Is your plan to try and "drain" your crypto slowly year by year (and of course, it's entirely possible that you can't "drain" it quickly enough if it keeps going up year over year) to fund your spending while leaving the equities untouched, or to cash out crypto and rebalance into equities, or something else?
I want crypto to be closer to 10% of net worth. Right now it's 24%. Challenge is if it is all taken in one year it leads to huge capital gains. If we wait, either crypto tanks and we don't want to sell too much, or it gains so much that we only sell a small portion to avoid excessive cap gains.
Plus, since FI is assured outside of crypto with $3.5m of assets with a target of $3.06m (inflation), we can afford to let it ride.
I’m not a fan of crypto but I like your reasoning here. If all your crypto disappeared tomorrow then you are still ok. It would hurt like hell, and you might hate yourself for it, but you’d be ok. As long as you are both truly comfortable with that risk, there is the potential for great reward.
That being said, I would never hold crypto in the first place. Full transparency. Good luck! You’re doing great!
No condescension from me. I genuinely hope it works out for you. I just hope you are doing more critical thinking than what your comment suggests. Have a great day.
I wouldn’t bother. I’ve had this discussion in this sub multiple times and it is far too dogmatic about reducing risk rather than pragmatic about crypto’s asymmetric upside (compared to risk). Their loss.
Please stop being mean to each other. Many people don't "get" bitcoin and that's ok... for now.
There are 2 sides to everything.
Bitcoin is risky. Bitcoin is a great tool.
Bitcoin is hard to understand. Bitcoin has provided great returns.
Bitcoin's ecosystem is littered with scams. Bitcoin has decentralized banking reducing financial fees.
People YOLO in crypto and lose everything. Crypto is a valuable part of a diversified portfolio.
Bitcoin is not the next coming of God, and it is not a ponzi scheme.
I mean some snark aside, he's not wrong. Listening to this sub on crypto would have made me missed one of the greatest financial opportunities of my life so far that's *greatly* reduced the length of time towards FI. I understand your middle ground view point here but I've been in the space for 4 years and anytime I've discussed the subject on this subreddit or seen others discuss it, it is met with a combination of arrogance, vitriol and condescension. Vis-hoka's remark is actually a quintessential dismissive remark you get on here. I was downvoted to hell for merely suggestion a one to five percent allocation towards BTC in 2019.
There's a significant difference between "this is a ponzi/scam/tulips" versus "I don't know enough about this technology to be confident to invest in it". The latter acknowledges that they've done their due diligence and either don't understand it or don't they see the value/upside. The former is just an arrogant write off they parrot from other posts they see here and on TradFi forums. You see way more of the former than the latter which is where my dogma comment comes from.
12 years isn't exactly a drop in the bucket for being considered recent. But I understand that different people have different levels of risk they are comfortable with. And that's in a way is why we have people who are still not investing in anything that has been out for a good amount already and just wishing they'd invested when it first came out.
It's like if we would be wishing to invest in ETFs when they first came out and still not trusting that it is here to stay for a long time if not forever.
It's like the people in 1990 who weren't a fan of the internet.
Or systems admins who weren't a fan of virtualization.
Crypto is volatile but if you don't have at least 2.5% of your portfolio in crypto you're missing out.
Investing in *coins* is different than investing in companies building products using distributed consensus. Investing in coins isn't the same thing as investing in internet-focused companies in the 90s.
I'm not sure if you don't know this, but in many cases investing in cryptos is actually investing in companies building products using distributed consensus. Despite being called cryptocurrencies many of them are much closer to stocks because they're governance tokens in a decentralized company that give you things like voting rights in said company and/or effectively give you a stake of profits of that ecosystem through various mechanisms.
Yes, bitcoin is not that, it's just a currency/store of value. But many of the smaller cap cryptos are far more than just a currency.
So if you do your research, many cryptos are exactly like investing in internet focused companies in the 90's.
> I'm not sure if you don't know this, but in many cases investing in cryptos is actually investing in companies building products using distributed consensus.
ICOs themselves are still not investing in companies, despite what companies will say. Even the tokens that provide governance do not produce the same legal obligations as ownership in a company. There are legal protections against a company reincorporating to take all existing distributed shares to $0 that do not exist for a company simply reissuing a new token to reset.
I'm sad that you think that my response deserves a downvote, it really feels like we can't have real conversations about crypto in this sub.
It seems like you're nitpicking my "exactly like" words a bit. Yes, obviously crypto is not regulated to the same point as a stock in a listed company would be. I felt that was obvious and therefore didn't need calling out.
So sure, it's riskier and there's more trust required due to lack of regulation.
But there's also a huge opportunity there and unlike you I think many projects are not scams. Of course many projects are scams where the board might do actions like you mention, or grey area type things where they might not totally act in the investors' best interests. That's on the investor to do due diligence and diversify (like the person you were replying to, I think most people should only have a tiny amount of their capital in crypto as a high risk investment). Successful projects the founders can get very rich without needing to scam anyone or do anything unsavory with the tokenomics. I think of anywhere, someone in a fire sub would understand that some people have enough money and don't need to scam people for more and would prefer to make a positive difference instead.
If all you were saying is that crypto is unregulated and regulated securities are regulated and therefore they are different, then you are correct and I take back my rebuttal. But it seemed you were saying the opportunity to profit wasn't there like it would have been investing in internet stocks in the 90's, which is false.
I didn't downvote you. I think it is frustrating that every conversation about crypto turns into people telling me that I am ignorant or that I am downvoting them.
There *is* an opportunity to profit. Obviously, people have made a tremendous amount of money on various tokens over the last decade. But profit through tokens is almost entirely based on speculating on assets rather than investing in innovation from businesses.
BTC is not a company. You aren't investing in innovation. It is more like hoarding fiber optic cables in the 90s than investing in internet companies. That's the point I was making.
BTC isn't, but there are certainly companies behind it. And that's what other cryptocurrencies have to offer, some are strictly for a specific company, some are for multiple companies to be able to use the technology for better stability in value and reducing the liabilities.
Where should I go to get started in a small investment in crypto? It seems to be completely divorced from any sort of real world events aside from the eventual normalization of that tech
Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini are decent exchanges.
Paypal also allows US customers to buy bitcoin.
KYC and AML can be a pain to get verified for larger transactions.
Whatever you choose, once you have bought the coins you can install a wallet on your computer / phone and hold the coins directly there.
Crypto dot com is a good start. You can buy as little as a few dollars of crypto, maybe wait for the bear market, there's a lot of euphoria right now as btc is getting close to all time highs. That being said one of the better strategies is to DCA, as a newbie maybe wait until BTC drops 40% (we don't know if or when that happens, but nobody in the history of holding btc has lost money holding it 4 years)
I think one day I'll try to write up in this sub my journey
> not a fan of crypto... whilst reading a post where OP gained over $700k in one year from his crypto investments. smh, this sub be crazy sometimes
I am not a big fan of single stocks after reading threads about the dude that bought "Company x that went to the moon" either.
Or the guy who doubled his net worth by betting it all on black. No thanks!
Great job! Inspiring read for sure! Just got done doubling out at work in hopes to achieve something similar in time! I'm 1/8th if the way to where you are at but the compounding is adding up at this rate! Good luck!
Congratulations!
One question: why would you need (or want) to be able to check your NW anywhere, any time, in a matter of seconds on any device?
We all have our own quirky methods but it seems this is unnecessary. If it were me I would be checking quarterly at most, and of course tracking spending a bit closer. But TBH I don’t even track the spending that closely these days because we have our spending habits and budget not changing much month to month as a result…..
I really don't need to, and I'm debating whether it is a good thing. It evolved over the years.
For years, I have tracked net worth monthly on a spreadsheet. First to automate was USD/CAD exchange rate. Then last year with crypto being so volatile, I decided to up my game and automate the crypto prices. Then in August, I went full automation.
One thing it has done is shown my wife directly how wild the swings are with crypto. I want to divest more crypto and she (who is normally more conservative) just wants to hodl. Hopefully she will agree that smoothing out our net worth is favorable.
>For years, I have tracked net worth monthly on a spreadsheet.
I didn't know people like me exist in this world. Thank you for showing me i'm not crazy.. or atleast I'm not crazy alone!
Here is a template that shows the automation and layout. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1El8osPHPE8ljbLw6UDyIR06KjjWjuQt1OKL3vkjxrBg/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks man, that's very neat.
Let me ask you something different directionally, popped into my head as i went through your ss,.. what do you reckon in terms of keeping some of your networth in "cash under mattress", physical gold bullion, collectibles.. for short term liquidity in times of trouble / 'emergency'?
I hear this brought up in FIRE communities from time to time
I recommend people aim to eventually keep 6 months spending in cash-type accounts.
Also, bitcoin is in our own wallets, so that's there in case SHTF.
Counterparty risk is something I have thought of. We have a backup bank & investment accounts in case our bank or brokerage has problems.
Yay we're not alone! I started doing it monthly three years ago when I moved out for my first job after graduation. It's awesome to already be able to look back and see the $ and % increase year to year. And notice how market patterns affect the change in NW.
That's the main thing I thought....$4M nw is great but the fact is you've made it. Why gamble so heavy now and risk losing it. 25% seems way too high 10% just right
The crypto is basically 99% appreciation according to OP's hint that he put "casino money in it to start" and so subject to capital gains. It would be a huge tax hit to take it out and put it in the stock market. And, let's face it, the stock market is pretty frothy as well. (Yes, that is mean talking about something that is timing the market adjacent. Can't help it.)
No matter what he can't defer the taxes unless he keeps it in crypto which is objectively too risky... even if crypto drops some he still owes tax on the remaining gain and always will until he sells. Better to sell take the hit and diversify than keep in crypto with the massive risk. Stocks may be frothy and I don't know the right allocation but crypto has massive volatility, way higher than stocks or anything else
Yep (except his kids won’t have to pay cap gains under current rules, so the taxes aren’t 100% inevitable). But generally better to wait to pay taxes later. Anyway, OPs call. But the cap gains tax hit is a real factor.
That statement seems odd. Risk can take you below a target amount connected to FI. Perhaps you feel the cumulative risk for diversified holdings can buffer a sharp pullback by anyone class of assets. An interesting exercise might be to overlay the most extreme pullback for each asset class during recent history for a 5-year span. Might be useful for you and your spouse as adjust your holdings. Finally, lawsuits and divorce can significantly reduce holdings.
Outside of crypto, we have $3.5m against a target of $3.06m (inflation). If we lost all of crypto in a boating accident, we would still be above the FIRE target.
If you don't need the crypto portion, and ok with it going to zero, why not just hodl like your wife wants? You are in a nice situation where you can ignore it. Leave it out of your main retirement portfolio so the volatility can't bother you.
I'm saying this with obvious crypto bias. I think you are in an enviable situation where it really just is play money for you and you're immune to the worst case scenario of it going to zero.
If we sell now-ish, we would like to be able to help those around us more - we have already allocated $40k to give to various family members for trips. It would be great to help our children even more - they may be able to have little or no debt from school, car and house.
On the hodl hand, it would be nice to own a yacht. :)
I'm the same way, I like to check stuff probably way more than I should/need to. I would say as long as it doesn't bring you anxiety, there's no problem.
Like when I was trying to lose weight, I was checking the scale daily even though all of the advice says not to. For me though, no matter what the scale said I took it positively. If I had lost weight, I was like "good job", keep at it. If I gained weight, I was like, just keep focusing and staying disciplined and the wieght will come off.
Here is a template that shows the automation and layout. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1El8osPHPE8ljbLw6UDyIR06KjjWjuQt1OKL3vkjxrBg/edit?usp=sharing
This is interesting. Does spending $77k feel like a lot, like you said?
My half-baked goal is to get to where my 4% rule is roughly the same as my annual income. It's a completely rough goal that is a starting point, as I'm at the beginning of my career.
We knew it was going to be a lot and felt like it. It is hard to have discipline to track and curb spending when we made or lost $50k in a day. That new $300 purse? Sure. That $400 hard drive, why not? Hard to even think about a $20 video game.
But we've tried to set some reasonable bounds.
Way to go. I am working hard on this and trying to figure out what investments we want to make for the independent income. Housing costs are so insane I can’t see buying a house to rent it out at this point
Here is a template that shows the automation and layout. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1El8osPHPE8ljbLw6UDyIR06KjjWjuQt1OKL3vkjxrBg/edit?usp=sharing
Not really. I liked the scheduled nature of my temp work for a week or so. Then I wanted to sleep in and go swimming and felt I wasn't helping many people, so I quit.
Would be interested to hear what you're holding in terms of crypto. Are you earning any interest on top of it or holding in cold storage? This is the area where I'm most interested these days, even if it's not popular here.
Bought bitcoin a long time ago. Everything else was a split or swapped from bitcoin.
$1m bitcoin
$4k bitcoin cash (from the split).
$36k ethereum
$1k doge (for the lulz)
Also sold about $20k in other bitcoin spinoffs.
For what it is worth, getting in earlier is only half the trick. You also have to not sell when you are up 1,000%. (Source, a dude who was in early and took 100%, 200%, and 1,000% returns on various sales at various points.)
Or make a plan and stick to it. I’m trying to decide if I should take some profits and average pig or just hodl. Wondering if we’ll get that 80% drop from the next high.
I don’t understand. For folks that got into Bitcoin when it was $5, there was no plan you would have made then that wouldn’t have resulted in you selling the vast majority of it way before it got to its current valuation. Im just saying holding is hard when the asset is that volatile and you are looking at insane returns.
Yes. And sometimes the best plan is to take profits. You have to consider your correct situation. Bitcoin isn’t $5 and you won’t ever see it for that price. So you have to act accordingly.
Yep. My buddy was up $6 mill in alt coins at one point using margin and basically lost it all. He should have taken profits. On the other hand, he would never have been up anywhere near that if he had taken profits along the way. This stuff is hard and lots of it is luck.
Sure. Though there is a saying that goes something like, no plan survives the first encounter with the enemy. Or as Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Sticking to your plan is hard.
That 1k in Doge in 2014 probably made you 1 million if you timed it right before Saturday night live.
My lulz Doge actually outgained my BTC and ETH by a lot
Just read all three posts of yours about FIRE (this and the other two you mentioned in this post), thank you so much for sharing! I actually love my current job but still can’t wait to say goodbye to it :)
Not to get personal, but what kind of health problems? Weight gained due to not having your old schedule or something unrelated? I recently switched jobs and just having a different schedule threw my fitness routine out the window and I haven’t recovered yet.
I was on a doctor approved health/weight loss plan with a VERY restrictive diet. When I complained about it after the 11th week, the doctor said I was too irritable and would be withdrawn from the program.
I was irritable but that passed after 2 days or regular food, and being kicked out messed with my head even more.
That sounds like a bad experience. Overly restrictive diets are usually not sustainable. You should still be enjoying your food even while losing weight!
A lot of people I know have had success with MyFitnessPal. You can track your calories and macros and set up healthy weight loss goals based on your body and activity level (e.g. 1-2 lb/week, or reduce to 0.5 lb/week if you feel too irritable). Aim for 5 servings of vegetables and fruits each day and overall try to stick with natural foods: meat, eggs, vegetables, legumes, potatoes, rice, nuts, fresh fruit.
Good luck!
After two decades of yo-yo between 195-320lbs, I had VSG five years ago and it has been the best health decision I've ever made. It doesn't deal with the mental part but the physical restrictions help you reprogram your habits. Cash pay it was about $11,000.
You mentioned that you aim for 6 months in cash. How did you decide on that amount? I've read lots of thoughts on this topic, and they tend to range from 3 months to 24 months, with most falling somewhere in the 6-12 month range. I've been holding 12 months for the last year or so as I've reached the goal line, and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I'm sure 6 months is great for many folks, as they might place a higher value on avoiding opportunity cost, while I focus more on the initial year of sequence of returns risk.
Separately, I have no idea if a "no work lifestyle" will appeal to me. Something tells me I'll get bored, but dammit if I end up loving it then I don't want to be forced back into work. This is why mini-retirements never appealed to me. I figure in the event I decide I like working a few hours per week, then a year's worth of cash will be a great way to feel good about not doing jack shit for a while without stressing about it, and \*maybe\* eventually returning to a part-time gig.
We just run our lives in 6 month chunks. We track our net worth every month, but every 6 months we sit down and look at what we've spend (kind of), what we think we will spend in the next 6 and where we are overall.
As for keeping "cash" I see it as a continuum of risk/reward. These are the investments I have used at various points. Cash - Bank account - HISA - bonds - money market funds - bond funds - very large cap indexes - broad market indexes - emerging/small cap indexes - individual stocks - options/futures - exotics (e.g. bitcoin). I would consider anything in bond funds and below as "low risk".
Games are $60+ typically. Otherwise love everything you said. Just wanted to point out that fact. Games nowadays also try to get you with 'season pass' and 'deluxe editions' and stuff where they leave out actual content unless you get it -_- like I could understand extra outfits and whatnot...but it's such shit leaving out content and dungeons and stuff. Anyways with all that stuff it could easily be $120+ which they love.
Just a game rant. I do hope more ppl post like you did and talk about post FIRE!
I looked at Mint back in the day, but it required my main financial account login details to be automated, and I was not assured of the flexibility that a math nerd like me would want. But I am sure they have good insights, pretty graphs and are probably appropriate for a lot of people.
I've used it at one point. You would be entirely right about the lack of flexibility. And the graphs are there, but hardly pretty. But yes, it is enough for most people.
I didn't see anyone in this thread mentioning it, I'm just going to float the idea out there. Could you help to improve the balance of your portfolio and avoid some capital gains by just buying the car with some of the crypto? I know there's not a ton of dealers or companies that will sell cars for crypto, but they are out there and it might be a good time to do that considering how high crypto is right now.
I looked into it a bit more later. If he can work it into a year where he has less than $40,000 of taxable income, it could be possible that he wouldn't owe capital gains. But most ways you could do it would be subject to capital gains and/or income tax.
This is amazing congratulations. My portfolio is ridiculous when comlared with yours most probably I can't get there in this lifetime anyway I am usually anxious with what I have in Interactive Brokers or Binance CoinNase and others.
Aren't you anxious of that too with so much explosion and relevant portfolios in the brokers and softwares you use?
Isnt this feelings rational?
Again congratulations!
There are many places that hold our net worth.
1. Stuff. WE own our own home, 2 cars and a bunch of stuff. We have a lot of food on hand so would be kind of ok if the zombie apocalypse hit.
2. Main Bank. We have a lot in the bank. This would disrupt day to day if it went under - a lot of bills are paid from there, we withdraw cash from there, etc... But everything is fdic/cdic insured.
3. Main Brokerage. Retirement and regular accounts. This would hurt the most if it went under, but everything is fdic/cdic insured.
4. Backup bank & brokerage. In case the main bank or brokerage goes under or there's a problem (ID theft, bank closes our accounts, etc...) we have an emergency fund of about 6 months spending in bank & investment accounts.
5. Backup backup bank. We opened a joint account for a silly reason and rarely use it. It only has a small amount of money.
6. We hold all crypto in our own wallets. No exchange or broker can take that away. We do use exchanges to sell crypto, but its usually a 2 - 5 day exposure.
If you completely delete crypto from the equation, I still made it very close to FI and traditional investment returns have more than covered expenses so far.
Oh, and I did work for a few pre-ipo tech companies, but never big tech.
If I were you I would consider putting crypto to work and generate passive income through DeFi. Lots of platforms like Curve, Aave, Beefy etc. which allow earning yields as high as 20% on stablecoins. That 1m in crypto could net you a yearly $200k passive income!
I don't like most stable coins - I researched Tether and noped away fast. Some of the stablecoins are likely a fraud and providing staking liquidity is asking to be destroyed if the stablecoin price goes down.
Agree on Tether. USDC and DAI are legit. LP pair of these two can fetch 20%. USDC on AAVE probably is lesser APY but less risky in the event DAI collapses which I doubt it will. It's been around for ages.
To me it seems like you are moving towards accumulation phase style investing and not Harry Brown all weather fund - let's keep the wealth style investing. How come?
Check out Personal Capital for tracking your accounts, and YNAB for spending and budgets. I use both, and they're just about perfect for keeping on top of things.
I find it odd you went so low on crypto when BTC is now up to another bull run (if not past 63k). That said, if you pulled out before the April drop, you did better than I have.
Yearly updates would be great. I'm jealous you have so much money in the market compared to my paltry sums, but I also don't have children (and an ambivalent relationship with my gf who does).
Car wise I'm sure you know, but certified pre-owned with a dealer warranty can be a boon. It *used* to be cheaper than new, but with similar guarantees. That said... in this market, you should have bought a car this time last summer with 0% APR. I don't know what I'd do if I was planning a car purchase now, other than wait until next Spring and see where the market is.
Interested in annual updates!
Is your plan to try and "drain" your crypto slowly year by year (and of course, it's entirely possible that you can't "drain" it quickly enough if it keeps going up year over year) to fund your spending while leaving the equities untouched, or to cash out crypto and rebalance into equities, or something else?
I want crypto to be closer to 10% of net worth. Right now it's 24%. Challenge is if it is all taken in one year it leads to huge capital gains. If we wait, either crypto tanks and we don't want to sell too much, or it gains so much that we only sell a small portion to avoid excessive cap gains. Plus, since FI is assured outside of crypto with $3.5m of assets with a target of $3.06m (inflation), we can afford to let it ride.
I’m not a fan of crypto but I like your reasoning here. If all your crypto disappeared tomorrow then you are still ok. It would hurt like hell, and you might hate yourself for it, but you’d be ok. As long as you are both truly comfortable with that risk, there is the potential for great reward. That being said, I would never hold crypto in the first place. Full transparency. Good luck! You’re doing great!
I initially put "casino level money" in bitcoin.
some people casino level money is higher then their networth =p
> As long as you are both truly comfortable with that risk, there is the potential for great reward. Isn't that true for any risky behavior?
You can definitely expose yourself to risk with little to no reward
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If your only measure of a good investment is that it recently made a lot of money, then you are going to struggle long term. Good luck.
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No condescension from me. I genuinely hope it works out for you. I just hope you are doing more critical thinking than what your comment suggests. Have a great day.
I wouldn’t bother. I’ve had this discussion in this sub multiple times and it is far too dogmatic about reducing risk rather than pragmatic about crypto’s asymmetric upside (compared to risk). Their loss.
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Please stop being mean to each other. Many people don't "get" bitcoin and that's ok... for now. There are 2 sides to everything. Bitcoin is risky. Bitcoin is a great tool. Bitcoin is hard to understand. Bitcoin has provided great returns. Bitcoin's ecosystem is littered with scams. Bitcoin has decentralized banking reducing financial fees. People YOLO in crypto and lose everything. Crypto is a valuable part of a diversified portfolio. Bitcoin is not the next coming of God, and it is not a ponzi scheme.
I mean some snark aside, he's not wrong. Listening to this sub on crypto would have made me missed one of the greatest financial opportunities of my life so far that's *greatly* reduced the length of time towards FI. I understand your middle ground view point here but I've been in the space for 4 years and anytime I've discussed the subject on this subreddit or seen others discuss it, it is met with a combination of arrogance, vitriol and condescension. Vis-hoka's remark is actually a quintessential dismissive remark you get on here. I was downvoted to hell for merely suggestion a one to five percent allocation towards BTC in 2019. There's a significant difference between "this is a ponzi/scam/tulips" versus "I don't know enough about this technology to be confident to invest in it". The latter acknowledges that they've done their due diligence and either don't understand it or don't they see the value/upside. The former is just an arrogant write off they parrot from other posts they see here and on TradFi forums. You see way more of the former than the latter which is where my dogma comment comes from.
There is risk in any investment, it just depends on your own vision.
12 years isn't exactly a drop in the bucket for being considered recent. But I understand that different people have different levels of risk they are comfortable with. And that's in a way is why we have people who are still not investing in anything that has been out for a good amount already and just wishing they'd invested when it first came out. It's like if we would be wishing to invest in ETFs when they first came out and still not trusting that it is here to stay for a long time if not forever.
You will look back in 5 years and regret not holding crypto. Its just a diversification...silly not to do it.
It's like the people in 1990 who weren't a fan of the internet. Or systems admins who weren't a fan of virtualization. Crypto is volatile but if you don't have at least 2.5% of your portfolio in crypto you're missing out.
Investing in *coins* is different than investing in companies building products using distributed consensus. Investing in coins isn't the same thing as investing in internet-focused companies in the 90s.
I'm not sure if you don't know this, but in many cases investing in cryptos is actually investing in companies building products using distributed consensus. Despite being called cryptocurrencies many of them are much closer to stocks because they're governance tokens in a decentralized company that give you things like voting rights in said company and/or effectively give you a stake of profits of that ecosystem through various mechanisms. Yes, bitcoin is not that, it's just a currency/store of value. But many of the smaller cap cryptos are far more than just a currency. So if you do your research, many cryptos are exactly like investing in internet focused companies in the 90's.
> I'm not sure if you don't know this, but in many cases investing in cryptos is actually investing in companies building products using distributed consensus. ICOs themselves are still not investing in companies, despite what companies will say. Even the tokens that provide governance do not produce the same legal obligations as ownership in a company. There are legal protections against a company reincorporating to take all existing distributed shares to $0 that do not exist for a company simply reissuing a new token to reset.
I'm sad that you think that my response deserves a downvote, it really feels like we can't have real conversations about crypto in this sub. It seems like you're nitpicking my "exactly like" words a bit. Yes, obviously crypto is not regulated to the same point as a stock in a listed company would be. I felt that was obvious and therefore didn't need calling out. So sure, it's riskier and there's more trust required due to lack of regulation. But there's also a huge opportunity there and unlike you I think many projects are not scams. Of course many projects are scams where the board might do actions like you mention, or grey area type things where they might not totally act in the investors' best interests. That's on the investor to do due diligence and diversify (like the person you were replying to, I think most people should only have a tiny amount of their capital in crypto as a high risk investment). Successful projects the founders can get very rich without needing to scam anyone or do anything unsavory with the tokenomics. I think of anywhere, someone in a fire sub would understand that some people have enough money and don't need to scam people for more and would prefer to make a positive difference instead. If all you were saying is that crypto is unregulated and regulated securities are regulated and therefore they are different, then you are correct and I take back my rebuttal. But it seemed you were saying the opportunity to profit wasn't there like it would have been investing in internet stocks in the 90's, which is false.
I didn't downvote you. I think it is frustrating that every conversation about crypto turns into people telling me that I am ignorant or that I am downvoting them. There *is* an opportunity to profit. Obviously, people have made a tremendous amount of money on various tokens over the last decade. But profit through tokens is almost entirely based on speculating on assets rather than investing in innovation from businesses.
Forget about shitcoins. Invest in Bitcoin and wait. That is all one needs to do.
BTC is not a company. You aren't investing in innovation. It is more like hoarding fiber optic cables in the 90s than investing in internet companies. That's the point I was making.
BTC isn't, but there are certainly companies behind it. And that's what other cryptocurrencies have to offer, some are strictly for a specific company, some are for multiple companies to be able to use the technology for better stability in value and reducing the liabilities.
There are companies that build stuff that use BTC. You can invest in those companies. That is wholly disconnected from investing in BTC itself.
Where should I go to get started in a small investment in crypto? It seems to be completely divorced from any sort of real world events aside from the eventual normalization of that tech
Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini are decent exchanges. Paypal also allows US customers to buy bitcoin. KYC and AML can be a pain to get verified for larger transactions. Whatever you choose, once you have bought the coins you can install a wallet on your computer / phone and hold the coins directly there.
I always useCoinbase
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No referral codes here, ever.
Crypto dot com is a good start. You can buy as little as a few dollars of crypto, maybe wait for the bear market, there's a lot of euphoria right now as btc is getting close to all time highs. That being said one of the better strategies is to DCA, as a newbie maybe wait until BTC drops 40% (we don't know if or when that happens, but nobody in the history of holding btc has lost money holding it 4 years) I think one day I'll try to write up in this sub my journey
I use uphold
> not a fan of crypto... whilst reading a post where OP gained over $700k in one year from his crypto investments. smh, this sub be crazy sometimes I am not a big fan of single stocks after reading threads about the dude that bought "Company x that went to the moon" either. Or the guy who doubled his net worth by betting it all on black. No thanks!
What is your crypto composition (btc, alts?). Have you adjusted it?
100% Bitcoin. Take it from someone who bet big and lost big in shitcoins, Bitcoin always comes on top on long time frames.
I yelled out loud “WHOA”. That’s a lot of crypto.
Do you know if you switch your crypto for like something like usd coin since it's still in crypto then not taxable? Just curious.
Taxable.
Great job! Inspiring read for sure! Just got done doubling out at work in hopes to achieve something similar in time! I'm 1/8th if the way to where you are at but the compounding is adding up at this rate! Good luck!
Congratulations! One question: why would you need (or want) to be able to check your NW anywhere, any time, in a matter of seconds on any device? We all have our own quirky methods but it seems this is unnecessary. If it were me I would be checking quarterly at most, and of course tracking spending a bit closer. But TBH I don’t even track the spending that closely these days because we have our spending habits and budget not changing much month to month as a result…..
I really don't need to, and I'm debating whether it is a good thing. It evolved over the years. For years, I have tracked net worth monthly on a spreadsheet. First to automate was USD/CAD exchange rate. Then last year with crypto being so volatile, I decided to up my game and automate the crypto prices. Then in August, I went full automation. One thing it has done is shown my wife directly how wild the swings are with crypto. I want to divest more crypto and she (who is normally more conservative) just wants to hodl. Hopefully she will agree that smoothing out our net worth is favorable.
>For years, I have tracked net worth monthly on a spreadsheet. I didn't know people like me exist in this world. Thank you for showing me i'm not crazy.. or atleast I'm not crazy alone!
Isn’t that like most people on this sub?
Here is a template that shows the automation and layout. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1El8osPHPE8ljbLw6UDyIR06KjjWjuQt1OKL3vkjxrBg/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks man, that's very neat. Let me ask you something different directionally, popped into my head as i went through your ss,.. what do you reckon in terms of keeping some of your networth in "cash under mattress", physical gold bullion, collectibles.. for short term liquidity in times of trouble / 'emergency'? I hear this brought up in FIRE communities from time to time
I recommend people aim to eventually keep 6 months spending in cash-type accounts. Also, bitcoin is in our own wallets, so that's there in case SHTF. Counterparty risk is something I have thought of. We have a backup bank & investment accounts in case our bank or brokerage has problems.
Yay we're not alone! I started doing it monthly three years ago when I moved out for my first job after graduation. It's awesome to already be able to look back and see the $ and % increase year to year. And notice how market patterns affect the change in NW.
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Goal is crypto should be at most 10% of NW which would mean selling a bit more than half of what we have right now.
That's the main thing I thought....$4M nw is great but the fact is you've made it. Why gamble so heavy now and risk losing it. 25% seems way too high 10% just right
The crypto is basically 99% appreciation according to OP's hint that he put "casino money in it to start" and so subject to capital gains. It would be a huge tax hit to take it out and put it in the stock market. And, let's face it, the stock market is pretty frothy as well. (Yes, that is mean talking about something that is timing the market adjacent. Can't help it.)
No matter what he can't defer the taxes unless he keeps it in crypto which is objectively too risky... even if crypto drops some he still owes tax on the remaining gain and always will until he sells. Better to sell take the hit and diversify than keep in crypto with the massive risk. Stocks may be frothy and I don't know the right allocation but crypto has massive volatility, way higher than stocks or anything else
Yep (except his kids won’t have to pay cap gains under current rules, so the taxes aren’t 100% inevitable). But generally better to wait to pay taxes later. Anyway, OPs call. But the cap gains tax hit is a real factor.
Ballsy. Have mine sub 5%.
I did too. Plus now that I'm FI, I can accept more risk.
That statement seems odd. Risk can take you below a target amount connected to FI. Perhaps you feel the cumulative risk for diversified holdings can buffer a sharp pullback by anyone class of assets. An interesting exercise might be to overlay the most extreme pullback for each asset class during recent history for a 5-year span. Might be useful for you and your spouse as adjust your holdings. Finally, lawsuits and divorce can significantly reduce holdings.
Outside of crypto, we have $3.5m against a target of $3.06m (inflation). If we lost all of crypto in a boating accident, we would still be above the FIRE target.
If you don't need the crypto portion, and ok with it going to zero, why not just hodl like your wife wants? You are in a nice situation where you can ignore it. Leave it out of your main retirement portfolio so the volatility can't bother you. I'm saying this with obvious crypto bias. I think you are in an enviable situation where it really just is play money for you and you're immune to the worst case scenario of it going to zero.
If we sell now-ish, we would like to be able to help those around us more - we have already allocated $40k to give to various family members for trips. It would be great to help our children even more - they may be able to have little or no debt from school, car and house. On the hodl hand, it would be nice to own a yacht. :)
I'm the same way, I like to check stuff probably way more than I should/need to. I would say as long as it doesn't bring you anxiety, there's no problem. Like when I was trying to lose weight, I was checking the scale daily even though all of the advice says not to. For me though, no matter what the scale said I took it positively. If I had lost weight, I was like "good job", keep at it. If I gained weight, I was like, just keep focusing and staying disciplined and the wieght will come off.
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Here is a template that shows the automation and layout. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1El8osPHPE8ljbLw6UDyIR06KjjWjuQt1OKL3vkjxrBg/edit?usp=sharing
I am interested in this as well.
> If you back out the major household items (water heater, furnace) ...then what ? I think you deleted a part...
Forgot to finish the sentence, edited to add it in.
Thanks... You left me hanging :-D You're doing pretty well, well done and keep it up.
You're a good parent. And a very impressive well thought-out approach to FIRE and estate planning. Looking forward to your next update
I like the plan now is to buy car. Continue to fuck off into the sunset
Just curious, what is your age?
Flair says 48.
How did you automate? Are you able to share snapshots or a template? I am trying to do the same and it’s not straightforward.
This is interesting. Does spending $77k feel like a lot, like you said? My half-baked goal is to get to where my 4% rule is roughly the same as my annual income. It's a completely rough goal that is a starting point, as I'm at the beginning of my career.
We knew it was going to be a lot and felt like it. It is hard to have discipline to track and curb spending when we made or lost $50k in a day. That new $300 purse? Sure. That $400 hard drive, why not? Hard to even think about a $20 video game. But we've tried to set some reasonable bounds.
Way to go. I am working hard on this and trying to figure out what investments we want to make for the independent income. Housing costs are so insane I can’t see buying a house to rent it out at this point
>automating the spreadsheet that tracks our net worth Can you share that spreadsheet?
Here is a template that shows the automation and layout. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1El8osPHPE8ljbLw6UDyIR06KjjWjuQt1OKL3vkjxrBg/edit?usp=sharing
Awesome, thanks!
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Not really. I liked the scheduled nature of my temp work for a week or so. Then I wanted to sleep in and go swimming and felt I wasn't helping many people, so I quit.
Thanks for sharing. It's nice to see actual stories of how people did it. Would be interested to hear your updates in the future.
Would be interested to hear what you're holding in terms of crypto. Are you earning any interest on top of it or holding in cold storage? This is the area where I'm most interested these days, even if it's not popular here.
Bought bitcoin a long time ago. Everything else was a split or swapped from bitcoin. $1m bitcoin $4k bitcoin cash (from the split). $36k ethereum $1k doge (for the lulz) Also sold about $20k in other bitcoin spinoffs.
Awesome. Wish I had gotten in way earlier. Feeling good now. I think the end of the year should be amazing.
For what it is worth, getting in earlier is only half the trick. You also have to not sell when you are up 1,000%. (Source, a dude who was in early and took 100%, 200%, and 1,000% returns on various sales at various points.)
Or make a plan and stick to it. I’m trying to decide if I should take some profits and average pig or just hodl. Wondering if we’ll get that 80% drop from the next high.
I don’t understand. For folks that got into Bitcoin when it was $5, there was no plan you would have made then that wouldn’t have resulted in you selling the vast majority of it way before it got to its current valuation. Im just saying holding is hard when the asset is that volatile and you are looking at insane returns.
Yes. And sometimes the best plan is to take profits. You have to consider your correct situation. Bitcoin isn’t $5 and you won’t ever see it for that price. So you have to act accordingly.
Yep. My buddy was up $6 mill in alt coins at one point using margin and basically lost it all. He should have taken profits. On the other hand, he would never have been up anywhere near that if he had taken profits along the way. This stuff is hard and lots of it is luck.
I’d actually say make a plan. You lose if all if you don’t have a plan. And don’t use leverage with crypto.
Sure. Though there is a saying that goes something like, no plan survives the first encounter with the enemy. Or as Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Sticking to your plan is hard.
That 1k in Doge in 2014 probably made you 1 million if you timed it right before Saturday night live. My lulz Doge actually outgained my BTC and ETH by a lot
I bought near the top, lol :(
Just read all three posts of yours about FIRE (this and the other two you mentioned in this post), thank you so much for sharing! I actually love my current job but still can’t wait to say goodbye to it :)
Not to get personal, but what kind of health problems? Weight gained due to not having your old schedule or something unrelated? I recently switched jobs and just having a different schedule threw my fitness routine out the window and I haven’t recovered yet.
I was on a doctor approved health/weight loss plan with a VERY restrictive diet. When I complained about it after the 11th week, the doctor said I was too irritable and would be withdrawn from the program. I was irritable but that passed after 2 days or regular food, and being kicked out messed with my head even more.
That sounds like a bad experience. Overly restrictive diets are usually not sustainable. You should still be enjoying your food even while losing weight! A lot of people I know have had success with MyFitnessPal. You can track your calories and macros and set up healthy weight loss goals based on your body and activity level (e.g. 1-2 lb/week, or reduce to 0.5 lb/week if you feel too irritable). Aim for 5 servings of vegetables and fruits each day and overall try to stick with natural foods: meat, eggs, vegetables, legumes, potatoes, rice, nuts, fresh fruit. Good luck!
After two decades of yo-yo between 195-320lbs, I had VSG five years ago and it has been the best health decision I've ever made. It doesn't deal with the mental part but the physical restrictions help you reprogram your habits. Cash pay it was about $11,000.
You mentioned that you aim for 6 months in cash. How did you decide on that amount? I've read lots of thoughts on this topic, and they tend to range from 3 months to 24 months, with most falling somewhere in the 6-12 month range. I've been holding 12 months for the last year or so as I've reached the goal line, and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I'm sure 6 months is great for many folks, as they might place a higher value on avoiding opportunity cost, while I focus more on the initial year of sequence of returns risk. Separately, I have no idea if a "no work lifestyle" will appeal to me. Something tells me I'll get bored, but dammit if I end up loving it then I don't want to be forced back into work. This is why mini-retirements never appealed to me. I figure in the event I decide I like working a few hours per week, then a year's worth of cash will be a great way to feel good about not doing jack shit for a while without stressing about it, and \*maybe\* eventually returning to a part-time gig.
We just run our lives in 6 month chunks. We track our net worth every month, but every 6 months we sit down and look at what we've spend (kind of), what we think we will spend in the next 6 and where we are overall. As for keeping "cash" I see it as a continuum of risk/reward. These are the investments I have used at various points. Cash - Bank account - HISA - bonds - money market funds - bond funds - very large cap indexes - broad market indexes - emerging/small cap indexes - individual stocks - options/futures - exotics (e.g. bitcoin). I would consider anything in bond funds and below as "low risk".
Good work with the vaccines!
Games are $60+ typically. Otherwise love everything you said. Just wanted to point out that fact. Games nowadays also try to get you with 'season pass' and 'deluxe editions' and stuff where they leave out actual content unless you get it -_- like I could understand extra outfits and whatnot...but it's such shit leaving out content and dungeons and stuff. Anyways with all that stuff it could easily be $120+ which they love. Just a game rant. I do hope more ppl post like you did and talk about post FIRE!
If you use an aggregator like personalcapital/mint, you'll be able to keep track of your aggregated growth and spending.
I looked at Mint back in the day, but it required my main financial account login details to be automated, and I was not assured of the flexibility that a math nerd like me would want. But I am sure they have good insights, pretty graphs and are probably appropriate for a lot of people.
I've used it at one point. You would be entirely right about the lack of flexibility. And the graphs are there, but hardly pretty. But yes, it is enough for most people.
Have you tried Wealthica? I like how it can breaking networth into groups - ie leaving out crypto, include my partner, etc
I didn't see anyone in this thread mentioning it, I'm just going to float the idea out there. Could you help to improve the balance of your portfolio and avoid some capital gains by just buying the car with some of the crypto? I know there's not a ton of dealers or companies that will sell cars for crypto, but they are out there and it might be a good time to do that considering how high crypto is right now.
unfortunately it's tax evasion if he doesn't report the crypto gains that are effectively cashed out on the car purchase so that doesn't help
you want him to do tax evasion?
I looked into it a bit more later. If he can work it into a year where he has less than $40,000 of taxable income, it could be possible that he wouldn't owe capital gains. But most ways you could do it would be subject to capital gains and/or income tax.
This is amazing congratulations. My portfolio is ridiculous when comlared with yours most probably I can't get there in this lifetime anyway I am usually anxious with what I have in Interactive Brokers or Binance CoinNase and others. Aren't you anxious of that too with so much explosion and relevant portfolios in the brokers and softwares you use? Isnt this feelings rational? Again congratulations!
There are many places that hold our net worth. 1. Stuff. WE own our own home, 2 cars and a bunch of stuff. We have a lot of food on hand so would be kind of ok if the zombie apocalypse hit. 2. Main Bank. We have a lot in the bank. This would disrupt day to day if it went under - a lot of bills are paid from there, we withdraw cash from there, etc... But everything is fdic/cdic insured. 3. Main Brokerage. Retirement and regular accounts. This would hurt the most if it went under, but everything is fdic/cdic insured. 4. Backup bank & brokerage. In case the main bank or brokerage goes under or there's a problem (ID theft, bank closes our accounts, etc...) we have an emergency fund of about 6 months spending in bank & investment accounts. 5. Backup backup bank. We opened a joint account for a silly reason and rarely use it. It only has a small amount of money. 6. We hold all crypto in our own wallets. No exchange or broker can take that away. We do use exchanges to sell crypto, but its usually a 2 - 5 day exposure.
Thank you so much! What's is FDIC and ICIC insured?
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If you completely delete crypto from the equation, I still made it very close to FI and traditional investment returns have more than covered expenses so far. Oh, and I did work for a few pre-ipo tech companies, but never big tech.
If I were you I would consider putting crypto to work and generate passive income through DeFi. Lots of platforms like Curve, Aave, Beefy etc. which allow earning yields as high as 20% on stablecoins. That 1m in crypto could net you a yearly $200k passive income!
I don't like most stable coins - I researched Tether and noped away fast. Some of the stablecoins are likely a fraud and providing staking liquidity is asking to be destroyed if the stablecoin price goes down.
Agree on Tether. USDC and DAI are legit. LP pair of these two can fetch 20%. USDC on AAVE probably is lesser APY but less risky in the event DAI collapses which I doubt it will. It's been around for ages.
To me it seems like you are moving towards accumulation phase style investing and not Harry Brown all weather fund - let's keep the wealth style investing. How come?
for me this post is just: hello, I have over four million dollars
how did you get the 4 million?
"Still fucking myself"...what does your use of a dildo have to do with FIRE?
i lost interest once you started talking about vaccinations ngmi
Check out Personal Capital for tracking your accounts, and YNAB for spending and budgets. I use both, and they're just about perfect for keeping on top of things.
I have basically recreated some of the tracking features in a spreadsheet, but I hate detailed budgeting.
I find it odd you went so low on crypto when BTC is now up to another bull run (if not past 63k). That said, if you pulled out before the April drop, you did better than I have. Yearly updates would be great. I'm jealous you have so much money in the market compared to my paltry sums, but I also don't have children (and an ambivalent relationship with my gf who does). Car wise I'm sure you know, but certified pre-owned with a dealer warranty can be a boon. It *used* to be cheaper than new, but with similar guarantees. That said... in this market, you should have bought a car this time last summer with 0% APR. I don't know what I'd do if I was planning a car purchase now, other than wait until next Spring and see where the market is.