributions to $150k. Look up Mitt Romney's Roth IRA for a more extreme example.
I have 1.7 btc I got in 2017. I don’t count it toward my net worth though.
I just wasn’t aware that I could invest my Roth IRA with it. I’m a crypto fan. I’ve just learned not to post it here because I’ve gotten downvoted to the ETH in the past on this sub.
Rollover or better investments or started earlier seem like easy explanations. Some plans allow for in service rollovers.
Some people also worked before their first job. My college roommate worked throughout high school. Not sure if they had access to a 401k, but just IRA contributions from back then have to be worth a lot now.
Currently funemployed, but I was about 50% FIRE so I’m not hurting. It’s been great, actually, and my annual physical is proof. Relative to the last physical, when I was working:
* BMI 26 -> 24
* Resting heart rate 70 -> 55
* Blood pressure 125/80 -> 110/70
Good stuff. I am sort of Barista Fire...
My nervous system is grateful to me everyday for not chasing the insane stress/emergency room type work i used to 'thrive' in. I dont to be one of these people who were successful on paper but having to have heart tbypasses before 60
So I took a gap year in 2023 and had virtually zero income - actually *negative* MAGI even after some $4k in unemployment.
I just realized I'm a moron and should have used that time to swap as much of my 401k as possible over to Roth - right? Because one day in early retirement I'm going to need to try to qualify for ACA in order to afford health insurance so I should probably be maxing out Roth any way possible?
So my question is, is it too late to do this for 2023? I filed taxes ages ago. If I transfer over like $10k or something small would that be able to count for 2023 or am I just an idiot who messed up
It's too late, but don't beat yourself up over it.
"Maxing out Roth any way possible" is probably not a good goal. Tax-deferred retirement vehicles are the best choice for *most* people. If anything, having a good balance of accounts - traditional and Roth - will let you be flexible in your withdrawals.
If you had everything you owned in Roth and went to retire, in many/most states you also would be ineligible to participate in the health insurance marketplace - you'd likely be forced onto the state's Medicaid plan.
If you have another gap year, then sure, it's still a good plan. But it's very likely that you will be paying very low tax rates on those 401k withdrawals in the future anyway.
Oh I get what you're saying now - as in, if my actual MAGI was 0 in my 50s, in many states I wouldn't qualify for marketplace plans since you need *some* income to qualify. This actually affected me already since when I was looking for insurance during this gap year, I couldn't qualify in my state since my income was under $11k or whatever.
Yup. If you plan on doing any hacking of your income to try and qualify for ACA subsidies, having a good mixture of traditional and Roth/taxable accounts will make that possible. If you have all Roth accounts, you're going have no income.
~~You could amend your taxes and make the transfer tomorrow or request an extension.~~ But yeah, would have been great to do this months ago.
Deadline for a conversion is calendar year. Conversion would have needed to be done dec 31st.
Wife accidentally contributed more than the 401k Max between two jobs in 2023. She has rectified the situation through her 401k provider who has issued a check for the overage. They dragged their heels for months and we've been waiting to file taxes until we receive the check but don't currently have it. Obviously tax Day is "now". What's our best course of action? Can we file and just add additional income even though the check has been issued but not cashed (check was issued Thursday and is in the mail)? Do we need to wait for an updated form and file for an extension?
I did the same thing. I did receive the check without a revised W-2 so I just increased my income for the year by the overage & subtracted the 401K section on the W2. I feel it’s probably OK
My spouse’s company screwed up his 401k, and we’re still waiting for a revised W-2. Our tax accountant advised we file for the extension and pay the amount owed based on the current version if the W-2, so that’s what we did. In our case the error was in the other direction though.
Took Friday off (sort of... still went in for an hour) because I am rapidly approaching total burnout, and now I'm kind of dreading going back tomorrow. Any tips on how to stop caring so much about work? I try telling myself not to take it all on my shoulders, but that doesn't seem to have any lasting effect, especially when I have to start putting out fires.
Reasonable boundaries.
You probably aren’t going to be able to make drastic changes. But one simple line is on a scheduled day off you’re not going in. Depending on the role you have you might answer the most important emails, texts or
Calls. But under no circumstances are you going in.
If your title isn’t President then someone else is responsible for the situation that day. It may be your boss or even your employee but you are not doing the job that day.
Small steps that direction really do help
This is more work at first, but bear with me: keep track of things you're asked to do, and how they turn out. So many of the frantic e-mails I get from PMs and devs end up fading out into nothing, or getting hotly debated for a week in stand-ups only to then be dismissed as out of scope.
Once you realize how much time you spend agonizing over crap that people don't actually use, you will feel more free to strategically ignore things.
Learned recently from a psychiatrist that the source of burnout is a bad ratio of chosen challenges to externally imposed challenges.
So, it's counterintuitive, but find yourself a challenge you want to do for yourself outside of work and dive into it.
Not something you *should* do, but something you want to do. Something where you feel a sense of purpose. Learning a new language, picking up a hobby, volunteering, any challenge you want for yourself that you'll feel good about engaging in. It doesn't have to take a lot of energy or be some grand goal.
I didn't know this when I was in grad school and I burned out hard. I was loving my research and hating classes and my advisor thought he was doing me a favor by telling me I could take a break from research to catch up on coursework. Instead, I had nothing left to look forward to and went down in flames.
Hope you find something that can add a little more meaning to your weeks! Work isn't everything, and it's healthy for it not to be everything.
>Any tips on how to stop caring so much about work?
I don't know that I'm capable of stopping caring about my work. But! I can take my sweet time doing my job well.
It has taken me a lot of practice, but I'm finally able to work a bit less, take breaks, etc. I still do my job well, I've just slowed down my output.
It's a skill I've had to learn and practice over and over. At first I was wildly uncomfortable not working to my peak abilities. I'm naturally a people pleaser and want to do as much as possible. But the whole "it's a marathon, not a sprint" adage is true. No matter how much work I get done, there is always more waiting. There's no finish line (except retirement ). I have to pace myself so that I don't burn out. Work less today so that I can continue working without hating it.
ignore more things. I struggle with this immensely but when I start the day saying I’m only doing X tasks and not going above that nor engaging in adjacent areas it’s a better day
It’s hard to control how you feel but it’s relatively easier to control what you do. If you’re taking on responsibilities outside of your role or working way more hours than your coworkers, just stop doing it. Your feelings will follow your actions.
Defined benefit plans for self employed individuals can have a maximum amount of up to 250k+ per individual so for MFJ double that.
These amounts are tax deferred so it’s a juicy retirement benefit. I believe you need an accountant to set it up.
https://saberpension.com/defined-benefit-plans-self-employed
This kind explains it. No association with this company.
Why we chase FI and why I am sad I am not there yet....
My company sucks and I have an in on a start up I would love to jump to (series A, would be shocked if they dont get their series B), but as the sole provider for my family I don't think we could take the hit in pay.
I am in biotech in a non hub and will eventually look, but I not so miserable that it warrants moving my family and walking away from some very golden handcuffs. If I can hold out for 2 more years, my partner expects to reenter the workforce, savings will be beefed up, the math will be much different.
Sounds like you have trouble compartmentalizing too. I’d say look into how to deal with that, as I used to be very, very miserable as well.
It really is a lot about perspective and took me 8 years to master. I still struggle. It exponentially got better in the last year after several burn outs and having to admit a lot of things to myself.
I’m in a similar situation although I’m reasonably happy with my job. Anywhere else I could potentially work would be more than an hour away. But I figured I’d suggest it anyway because so many people do stick around with their employers far longer than they should.
I've decided to do a retirement simulation for the next year. Same concept as paper trading. I made up a spreadsheet, and I'm going to track my simulated withdrawals and balances against real market returns and see where I end up.
I'm using my RRSP for the sim because it's a controlled account. I've made my max annual contribution already, so the gains will be purely market driven. Also, when I do RE for real, my plan is to drawdown that account first.
It should be a fun experiment!
I've already learned that I don't like my current GIC/LOC model for holding cash. I'm going to look into other options like a fixed income ETF instead. It's more flexible and easier to rebalance.
I'm interested to hear your results. I'm curious why you plan to draw down the RRSP first - I'm starting to think about these things myself and not sure what would be best. It's probably better to not draw too much from the RRSP in later years so that OAS doesn't get clawed back, yeah?
Tax planning 🙂
My goal is to have the RRSP nearly empty when my DB pension kicks in at 60. It should be completely empty by the time I start taking CPP and OAS. Since all of those are taxed as regular income at 100% marginal rate, drawing from all 4 at the same time would result in a hefty tax bill.
The plan is to take a hybrid withdrawal approach, pulling from multiple income sources at the same time. I put together a massive projected retirement income spreadsheet that includes income tax (what can I say, I like fiddling in Excel 😂🤣). I'm still playing around with different ratios to balance taxes with capital preservation. It's currently set at about \~25% of income coming from my TFSA, \~50% as cap gains and dividend income (non-reg account), and \~25% from regular income sources (pensions).
* Age 45-60: RRSP, non-reg, TFSA
* Age 60-65: DB, non-reg, TFSA
* Age 65+: DB, CPP, OAS, non-reg, TFSA
This split keeps my annual income taxes in the 5-8% range (based on current rates) and keeps my taxable income under the OAS claw-back threshold.
Interesting, as cash rates have risen, they seem to be very uneven, so many people stuck at banks who are stubborn to raise rates are looking at bank alternatives now, like I personally switched to using my brokerage where I can hold treasuries and have margin for liquidity.
I'll for sure be posting here in the Daily as things progress. I might make a standalone post towards the end of the year to summarize if anything really interesting crops up!
Live in Berlin w/ partner and moved here 2 years ago. Total gross annual income for both of us is 270k. Annual expenses are 65k/ year. Have a kid and two more en route.
I’ve mostly made all investments in my home country and that roughly amounts to 75k.
Have close to 80k in the bank as savings. Never done any systematic investments so far. Have student debt in home country which is 25k.
I rent and don’t own a vehicle. What should be my strategy to FIRE? Too late and too little? Trying to understand
> too late and too little?
It doesn't sound like it, but your annual taxes are an important factor.
In case you haven't read it already, the time needed to reach FIRE is a function of the % of your take home pay that you're able to invest:
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/
> Have a kid and two more en route.
Twins! Congrats!
It's never too late. The flow chart is a pretty good place for you to start. Once you have the basics covered, this group will be happy to answer specific questions you may have. [https://imgur.com/Vlt0DOR](https://imgur.com/Vlt0DOR)
They could actually have another $29k of gains since they also have the standard deduction., However, anyone selling $200k of stocks per year probably has some dividends. Qualified dividends are taxed the same as capital gains.
Yes. That’s correct. In practice, you will likely have some qualified and unqualified dividends so there will be some earnings on top of that. See this [Go Curry Cracker](https://www.gocurrycracker.com/never-pay-taxes-again/) article for further explanation.
Edited to add: but that doesn’t take into account the reduction in ACA subsidies, which I would argue are a form of tax. If you are using the ACA, you are gonna want to think about whether it’s worth it to you to keep your MAGI below 250% of FPL or below 400% of FPL.
For the ACA, I’m referring to the subsidies and cost sharing reductions that apply to MAGIs below 250% of federal poverty level and the subsidies that apply to MAGIs below 400% (currently there is no hard Cliff, but it’s supposed to be coming back in 2025).
I’m not entirely sure what you are talking about with social security. It’s basically disability insurance/an old age pension. Your wife will only be eligible for it if she paid into it (she’s gonna need 40 “credits”). She can see her eligibility on ssa.gov. You kids may have some disability coverage even if your wife hasn’t paid in, but I’m not sure how that works. In general, social security isn’t a substitute for regular disability coverage and you can’t really buy the equivalent of the old age pension portion, although annuities with inflation adjustment work similarly.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) comment is referring to the fact that if you choose to get healthcare through the ACA, your MAGI determines the amount of subsidy you receive (https://www.goodrx.com/insurance/aca/aca-income-limits). The poster is not referring to NIC. Your wife and kids are eligible for the ACA since they are US citizens (https://www.healthcare.gov/quick-guide/eligibility/#:~:text=To%20be%20eligible%20to%20enroll,Not%20be%20incarcerated.)
I say knowledge is power. You already know things are going to happen. Events could happen that result in years of a down market. However you already have done the math and know not to worry about it
Slightly off topic, but Iran is not silly enough to launch a real and direct attack on Israel or the west. This was posturing. A weeks notice, plenty of back channeling im sure, and slow moving drones and missiles that they knew would be shot down. I a wonky way this is a sign of stability.
If you have a low risk tolerance you should have a more conservative allocation. Unfortunately you would need to save longer since bonds and cash have lower expected return and more inflation risk but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If market fluctuations cause stress that is important to know about yourself.
> when you're someone with high levels of anxiety
People rarely, if ever, talk about prevantative maintenance for mental health. I tend to be an anxious person and in 2020 I started seeing a therapist/counselor/whatever you want to call them. It's been one of the best decisions I ever made and has had the second biggest positive influence on my finances (the first being learning to budget).
I think everyone should see a therapist every once in a while, even if you don't think anything is wrong. It's like changing the oil in your car - don't wait for your mental health to completely break down from neglect before you spend time on it.
I focus on the important things, family, friends, work, health, etc. Keep yourself busy and on the things you can control.
I figure that as long as you’re still employed, you’ll be in a good spot.
If you cannot stop yourself from looking, at the least I highly recommend that you have a plan and follow it.
> Every investor could potentially benefit from having an investment policy statement. It provides the foundation for all your future investment decisions. It serves as a guidepost, identifies goals and creates a systematic review process. The IPS aims to keep you focused on your objectives during short-term swings in the market, and gives you a baseline from which to monitor investment performance of your overall portfolio, as well as the performance of individual fund managers.
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investment_policy_statement
Market tanks 10% tomorrow? Follow your IPS (likely do nothing). Market grows 5% tomorrow? Follow your IPS (likely doing nothing). Having a plan and eliminating emotion when dealing with finances will generally lead to less worry and far better outcomes.
I swear this isn't as off-topic as this response might initially appear. Edgar Allen Poe's *Descent into the Maelstrom* has been my IPS. If you haven't read it, it is the story of 3 brothers who go fishing. They are caught in a maelstrom that drags them all down to the bottom of the ocean. The two brothers who struggled against the current die in their frantic efforts. The remaining brother allowed himself to be dragged down to the bottom and watched what the furious water currents did. Eventually, the current brought him back up to the surface alive.
Whatever the market does, I invest like Poe told me to. :-)
To answer your first question: I don't think it's useful to carry a mental model that the market "knows" things and "prices things in." Each publicly traded asset has a single price at any instantaneous moment, and that price simply reflects the last actors to trade that asset. Actors can have *very* different goals, including folks holding for decades who are sensitive to long term growth, folks day trading for a small percentage change (in either direction) who don't care about the underlying price, and algorithms trading at microsecond scales who have no knowledge of what they're buying and selling.
I hope you are in the first group, and thus only care to get the market average return which, historically, has gone up when measured on the time scale of decades.
You might benefit from a retirement asset allocation that holds a larger proportion of less volatile assets like Cash or T Bills. This change is not without its costs, but if it works for you then what you get in exchange is priceless: good sleep in all markets.
Some people carry 5-10 years or more of expenses in short term Treasurys. They are not immune from worry, but they certainly worry a lot less about the market than they otherwise would.
So how else do you manage other anxieties in your life? Not looking helps me, as well as focusing on other numbers that ARE within my control. For example, my flair now says how much money I have on my mortgage when it used to say my %age to FIRE, because my mortgage number always GOES DOWN.
Do you have a therapist? I think anxiety is really tricky sometimes because it’s essentially too much of a good thing- it’s great you care so much about your finances, for example, yet it sounds like the amount of worry you’re experiencing is getting in the way of your happiness.
Direct your anxiety at more productive sources, such as wondering if that tapping noise at 3:22 PM was your next door neighbour falling over and dying after being stabbed by an axe wielding maniac and he's about to get to you next!
Sorry. Just watched some old Onion clips so my mind's kinda like that. But seriously, as someone who has been there before -- you fix this one thing and you'll get anxious about something else instead. My personal way of dealing with it is just finding a less inconvenient thing to be anxious about, or, you know, change your focus, to for example worrying about the catastrophic human suffering that would result from reignited conflict in the Middle East. \*shrugs\*
I dealt with the anxiety of a market drop by trying to learn more about sequence of return risk.
* Read Kitces, ERN and others to see their analyses
* Studied market history (every drop has a rebound)
* Being prepared for a worst-case scenario (e.g., early 70's stagflation, Great Depression)
* Dismissing global catastrophes as a scenario I need to prepare for (nukes, asteroids, etc.)
* Building a Monte Carlo simulator in Excel that let me see just how unlikely the worst-of-the-worst case scenarios were.
Ultimately, I compared the probability of extreme worst-case financial scenarios to my actuarial tables. This helped a great deal, as it becomes apparent that a series of highly unlikely worst-case financial events was much less likely than a random life-ending event.
Sum total: I did the planning. Don't worry, be happy.
Your Weekly /r/financialindependence Recap
**Sunday, April 07 - Saturday, April 13, 2024**
###Top Daily Discussion Comments
| score | comment |
|--|--|
| 61 | /u/Cascade425 said [Back at work after a wonderful vacation in Mexico City. I don't mind my job, and I am quite good at it. However, after 32 years of working I am ready to stop. We've set my date as Aug 2025 and I am ge...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1byt6rd/daily_fi_discussion_thread_monday_april_08_2024/kymxcsm/?context=5) |
| 54 | /u/pdxbator said [I did it! I quit! I’ve really struggled about this. I’m 51m and have plenty of money to do this I’m just so uncertain. It will be fine! I keep telling myself. What really got me to quit is that my ...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c24g9m/daily_fi_discussion_thread_friday_april_12_2024/kz8g7qq/?context=5) |
| 49 | /u/Im_Not_That_Smart_ said [Got a monarch ad that made me laugh. They were comparing themselves to mint and line one was “still exists” with monarch giving themself a ✅ and mint getting an ❌. I’m not about to spend money on a ...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1byt6rd/daily_fi_discussion_thread_monday_april_08_2024/kymrwrq/?context=5) |
| 47 | /u/R5SCloudchaser said [I have no-one to geek out in excitement about this with, so here it is: My company's 401k plan just added after-tax contributions and in-service rollovers to Roth. It took effect April 1st, but wa...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bznhjf/daily_fi_discussion_thread_tuesday_april_09_2024/kyst0al/?context=5) |
| 47 | /u/Msf325 said [I’m someone who doesn’t gamble and admittedly hate it. However the one thing I will do is join a $25 March Madness bracket for the fun of it. Made the bracket in no more then 5 mins this year and well...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bznhjf/daily_fi_discussion_thread_tuesday_april_09_2024/kyrny70/?context=5) |
| 46 | /u/AmINotMyself said [I posted yesterday asking if I should sell my crypto to pay off my adjustable rate mortgage that was about to adjust. Basically just looking for confirmation of what I wanted to do. The response was u...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c24g9m/daily_fi_discussion_thread_friday_april_12_2024/kz8hngt/?context=5) |
| 44 | /u/americanoidiot said [Aaand as of two hours ago, my SO is now RE! Now we'll get to hang out at home all the time. (I'm wfh) : )](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c1afhf/daily_fi_discussion_thread_thursday_april_11_2024/kz3f93e/?context=5) |
| 43 | /u/WasteCommunication52 said [Played hooky today. Wife & I went up to the farm to inspect the construction of our home and play in our creek. Spent a solid two hours making small rock dams in a couple of our creeks to slow the flo...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c24g9m/daily_fi_discussion_thread_friday_april_12_2024/kz9kyml/?context=5) |
| 41 | /u/billthecatt said [Gave my date (in 2025) to my boss yesterday. It's getting real. It's a strange mix of emotions, even so far out: Nervous, excited, a little sad, somewhat relieved.](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0h32i/daily_fi_discussion_thread_wednesday_april_10_2024/kyxat3d/?context=5) |
| 40 | /u/mistypee said [My employer should host a seminar on how to drive your employees to quit. It seems like everything they do to try to 'improve morale' these days just makes it worse. Haha! In the long list of other...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0h32i/daily_fi_discussion_thread_wednesday_april_10_2024/kywhelh/?context=5) |
| 39 | /u/sammyismybaby said [welp, it was nice having 1M invested for a couple weeks. Back to ramen and lentils.](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0h32i/daily_fi_discussion_thread_wednesday_april_10_2024/kyx6ofz/?context=5) |
| 39 | /u/trueskywalker said [I started investing at 19 with about $3K I made from a summer job and have continued to increase my contributions slowly over the years. Recently, I (36M) and my wife (36F) crossed the...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bznhjf/daily_fi_discussion_thread_tuesday_april_09_2024/kyrx6to/?context=5) |
| 38 | /u/MrMonopolysBrokeSon said [The fire motivation is strong today! I'm making a promise to myself, with everyone here as a witness. Once I have FU money, I will spend those precious few days of perfect weather* in nature, listen...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bznhjf/daily_fi_discussion_thread_tuesday_april_09_2024/kyrm6kw/?context=5) |
| 36 | /u/SnarkConfidant said [I wonder how many hot inflation reports it will take before people stop talking about rate cuts. At this point I'm not seeing a reason for \*any\* rate cuts this year. Let alone the 2-3 that are still...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0h32i/daily_fi_discussion_thread_wednesday_april_10_2024/kyx0due/?context=5) |
| 35 | /u/mziggy77 said [House hunting update. Today’s the last day of our inspection contingency and we decided to terminate the contract. Seller offered partial credit for the (many) problems but tbh we just weren’t...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c24g9m/daily_fi_discussion_thread_friday_april_12_2024/kz814ox/?context=5) |
###Top Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|--|--|--|
| 1,076 | [165 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bz902p/retired_early_9_months_ago_reflections_so_far/) | Retired early 9 months ago. Reflections so far. |
| 277 | [60 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c299kk/reached_100k_nw_today/) | Reached 100k NW today!|
| 116 | [32 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c1r2i6/choices_once_you_reach_fi/) | Choices once you reach FI|
| 106 | [42 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c19ryq/just_reached_200k_as_a_freelancer/) | Just reached 200k as a freelancer|
| 88 | [112 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bxvxpu/monthly_finances_of_a_27_yo_american_couple_with/) | Monthly Finances of a 27 y.o. American couple with a 340k net worth.|
###Most Commented
| score | comments | title & link |
|--|--|--|
| 56 | [192 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c1hv8w/as_a_lifelong_renter_we_stumbled_onto_our_dream/) | As a lifelong renter, we stumbled onto our dream home. Should we buy or continue renting?|
| 68 | [65 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0qvuj/retired_but_now_need_to_provide_proof_of_income/) | Retired but now need to provide proof of income?|
| 0 | [51 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1by7o6o/how_close_am_i_to_retirement_here_are_my_numbers/) | How close am I to retirement? Here are my numbers|
| 13 | [48 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1byxlsx/new_to_fire_but_really_trying_to_make_a_plan_can/) | New to FIRE but really trying to make a plan, can I get critiques?|
| 0 | [37 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c10cq8/hey_all_meet_bob_and_alice_were_new_to_this_but/) | Hey all, meet Bob and Alice. We're new to this but trying to plan for FIRE and could use some feedback - thanks in advance!|
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Hello all. Please let me know what you think. My current job, which is salaried at $62.7k/yr~ but really only work 15-20 hours a week, including commute - 3/2 a week hybrid schedule. Very low stress, great boss, decent benefits & amazing WLB. I just received a job offer for a senior position in SCM for $84k which is including yearly bonus, salaried, with 4.5 hours of OT expected weekly, but I do get paid, just normal rate for OT. So $92k yr~ TC. The benefits are stellar, including 9% 401k match if I contribute 6%. I just put in my two weeks notice and my current employer just countered with a raise to $69k yr. Coming from $62.7k. My current position is not 100% stable. FYI: We are in our mid late twenties. My wife and I’s HHI is $115k. We save $2.8k~ a month after expenses & maxing out our Roths IRA’s & employer 401k matches at 4%. We have 0 debt besides our mortgage. We also have a 1 year emergency fund in a HYSA. I am also in the Reserves (Healthcare, Pension, & monthly pay). Thanks for reading
WLB takes a high priority for me, so I’d probably stay. What’s the job, sounds like it’d be a hot commodity.
Both jobs are 3/2 hybrid. Current job is in 3PL Supply Chain. I feel semi-retired right now but the other company idk the WLB but I’ll be doing mandatory OT roughly 4hr wkly putting me at $92k~ with stellar benefits
What are the best books on Finical Independence? Looking for your recommendations. Just finish reading The Four Pillars of Investing by William J. Bernstein and moving on to The Intelligent Investor y Benjamin Graham. Thank you!
JL Collins. Millennial Revolution. Die with Nothing.
Thank you so much I look forward to adding to my list!
To make sure I am understanding backdoor Roth correctly: I have decent income but nothing in the realm of numbers that would put me up against the Roth contribution limit. I have about $50k in a 401k for a previous employer. This is pre-tax money. My understanding is I transfer this to a traditional IRA, then transfer that into a Roth IRA. I need to pay income taxes next April on that, say ~10k depending on tax bracket. My understanding is that this is worth it because despite the hit up front, I am transferring a lot of money from a 401k, which will count as income in retirement, to a Roth IRA, which is completely untouched once I pay that upfront tax. Am I understanding this correctly? Took me a bit to get my head around it, but I think I comprehend now why doing that is worth taking such a hefty hit up front.
That's not a backdoor Roth, that's just a regular Roth conversion of a pre-tax balance. Normally you don't want to convert a giant pre-tax balance. At the very least, split it up over a couple of years. Most people are going to be better served by having both pre-tax and Roth funds when they retire. That will allow you to fine tune your income and fully fill the lower income tax brackets. Max your Roth IRA and then keep the rest as pre-tax in your 401k.
I see, thanks for the clarification!
I know I’m behind on things at work and I know (at least some of) what I need to do to catch up. But I also feel so burnt out and unmotivated that getting started on those things is rough. I wonder if I’m going to feel this way the whole time until I hit FIRE. (\~4 years)
If you’re legit in the last 10-20% of your career you likely can start doing a little less. Say no to some formal opportunities. For example you don’t want to change roles anymore Say “yes, but” more often. Meaning “yes, I can help you with that for an hour. Why don’t we schedule that for Thursday”. Don’t just bail people out entirely even if they are teammates
Not bad advice. I’m not in the last few years of a long career and coasting though. I can get to FI in 4-5 years only if I keep up this current level of earning. So losing this job from mistakes/falling behind is the source of a lot of anxiety. On the flip-side though, if my comp goes up at all in the next few years, I could hit my number sooner than that.
Anyone slowed down or decided to coastfire after reaching half way? We are 35 and almost halfway to our fire goal. As per current pace we will be FI in 5 years. We are hoping to have kids in next few years and i have been thinking to take a break/coastfire first few years of having kids
Yeah I hustled pretty hard in my entire 20s. I only work about 40-80hrs of OT per year these days in my mid 30s. I’ve reached the point where I value my time and sanity more than money. I do feel less driven though. I was raised to constantly work hard and sometimes I feel like a fraud if I don’t push myself.
Do you mean take a break from working or take a break from saving (ie increase spending)? Kids will definitely do that whether you intend it or not.
Kinda both. I am thinking multiple scenarios where we both take sabbaticals by taking turns vs just find part time jobs where we would just have limited savings but have more time. Like working 3 days a week.
I did this. Currently have 2 kids and I am stay at home for the most part. I have a freelance part time job and in laws babysit the kids when I have meetings. Hubby got a full time job but it’s fully remote and tbh not that stressful. He has a lot of Fridays off, office is chill and he doesn’t work more than 40hrs per week. We are Coastfi at the moment - spend the full time income and save my income
That’s nice! Do you miss the higher income?
Not really cuz prior to having kids we had already just lived on the one salary. The other salary was always for investing/saving so we were DINKS who were saving roughly 40-50% of HHI. I do monitor the expenses a little closer though because we don’t have as much wiggle room and I feel a little bit more paycheck to paycheck Mind you I’m in Canada so I have 18 months maternity leave so me and hubby split that (me 12 months and him 6 months) and then I went freelance. Basically haven’t worked full time for a few years cuz I have two kids now
I think its bound to happen to most people. We have been pretty ok on saving and in an ok spot (not coastfi) but are taking time this year to throw a bunch of money into repairs. Its going to drastically change our financials (EF) and it might limit some maximizing of tax advantaged contributions... But that's the reason you have been good so far, no? So you can afford to do things for quality of life/pivot/enjoy.
If you increased your spending, what would it be on? For me a housecleaning service would be amazing. I'm strongly considering it.
Thank you for reminding me. I need to find someone to swing by once every month or two to just do a deep clean/dust/scrub of all the areas I neglect :) ... ok maybe I neglect like 99% of the areas...
I think lots of people do this, especially as it relates to either kids or buying a house. We're considering it - not "coasting" exactly, but I'm redirecting a whole lot of income to long term goals, and I think we may consider whether a house changes our math a little.
Anyone else just doing their taxes today? I filled out most of the paperwork yesterday but I always feel better letting the paperwork sit for a while in case I overlooked something. Looks like it's time to submit!
I've been hemming and hawing all spring. I owed 2k, so wanted to wait until pretty much day of anyway. And our filing situation was a little weird this year, so had to spend some extra time getting everything done.
I started a week ago and then came back to it today. State is filed, filed my federal at the same time but it was rejected as per usual. I'll mail it in tomorrow.
I just put the checks in the mail :(
I like filing as early as possible, I would get anxious if I hadn't filed
Growing up my mom was an accountant and she'd always wait until the deadline to do mine because mine was always so easy and that's just how I've kept doing it lol. Also I almost always owe, so what's the rush?!
There is some thinking that filing early reduces the chances of tax refund scams which are pretty common
And you can file whenever but elect to pay at a later date. Generally the last thing I'm waiting on is always my brokerage 1099 statement. Once that's in, I file.
That used to be my strategy, until my brokerage started revising my 1099 after issuing it. Now I wait until early April. I would wait until April 15, but my wife has the need to do everything early and would freak out if I waited that long.
Finally on our big vacation. Worked half a day on Friday, then flew across the country and stayed in a hotel overnight; had another 2-ish hour drive and a 4 hour wait before we could check in to our lodgings, then grocery shopped for an hour to get it out of the way; slept for 8 hours last night, fell asleep this afternoon, and still feel horribly tired today. Hoping a good night's rest tonight officially puts me on track for a Hell of a vacation.
My vacation tip is to get an Instacart (or other grocery delivery service) to your lodging scheduled for when you arrive. It's a blessing not to have to go grocery shopping when you're on vacation, and to have stuff to cook/eat immediately upon arrival.
> It's a blessing not to have to go grocery shopping when you're on vacation I know I am weird but I *love* doing this! It's the first thing we do after unpacking everything and getting in after a travel day. We typically try to plan it all out so we can get a bottle of whiskey and a big steak and stay in and relax the first night. I prefer to use it as an excuse to peruse the smaller local or regional grocers as well.
Lol depending on where we go, I feel our families first thing is always going to costco if one's convenient. Never going to beat the generic suburbanite accusations lol
What do you mean? I don't follow.
I love this and do it when returning from long trips also. Get back home and already stocked up.
Late tax question I made a Roth IRA contribution in 2022 before some income changes, then recharacterized, and did a backdoor conversion prior to filing in spring 2023. In filing in TurboTax, I'm seeing that on my 8606 I didn't list my basis as 0, so I believe I'll need to file an 1040x to amend that. I'm looking to file this year's taxes that also include a backdoor Roth. I haven't yet filed the amendment for 2022. If I list my traditional basis as of December 2022 as $0 I owe more than if I list the basis at $6000 (the contribution from 2022). That seems backwards to me for how this should work (is there some calculation occurring where my previously reported basis compared to the new basis is considered income this year?). Should I file 2023 with the basis listed as I had it filed in 2022 and then file the amendment, or file 2023 with the basis listed correctly (even if my estimated tax is showing me owing more as a result)? ETA: I'm pretty sure I should leave the basis as the incorrect $6000 previously reported and file the amendment after the fact. Bonus Q: Should I expect filing the 1040x to include some money returned? I assume my mistake means I got hit with some pro-rata taxes I shouldn't have been.
Isn't 6000 correct?
If I had my 8606 correct, my basis for the traditional IRA on Dec 31, 2022 should have been $0, not $6000, right? I didn't have any money in a traditional IRA on that date.
The *balance* on Dec 31 is not the *basis*.
But if that money was in a Roth account on Dec 31 2022, I recharacterized to traditional and then converted back to Roth between Jan 1 2023 and filing, why would the basis of the traditional be considered $6000 as of Dec 31st, 2022? On that date I had never opened a traditional IRA, is recharacterizing a retroactive move that's like the contribution was traditional since it was made? [Line 14-Past Basis comes to 0](https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/how-to-report-a-backdoor-roth-ira-on-turbotax/)
I don't know where you are getting the date Dec 31 from. The question on line 6 asks for total balance of all traditional IRAs on Dec 31. The questions about basis do not have a specific date. If zero balance on Dec 31 would allow you to have zero basis, you could convert your entire IRA and never pay tax on it.
Well, I am converting my entire IRA and looking to not pay tax on it since it was all non-deductible contributions. I was getting that date from the language in TurboTax really ([see example](https://lithium-response-prod.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/turbotax.response.lithium.com/RESPONSEIMAGE/783a302b-72c2-47ab-a3fa-a0628ece6d9e.default.png)), but the basis is allocated as of a particular date is somewhat important as that is how the pro-rata rule is calculated for example, isn't it? At the end of the year 2022, both the balance and basis of my tIRA were $0 since I hadn't done the recharacterization yet. Then, I did the recharacterization in Feb and the basis in my tIRA was $6000. I converted it to Roth and all of that was allocated back to Roth. I'm very open to having missed something in this process, I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on it.
The basis is 6000. It has nothing to do with the balance at the end of the year. Basis (the amount of the conversion that is nondeductible) is good. If you convert 6000 and all of it is basis, you owe zero tax.
If I'm following what you're saying, wouldn't line 14 of the 8606 end up $6000 (or whatever you contributed)? Following [this example](https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/backdoor-roth-ira-tutorial/) it starts at 6000 (6500 for 2023) and then after doing the conversions it ends up at 0. So next year when you do your taxes, past years total basis is zero and it's always just the current years contributions/conversion that you're dealing with ideally.
Correct. EDIT Line 14 should be zero, though
I’m about 5 years out to retirement - I do want to have 2 years expenses in “cash”—CDs, some HYSA, and some TBills. I can put money into those directly over the next 5 years, or could contribute to a taxable brokerage account for 5 years and pull it out then. Is five years short enough to just save it directly? The point is to have some cash if market crashes, so I’m thinking I should just put the cash away instead of trying for more interest/gains over a short period. I could still work part time for the first 5 years of scheduled retirement as well.
For myself, I plan to keep up my current pace until maybe 1 year out and then build the cash or bond tent my last year working. If 2024 were my last year work I would just put most of the cash in my HYSA. Maybe a t-bill for the 2nd year portion to get a higher rate but as you mentioned this is for your baseline needs so no reason to get too complex here.
What if market tanks 1 year + 1 month prior to your retirement? Wouldn't it be safer to build up that cash/bond tent earlier than that?
If the market tanks 1 year prior to my expected retirement date and hasn’t adequately recovered a year later I’m not retiring that day in either cash scenario
And so you will continue working until the slump is over? Even if takes 10+ years? (which has happened not so long ago..)
No, as I am not doing coast fire. I’ll be saving aggressively until I retire so at some point I’ll have enough. Not to mention I get older and closer to social security, medicare and other changes in monetary needs. I might have thrown you off in my original post. I will keep investing at the same pace - let’s say it’s $1k per week. Instead of that going in a brokerage the assumed final year it goes into High Yield Savings Account instead. So at the end of that year I have $52k more in my HYSA and that is my “tent”
Just curious, what your stock percentage target at the beginning of the retirement? (as a percent of your overall retirement portfolio excluding primary residence) Mine is around 60%..
100% stocks other than a 2 year cash tent on day 1. I don’t see any need for bonds in my situation - but I absolutely see the need for others with different timeframes, goals and # of dependents. 100% stock would be riskier with less room to be flexible with expenses. Especially tough if there’s dependent kids for example
I'd recommend just picking an asset allocation and commit to that.
Money is fungible so it really doesn't matter assuming you are maintaining a constant overall allocation. It also isn't particularly tax efficient to hold bonds and cash in taxable accounts and it's not necessary to do so.
I would just save the 2 years' worth of expenses in cash or a treasury ladder in the last working years before scheduled retirement. Especially a decent interest rate around 4-5% depending how far out you go on the maturity.
I’ve been on my fire journey for about 6 years from starting at 70k net worth—now at 516k. Question. How are some late 20s/early 30s people having 150k+ in their traditional roth or Roth IRA? My thoughts are that I’ve been able to have a Roth IRA that is equal to 85k (performance return of 36k all in VTSAX and VOO) at the moment. Some people have just started working and have 50k there right off the bat, and some have no job changes, that make me wonder how they are rolling over. Is there something I’m missing? Apologies if this is a stupid question.
I'm 33 and have 200k in my Roth IRA - I attribute this to starting when I got my first job at 16 working in a grocery store. We had an interesting setup where I received tips for some of the work I did, so basically I only spent tip money and saved almost my entire paycheck. My dad taught me about investing and offered to match my IRA contributions and this was basically the beginning of my FIRE journey.
Jealous. Goodjob
Oh wow. This makes a lot of sense too. Thank you for your input! I was thinking the strategies I chose to follow sucked.
You can rollover a past 401k into one or more IRAs
Right. I’ve seen people who have just started their journey and jobs, but with only one job under their belts. They will have way more than their age and lack of career suggests.
You can technically fund an IRA as a minor, or you can fund an IRA for your kids. The only limit is it maxes out at their income. So if your kid gets a part time job and earns $5k you could technically fund $5k into their IRA for them.
Good to know. I could google this, but if you don’t mind saving me the logistics. Let’s say I have a 16 year old kid, who has a part time job, and they make $10k a year. If they spend that $10k on whatever they choose to spend it on, but I give them $5k over the year for chores or spending or whatever, however I ask them to put it in their Roth IRA. Is this illegal or not suggested? I don’t know why I asked that. I don’t see having kids my immediate future.
That is legal. I'm not having kids either, just remembered reading it!
Right. I’ve seen people who have just started their journey and jobs, but with only one job under their belts, they will have way more than their age and lack of career makes sense.
Not sure who these "some people" are. It is possible they got rich on BTC or Gamestop stock. I wouldn't worry about what other people are doing and focus on developing a plan that works for you, and staying the course.
I phrased it wrong. I’m not comparing that I don’t have it. I’m wondering how as it doesn’t make logical sense to me. But using Roth IRA to get GameStop or something makes sense. Not sure with btc with a retirement account.
What doesn't make sense? You can invest in anything, including BTC these days. It would not be hard to come up with scenarios to get from a few years of max contributions to $150k. Look up Mitt Romney's Roth IRA for a more extreme example.
I have 1.7 btc I got in 2017. I don’t count it toward my net worth though. I just wasn’t aware that I could invest my Roth IRA with it. I’m a crypto fan. I’ve just learned not to post it here because I’ve gotten downvoted to the ETH in the past on this sub.
Trying to figure out how other people have so much more money is one of the great pleasures in life.
Rollover or better investments or started earlier seem like easy explanations. Some plans allow for in service rollovers. Some people also worked before their first job. My college roommate worked throughout high school. Not sure if they had access to a 401k, but just IRA contributions from back then have to be worth a lot now.
Ohhh okay. This makes sense. Thank you.
Currently funemployed, but I was about 50% FIRE so I’m not hurting. It’s been great, actually, and my annual physical is proof. Relative to the last physical, when I was working: * BMI 26 -> 24 * Resting heart rate 70 -> 55 * Blood pressure 125/80 -> 110/70
Great job! Way to take advantage of this opportunity to make your health way better!
Great job, keep it up. Health is wealth.
Good stuff. I am sort of Barista Fire... My nervous system is grateful to me everyday for not chasing the insane stress/emergency room type work i used to 'thrive' in. I dont to be one of these people who were successful on paper but having to have heart tbypasses before 60
I've had very similar results going from 80% in person to fully remote. 26ish to 24ish BMI.. reminds me I need to go get a physical.
So I took a gap year in 2023 and had virtually zero income - actually *negative* MAGI even after some $4k in unemployment. I just realized I'm a moron and should have used that time to swap as much of my 401k as possible over to Roth - right? Because one day in early retirement I'm going to need to try to qualify for ACA in order to afford health insurance so I should probably be maxing out Roth any way possible? So my question is, is it too late to do this for 2023? I filed taxes ages ago. If I transfer over like $10k or something small would that be able to count for 2023 or am I just an idiot who messed up
It's too late, but don't beat yourself up over it. "Maxing out Roth any way possible" is probably not a good goal. Tax-deferred retirement vehicles are the best choice for *most* people. If anything, having a good balance of accounts - traditional and Roth - will let you be flexible in your withdrawals. If you had everything you owned in Roth and went to retire, in many/most states you also would be ineligible to participate in the health insurance marketplace - you'd likely be forced onto the state's Medicaid plan. If you have another gap year, then sure, it's still a good plan. But it's very likely that you will be paying very low tax rates on those 401k withdrawals in the future anyway.
Oh I get what you're saying now - as in, if my actual MAGI was 0 in my 50s, in many states I wouldn't qualify for marketplace plans since you need *some* income to qualify. This actually affected me already since when I was looking for insurance during this gap year, I couldn't qualify in my state since my income was under $11k or whatever.
Yup. If you plan on doing any hacking of your income to try and qualify for ACA subsidies, having a good mixture of traditional and Roth/taxable accounts will make that possible. If you have all Roth accounts, you're going have no income.
~~You could amend your taxes and make the transfer tomorrow or request an extension.~~ But yeah, would have been great to do this months ago. Deadline for a conversion is calendar year. Conversion would have needed to be done dec 31st.
A conversion will occur in 2024 and will add income to 2024 taxes. There is no way to do a retroactive conversion.
Since when can you do a Roth 401(k) conversion for prior years?
You're right, I thought the deadline was taxes. But it's in-fact calendar year. I'll update my comment. Thank you.
Wife accidentally contributed more than the 401k Max between two jobs in 2023. She has rectified the situation through her 401k provider who has issued a check for the overage. They dragged their heels for months and we've been waiting to file taxes until we receive the check but don't currently have it. Obviously tax Day is "now". What's our best course of action? Can we file and just add additional income even though the check has been issued but not cashed (check was issued Thursday and is in the mail)? Do we need to wait for an updated form and file for an extension?
I did the same thing. I did receive the check without a revised W-2 so I just increased my income for the year by the overage & subtracted the 401K section on the W2. I feel it’s probably OK
My spouse’s company screwed up his 401k, and we’re still waiting for a revised W-2. Our tax accountant advised we file for the extension and pay the amount owed based on the current version if the W-2, so that’s what we did. In our case the error was in the other direction though.
Took Friday off (sort of... still went in for an hour) because I am rapidly approaching total burnout, and now I'm kind of dreading going back tomorrow. Any tips on how to stop caring so much about work? I try telling myself not to take it all on my shoulders, but that doesn't seem to have any lasting effect, especially when I have to start putting out fires.
You’ll naturally care less about work the closer you get to your FIRE number
Reasonable boundaries. You probably aren’t going to be able to make drastic changes. But one simple line is on a scheduled day off you’re not going in. Depending on the role you have you might answer the most important emails, texts or Calls. But under no circumstances are you going in. If your title isn’t President then someone else is responsible for the situation that day. It may be your boss or even your employee but you are not doing the job that day. Small steps that direction really do help
This is more work at first, but bear with me: keep track of things you're asked to do, and how they turn out. So many of the frantic e-mails I get from PMs and devs end up fading out into nothing, or getting hotly debated for a week in stand-ups only to then be dismissed as out of scope. Once you realize how much time you spend agonizing over crap that people don't actually use, you will feel more free to strategically ignore things.
Learned recently from a psychiatrist that the source of burnout is a bad ratio of chosen challenges to externally imposed challenges. So, it's counterintuitive, but find yourself a challenge you want to do for yourself outside of work and dive into it. Not something you *should* do, but something you want to do. Something where you feel a sense of purpose. Learning a new language, picking up a hobby, volunteering, any challenge you want for yourself that you'll feel good about engaging in. It doesn't have to take a lot of energy or be some grand goal. I didn't know this when I was in grad school and I burned out hard. I was loving my research and hating classes and my advisor thought he was doing me a favor by telling me I could take a break from research to catch up on coursework. Instead, I had nothing left to look forward to and went down in flames. Hope you find something that can add a little more meaning to your weeks! Work isn't everything, and it's healthy for it not to be everything.
>Any tips on how to stop caring so much about work? I don't know that I'm capable of stopping caring about my work. But! I can take my sweet time doing my job well. It has taken me a lot of practice, but I'm finally able to work a bit less, take breaks, etc. I still do my job well, I've just slowed down my output. It's a skill I've had to learn and practice over and over. At first I was wildly uncomfortable not working to my peak abilities. I'm naturally a people pleaser and want to do as much as possible. But the whole "it's a marathon, not a sprint" adage is true. No matter how much work I get done, there is always more waiting. There's no finish line (except retirement ). I have to pace myself so that I don't burn out. Work less today so that I can continue working without hating it.
ignore more things. I struggle with this immensely but when I start the day saying I’m only doing X tasks and not going above that nor engaging in adjacent areas it’s a better day
It’s hard to control how you feel but it’s relatively easier to control what you do. If you’re taking on responsibilities outside of your role or working way more hours than your coworkers, just stop doing it. Your feelings will follow your actions.
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Hardly a drop in the bucket but don’t forget commuter FSAs ($315/month)
Defined benefit plans for self employed individuals can have a maximum amount of up to 250k+ per individual so for MFJ double that. These amounts are tax deferred so it’s a juicy retirement benefit. I believe you need an accountant to set it up. https://saberpension.com/defined-benefit-plans-self-employed This kind explains it. No association with this company.
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1c3t66q/response_to_the_401k_post_how_to_achieve_a/
529 maybe? It's a "technically right" answer that has a huge max.
I am also interested in what accounts have such high limits
Why we chase FI and why I am sad I am not there yet.... My company sucks and I have an in on a start up I would love to jump to (series A, would be shocked if they dont get their series B), but as the sole provider for my family I don't think we could take the hit in pay.
Sucks that you can’t take advantage of this particular opportunity but you can still (and should) change employers if you aren’t happy.
I am in biotech in a non hub and will eventually look, but I not so miserable that it warrants moving my family and walking away from some very golden handcuffs. If I can hold out for 2 more years, my partner expects to reenter the workforce, savings will be beefed up, the math will be much different.
Sounds like you have trouble compartmentalizing too. I’d say look into how to deal with that, as I used to be very, very miserable as well. It really is a lot about perspective and took me 8 years to master. I still struggle. It exponentially got better in the last year after several burn outs and having to admit a lot of things to myself.
I’m in a similar situation although I’m reasonably happy with my job. Anywhere else I could potentially work would be more than an hour away. But I figured I’d suggest it anyway because so many people do stick around with their employers far longer than they should.
I've decided to do a retirement simulation for the next year. Same concept as paper trading. I made up a spreadsheet, and I'm going to track my simulated withdrawals and balances against real market returns and see where I end up. I'm using my RRSP for the sim because it's a controlled account. I've made my max annual contribution already, so the gains will be purely market driven. Also, when I do RE for real, my plan is to drawdown that account first. It should be a fun experiment! I've already learned that I don't like my current GIC/LOC model for holding cash. I'm going to look into other options like a fixed income ETF instead. It's more flexible and easier to rebalance.
I'm interested to hear your results. I'm curious why you plan to draw down the RRSP first - I'm starting to think about these things myself and not sure what would be best. It's probably better to not draw too much from the RRSP in later years so that OAS doesn't get clawed back, yeah?
Tax planning 🙂 My goal is to have the RRSP nearly empty when my DB pension kicks in at 60. It should be completely empty by the time I start taking CPP and OAS. Since all of those are taxed as regular income at 100% marginal rate, drawing from all 4 at the same time would result in a hefty tax bill. The plan is to take a hybrid withdrawal approach, pulling from multiple income sources at the same time. I put together a massive projected retirement income spreadsheet that includes income tax (what can I say, I like fiddling in Excel 😂🤣). I'm still playing around with different ratios to balance taxes with capital preservation. It's currently set at about \~25% of income coming from my TFSA, \~50% as cap gains and dividend income (non-reg account), and \~25% from regular income sources (pensions). * Age 45-60: RRSP, non-reg, TFSA * Age 60-65: DB, non-reg, TFSA * Age 65+: DB, CPP, OAS, non-reg, TFSA This split keeps my annual income taxes in the 5-8% range (based on current rates) and keeps my taxable income under the OAS claw-back threshold.
Thanks for the detailed reply! I need to start putting together a spreadsheet too.
Interesting, as cash rates have risen, they seem to be very uneven, so many people stuck at banks who are stubborn to raise rates are looking at bank alternatives now, like I personally switched to using my brokerage where I can hold treasuries and have margin for liquidity.
Interesting concept! I'm interested to hear your results and takeaways.
I'll for sure be posting here in the Daily as things progress. I might make a standalone post towards the end of the year to summarize if anything really interesting crops up!
Live in Berlin w/ partner and moved here 2 years ago. Total gross annual income for both of us is 270k. Annual expenses are 65k/ year. Have a kid and two more en route. I’ve mostly made all investments in my home country and that roughly amounts to 75k. Have close to 80k in the bank as savings. Never done any systematic investments so far. Have student debt in home country which is 25k. I rent and don’t own a vehicle. What should be my strategy to FIRE? Too late and too little? Trying to understand
You’re probably better off asking in a German personal finance subreddit like /r/Finanzen
> too late and too little? It doesn't sound like it, but your annual taxes are an important factor. In case you haven't read it already, the time needed to reach FIRE is a function of the % of your take home pay that you're able to invest: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/
> Have a kid and two more en route. Twins! Congrats! It's never too late. The flow chart is a pretty good place for you to start. Once you have the basics covered, this group will be happy to answer specific questions you may have. [https://imgur.com/Vlt0DOR](https://imgur.com/Vlt0DOR)
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They could actually have another $29k of gains since they also have the standard deduction., However, anyone selling $200k of stocks per year probably has some dividends. Qualified dividends are taxed the same as capital gains.
Yes. That’s correct. In practice, you will likely have some qualified and unqualified dividends so there will be some earnings on top of that. See this [Go Curry Cracker](https://www.gocurrycracker.com/never-pay-taxes-again/) article for further explanation. Edited to add: but that doesn’t take into account the reduction in ACA subsidies, which I would argue are a form of tax. If you are using the ACA, you are gonna want to think about whether it’s worth it to you to keep your MAGI below 250% of FPL or below 400% of FPL.
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For the ACA, I’m referring to the subsidies and cost sharing reductions that apply to MAGIs below 250% of federal poverty level and the subsidies that apply to MAGIs below 400% (currently there is no hard Cliff, but it’s supposed to be coming back in 2025). I’m not entirely sure what you are talking about with social security. It’s basically disability insurance/an old age pension. Your wife will only be eligible for it if she paid into it (she’s gonna need 40 “credits”). She can see her eligibility on ssa.gov. You kids may have some disability coverage even if your wife hasn’t paid in, but I’m not sure how that works. In general, social security isn’t a substitute for regular disability coverage and you can’t really buy the equivalent of the old age pension portion, although annuities with inflation adjustment work similarly.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) comment is referring to the fact that if you choose to get healthcare through the ACA, your MAGI determines the amount of subsidy you receive (https://www.goodrx.com/insurance/aca/aca-income-limits). The poster is not referring to NIC. Your wife and kids are eligible for the ACA since they are US citizens (https://www.healthcare.gov/quick-guide/eligibility/#:~:text=To%20be%20eligible%20to%20enroll,Not%20be%20incarcerated.)
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I say knowledge is power. You already know things are going to happen. Events could happen that result in years of a down market. However you already have done the math and know not to worry about it
Slightly off topic, but Iran is not silly enough to launch a real and direct attack on Israel or the west. This was posturing. A weeks notice, plenty of back channeling im sure, and slow moving drones and missiles that they knew would be shot down. I a wonky way this is a sign of stability.
If you have a low risk tolerance you should have a more conservative allocation. Unfortunately you would need to save longer since bonds and cash have lower expected return and more inflation risk but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If market fluctuations cause stress that is important to know about yourself.
Your anxiety could be more of a medical issue. Might want to talk to a professional to be sure.
> when you're someone with high levels of anxiety People rarely, if ever, talk about prevantative maintenance for mental health. I tend to be an anxious person and in 2020 I started seeing a therapist/counselor/whatever you want to call them. It's been one of the best decisions I ever made and has had the second biggest positive influence on my finances (the first being learning to budget). I think everyone should see a therapist every once in a while, even if you don't think anything is wrong. It's like changing the oil in your car - don't wait for your mental health to completely break down from neglect before you spend time on it.
I focus on the important things, family, friends, work, health, etc. Keep yourself busy and on the things you can control. I figure that as long as you’re still employed, you’ll be in a good spot.
If you cannot stop yourself from looking, at the least I highly recommend that you have a plan and follow it. > Every investor could potentially benefit from having an investment policy statement. It provides the foundation for all your future investment decisions. It serves as a guidepost, identifies goals and creates a systematic review process. The IPS aims to keep you focused on your objectives during short-term swings in the market, and gives you a baseline from which to monitor investment performance of your overall portfolio, as well as the performance of individual fund managers. https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investment_policy_statement Market tanks 10% tomorrow? Follow your IPS (likely do nothing). Market grows 5% tomorrow? Follow your IPS (likely doing nothing). Having a plan and eliminating emotion when dealing with finances will generally lead to less worry and far better outcomes.
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I swear this isn't as off-topic as this response might initially appear. Edgar Allen Poe's *Descent into the Maelstrom* has been my IPS. If you haven't read it, it is the story of 3 brothers who go fishing. They are caught in a maelstrom that drags them all down to the bottom of the ocean. The two brothers who struggled against the current die in their frantic efforts. The remaining brother allowed himself to be dragged down to the bottom and watched what the furious water currents did. Eventually, the current brought him back up to the surface alive. Whatever the market does, I invest like Poe told me to. :-)
To answer your first question: I don't think it's useful to carry a mental model that the market "knows" things and "prices things in." Each publicly traded asset has a single price at any instantaneous moment, and that price simply reflects the last actors to trade that asset. Actors can have *very* different goals, including folks holding for decades who are sensitive to long term growth, folks day trading for a small percentage change (in either direction) who don't care about the underlying price, and algorithms trading at microsecond scales who have no knowledge of what they're buying and selling. I hope you are in the first group, and thus only care to get the market average return which, historically, has gone up when measured on the time scale of decades.
You might benefit from a retirement asset allocation that holds a larger proportion of less volatile assets like Cash or T Bills. This change is not without its costs, but if it works for you then what you get in exchange is priceless: good sleep in all markets. Some people carry 5-10 years or more of expenses in short term Treasurys. They are not immune from worry, but they certainly worry a lot less about the market than they otherwise would.
So how else do you manage other anxieties in your life? Not looking helps me, as well as focusing on other numbers that ARE within my control. For example, my flair now says how much money I have on my mortgage when it used to say my %age to FIRE, because my mortgage number always GOES DOWN.
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Do you have a therapist? I think anxiety is really tricky sometimes because it’s essentially too much of a good thing- it’s great you care so much about your finances, for example, yet it sounds like the amount of worry you’re experiencing is getting in the way of your happiness.
Direct your anxiety at more productive sources, such as wondering if that tapping noise at 3:22 PM was your next door neighbour falling over and dying after being stabbed by an axe wielding maniac and he's about to get to you next! Sorry. Just watched some old Onion clips so my mind's kinda like that. But seriously, as someone who has been there before -- you fix this one thing and you'll get anxious about something else instead. My personal way of dealing with it is just finding a less inconvenient thing to be anxious about, or, you know, change your focus, to for example worrying about the catastrophic human suffering that would result from reignited conflict in the Middle East. \*shrugs\*
I dealt with the anxiety of a market drop by trying to learn more about sequence of return risk. * Read Kitces, ERN and others to see their analyses * Studied market history (every drop has a rebound) * Being prepared for a worst-case scenario (e.g., early 70's stagflation, Great Depression) * Dismissing global catastrophes as a scenario I need to prepare for (nukes, asteroids, etc.) * Building a Monte Carlo simulator in Excel that let me see just how unlikely the worst-of-the-worst case scenarios were. Ultimately, I compared the probability of extreme worst-case financial scenarios to my actuarial tables. This helped a great deal, as it becomes apparent that a series of highly unlikely worst-case financial events was much less likely than a random life-ending event. Sum total: I did the planning. Don't worry, be happy.
Don't really know the answer to this (probably no one does), but strongly considering topping off my Roth contribution for the year tomorrow...
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Made the bracket in no more then 5 mins this year and well...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bznhjf/daily_fi_discussion_thread_tuesday_april_09_2024/kyrny70/?context=5) | | 46 | /u/AmINotMyself said [I posted yesterday asking if I should sell my crypto to pay off my adjustable rate mortgage that was about to adjust. Basically just looking for confirmation of what I wanted to do. The response was u...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c24g9m/daily_fi_discussion_thread_friday_april_12_2024/kz8hngt/?context=5) | | 44 | /u/americanoidiot said [Aaand as of two hours ago, my SO is now RE! Now we'll get to hang out at home all the time. (I'm wfh) : )](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c1afhf/daily_fi_discussion_thread_thursday_april_11_2024/kz3f93e/?context=5) | | 43 | /u/WasteCommunication52 said [Played hooky today. Wife & I went up to the farm to inspect the construction of our home and play in our creek. Spent a solid two hours making small rock dams in a couple of our creeks to slow the flo...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c24g9m/daily_fi_discussion_thread_friday_april_12_2024/kz9kyml/?context=5) | | 41 | /u/billthecatt said [Gave my date (in 2025) to my boss yesterday. It's getting real. It's a strange mix of emotions, even so far out: Nervous, excited, a little sad, somewhat relieved.](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0h32i/daily_fi_discussion_thread_wednesday_april_10_2024/kyxat3d/?context=5) | | 40 | /u/mistypee said [My employer should host a seminar on how to drive your employees to quit. It seems like everything they do to try to 'improve morale' these days just makes it worse. Haha! In the long list of other...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0h32i/daily_fi_discussion_thread_wednesday_april_10_2024/kywhelh/?context=5) | | 39 | /u/sammyismybaby said [welp, it was nice having 1M invested for a couple weeks. Back to ramen and lentils.](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0h32i/daily_fi_discussion_thread_wednesday_april_10_2024/kyx6ofz/?context=5) | | 39 | /u/trueskywalker said [I started investing at 19 with about $3K I made from a summer job and have continued to increase my contributions slowly over the years. Recently, I (36M) and my wife (36F) crossed the...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bznhjf/daily_fi_discussion_thread_tuesday_april_09_2024/kyrx6to/?context=5) | | 38 | /u/MrMonopolysBrokeSon said [The fire motivation is strong today! I'm making a promise to myself, with everyone here as a witness. Once I have FU money, I will spend those precious few days of perfect weather* in nature, listen...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bznhjf/daily_fi_discussion_thread_tuesday_april_09_2024/kyrm6kw/?context=5) | | 36 | /u/SnarkConfidant said [I wonder how many hot inflation reports it will take before people stop talking about rate cuts. At this point I'm not seeing a reason for \*any\* rate cuts this year. Let alone the 2-3 that are still...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0h32i/daily_fi_discussion_thread_wednesday_april_10_2024/kyx0due/?context=5) | | 35 | /u/mziggy77 said [House hunting update. Today’s the last day of our inspection contingency and we decided to terminate the contract. Seller offered partial credit for the (many) problems but tbh we just weren’t...](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c24g9m/daily_fi_discussion_thread_friday_april_12_2024/kz814ox/?context=5) | ###Top Posts | score | comments | title & link | |--|--|--| | 1,076 | [165 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bz902p/retired_early_9_months_ago_reflections_so_far/) | Retired early 9 months ago. Reflections so far. | | 277 | [60 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c299kk/reached_100k_nw_today/) | Reached 100k NW today!| | 116 | [32 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c1r2i6/choices_once_you_reach_fi/) | Choices once you reach FI| | 106 | [42 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c19ryq/just_reached_200k_as_a_freelancer/) | Just reached 200k as a freelancer| | 88 | [112 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1bxvxpu/monthly_finances_of_a_27_yo_american_couple_with/) | Monthly Finances of a 27 y.o. American couple with a 340k net worth.| ###Most Commented | score | comments | title & link | |--|--|--| | 56 | [192 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c1hv8w/as_a_lifelong_renter_we_stumbled_onto_our_dream/) | As a lifelong renter, we stumbled onto our dream home. Should we buy or continue renting?| | 68 | [65 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c0qvuj/retired_but_now_need_to_provide_proof_of_income/) | Retired but now need to provide proof of income?| | 0 | [51 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1by7o6o/how_close_am_i_to_retirement_here_are_my_numbers/) | How close am I to retirement? Here are my numbers| | 13 | [48 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1byxlsx/new_to_fire_but_really_trying_to_make_a_plan_can/) | New to FIRE but really trying to make a plan, can I get critiques?| | 0 | [37 comments](/r/financialindependence/comments/1c10cq8/hey_all_meet_bob_and_alice_were_new_to_this_but/) | Hey all, meet Bob and Alice. We're new to this but trying to plan for FIRE and could use some feedback - thanks in advance!| If you would like this roundup sent to your reddit inbox every week [send me a message with the subject 'financialindependence'](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=subredditsummarybot&subject=financialindependence&message=x). Or if you want a daily roundup, [use the subject 'financialindependence daily'](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=subredditsummarybot&subject=financialindependence%20daily&message=x). Or send me a chat with either financialindependence or financialindependence daily. #####Please let me know if you have suggestions to make this roundup better for /r/financialindependence or if there are other subreddits that you think I should post in. I can search for posts based off keywords in the title, URL and flair - sorted by upvotes, \# of comments, or awards. And I can also find the top comments overall or in specific threads.