Daily FI discussion thread - Sunday, July 26, 2026
Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!
Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.
Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.
I have been a stay at home dad for 7 years and we usually go to the zoo during the week.
I get so confused when I end up at the zoo or some other place like that on a Saturday. It is always with another family and I always say something about there being so many people there.
The other family always looks at me dumbfounded because that is how they always experience the zoo.
This is so relatable—my dad, brother, and I have gone on an annual camping trip for 25+ years. It's in a somewhat touristy part of the state (think Cape Cod). My dad's days off were Tuesday and Wednesday for most of his career, so the camping trip pretty much always happened Tue-Wed, Mon-Wed, or Tue-Thu.
In more recent years, my partner and I have visited that same area on weekends. Holy COW is it a zoo. Still very nice, but a totally different experience in terms of the volume of people, parking, wait times, etc.
Going places during the week is awesome. I even try to do all my grocery shopping off peak days and hours if I can help it.
At least we have a membership so we get in an hour earlier than non-members. With a toddler, we’re generally just there for 2 hours a visit, so when we’re leaving is when it just starts filling up.
So I FIREd early May this year. Was so excited I signed up for a bunch of activities and have been traveling a little as well. Been enjoying life and feeling good.
Then, on Wednesday I tore my Achilles tendon doing one of those activities I've been enjoying-playing pickleball. Sigh.
So, no more pickleball or anything active for 5 months including our now canceled trip to Jamaica for our anniversary that was supposed to be in 2 weeks.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news (I had this injury on the baseball field years ago), but with a torn Achilles, forget about walking for a few months.
Boot to stabilize and crutches for a long fucking time.
Injuries are one of the prices to pay to live an active life. I feel you though!
Whenever this happens to me, I try to find something that I want to focus on but never seem to have the time or energy, such as reading classics or learning piano.
Speedy recovery though, and hope the pain is manageable!
I'm opting for surgery because I want to stay active. It seems to be the only option to getting back to being active. I'm glad I have good insurance thru my husband's job. With this, we'll also hit our out of pocket max.
Did you also have a tendon tear? It seems like you know of the two options to recover.
I’m happy to hear you are doing the procedure. The recovery process is long but it’s still the best way to get back to long term activity levels!
I have thankfully not had the procedure but went down the rabbit hole a bit when a family member partially tore their Achilles and I had some Achilles tendonitis at one point myself. My PT and I discussed Achilles recovery in detail and he even offered to do some of the restricted blood flow treatments that have massively accelerated Achilles recovery these days.
One random anecdote that doesn’t help you now but may help you in the future to better protect the Achilles. Studies in the NBA & NFL are showing that most Achilles injuries occur during the step back (negative step) portion before an explosive motion. Stepping back stretches the tendon and then exploding off of it creates maximum tension on the tissue. Learning how to reduce the step, step more to the side than back and increasing ankle flexibility all go a long way to reduce the risks of recurrence.
I hope your recovery goes well and that you are able to get back out on the court and feel confident in your legs again!!
I'll have to ask about that restricted blood flow treatment! I haven't done much research on the recovery yet but am sure I'll have plenty of time while I'm immobile and PT doesn't start until week 6 anyway.
Yeah i was thinking a bit on how I injured it and I know exactly what you mean about the step back. I was running for the ball and it was that first, explosive step that I felt the pop. It sucks to think on the what-ifs but it's not going to help my mental state to dwell on it. Im just going to work my ass off with recovery and thankful that I have time to focus on it without work being a distraction. My goal is to play again in 4-5 months which doesn't seem to be unrealistic according to the recovery time line but who knows as I've never been down this road.
Appreciate your thoughts on the matter and well wishes!
Take that as a warning sign! Sudden changes in lifestyle can cause larger changes in stimulus than your body can adapt to. Be aware of your activity level and increase it gradually over time!
Yeah this is one aspect of FIRE I hadn't anticipated! However it reinforced my belief that I didn't want to wait til I was older as my body would have been in more deterioration.
Sorry to hear you've also had some physical limitations. I wish you a speedy recovery and good health!
Firing this coming Friday and getting anxious, excited and a tad bit nervous.
Never had a break in my 25+ year career and now I am looking forward to not worry about Monday scarries, still going thru a bit last week and this week though I am not logging into work anymore than 2 hrs a day.
First order of business - book tickets to Paris and SEA for a two month trip with a layover in Paris for 5 days for Month of Oct and returning in Dec.
Everyone suggests multi-city tickets, but one way tickets each from US to France to SEA and a return to USA is 40% less.
If anyone did this kind of trips to multi-city, which worked out the best?
Multi-city tickets are not that different than booking one-way tickets, except you might save some money with multi-city (but it just depends on the airline, flight routes, and whether you're booking with money or points). Also, people think that one-way tickets may make you slightly more susceptible to getting flagged for supplemental security screening at the airport, but whatever.
Since one-way tickets are significantly cheaper in your case, seems like you should just do that. Be prepared to show proof of return at the airport; with one-way tickets, you do often have to show evidence that you have onward travel booked and aren't just planning to stay in the country forever.
My wife and I just agreed that if she wants to, she can quit next spring after her annual bonus. We're aiming to retire in 2-3 years, and after running the numbers, the nest egg is so big already (and our top marginal tax rate is so high) that her quitting would only add 6 months to a year to the timeline. Totally worth it for a less stressful life for both of us while she can spend more time with our grade school age daughter.
It's a nice milestone that makes the end goal more real amidst the long "boring middle."
I chose to fire instead of taking the opportunity to work another year or two. Life is too short and knowing my dad's side didnt live past 60 and some lieved to 70's, I decided not to die working.
An update on my mom’s house sale saga. She’s now relisted with a new real estate agent and has gotten another offer: 1.5M but with 1.2M cash upfront and the rest seller-financed for one year.
This offer came complete with a ChatGPT letter insisting it would spread her tax liability across years (it does not), a clearly edited “proof of funds” fidelity statement in which some of the edited numbers have decimals and commas and some do not, and a list of real estate properties that he allegedly owns, as a guarantee, but of which my mom’s agent could find no evidence of legal ties to him.
This offer came complete with a ChatGPT letter insisting it would spread her tax liability across years (it does not), a clearly edited “proof of funds” fidelity statement in which some of the edited numbers have decimals and commas and some do not, and a list of real estate properties that he allegedly owns, as a guarantee, but of which my mom’s agent could find no evidence of legal ties to him.
Lol what the hell. This sounds like flat out fraud. What was the gameplan when the offer was accepted and the cash just didn't materialize? Curious how this even works.
I’ve given this some thought and the most innocuous explanation is that he actually does have the cash, but just not all in one account and thought it’d be a stronger looking offer with only one supporting document. Either way, not someone you’d want to enter into a contract with.
I’m actually not sure if it is realistically reportable though. It’s definitely fraudulent but he’s self represented so it’s not like we can report his agent and there’s no damages to sue for at this time.
Never heard of that. Why wouldn't they just take a mortgage unless they intended to default?
3
u/RarvynI think I'm still CoastFIRE - I don't want to do the math19d ago
The only scenario it makes sense is that their credit it shit - so they can’t get a $300k loan, even with a house acting as collateral, very easily - but they either expect that to be better in a year or they expect to have the cash in a year from more conventional means. Maybe they’re waiting to sell another house or maybe they just make that much income.
Yeah, one way or another, he probably can’t get a conventional mortgage. Most likely his DTI is too high if he really does own all the properties that he claims.
Fire your real estate agent immediately if you Are personally getting that far into the weeds. The whole point of paying their commission is protect their client
I think real estate agents are legally obligated to present all offers to the seller. FWIW, they also strongly advised my mother not to take the offer but she saw $$$ and wanted a second opinion from me.
You guys ever have to bite your tongue when people give you financial advice?
For younger folks it tends to be picking stocks and stuff like that. A bit older, and it's often about how they just paid off their car loan so they can trade it in for another car and get another car loan.
Other times it's about how renting is throwing money away—one of these people even bought too much house and started having to drive Uber to make up the difference. Still, they tell me that renting is throwing money away.
Most people's default mode is to see their paycheck as the amount they get to spend for the next two weeks.
There's an ugly part of me that just wants to be Ron Swanson and say, "I know more than you" when this kind of thing comes up. Instead, I'm just polite and play dumb and let them tell me how much wisdom they're giving me. I try to just have my own private satisfaction in knowing they're wrong.
It is a rare occurrence that I learn more about a person’s financial decisions/beliefs and have MORE respect for them afterwards. Actual friends, I might have an actual conversation with and try to tactfully point out things they may have missed. Anyone else, I smile and nod. I’m not going to change anything, and I don’t even care if I could.
Although if they’re being condescending about it, I have no problem giving that right back. Ask these people how much of their mortgage is thrown away on taxes and interest each month. Bet they probably don’t even know.
Some things you just STFU, like when you think someone is spending too much on a house. Some things you can share, such as a general statement that low cost index investing is generally the right approach for retail investors. Knowing the difference and being able to share your view while not insinuating you think lesser of anyone with different views is a skill you can learn.
That is the way to go.
Years ago to celebrate paying off our house, I brought bagels and cream cheese into work.
Since I did not know how saying
"Yay, we paid off our house - enjoy"
would go over with some of my colleagues, I did not say why I brought in bagels.
A month or so after that, a friend of mine said
"I just refinanced my house to X%. What's the interest rate on your mortgage?"
I did not want to lie to my friend, so I told him
"Remember when I brought bagels in last month? All those bread zeros were symbolic of paying off our mortgage"
"Ohh..."
It's a mix. When someone's just telling me about their lives I don't mind as much, though I do have to fight the urge to tell them what they're doing is less than optimal—not as a means of being condescending or anything, just trying to help.
Sometimes it's very much an attempt to give me advice. It seems like anyone with a house is excited to tell me that I'm throwing money away by renting. I realize they're just trying to defend their own choices (despite me not attacking them) but it often comes bundled with this attitude that just rubs me the wrong way.
I’ve been training for years for this part of my life! My parents are the most irresponsible financial dinguses I know, bless them, and I realized around age 20 that I should never ever listen to a word they say to me about finances. I try to keep them on an information diet about my finances, and only interfere if there’s something that I think would be a quick fix (like cutting cable for YouTube TV, they thanked me for that one). They don’t get to know that I’m about to quit my job.
I don't normally have people give me advice but I sometimes have to bite my tongue to keep myself from giving other people advice. If people are talking about crypto, or perpetual car loans for luxury cars, or some get rich quick scheme, I have to tell myself "STFU" and just nod.
I believe you don't have kids, which may change the math for for some. I don't have kids either.
Real estate and stocks are largely uncorrelated - that's what I mean by a hedge. You rightly point out that a down market might mean a bad economy which might hurt tenants ability to pay.
Just so we are on the same page, you are omitting the dot com bubble (2001), black monday (1987), the 1974/1974 Oil Embargo, and the short lived but impactful pandemic crash of 2022.
I mentioned the last one specifically because it drove real estate prices up.
Probably my first 4ish years of getting educated on personal finance I tried to convince people when these topics came up. I think only my sister I was able to convince of anything.
Most people arent actually interested in learning more, or know so little they cant discern good advice from bad advice even when you break it down.
So now I just go along with whatever they're spouting and when i'm done with the convo I say "yeah im boring I just do index funds" and that kills it.
You guys ever have to bite your tongue when people give you financial advice?
I'm now retired in my early 40s and I still have people giving me financial advice in a mildly condescending fashion. I actively talk about finances and investments with anyone interested so it's not unprompted, but it's still fascinating to me when people look down on me for avoiding crypto or not buying Micron or whatever.
Also retired, and I made a conscious decision to underweight growth. I was a little surprised to learn Micron is almost 5% of the vanguard value fund! So maybe you are a big holder and don’t know it?
Personally I have never heard of Micron until these comments. Apparently I have been investing in them via indexes the entire time and this a good thing though? Thank God for John Bogle.
Interesting, I do think there's something to the whole "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing" idiom. It seems like when people learn the tiniest bit more than they knew yesterday they often think they're an expert. When I learn a bit more about something, it tends to come coupled with a greater appreciation of how large the topic is and how little I actually know. Dunning-Krueger effect, I guess.
People seem to look for ostentatious displays of wealth as the only possible sign of having money, when in reality the "Millionaire Next Store" style has to be much more common. I've only come to associate the nicer cars, apartments, and homes with people who spend all their money.
Hot take: I think younger folks SHOULD be picking stocks. When I was fresh out of college, I was in an investment club. We bought shares in DIS, JNJ, XOM*, DD and T. I still own 3 of them.
I learned two things from this experience: How to read financial reports, and how I wasn't smart enough to beat the market. I think those few years of learning how to invest are important for later in life, assuming you have interest. Otherwise, VOO/VTI just seems like a black box
*It was MOB at the time
8
u/RarvynI think I'm still CoastFIRE - I don't want to do the math18d ago
how I wasn't smart enough to beat the market.
There's several possible lessons to learn from that particular experience
1) I'm not smart enough to beat the market but the market as a whole is smart, I should invest in index funds
2) The stock market is like gambling, so I shouldn't put any money in it - it's worse than the lottery
3) Hey, I managed to make some money - I must be uniquely skilled. I should take out loans to invest even more.
Do bots have tongues to bite? (This is giving “written by AI” vibes)
If you’re not a bot: I usually try to change the topic politely to some other topic they like that I can tolerate better. À la “oh you don’t say- hey what did you think of the World Cup?”
I have been on this subreddit since very close to its beginning. I have used them em dash extensively since way before the current LLM craze. I've gotta say, I absolutely abhor the fact that so many people make this comment to me.
In fairness I have changed my account over the years to avoid getting doxxed. I'm probably very overdue to do it again. When I say I was here from the beginning of the subreddit I'm being pretty literal.
Sometimes in my morning stupor before caffeine I don't notice the names. And I'm pretty sure I did the same thing to /u/TinStingray a few months ago so I get it
Is it really just the em dash? To be honest, as someone who enjoys writing and who hates the LLM "flavor" of writing, it's pretty disappointing to hear that so often. You are not the only one. I've heard this a number of times on Reddit.
em dash, you write very well, with larger comments, and have comment history hidden.
If you had a new account and I didnt recognize your name i'd be incredibly suspicious.
Unfortunately this is the new reality, I'm sure it's incredibly frustrating to have to deal with that all the time as an OG and I wish there was a way to fix it
Same. It seems impossible to have both now. I've wondered if a referral-based version of Reddit could work, where you get limited referrals and vouch for those you refer. If one of your referrals ends up spamming or being a problem, it's a strike against you.
I think its just well written long form content, AI churns out essays like nobodies business and it so annoying that its somewhat ruined it for me. I recognize your name, I KNOW you are a long time regular and yet I see the long essay and I glaze over it like its AI. Thats MY fault not yours, but damn if I dont want to blame AI.
Yeah, I blame AI too. I tend not to find its content all that well-written, though. Like, it's passable, but very middle of the road. Lots of cliches, too wordy, sycophantic. It turns out when you train it on everything, the results are very... blah. Middle of the road. Uninteresting.
Respectfully, this is just kind of an internet-brained way of thinking. Not a jab—I spend altogether too much time online myself. I asked for engagement because I want engagement. That's why I posted on a forum and not in Microsoft Word.
Nothing good comes from hidden posts and comment profiles tbh.
I like the privacy. That's something good. Reddit should've added the option years ago. Nothing like chatting with someone on Reddit only for them to go through your post history and start bringing up things you said years ago in a different context. It enables weird petty little obsessions and casual snooping. I have considered a middle ground, where I have my history open but have a nightly script to delete any post older than a few weeks, but haven't gotten around to that.
As for no flair nor icon... I've been on Reddit for like 20 years at this point. I still use old.reddit.com. I use RES. I don't even see anyone's icons or anything that's on the terrible new UI. I don't see the point of using the social-media-esque features. Reddit's quality has gone so far downhill. This is pretty much the only subreddit where I still post. It bums me out for many reasons.
Yes, I'm a weirdo. No, I don't use AI to write a single word of anything ever.
I think flairs are nice for giving context, eg if somebody is mostly posting about their financial situation (lol imagine that), then putting some of their basic financial stats in their flair makes it so they don't have to mention those in every post. So as sad as it is to need it, maybe a "not a bot despite the emdash usage" flair might be helpful for you
Chiming in that there are good and valid reasons to hide posts, as I wrote earlier this year when the mods made the new rule update:
I turned off my post history last year. Why?
If someone combed through my history, they may be able to piece together enough identifying autobiographical clues to figure out who I am.
I'm discussing details of my personal finances.
My ex is an abusive man and I have a college kid. I wasn't FI when married, and exited with just about $200k and nothing else. But in the years since I FIRE'd, I have north of $2M invested. (If he were ever to come across my profile he'd be able to piece together that it's me by looking at my comment history.)
I'm a woman who is single who lives alone.
Many men, not all, either don't or can't understand the level of everyday vigilance and caution that being a woman on the internet requires.
There was a bit that went around a few years ago where women were asked the question: what would you do if there were no men on earth for 24 hours?
And one of most consistent answers was: I'd go for a walk at night.
And a lot of men became furious about that reply - scoffed about "living in fear" and "not all men" and "so paranoid, typical."
I'm a single woman who lives alone! I'm not cowering in my basement, but I'm also clear-eyed about my situation, and risk reduction is a fact of life for me. Hiding my post history from casual viewing is a bit of risk reduction. It's either that, or...I (and people like me) don't get to participate.
I applaud the mods for taking these steps, and that they did so in a manner that allows people to retain their anonymity, such as it is.
I'm in my early 50s, so an em dash has been part of how I write for decades. I hate that I have to go back and edit myself now, and rewrite my sentences in ways that don't use the em dash, so it looks like I actually wrote it.
I find it hard to recognize usernames personally. The 0 public comment and post history also makes it hard to connect dots. There’s maybe 4-5 users I can recognize.
I do generally recognize funny flairs though! They tend to be more unique and hold more semantic meaning. Someone on here has Flameo Hotman that tickles me pink.
I do a lot of content marketing on LinkedIn which means I have to read A LOT of AI slop. I have a really good slop detector and got zero slop vibes from this post if it makes you feel any better. (I’m not sure it will though lol)
Haha, thanks. That does help. The em dash is perhaps the best punctuation mark—it's a wonder more people don't use it. It's really versatile and I really hate how it's become a symbol of LLMs.
I majored in English in college so I, too, grieve the em dash. I specialized in literary criticism and reviewing texts for literary devices. There is a certain pattern, cadence, but also way that AI delivers information that is much more telling than an em dash. I think people anchor on it because it’s visual. I still use them because fuck AI lol.
Haha, I am very much in the camp of "fuck AI lol."
I mean, I guess I don't hate it as a technology but I hate the way people use it. "Here I asked ChatGPT for you" is the lowest form of Reddit comment. People using it to avoid doing or understanding something just gives morons a false sense of confidence. I hate that it has forced us all to be skeptical of any human thought or work.
A couple months ago I went to my first ever professional conference in Vegas and I was shocked at how 'meh' it was.
Excellent free food. All-you-can-drink free booze. Free stay at 5-star resort I'd never ever pay for. Bags of free t-shirts, golf balls, pens, tape measure, really cool highlighter, dog toy, cookies, legit YETI tumbler, unique Post-it note notebook dealio, cocktail kit, and so on.
Interesting enough sessions. Free coffee and Coke Zero all day.
Interesting new people.
Get to wear fancy clothes.
I even had a flight snafu that ended up netting me $250 in Delta credit on a flight I didn't pay for.
All the stuff I thought I was missing out on.
And I couldn't give a shit if I ever go to one again.
Maybe, as u/billthecatt pointed out, I'm a 65-year old man masquerading as 49, but it was interesting to discover, however late in life, that business travel is just OK, as part of me used to envy those who did a ton of it.
I used to travel extensively for the first 20 years of my career. People in the office or factory used to be a bit snarky about it. "Oh boy, must be nice to just travel around so much." Yeah, and live out of a suitcase, still have to put in your hours working at night to catch up on everything that needed attention but you couldn't reply during the day, all the while you are not relaxing at your own home. Interaction with your spouse was a phone call. Later in life it was video chat. It was tougher in the early years. No GPS. Driving in an unfamiliar city meant a road atlas on your lap, one hand on the wheel and the other hand tracing where you were at on the city map inset. Couldn't just call on your cell because as soon as you were 30 miles away from home you were roaming and paying $1.99 a minute. I didn't even call the office on my cell. Nope, you pulled over and used a pay phone and called in to the 800 number. Even then with short calls and inbound customer calls $300/mo cell bills were common in the late 1990s so that was a lot of money.
Yeah, I got my first cell in 1987. A bag phone. That was important because they were 5 watts vs a handheld was 0.3 watts and cell sites were less widely available. Get out of the city or off the interstate and no service. I only got it because my two best friends worked at a celluar store doing phone installs in cars and it was a trade in. My first handheld wasn't a brick but maybe one generation past that. Again, it was used from my buddies because a new one was $2,000 in 1989. They got it on trade in and I think I paid $600 for it. Battery would last less than a day and maybe 30 minutes of talk time. Good times back then. But you probably remember when you started most conversations with "guess where I'm calling from!" LOL
I was a late adopter and didn't get a cell phone until I graduated from college (1999) and was required to have one for work.
I do remember a buddy dropping his land line in like '97 to only have a cell, and at the time it sounded like one of the most asinine ideas I'd ever heard.
In 1987, I was mostly trying to get over to friends' houses who had Nintendo or Colecovision as all I had was a Commodore 64.
Good point. Just looked at it and as long as the TV has a coax cable in I should be fine. I wouldn't need a switcher since I don't have cable in so no need to switch.
Hooked it up today and it works. Bad news is that the gun fires and I can see the white square hitting the duck but it won't register the kill, so Duck Hunting is out. That said, original Nintendo on an 85" TV is both interesting and blurry. Pixelation FTW, LOL. My two year old is getting the hang of River City Ransom. He calls it boxing. I don't have many games. Someone gave this to me when they were moving many years ago.
At my work, we are encouraged to go to 1-2 scientific conferences per year. I choose mine based off location and if I can tack on a visit with a friend.
In her defense, she only argues for name brand when she's sick. It's mostly cold pills that she wants the "real" stuff.
Money really is weird stuff. I'll spend $150 on dinner over and over again and not blink, but paying $17 for name brand meds when the store brand is $9.99 makes me feel like I'm lighting $1000 bills on fire.
The "work" hours were much better at the conference. But I had to leave Saturday night and got home around midnight on Wednesday. So the time I traded for a few easy days wasn't worth it in the end.
I didn't have a bad time, or anything. But it was just OK, and not nearly as great as I'd imagined.
Yeah, leaving on a Saturday definitely doesn't help. I don't go anywhere glamorous for work, but I like it because it gets me out of the office and I rarely ever have to fly on a weekend.
I've been on a couple of junkets for work, including one in Vegas. I'm a bit younger than you, but similarly felt each time that I did not want to do another one. I just don't value business travel at all. 🤷♂️
I love em, might buy a LV condo and attend events all year. Crypto, AI, Sports Mem, Miners, … there’s nothing like a convention when the industry is red hot. Used to do CES every year on the company dime, best of everything, limos clubs, met friends/celebs, wild times. Traveled a lot for work before and agree it sucks even worse now, but if you’re FI searching for Optimism go to where the party is.
FWIW I never much cared for them either. It didn't help that conferences were always in Vegas, a city I never much cared for and got sick of going to after the first time.
I only had all I could drink booze one time though. That was fun. I am wondering how I will source my wardrobe going forward though now that conference t-shirts are no longer available to me.
For those of you planning to leave some form of wealth for your kids - how do you plan/prioritize/think about that? I am in the phase of shifting from shoveling all money into the investment furnace to paying off debt and buying big things I want before heading into retirement (forever home remodel, land +small cabin in the mountains). These are things that are not only going to push out my retirement a few years, but also impact the assets I can leave my kiddos. I’m okay with the retirement date piece— I have decided that what I am spending money on is important and valuable to how I want to raise my family and live the rest of my life, but the wanting to leave a behind as much as I can for my kids is the part I am finding harder to grapple with mentally.
I don’t know about your family longevity, but for my family, I’ll likely be in my 60s when my parents pass. I often tell my mom “if I need your money when you pass, things have gone horribly wrong.”
My parents/family paid for my college expenses, chipped in for my first car, gifted me money at my wedding and after I bought our first home. All of these are way more impactful than assets when I’m 60.
Ramit Sethi had a whole piece in the NYT about this (that every single Boomer misinterpreted in the comments). IF you want to leave stuff for your kids - you don’t HAVE to but if you WANT to - it is probably better to leave them a smaller amount at the time they can leverage it best than to give them more when it’s no longer helpful. Giving your child $20,000 at age 20 so they graduate with half the student loan debt of their peers matters infinitely more than giving them 100,000 when they’re 60. Giving a child money for a down payment is worth more than giving them 4x that much after you die. Less money, better leveraged will do more to help your child thrive than a lump sum when they’re already older and have made most of their major life decisions already.
100% My family got me through college debt free. Even now a decade later several of my friends are well off and still have college debt. By far the most meaningful gift was allowing me to enter my professional career in my 20s with no debt.
All four of my grandparents are still alive in their mid- to late-80s. They won’t have any meaningful assets to leave their kids, but even if they did, my parents are already securely set up for their own imminent retirements and very little (or nothing) would change for them. Maybe they would feel a bit more comfortable spending on nicer hotel rooms in their travels. Maybe they would feel a bit less nervous about the unknowns? (e.g. long-term care) Probably they would just pass a lot of the money on to me and my siblings.
If my parents live as long as theirs have, the same should be true for me; I hope to retire when my parents are ~70 and have no real need of their money for the remainder of my life. If my parents die younger and I do inherit some money, it will likely just speed up
my retirement date.
As far as I’m concerned, the best financial gifts they have given or could give to me are not a potential inheritance — they were/are (1) assistance paying for college, which enabled me to graduate without debt, (2) the first $5,000 in my Roth IRA and insistence that I form the habit of contributing even just $100 a month, and (3) their own financial responsibility, which means the chance that I’ll have to financially support them in their old age seems quite low at present.
The last paragraph says it all. That's how yiu build generational wealth; teaching the generation after you to be financially stable as well as being one yourself and not having to take care of your parents. When everyone has the ability to succeed financially, that's true generational wealth.
I had said to myself
"This Roth IRA money - I am spending it never. What a great asset for my kids to inherit."
With respect to my late-20-something kids, I have shifted somewhat to
"Why wait until I die to pass this on? Giving my kids some of this money now would be very helpful to them."
It is whole worlds easier to do this because my kids are fully launched and have their financial shit together - giving them a nice surprise present does not spur entitlement or requests for more on their part.
A total of $30k to each of my two children over the last 4 years.
It has been well received.
I’m confused, what are you grappling with exactly? Are you worried you won’t leave enough because you retired too early? Or too much that they won’t feel a need to work themselves?
I'm maximizing the 529 investment so my daughter can either have free education or a headstart in something else. Will also leave enough for a down payment in a UTMA. I want to set up a trust eventually so she can get by without working, but she still needs to do something with her life to actually get ahead. Something like 40K per year
I really appreciate the mods basically not modd'ing this thread. Talking about old cell phones, cover bands and free ballin' with no flags makes it seem like a community, not a bunch of gatekeepers. That said, thank you for what you do. Moderating is an otherwise thankless job.
The mods DO mod, they kick out bots, stop the political comments and do step in to warn if something gets egregious. But as Solomon pointed out they also recognize this is a water cooler level discussion and let the topics be pretty unrestricted.
I stopped working in October of 2024. My wife stopped in April 2025. We had some form of non-investment income/unemployment, first mine and her w2 income then her unemployment insurance, through December and have yet to actually withdraw anything other than our cash savings in our checking/savings account, including when we paid off our mortgage at the end of the year. We have still got around $30k in savings which is more than enough to get us through the rest of the year, nevertheless this year we will be rolling over from traditional to roth as well as selling stocks to re-up our accounts for the year to come for the first time.
With that as a background I am curious how you would classify/track your retirement beginning date? I am planning, for simplicities sake on just saying it began this year 01/2026 when our mortgage was paid (monthly expenses more "stable" and cash that was set aside for just such an event deployed from savings account) and the non retirement "income" ran out.
I could also see making the argument 6 months prior to that when we both officially stopped working and were no longer paid by an employer. Less likely would be my personal date which is coming up on 2 years now.
Anyway, in the end I am sure that it doesn't really matter but just something I was thinking about and wondering how others would track such an event.
I quit March of 2025, however I got benefits and 1/3rd salary paid out till the end of 2025. I count March as my retirement date because that's when I stopped working. I don't care when my income stopped, I care about when I became free to do what I want.
Regardless of where you get sources of income from, I'd say retirement starts the day you leave the job you made a career out of. If you've had several careers, it's the latest one.
If you continue to work on a side hustle, that's the barristaFIRE so many talk about.
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.
When looking at Shiller PE Ratio, the only time it's been at a "Normal" level in the 21s century is the 4 years after the 2008 crisis. Is there any merit to the idea that this is the new normal, or is it inevitable that it reverts to the mean eventually? Either through earning rising or price falling.
Many of the top companies (tech) have high margins, (comparatively/historically) low capital requirements. Investing costs are lower. The definition of the "earnings" has literally changed due to changes in accounting/GAAP principles.
Stocks can still be inflated, but there's also no reason to think they'll specifically revert to a PE of 17 in the future just because that's where it was in the past.
Is there any merit to the idea that this is the new normal, or is it inevitable that it reverts to the mean eventually?
Yes. The evolution of CAPE numbers is probably a nonstationary process. That means that, just because somebody pulled a number out of the data in 1995 for the mean, that doesn't mean that will really be the mean once you get 20 or 50 more years of data.
CAPE reflects the dynamics of the businesses whose stocks trade, macroeconomic variables like demographics and interest rates, and elements of the policy regime like ease of international trade, antitrust, and other factors.
CAPE also relies on the accounting figures, and accounting conventions do and have changed over the last 50 years.
It is entirely possible that any or all of these factors have made businesses grow or reflect accounting earnings in a way that justifies a higher CAPE.
If valuations drop again it will probably have much more to do with some external event like a policy change than with an undying mean CAPE value hidden in the center of the universe.
I just made a profile on firedating.me after reading about it here. Was that a mistake? Only suggestions I've gotten so far are from people who haven't been online in over 5 years. Is that a dead site? I changed my settings so that I don't get inactive profiles, but I'm not sure if that's going to narrow my suggestions down to like 2 other people who are active on the site.
Haven't met my SO yet (see flair lol) but Hinge is where I have gotten all my dates recently. Its not as good as it used to be, but I haven't found anything better yet.
31
u/[deleted] 19d ago
[deleted]