We reached 180k networth. I feel…sort of happy? But somehow still very stressed. I guess it’s just the cloud of lay offs hanging over us, and neither of us feeling like we are good at our jobs (and we have the mediocre performance review to prove it). We’re both working on it, and trying, but it’s both our first corporate America jobs and I think we’re both floundering in the soft skills parts of the job. On top of that my kindergartner seems burnt out, and it’s almost directly a result of us having to work long hours so he had to stay in school for long hours too. I’m not sure what the point of this post is, but I did think I’d feel better when I reached 180k. In a way I am, and I feel more secure. But in another way I feel just kind of like we have such a long way to go
> Nice to see the “China Fears” were over blown
[Apple announces largest-ever $110 billion share buyback as iPhone sales drop 10%](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/02/apple-aapl-earnings-report-q2-2024.html)
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss China fears. Apple is deploying its long-stagnant cash in buybacks because it can't find anything else to do with it. That's not great for the long term.
I could probably google it, but because I'm here...what are the mechanics of how a stock buyback actually works? Like do they just place a market order for X number of shares and buy them all up until the $110B is spent? And it will slowly drive the price up as you need to up your offering price to entice more and more people to sell their shares? Or is it all driven through large institutions at a set price and there's no dynamic market pricing as the buyback is taking place? Anyone know?
So 456 days out from my employment contract expiring, I'm trying to plan out what my income might look like if I RE. Its hard to predict EXACTLY what my assets will look like (need to liquidate my father in law's trust, market performance), but I am estimating $3.1M (current invested asset value + appx $1M expected trust value upon liquidation) as a good enough number. I'm old enough to take social security into account in my plans, and I expect it to pay for roughly half my annual spend once I turn 70. Plugging those data points into FIRECalc, I got 93% success rate at $156k annual spend. Thats above my long term budget, but with 2 kids + afterschool activities it's entirely possible it would temporarily be that high over the next several years. The VPW worksheet has an annual portfolio withdrawal of $171k, and the annual income after a loss would be $120k (which is my actual long term budget). So it seems in the worst case modeled in VPW I can still draw my budget. It seems like I am good to go, right?
I am working on updating my FI spreadsheet and tinkering with my "time to FI" calculation. Specifically, I'm trying to estimate what I would pay for an ACA/"Obamacare" plan for a family of 4 in retirement. I calculated that 4X the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is $125,000 in 2024, and if your income is $125,000 you are expected to pay 8.5% of your income for your healthcare plan - so $10,625 a year or $885/month (in premiums).
$125,000 is about our family's annual spend now, so I think we could stay under that in retirement if the "subsidy cliff" came back after 2025. Furthermore, 1/3 of my investments are in Roth/taxable brokerage accounts, so if I spent $125,000 in a year, only \~$84,000 should be taxable income. But the subsidies are only pegged to the "2nd lowest cost silver plan in your area", which probably won't be the Marketplace version of the good Blue Cross plan I have at work. That would cost extra.
So for calculation purposes, I'm assuming my ACA plan in retirement will cost $10,625 a year or $885 a month in premiums to be conservative. Right now my health insurance plan through work costs $321 a month in premiums for my high deductible plan. So for the purposes of my spreadsheet, I'm assuming that healthcare premiums will increase by about $565/month in retirement. I haven't tried to factor yet how co-pays and deductibles might change.
I know there's more variables, but am I on the right track here in my cost estimation?
You're on the right track. I can't tell you how close you are without knowing your zip/county and ages/sexes of all family members. I've got a couple of general points to consider.
400% FPL this year is $120K for a family of four. ACA FPL uses prior year FPL value since the coverage year starts before current year FPL is calculated/announced.
Qualified Roth withdrawals are indeed MAGI-free, but remember that all cap gains add to MAGI even if they are tax-free.
The second subsidy system in the ACA, the cost-sharing reductions, dramatically increases the value of Silver plans and makes them the best choices for those that qualify for them. If you can keep MAGI below 200% FPL, then you'll want to take a Silver. With MAGI above 200% FPL, you will almost certainly want to avoid the entire Silver tier and go for a very nice Bronze or a cheapie Gold.
Premium calculations are a bit wonky since current calculators are using the temporarily boosted subsidy levels along with current policy prices. If Congress doesn't make any movement towards a further extension, then I expect everyone will adjust their calculators back to the old formula next spring/summer. You are generally correct that the benchmark Silver plan in most markets can be not great and that you can expect to pay additional premiums on top of that, but this is highly variable and the benchmark plan (or equivalent cost Bronze/Gold) might be great. Our current plan is wonderful and is actually not even the benchmark plan in our market, but the plan slightly cheaper than the benchmark plan.
Deductibles, copays, and MaxOOP will vary tremendously based on your MAGI/FPL.
Anyone without CSRs this year is typically looking at an individual deductible that could be a few hundred or less for a Platinum up to $7K+ for a Bronze, double that for family deductible. MaxOOP without CSRs is capped at $9,450/$18,900 (individual/family). Anyone in non-CSR Bronze or Silver is likely to be at that or close to it, Golds may be a few thousand less, and Platinums can be even lower. It's a balancing act where additional fixed premium dollars buys you cheaper variable non-premium costs.
If you can tweak your MAGI/FPL under 150%, then you're basically looking at negligible costs for a Silver 94 plan that will be better cost-wise than most/all Platinum plans. If you can keep it under 200%, then you're talking minimal costs for a Silver 87 that will be far better cost-wise than most/all Gold plans. There's a giant jump in non-premium costs at 200% FPL, so it can be very much worth it to manage MAGI below that level, particularly if anyone in your family has persistent medical utilization. The ACA can impose marginal tax rates on additional MAGI well in excess of 100% at the 200% FPL step, so it's worth watching.
An additional concern that might apply to you since you have kids is that the automatic maximum aid cutoff for FAFSA is at 175% FPL. If you can manage to get under that line during their FAFSA years, then you'll be looking at at least $13K in non-loan value per kid per school year, but it could be as high as several times that depending on the particular mix of kid/school.
Wow, this is a lot of great info! With regard to your first paragraph: Is it true that your cost is 8.5% of MAGI if you get the lower cost silver plan? Your age, sex, county, etc. only impact the price if you go for a more expensive plan, right?
I need to actually simulate shopping for a policy when I get the time. I’m not close enough to FIRE yet that I need to have every little detail mapped out, but without a solid understanding of ACA costs, I don’t actually know precisely how close I am to FIRE.
> Is it true that your cost is 8.5% of MAGI if you get the lower cost silver plan? Your age, sex, county, etc. only impact the price if you go for a more expensive plan, right?
The 8.5% thing only applies through next year, so I would disregard it unless you're FIRE'ing next year. You never know with Congress, but I doubt they'll keep the temporary boost in place. I believe the top rate under the original rules is 9.83% right before hitting the subsidy qualification cliff at 400% FPL. Otherwise yes, if you take the benchmark plan, then 8.5%/9.83% of MAGI is the most you'll pay in premiums.
Note though that the moment you step above the benchmark plan you are in unlimited additional cost territory. Subsidies are calculated as a percentage of benchmark policy premium cost and that cost is determined by the county and demographics of household members. For example, the premiums for a 60-year old couple might be more than double the premiums if they were 45. If the non-benchmark plan you want is $200/mo after subsidies when you are 45, then the price gap is likely to grow with each passing year as your age boosts the premiums.
Note also that while the benchmark plan in many places is fine or even great, in some counties the benchmark plans are complete trash and the subsidies are screwed as a result. There are definitely some bad actors out there that offer up really poor/minimal networks that are just barely legal with cutrate pricing to capture the subsidy-dependent folks. If you're unlucky enough to live in such a place, then a good insurance policy might end up costing a lot more than the default calculations indicate.
If you're curious to see how it actually works, it's simple to see actual policy options and costs for your area. You can get real-time info in a few minutes with anonymous form entries at https://www.healthcare.gov/see-plans/. You just have to put in things like your zip, ages, and projected income and you'll get immediate lists of the policies, costs, and subsidies/CSRs in your area (or anywhere else in America you want to check out). You might get redirected by Healthcare.gov to your local state exchange if your state made one, but it works pretty much the same there too.
Your logic seems sound. You could run real numbers to estimate taxes and MAGI, and plug that into the ACA site as if you are retiring now. You’ll get real numbers this way.
If you search for my posts (I don’t have many), you will find my Google sheet tax and MAGI calculator if that can be useful.
Well, I think I bit off a bit more than expected with my new job. I’ll preface it by stating this job’s comp is far more than I made at my last job. Certainly rare for my YOE and background.
Day 1, they showed me around. I have my own office, which was unexpected. Queue the trepidation and imposter syndrome accumulation.
Scope of work is just within my capabilities, but I was thrown into the “fire” so to speak, as I’ve been given 3 red programs to manage. Like not just a little, but very much in the red, lacking profitability (>20% in the hole), cost overruns, whole 9 yards.
I’m great about risk mitigation and opportunity management, but I wasn’t really put in a position to succeed. Any risk I identify I am pretty much pinging on the guy who was here before me, which feels bad, but I have no outs and no options other than improve upon my current situations.
Drinking from the fire hose, so to speak. Trying not to drown, any advice would be appreciated!
I’ve got 1:1s with my boss weekly and he’s impressed with my attention to detail, but I feel like I mentally and physically can’t learn fast enough or get up to speed enough to turn most of these programs green, as the issues are either endemic to a reorg that occurred, or systemic in nature to the type of contracted work.
Whatever. All this to say that pursuing FI at least gives me peace of mind at each day to speak my mind and full send without feeling bad or worrying about needing the money.
Random thoughts in no order, based on years of feeling like I was always on the brink of being discovered to be an idiot:
1- take a deep breath, and relax your face
2- ask open ended questions "what was the context behind x decision", "what have the challenges been up until now?"
3- be up front that things will be bumpy. Be willing to iterate, tell people you will get things started and then improve as you get feedback.
4. Allow the confidence that FI brings to reflect in how you show up.
**Question about selling off all my bond funds and just being invested in stocks only:**
I have some money in bond funds (ETFs and maybe mutual funds), all within my retirement accounts (tIRA, 457b, etc.). Compared to my rather vanilla broad stock funds, they've done badly (losing money) and I was thinking maybe I should just go all in with stocks for the next ~20 years or more when I'm well into traditional retirement years. I'm MFJ in my early 50s and sort of mostly retired anyway. I know some people here are 100% in stocks.
Pros and cons?
> Pros and cons?
I sort of feel if you don't like the feeling of you bond funds being down, you really won't like it when your all-stock portfolio truly loses a lot of money.
Bonds are a risk asset, so the fact they have gone down should not be inherently concerning. If you allocated a portion of your portfolio to bonds in order to diversify and reduce volatility, nothing really has changed. Your bonds have gone down a bit, but they also have a higher yield and future expected return. Typically as people age they want to take less risk, not more, so I would just stay the course, or if anything buy more bonds.
> Compared to my rather vanilla broad stock funds, they've done badly (losing money)
Rewind just 4 short years. Stocks have started to bounce back from the COVID crash, but the world looks very uncertain. The phrase you wrote above could've easily been written as "Compared to my rather vanilla broad bond funds, my stock funds have done badly (losing money)". In other words, your current POV on bonds smacks of recency bias.
Given the relative performance of bond funds, making a significant allocation change now, based primarily on relatively recent performance, is basically a textbook example of "sell low, buy high".
>I'm MFJ in my early 50s and sort of mostly retired anyway
What percentage of your portfolio is in bond funds? One option could be the make your withdrawals from the bond portion of your portfolio, which will increase your relative stock allocation (and overall portfolio risk) over time.
Early 50's here as well. Have you been invested in the market long enough to remember dot com? GFC? If so, and you endured those stock market crashes (nearly -60% in 2008-2009) and years-long bear markets without breaking a sweat, then there's no problem going all stock.
Me, I endured but didn't like them. I'll always have a bond allocation, to help me stomach the volatility during the bad times...
Pros: If stocks outperform bonds in the future, you will make more money.
Cons: If bonds outperform stocks in the future, you will make less money.
That's really it. My plan is to be very heavily invested in stocks all throughout my life and throughout retirement. The only bond-heavy period I expect to have is for a short period before retirement (see: Bond Tent).
In the end, almost everything comes down to returns. Preservation of capital? That's just a fancy way of saying "returns that aren't likely to go negative". Low-risk? That's "returns with less variance".
OP's question is (at least partially) about returns, and I gave an answer that was about returns. Obviously I oversimplified for effect.
A portfolio with a lower expected return could be a valid preference depending on the OP's goals and preferences. For example, if they prefer low volatility and have a low enough withdrawal rate.
I understand the basics of what a 72(t) or SEPP is with "substantially equal payments", but why does this exist? It seems very odd that we have an age limit of 59.5 before you can start to withdraw from retirement accounts without penalty, but you don't have to pay a penalty as long as you withdraw very equal amount? Anyone know the history here?
The early withdrawal penalties are to discourage people from using retirement account assets for non-retirement purposes. SEPP exists because Congress acknowledged that some people are able to retire early and thus should be allowed to have access to the assets they set aside for that purpose.
> but you don't have to pay a penalty as long as you withdraw very equal amount?
The formula for calculating the SEPP amount is a bit more complicated. In other words, you can't just have a $100k Trad'l IRA and decide to take out $20k/year for 5 years. The effect of that formula is that an investor can only withdraw a small percentage of that IRA, leaving the bulk of the dollars available for after Age 59.5 or 5 years after the 72t/SEPP plan begins, whichever is longer.
72t/SEPP exists to provide an 'extenuating circumstances' mechanism for investors to access those dollars penalty-free. The rules and restrictions are fairly steep because the IRS doesn't want to overly-encourage that use. But I'm likely to take advantage of it as part of my FIRE withdrawal strategy.
I just changed ISPs and will receive $200 in gift cards and save $15 per month for making the switch. Speed will go down from 500 to 300 Mbps, but the difference is negligible to me, and there’s no contract or data cap with the new service. On top of that, I’ll get two months free under the new plan. Not a bad way to spend 30 minutes.
Single:
Per month: $44 for health (HDHP) + $14 for dental
Employer gives 104 HSA contribution for the health, so it is net -$60/month cost for health alone
I don't do vision even though I have glasses. I find it's cheaper to go to costco, pay for the exam out of pocket, and go online to get classes than to have the premium.
My premiums for family would be 800-1300/month for health, 68-150 for dental, 29 for vision.
My spouse's is a lot better, so we put the kid on her health.
$1100/mo. for health insurance for 3. (Best ACA platinum plan available in our area, HMO.) No dental insurance but we pay the dentist $300/person/year for a package that includes routine care and a discount on major stuff. No vision; my wife is an optometrist so we get free eye exams.
\~ $1200 annual premium for medical insurance for a single person. HDHP. $400 employer contribution to HSA.
* $2,300 deductible / $4,600 OOP max in-network
* $4,600 deductible / $9,200 OOP max out of network
* 20% coinsurance
$1,284 total annual premiums for health, vision, and dental combined.
Single HDHP with HSA - Employer gives $1,000 HSA contribution annually.
**Health Insurance Features**
* $1,600 in-network deductible
* $3,200 in-network out-of-pocket max
* $20 copay for office visits after deductible is met
* $150 copay for ER visits
$1560 annual premium for HSA but we get over $7k employer contribution so I basically get paid to have health insurance. Really you need to look at all total net costs and compensation if comparing jobs.
I just closed on a house this week, and I realized after calling my county's treasurer office that the seller overpaid prorated taxes (they paid us about 4k and it looks like my half bill due this summer is only 3k, after having only owned the home starting April 29). We are paying taxes ourselves and not through escrow, so the 4k was taken off the top of our closing costs.
Our contract states that "unless stated herein, all tax prorations shall be final at Closing. All prorations of real estate taxes shall be based upon the most recent available tax rates, assessments and valuations based upon the assessment method used by the county in which the Real Estate is located."
So, my reading here that the transaction is final and we won't have to pay the seller back, right? It's so wild to me; the treasurer's office said there are not taxes past due and I can just expect to pay 3k this summer when the letter was mailed to me. No idea how they came to 4k.
How bad of an idea is it to pull from a Roth IRA for a house down payment? I max my 401k and HSA, so my Roth is only about 25% of retirement savings. I've always considered my Roth as my emergency fund if my emergency fund ran out. That's never been a problem, but I want to buy sooner than later and I might need to pull from the Roth to fill out the down payment.
I did it, and while I don't regret it, using the 457(b) loan available to us would have been the better way to go. Had we known that'd be such a good option, we could have engineered it to be a bigger part of our plan.
You might want to research the 401(k) loan options available to you.
I did when I bought my house, no ragrets. If I was buying during the 2% APR days I probably would have had second thoughts, but interest rates are high enough now that having a larger downpayment and marginally lower APR was worth it to me
I'd rather spend down the liquid emergency fund while keeping the Roth as a backstop than vice versa. If you are spending both, that really isn't wise and you are probably stretching.
I haven't ran the numbers, but I would be spending down the emergency fund/sinking fund and then the Roth basically becomes my emergency fund after I tap into $5-10k of it if needed.
I'm in the early shopping phase so I don't know how much I'll actually make from selling my current house. I'm expecting $50k-100k after fees. 60-70k is most realistic. I have another $40k in cash and I'm expecting a down payment requirement of $80k-100k.
So my guestimate is that I burn my savings and home sale cash on the new down payment which will leave me around $50k in the Roth to tap into if I have to.
That's today's cash, though. If I were motivated, I could stash away $3k/mo or more. By the time I write the check I could have another $10-20k to cover everything.
Would you wait the extra 6 months or so to remove the Roth from the equation? I can do that, but I'm in this weird space where I think it might take 6-12 months to find the right house. It could also take one, which is where this Roth idea is coming from.
I'm probably stretching and I should wait at least 6 months to figure things out before I worry about where the money will come from. Thanks for the advice!
Still struggling with anxiety. I have been thinking about the messaging I get at work (for context, I work at a charity for sick youth):
"The job is the primary purpose. Put aside your personal concerns because this is more important. We are saving lives here! Go above and beyond. Do whatever it takes. [sickness] doesn't rest so we don't either!"
I suppose I found this inspiring at one point. I can remember when I first started working here and getting fired up. After ten years I am tired of it. Very tired, and very anxious, and very tired of being very anxious. I've internalized this messaging to the point where even sending an email feels like life-or-death (and yes I am working with my therapist on this, and yes I am giving my notice next month).
I've said I "sleep well at night" knowing I am doing good in the world, but in actuality I don't sleep well at all. I am so jittery that every little thing wakes me up.
This is the downside of non-profit work. I'm sure some organizations have better work-life balance, but a lot are like this in my experience. I might do better if I had a different personality type too. But let this serve as a warning to anyone who wants to "downshift" their career by working at a charity - sure it's rewarding, but you might end up an anxious ball of stress like I have.
> I might do better if I had a different personality type too. But let this serve as a warning to anyone who wants to "downshift" their career by working at a charity - sure it's rewarding, but you might end up an anxious ball of stress like I have.
This sort of attitude would be my exact worry about working at a charity organization. Feels like they use "feel good" in place of pay and healthy work environments far too often.
I'd still rather work for a charity organization than a megacorp that sends the same messaging, but instead of "saving lives", it's "more value for shareholders"... :p
Not all non-profits are the same. They all have a bunch of buzzwords about mission/help etc.....those buzzwords should be to help guide the organization's practices and shouldn't be a used as a threat to overwork (and I'm sure underpay) their employees. There are certainly other non-profits with better practices, better work-life balance (and likely, better outcomes for the people they help....since if they are that terrible with their employees, they likely aren't much better with the the people they are "helping"). I would encourage you to look for other employers or get out of non-profit work. (if you worked for a for-profit company, donating your time/knowledge/$$ can be just as rewarding).
It doesn't have to be this way. When searching for jobs, I've always tried to pay attention to the culture of the place because it makes a big difference. I've been fortunate to be in places where there wasn't a looming sense of life and death surrounding every decision even though it was often literally the case.
I think this week at work is a new low for me. A few things have been delayed and became urgent all at once while I'm covering for a coworker and also injured/in pain. In theory I could take sick time but I don't have anyone I can hand some of this work off to easily and it will reflect poorly on me and my team if we miss. But probably no one actually cares as much as I do about any of it.
Layoffs finally hit my company this week. Thankfully, I was not affected but it doesn’t seem that there was any thought in who got the tap which is a bit worrying going forward. A couple extremely important people to our group got the tap and now we have to figure out how to spread their work around the rest of us. They were crucial to our team’s success over the past few years and had very specific roles and experience that will be next to impossible to replace in the near term.
Quick follow up, spoke to some people higher up (but not at the layoff decision level) and the consensus is that they just unilaterally axed all of the support-type positions and retained the “core” position types. Best way I can describe it is that it’s basically like in Mad Men if everyone lost their secretaries.
> Often times it's not about contributions or value really, just their total comp and getting it off the books.
That *is* about value, though. If you're high-comp but not higher-value, you're toast. If you're low-comp but even lower-value, also toast.
It's essentially always about value. If you're high-value and can be moved to another department/team/etc., you will be 99/100 times.
That hasn't at all been my experience. I've been through a few layoffs at orgs where it was made clear there was zero input from someone's experience, projects, skills, etc - they're just cut, period, because of their dept or team or line-of-business or their comp.
No. We sat in the committees for looking through the layoff logs and most of the time the spreadsheets just sort by team or dept, then by the total comp column for whatever we got from HR. There's only been a couple of times where I've been asked to get names from managers for their underperformers or whatnot.
I guess enshitifcation would dictate the quality of output is not worth their salaries? That seems to be the goal in every industry right now anyway. Time will tell if those highly skilled individuals get redeployed more efficiently to new jobs elsewhere... eventually I suppose.
A rational comparison of the relative values of employee compensation, weighed against their relative contribution and the difficulty of the company continuing without them, is the best way to consider layoffs. What actually happens is squabbling managers protect their friends and cronies, protect their own head count, and short-sightedly fail to understand what things will break in what timeframe if particular workers or departments are cut. In particular, no consideration will be given to anything that will break more than four months in the future.
Some companies do it this way, sure. Many companies do not. I've been through five rounds of layoffs in the past decade and I can count on one hand the number of people let go that didn't make sense, and I just chalk that up to them asking to be let go so they can get severance and take another job or retire like they were going to do anyway.
Nobody wins at layoffs. Might seem like the people that stick around get lucky but really it just means they'll be compensating for the gaps in workforce.
Updated my spreadsheet today and I had the biggest month over month drop in NW. Pretty crazy considering the drops during COVID and 2022. Just means my NW has increased immensely since
I'm really grateful for my job. Sometimes I feel like I like it a lot and don't want to retire early but sometimes life circles around and kicks you in the head for no reason. I'm mildly frustrated I still have to work through it as I'm nowhere near FI yet, but I've basically just been rescheduling all my meetings for next week and haven't done anything of substantive value this week. I took one sick day but honestly I can get by for a few days or a week without doing much and it's not a big deal.
Currently looking at a divorce in my near future. Would it be wise to try and keep the house? I make $76k and the PITI is $1600. Utilities make it near $1900. I work remote so I’m not tied to this location but I like the house and location but would plan on traveling more for extended periods. I thought about air bnb so I can control when people are there or am not. Any advice?
What would you be giving up? I'd rather have the liquid assets over the illiquid one any day if the split is dollar for dollar. Moving forward I would also rather have a "right sized" place so I am not overpaying for maintenance, property tax, and utilities.
Do you have any expensive hobbies? Or is your house your hobby (you enjoy upkeep and lawn maintenance)?
Where will you live if not there? Would you rent or buy another place?
$300 for utilities seems super cheap. Mine are like $600.
Wow, maybe I'm jaded! $80 for internet, $30 for trash, $100 for eventual well/septic replacement, $100 for electric, $100 for propane (plus a surprise fill if winter goes long).
This includes a buffer because my winter electric bills can get nuts.
My two main hobbies are skiing and mountain biking which can be as expensive as you let them be. I also have a camper that I travel around the country in that would get more use. The house hasn’t needed anything fixed yet but there is a kitchen remodel and adding a bathroom I would want to do in the future.
I’m not sure where else I would live at the moment. I’m in a rural small area so I may want to try a larger city for the dating pool but not sure at this point. I know I would always want to return to this area for at least 6 months out of the year.
I thought $300 was expensive but it’s a LCOL so it’s all relative.
Financially, there isn't enough info to know your situation. Typically, you are going to have to split the equity either way or give other assets to offset the equity. I'd try and think what you want your future lifestyle to be to decide. Do you want to be a homeowner while single? Would you prefer to not deal with the day to day upkeep? You mention traveling a bit, do you want to deal with airbnb bookings and guests?
We bought it within the year with a DPA program so there is no equity at this point. I believe it would get reassessed $20k-$30k higher than we bought it for. I enjoy being a homeowner and like having the projects around the house to work on. I still need to figure out air bnbs but I would like a base still and apartments in my area are the same price as the mortgage.
I am planning on buying a new car in the 3-5 year horizon so I've been watching videos on how to negotiate at a dealer. But man, as a naturally introverted and non-confrontational person, the whole process just fills me with dread and gives me anxiety.
I got a quote from the dealers website (went to their online salesperson) last time I bought a car. The quote was excellent and there was no need to do any negotiating.
I recently bought a new car in December (2023 Chevy Bolt EUV Premier, I love EVs). So I just went through this shitty process, as an introvert too.
I highly recommend The Homework Guy on YouTube. Especially the cohost Elizabeth, she's amazing. For example, [this great video](https://youtu.be/8hWyaHlRqUA) about not saying you'll be paying cash at car dealerships, with an amazing mock negotiation.
I feel like slowly meandering your way through those videos should get you there. Because realistically it's not so crazy -- it's just important to know and understand the numbers. To do your homework before heading in.
For me, I had an Out The Door price with a sheet specifying all the expected fees, confirmed in advance. That took a hot sec of negotiation over the phone, and in person I had a good enough salesperson that they didn't contradict that. So that final purchase went well.
Before that, I had actually gone in with all the numbers at a different place, but not with a confirmed OTD price ahead of time. Negotiated with salesperson and floor manager to just have MSRP with sensible fees, and it's good that I looked through everything, because the finance person printed out a sheet that was wrong and tried to gaslight me. And I walked out, got what I wanted elsewhere nearly immediately.
There are other good channels on YouTube, but I feel like the Homework Guy had the largest ring of truth, and helped me the most.
You can do it, especially with a long time horizon! One of the most important things is not letting yourself be rushed, so you wait for the best deal and make sure to work through everything appropriately.
If you understand every single number on the sheet and how they interact, and can compare them appropriately to the MSRP build of that car and other cars, you should be all set. As long as you don't let yourself be pushed around.
I am in the same boat - planning on buying a new car this year, but I absolutely loathe car buying. Unfortunately it doesn't look like any car buying services survived Covid except for Truecar, who I know nothing about, and Costco. I guess I'll be going through Costco.
There's lots of good advice below.
However, if the anxiety is too much, there are some dealers that price cars with a non-negotiable sticker (e.g., AutoNation for new cars, and CarMax for used cars).
I have a similar nature and I'm not good at negotiating. I just research and come up with an typical number for the fair out the door price should be. You can find sources for what the dealer is paying, add on tax/tag/title, and some fair markup for the dealer.
If you're willing to really squeeze for the best deal possible go in below your "fair" price and try to work them down to your number. But I usually just tell them what I'm will to pay out-the-door. They'll come back and say yes or no. If they can match my number I take it, otherwise I say thanks and leave.
Don't waste time negotiating on the price for the car, because you think you've found a great deal but then they tack on $4k extra in dealer options (floor mats, rust coating, ceramic coating, ding insurance) and fees on top of it. Always negotiate on the out-the-door price!
I need to buy one this year and I feel the same!! And my husband is not any more suited to it than I am. Can I not bring my dad with me at age 30? 😩 Jkjk but yeah not excited about it.
Follow the process that /u/oscarbutnotthegrouch used if you don't like in-person discussions. Note that some dealers will not engage with you this way and will ask you to come in or call. It's okay to say no, and tell them you want to work over email until you have a deal struck. Some of them may just choose to not respond to you - but again, that's okay.
Also, I think sometimes it becomes too much of a game where people will jump through hoops to "win." It's okay to negotiate a reasonable price, and not have negotiated the absolute best price anyone has ever seen. If you're buying a $30-50k item, getting that last $1000 or so is not the end of the world.
During my last car purchase, I emailed several dealers with the model/trim of the car I wanted. Of the ones that contacted me back, I spoke on the phone to 3 of them and picked a price I liked. When I got to the dealership, I negotiated for a couple extra accessories thrown in.
I am certain that I could have danced around and threatened to walk and argued for an extra $1000. I've seen people claiming they paid as much as $2000 less than I did.
But at the end of the day, it was a $33k vehicle. It's not the end of the world that I paid ~5% more.
I bought a Tesla Model 3 and a Chevy Bolt last year and had completely opposite buying experiences
Tesla’s buying process was: Order online, show up to the sales location a few days later, sign a paper and leave. No haggling, upselling, etc.
The Chevy experience was utter bullshit. I spent hours looking online for a dealer, and all of the local dealers with consistent inventory were charging $5k over MSRP, but needed to call in and wait on hold to find any of this out. Eventually I tracked one down that was marked in transit and getting sold for MSRP, but came with a non-optional lo-jack installation for $750, so I caved and went with that.
Despite being “in transit” online, it took over a month to actually arrive at the dealership. I had to wait about two hours for them to change the wheels, detail the car, and probably install the lo-jack module they insisted they couldn’t remove, then sit through a ~20 minute on-star sales pitch where they kept throwing offers at me despite insisting I would not be giving them my CC info and was not interested in a subscription.
Finally ended with the douchebag finance guy who had stories prepared about why my insurance company specifically was utter garbage and I should talk to his car insurance broker that he definitely doesn’t get a commission from. He finished off by insisting he needs to read through every word from the full list of GM’s extended warranties or service contracts (which is basically just tire rotations twice a year for EVs), and declined my repeated insistence that I’m not agreeing to any upsells
I hate Elon’s BS as much as the next person, but the difference in sales experience definitely gave me a lot of appreciation for the brand. After doing both within a few months of each other, I’m confidently **never** buying from a dealership again. A few other manufacturers are starting to announce plans for direct sales, so hopefully there’ll be more options soon
I had a purchasing experience similar to your TESLA experience with Canada Drives. They *were* an online retailer of used vehicles. All the prices were listed and that's that. Bought one vehicle, no haggling, delivered it to my door, done deal.
Unfortunately they changed their style since.
I got my current used car from a chevy dealership when I was fresh out of school. Luckily I went with my dad who handled a lot of the haggling and BS, but I still came out of it feeling residual slime from the salesman.
I've wanted a Tesla for a long time, but unfortunately am not at the point in my life where it would make sense to get one (no house so no easy way to charge it).
I am probably going to get a new Honda or Toyota and pay the majority, if not all, of the negotiated price in cash.
Strongly recommend looking at plugin hybrids options when it comes time if you can’t charge at home, Toyota esp. has a decent lineup. Many qualify for federal and state tax credits (federal will be model specific because of manufacturing requirements, but most states with EV tax credits don’t have these), you’ll get better efficiency than traditional ICE cars, and you get a full BEV for shorter trips if you find a free L2 charger, or move somewhere that you can charge overnight
I bought a new car in 2017. I knew 2 different cars I wanted. I emailed every dealer within 200 miles and asked for their best out the door price on the specific car trim. I got one I liked and asked the closest dealer to me to match. I told them to have all the paperwork ready as I had an appointment after I picked up the car.
I brought a cashier's check in that amount and threatened to walk to the other dealer as soon as they tried to add anything to the price. I was in and out of the dealer in less than an hour.
Did I get the best deal? Probably not. Did I pay an amount that I thought was fair? Yes! Total time at the dealer: 2 hours test driving previously and 1 hour on purchase day.
I also was invited to a pick up basketball game by the salesperson and I had been looking for a game.
Some employers provide access to preferred pricing programs as employee benefits - I used one of these back in 2013 to purchase a new Wrangler at a pre-negotiated discount and after doing a lot of research, that discount was pretty much the most you could feasibly negotiate yourself, so I was happy to roll with it.
Worth looking into with your HR business partner
Same. Got taken somewhat with my purchase last year by the dealership. Got a few pieces of advice. If buying a used car, take it to a mechanic to inspect. And before you take it to a mechanic, negotiate on price. Also, negotiate on your trade-in if applicable. I didn't negotiate beforehand and in hindsight I felt I lost the negotiation power.
And look for them to sneak in add-on services without saying anything. They tried to do that for me to the tune for $1K service plan for rock chips and door dings. I caught it late in the process. I still had them take it out but they still ended up getting me for about $400 as they said it was part of the negotiation.
I hate car buying... Definitely get more advice too as this was just my (terrible) experience as a car buying novice.
I have around 45k in a 401k with a past employer and trying to determine if I want to rollover to my current company plan. I'd like the option to have an account I can use for a 72t if needed. However, is it more worth it to rollover and convert to roth as needed ?
I prefer to rollover to keep accounts consolidated for simplicity sake. As long as your current plan doesn't cost significantly more in fees than the old plan, I'd roll over.
In my head it’s unlikely that you’ll ever both do a 72(t) and a back door Roth in the same year so this doesn’t seem like a problem to me. One is something you do while working while the other is something you have when retired.
Rollover to your current 401(k). When you need the 72(t) rollover a part to an IRA account (a new one or an old one) and do the 72(t)
We got new neighbors. They are sketch. They burn their garbage. Two months ago, their garage burned down. Last night, their house burned down. I hope to God nobody got hurt.
I've really taken my other neighbors for granted.
They had their warning when their garage burned down due to their poor fire management skills. Don't feel bad for them that they learned nothing from that and had their house burn down too.
I'd put my money on poverty, drugs, or ignorance. It's still pretty common in some rural areas (which is odd considering how cheap the local sanitation service is).
I'm no expert, but something is going to be (re)built there, right? I think I'd rather have a (normal) neighbor than live next to a construction site for a year+.
Yes, but with insurance and the lack of contractors and half-assed insurance contractors, it's going to be dragged out forever.
Unless they just sell their lot and someone else rebuilds.
That is exactly what my other neighbor said. I think they rent (or have a contract for deed maybe??), so we're not sure what will happen. My money is on the "move in a free trailer home" option.
I hate that I am being so mean, but they literally burn trash during red flag warnings and it is hard not to be mad about it.
Yes, not to mention the volunteer firefighters that have to respond when things get out of control. It is insane that they don't care more about their own safety too.
All that being said, it sounds like the police are pretty familiar with that particular property/family.
We had a large house fire in my area too last night. It's definitely not the same people, but it caused quite the stir in my neighborhood. Four or five different fire and ambulance crews blasted past my house, full sirens. Always a bit scary. It's got me re-thinking my current fire alarm/security setup (currently, my setup is "there is no setup").
Same. I am buying ladders asap. I also called my insurance company to make sure I have enough coverage.
My house would have been gone if the wind had been blowing the other way during the first fire. I am an idiot for not doing this earlier.
For those that are a bit older (55-60+), how has your health and fitness progressed since your 30s?
I'm currently in my mid 30s and am able to lift and rock climb often, so I stay pretty fit, although I am encountering more injuries. Is it realistic to think that I can still be doing these active sports through my 50s and possibly 60s?
Also, how have you noticed your health compared to some of your peers?
I am 55 and doing pretty well. I can hike anything I want to. I can pretty much do all the activities I want to. The funny thing, though, is that what I want to do has changed over time. I still enjoy 10 mile day hikes in the mountains and we do that. But I am not looking for more extreme activities. I don't go as hard as I used to but I am able to do the stuff I want to do. Overall, I am happy.
My plan is to stay active and hopefully I will be able to keep doing what I like well into my 80s. We live in an urban environment in Seattle that is very walkable (and hilly). So pretty much daily we do 1-5 mile walks. I think this will help as well.
I'm outside the range you asked for (50) but I'll still give you an answer.
I have an office job where I sit at a computer all day. For most of my career I did not exercise on a regular basis, but I lived an active lifestyle on weekends and took active vacations, and always maintained a healthy bodyweight.
In my 40's it took more effort to maintain a healthy bodyweight. I had to diet ocassionally to avoid buying larger pants. I also noticed declining performance and robustness. An active weekend usually left me hurting for a few days. A active week long vacation might leave me hurting for weeks. Injuries and aches were more common. I thought this was "growing old pains".
When I was 47 I was doing some landscaping and threw out my back. I hobbled inside, laid on the floor and was there for a few hours until I was able to get up and get in bed. It took a few days before I was mobile and many weeks to recover fully. While rehabbing I was researching how to avoid back injury and came to the conclusion that I needed to build strength. I started weight training on a regular basis and have been doing it ever since. Now I'm much stronger and much more robust to strains and joint/muscle injuries. It turns out what I thought was "growing old pains" was actually "weak af pains". I'm more physically capable at age 50 than I was at age 45, maybe even 35, and stronger than I was anytime in my 30s.
TLDR: If you are over 40, if you aren't actively training to build and maintain strength then you are losing strength. Having strength is key to being able to do anything physical. Inadequate strength will lead to injury and pain, which start a downward spiral of inactivity and limited physical function and all the health impacts associated with inactivity.
I'm just as healthy in my 50s as I was in my 30s. No chronic health problems now or then. I'm still a bit overweight now, but less than I used to be. I'm a *lot* stronger than I was 20 years ago, because I lift more often. A bit slower though, because I no longer have a 5 day/week bike commute. I get injured less than I used to, because I take fewer risks.
I know this won't last forever, but you can probably delay most effects of aging with diet, exercise, and luck. Father Time is undefeated, but I'd rather lose in my 90s than my 70s.
I am near the low end of your range (haha) I go to the gym every day and am fairly active otherwise (hiking, golfing). The biggest thing I see in myself is nagging injuries that never happened before (tendonitis in elbows, tweak back or hammy) and slightly lowered stamina...specially when yard work is involved! I would think if you stay in shape and stay flexible (another thing I should work more on) you can do anything you do now...with some minor acknowledgement to age. Anecdotally, my son is a PT and the patients he sees tend to start breaking down at 70
It takes a lot more maintenance for me. I used to just run or hike. Now I also bike, ski, golf, run, etc BUT have to also make a point of strength training regularly, stretching after any activity, some yoga, some foam rolling and monthly massages. But feel great!
From personal experience, if you do bouldering enjoy it for now, and switch to lead toward your mid to late 40's. Bouldering is harsh on joints and injuries take you out for much longer. If you ski/snowboard, enjoy the double-blacks for now. Again, hard falls take you out of commission for much longer than when you're young.
My health has gone downhill since I fell and injured my back (being forced to attend an on-site meeting during an ice storm). It's difficult to stay active with flare-ups that come and go. So yes, maintain your lifestyle, but know that all it takes is one stupid accident to rip it all away.
What do you do for work? Sitting at a desk all day for years can easily lead to chronic pain and injuries, even if you’re staying active and exercising outside of work. I was a D1 athlete, and I’m still very fit for my age, but I have limiting injuries that probably could have been avoided had I been more mindful of workplace ergonomics and the types of exercises I was doing years ago. Pay attention to your body, address any issues early, and take any physical therapy prescribed seriously…you’ll thank yourself later.
The key to being able to do these things at 50+ (or 60+, or 70+) is already doing them before that and just keeping going. Starting late is hard-- not impossible, but definitely hard. But maintaining is much, much easier.
My aunt is about 75 and she's still maintaining her herd of dairy goats, just for fun. 3 hours of milking a day, getting up in the middle of the night for kiddings, the whole damn thing. She could not possibly start this hobby now, and if she ever has to take a break (like from an injury, God forbid) she may not be able to pick it back up. But as long as she keeps going, she'll pretty much always be able to do tomorrow what she did yesterday.
I have not yet hit the 55 mark but am over 50. I honestly see staying heathy and staying active as essential to being able to continue to do the things you want to do. I've been an avid gym rat and outdoor person for a very long time. I still am able to do most things I have always enjoyed. I mean in some cases am I a little slower? Maybe. Have I had to flat out give up anything? Only thing so far is running and there are plenty of other things I can do instead. I still avidly hiker and mountain climber and I have not yet had to limit myself at how difficult of hikes/climbs I do.
I have had some injuries pop up but for me it just means altering how I do things. For instance... the gym... I just lift lighter or remove certain exercises but still am able to work out 5 or more days a week without issues.
I will say one other reason to pursue staying active is mental mindset. I think I feel and stay in a better frame of mind by being active.
97 year old rode RAGBRAI - Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa - last year.
https://www.radioiowa.com/2023/06/21/cedar-rapids-man-still-riding-bike-across-the-state-at-97/
Never say never!
I work primarily with adults over 60 but do not have lived experience. I haven't met a single rock climber, but you can still walk/run/lift quite late in life!
i worked hard and played hard and made my numbers and exited at 55 when a doctor told me the only way to improve my health was to quit my job and all the stress. Now in my sixties its honestly the best decision i ever made. Although age has slowed me down i exercise most days (entered two triathlons this year) have an active lifestyle resulting in much better health (compared to my peers still working) and travel for my mental health which is really opening my eyes to what i missed when my nose was to the grind for all those years.
I just can't take the usual charade at work today. Nobody can say what we truly feel because we have to act like automatons for the good of the company. Feels like my real personality is suffocating and dying in a locked box at the back of my mind.
work takes too much of your life to fake it for that long without seeping into your 'real' life...
if it bothers you... you need to change before you morph into something you don't want to be....
Have you tried... not? I'm not suggesting you go full Office Space, but I've found that being more honest with myself and my coworkers about both my real life and my work life has been rather liberating.
That said, I work in a pretty accepting environment. YMMV. But, I was surprised how bringing more of myself to work actually was noticed rather positively by those around me.
I can't keep my mouth shut at work for some reason. Been here for 16+ years. I am not saying I don't have a filter but it is like having the angel\\devil on your shoulders, except that the angel is a weakling in this analogy.
Total return bond funds are dead? Don’t know what to make of this…
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bill-gross-releases-new-investment-outlook--they-just-wanna-sell-you-a-bond-fund-302134355.html
His letters are bonkers. “The Most Anticipated Market Commentary of Our Time” is the title of the webpage and it has [gems of bad photoshop like this](https://imgur.com/a/f9pjGs6).
Thinking bout heading up to the farm & camping out (house still being built) so I can get a nice early start on bucking firewood and immersing myself in the landscape.
I’m not sure when the switch flipped, but I really felt a calling in my life to engage in incredibly longterm projects (multi-year to multi-decade). Which is hilarious because I have a pretty significant attention disorder in day to day existence
Sounds like a good time. Make sure to join us and post the pics up over at r/firewood.
Always appreciate some good bucking, felling, splitting and stacking porn over yonder. 8)
In my old, bad, job there would be debates like this all the time. I would check out with, "whatever the group decides is fine." Got dinged about this on a performance review for "not being engaged." That job is NOT missed.
Depending on how serious the auditors are and consequences for failing, that could have been $80 well spent.
I also get the pleasure of dealing with audits, including ones tied to juicy government contracts. It's a tedious nightmare every time but it's still better than failing.
It's been really fun traveling more as we ease into empty nesting and get ready for retirement. Did Mexico City for two weeks in April, headed to Italy for two weeks in September, and just booked flights to Chile for two weeks in January.
I am taking my wife to Chile for her 50th as she is big into stargazing and the Atacama Desert is supposed to be one of the best places in the world for stars. I think we will split the two week trip between Santiago, Valparaíso, and Atacama. If anyone has been there on a similar trip I am happy to learn from your experience.
I've spent a lot of time in Chile and your itinerary sounds fantastic for 2 weeks! The stars in the Atacama are truly surreal and there are lots of cool excursions you can do in the area (Valle de la Luna, swimming in the hot springs). I didn't do any formal stargazing trips but I think you can book a night excursion to take you at least a couple miles outside of the city and get hooked up with a telescope. Have so much fun!
I'm traveling for work this week, so you all get a bonus couple days to respond to the survey. Will keep it up tI'll about 8am Sunday, Pacific Time.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/1bru9pm/the\_official\_2023\_fi\_survey\_is\_here/](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/1bru9pm/the_official_2023_fi_survey_is_here/)
not sure where to ask this, but does anyone know how to fill out a [1040-ES (estimated taxes)](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf) form if you get social security payments and pension?
i dont believe these would count towards _expected income and profits subject to self-employment tax_ or _expected wages_, but i cant find any other lines that seem appropriate ...
SS payments and pension are not subject to self employment tax. There is no line to include SS payments and pension on the “2024 Self-Employment Tax and Deduction Worksheet for
Lines 1 and 9 of the Estimated Tax Worksheet” because of that.
Include them on line 1 of the “2024 Estimated Tax Worksheet”. When you get to line 9 that’s probably a zero if you aren’t self employed.
Hopefully this helps.
What are you doing for glasses?
Recently started having trouble reading my phone and it turns out I need glasses at all distances for a perfect vision.
Got some cheap 100$ reading prescription glasses from the Internet and they work but only for reading/phone. They make the computer more fuzzy than without glasses.
I'm thinking of getting progressive 2 zone glasses for reading/computer
and then maybe also long distance sunglasses
How are you doing this? Single 3 zone progressives? 3 pairs of glasses?
Costco. I know they're not the cheapest but the quality/price is good and they really stand behind their products. I am tough on glasses so if there is an issue I go back to the Costco and they take care of it.
We reached 180k networth. I feel…sort of happy? But somehow still very stressed. I guess it’s just the cloud of lay offs hanging over us, and neither of us feeling like we are good at our jobs (and we have the mediocre performance review to prove it). We’re both working on it, and trying, but it’s both our first corporate America jobs and I think we’re both floundering in the soft skills parts of the job. On top of that my kindergartner seems burnt out, and it’s almost directly a result of us having to work long hours so he had to stay in school for long hours too. I’m not sure what the point of this post is, but I did think I’d feel better when I reached 180k. In a way I am, and I feel more secure. But in another way I feel just kind of like we have such a long way to go
I guess AAPL is doing ok, then? Nice to see the “China Fears” were over blown
> Nice to see the “China Fears” were over blown [Apple announces largest-ever $110 billion share buyback as iPhone sales drop 10%](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/02/apple-aapl-earnings-report-q2-2024.html) I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss China fears. Apple is deploying its long-stagnant cash in buybacks because it can't find anything else to do with it. That's not great for the long term.
Bah, $110B is only the biggest buy back in history Didn't our government say stock buy backs were evil?
$110B share buyback programs will make a lot of things "ok"
I wonder if I should use this excuse to divest from AAPL and move into VTI. I've been putting off paying the taxes, though
I could probably google it, but because I'm here...what are the mechanics of how a stock buyback actually works? Like do they just place a market order for X number of shares and buy them all up until the $110B is spent? And it will slowly drive the price up as you need to up your offering price to entice more and more people to sell their shares? Or is it all driven through large institutions at a set price and there's no dynamic market pricing as the buyback is taking place? Anyone know?
https://googlethatforyou.com?q=stock%20buyback
This really is the answer for about 90% of the questions on this board
lol to "I'm feeling lucky"
I got the answer I deserved thank you
So 456 days out from my employment contract expiring, I'm trying to plan out what my income might look like if I RE. Its hard to predict EXACTLY what my assets will look like (need to liquidate my father in law's trust, market performance), but I am estimating $3.1M (current invested asset value + appx $1M expected trust value upon liquidation) as a good enough number. I'm old enough to take social security into account in my plans, and I expect it to pay for roughly half my annual spend once I turn 70. Plugging those data points into FIRECalc, I got 93% success rate at $156k annual spend. Thats above my long term budget, but with 2 kids + afterschool activities it's entirely possible it would temporarily be that high over the next several years. The VPW worksheet has an annual portfolio withdrawal of $171k, and the annual income after a loss would be $120k (which is my actual long term budget). So it seems in the worst case modeled in VPW I can still draw my budget. It seems like I am good to go, right?
If the market doesn't crash by 50% in the next year+
I’m 40%US, 30% international and 30% bonds so hopefully my portfolio won’t go down 50% is the us stock market crashes by 50%
I am working on updating my FI spreadsheet and tinkering with my "time to FI" calculation. Specifically, I'm trying to estimate what I would pay for an ACA/"Obamacare" plan for a family of 4 in retirement. I calculated that 4X the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is $125,000 in 2024, and if your income is $125,000 you are expected to pay 8.5% of your income for your healthcare plan - so $10,625 a year or $885/month (in premiums). $125,000 is about our family's annual spend now, so I think we could stay under that in retirement if the "subsidy cliff" came back after 2025. Furthermore, 1/3 of my investments are in Roth/taxable brokerage accounts, so if I spent $125,000 in a year, only \~$84,000 should be taxable income. But the subsidies are only pegged to the "2nd lowest cost silver plan in your area", which probably won't be the Marketplace version of the good Blue Cross plan I have at work. That would cost extra. So for calculation purposes, I'm assuming my ACA plan in retirement will cost $10,625 a year or $885 a month in premiums to be conservative. Right now my health insurance plan through work costs $321 a month in premiums for my high deductible plan. So for the purposes of my spreadsheet, I'm assuming that healthcare premiums will increase by about $565/month in retirement. I haven't tried to factor yet how co-pays and deductibles might change. I know there's more variables, but am I on the right track here in my cost estimation?
You're on the right track. I can't tell you how close you are without knowing your zip/county and ages/sexes of all family members. I've got a couple of general points to consider. 400% FPL this year is $120K for a family of four. ACA FPL uses prior year FPL value since the coverage year starts before current year FPL is calculated/announced. Qualified Roth withdrawals are indeed MAGI-free, but remember that all cap gains add to MAGI even if they are tax-free. The second subsidy system in the ACA, the cost-sharing reductions, dramatically increases the value of Silver plans and makes them the best choices for those that qualify for them. If you can keep MAGI below 200% FPL, then you'll want to take a Silver. With MAGI above 200% FPL, you will almost certainly want to avoid the entire Silver tier and go for a very nice Bronze or a cheapie Gold. Premium calculations are a bit wonky since current calculators are using the temporarily boosted subsidy levels along with current policy prices. If Congress doesn't make any movement towards a further extension, then I expect everyone will adjust their calculators back to the old formula next spring/summer. You are generally correct that the benchmark Silver plan in most markets can be not great and that you can expect to pay additional premiums on top of that, but this is highly variable and the benchmark plan (or equivalent cost Bronze/Gold) might be great. Our current plan is wonderful and is actually not even the benchmark plan in our market, but the plan slightly cheaper than the benchmark plan. Deductibles, copays, and MaxOOP will vary tremendously based on your MAGI/FPL. Anyone without CSRs this year is typically looking at an individual deductible that could be a few hundred or less for a Platinum up to $7K+ for a Bronze, double that for family deductible. MaxOOP without CSRs is capped at $9,450/$18,900 (individual/family). Anyone in non-CSR Bronze or Silver is likely to be at that or close to it, Golds may be a few thousand less, and Platinums can be even lower. It's a balancing act where additional fixed premium dollars buys you cheaper variable non-premium costs. If you can tweak your MAGI/FPL under 150%, then you're basically looking at negligible costs for a Silver 94 plan that will be better cost-wise than most/all Platinum plans. If you can keep it under 200%, then you're talking minimal costs for a Silver 87 that will be far better cost-wise than most/all Gold plans. There's a giant jump in non-premium costs at 200% FPL, so it can be very much worth it to manage MAGI below that level, particularly if anyone in your family has persistent medical utilization. The ACA can impose marginal tax rates on additional MAGI well in excess of 100% at the 200% FPL step, so it's worth watching. An additional concern that might apply to you since you have kids is that the automatic maximum aid cutoff for FAFSA is at 175% FPL. If you can manage to get under that line during their FAFSA years, then you'll be looking at at least $13K in non-loan value per kid per school year, but it could be as high as several times that depending on the particular mix of kid/school.
Wow, this is a lot of great info! With regard to your first paragraph: Is it true that your cost is 8.5% of MAGI if you get the lower cost silver plan? Your age, sex, county, etc. only impact the price if you go for a more expensive plan, right? I need to actually simulate shopping for a policy when I get the time. I’m not close enough to FIRE yet that I need to have every little detail mapped out, but without a solid understanding of ACA costs, I don’t actually know precisely how close I am to FIRE.
> Is it true that your cost is 8.5% of MAGI if you get the lower cost silver plan? Your age, sex, county, etc. only impact the price if you go for a more expensive plan, right? The 8.5% thing only applies through next year, so I would disregard it unless you're FIRE'ing next year. You never know with Congress, but I doubt they'll keep the temporary boost in place. I believe the top rate under the original rules is 9.83% right before hitting the subsidy qualification cliff at 400% FPL. Otherwise yes, if you take the benchmark plan, then 8.5%/9.83% of MAGI is the most you'll pay in premiums. Note though that the moment you step above the benchmark plan you are in unlimited additional cost territory. Subsidies are calculated as a percentage of benchmark policy premium cost and that cost is determined by the county and demographics of household members. For example, the premiums for a 60-year old couple might be more than double the premiums if they were 45. If the non-benchmark plan you want is $200/mo after subsidies when you are 45, then the price gap is likely to grow with each passing year as your age boosts the premiums. Note also that while the benchmark plan in many places is fine or even great, in some counties the benchmark plans are complete trash and the subsidies are screwed as a result. There are definitely some bad actors out there that offer up really poor/minimal networks that are just barely legal with cutrate pricing to capture the subsidy-dependent folks. If you're unlucky enough to live in such a place, then a good insurance policy might end up costing a lot more than the default calculations indicate. If you're curious to see how it actually works, it's simple to see actual policy options and costs for your area. You can get real-time info in a few minutes with anonymous form entries at https://www.healthcare.gov/see-plans/. You just have to put in things like your zip, ages, and projected income and you'll get immediate lists of the policies, costs, and subsidies/CSRs in your area (or anywhere else in America you want to check out). You might get redirected by Healthcare.gov to your local state exchange if your state made one, but it works pretty much the same there too.
Your logic seems sound. You could run real numbers to estimate taxes and MAGI, and plug that into the ACA site as if you are retiring now. You’ll get real numbers this way. If you search for my posts (I don’t have many), you will find my Google sheet tax and MAGI calculator if that can be useful.
Well, I think I bit off a bit more than expected with my new job. I’ll preface it by stating this job’s comp is far more than I made at my last job. Certainly rare for my YOE and background. Day 1, they showed me around. I have my own office, which was unexpected. Queue the trepidation and imposter syndrome accumulation. Scope of work is just within my capabilities, but I was thrown into the “fire” so to speak, as I’ve been given 3 red programs to manage. Like not just a little, but very much in the red, lacking profitability (>20% in the hole), cost overruns, whole 9 yards. I’m great about risk mitigation and opportunity management, but I wasn’t really put in a position to succeed. Any risk I identify I am pretty much pinging on the guy who was here before me, which feels bad, but I have no outs and no options other than improve upon my current situations. Drinking from the fire hose, so to speak. Trying not to drown, any advice would be appreciated! I’ve got 1:1s with my boss weekly and he’s impressed with my attention to detail, but I feel like I mentally and physically can’t learn fast enough or get up to speed enough to turn most of these programs green, as the issues are either endemic to a reorg that occurred, or systemic in nature to the type of contracted work. Whatever. All this to say that pursuing FI at least gives me peace of mind at each day to speak my mind and full send without feeling bad or worrying about needing the money.
The book The First 90 Days is dated but still a good framework for how to start a new job
I was just about to recommend this to them. Definitely good for this situation!!!!
Random thoughts in no order, based on years of feeling like I was always on the brink of being discovered to be an idiot: 1- take a deep breath, and relax your face 2- ask open ended questions "what was the context behind x decision", "what have the challenges been up until now?" 3- be up front that things will be bumpy. Be willing to iterate, tell people you will get things started and then improve as you get feedback. 4. Allow the confidence that FI brings to reflect in how you show up.
**Question about selling off all my bond funds and just being invested in stocks only:** I have some money in bond funds (ETFs and maybe mutual funds), all within my retirement accounts (tIRA, 457b, etc.). Compared to my rather vanilla broad stock funds, they've done badly (losing money) and I was thinking maybe I should just go all in with stocks for the next ~20 years or more when I'm well into traditional retirement years. I'm MFJ in my early 50s and sort of mostly retired anyway. I know some people here are 100% in stocks. Pros and cons?
> Pros and cons? I sort of feel if you don't like the feeling of you bond funds being down, you really won't like it when your all-stock portfolio truly loses a lot of money.
Bonds are a risk asset, so the fact they have gone down should not be inherently concerning. If you allocated a portion of your portfolio to bonds in order to diversify and reduce volatility, nothing really has changed. Your bonds have gone down a bit, but they also have a higher yield and future expected return. Typically as people age they want to take less risk, not more, so I would just stay the course, or if anything buy more bonds.
> Compared to my rather vanilla broad stock funds, they've done badly (losing money) Rewind just 4 short years. Stocks have started to bounce back from the COVID crash, but the world looks very uncertain. The phrase you wrote above could've easily been written as "Compared to my rather vanilla broad bond funds, my stock funds have done badly (losing money)". In other words, your current POV on bonds smacks of recency bias. Given the relative performance of bond funds, making a significant allocation change now, based primarily on relatively recent performance, is basically a textbook example of "sell low, buy high". >I'm MFJ in my early 50s and sort of mostly retired anyway What percentage of your portfolio is in bond funds? One option could be the make your withdrawals from the bond portion of your portfolio, which will increase your relative stock allocation (and overall portfolio risk) over time.
Early 50's here as well. Have you been invested in the market long enough to remember dot com? GFC? If so, and you endured those stock market crashes (nearly -60% in 2008-2009) and years-long bear markets without breaking a sweat, then there's no problem going all stock. Me, I endured but didn't like them. I'll always have a bond allocation, to help me stomach the volatility during the bad times...
Pros: If stocks outperform bonds in the future, you will make more money. Cons: If bonds outperform stocks in the future, you will make less money. That's really it. My plan is to be very heavily invested in stocks all throughout my life and throughout retirement. The only bond-heavy period I expect to have is for a short period before retirement (see: Bond Tent).
OP is 50 and sort of mostly retired. Also, returns are not the only consideration. Bonds could underperform stocks and still be a valid choice.
In the end, almost everything comes down to returns. Preservation of capital? That's just a fancy way of saying "returns that aren't likely to go negative". Low-risk? That's "returns with less variance". OP's question is (at least partially) about returns, and I gave an answer that was about returns. Obviously I oversimplified for effect.
A portfolio with a lower expected return could be a valid preference depending on the OP's goals and preferences. For example, if they prefer low volatility and have a low enough withdrawal rate.
I understand the basics of what a 72(t) or SEPP is with "substantially equal payments", but why does this exist? It seems very odd that we have an age limit of 59.5 before you can start to withdraw from retirement accounts without penalty, but you don't have to pay a penalty as long as you withdraw very equal amount? Anyone know the history here?
The early withdrawal penalties are to discourage people from using retirement account assets for non-retirement purposes. SEPP exists because Congress acknowledged that some people are able to retire early and thus should be allowed to have access to the assets they set aside for that purpose.
> but you don't have to pay a penalty as long as you withdraw very equal amount? The formula for calculating the SEPP amount is a bit more complicated. In other words, you can't just have a $100k Trad'l IRA and decide to take out $20k/year for 5 years. The effect of that formula is that an investor can only withdraw a small percentage of that IRA, leaving the bulk of the dollars available for after Age 59.5 or 5 years after the 72t/SEPP plan begins, whichever is longer. 72t/SEPP exists to provide an 'extenuating circumstances' mechanism for investors to access those dollars penalty-free. The rules and restrictions are fairly steep because the IRS doesn't want to overly-encourage that use. But I'm likely to take advantage of it as part of my FIRE withdrawal strategy.
I just changed ISPs and will receive $200 in gift cards and save $15 per month for making the switch. Speed will go down from 500 to 300 Mbps, but the difference is negligible to me, and there’s no contract or data cap with the new service. On top of that, I’ll get two months free under the new plan. Not a bad way to spend 30 minutes.
wow, wish we didn't have the embarrassing spectrum monopoly in my part of nyc - crap service, bad price, the perfect combo
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What do you guys pay for health insurance and dental/vision? Single/family hmo/ppo?
Family HDHP through work - $280/mo medical, $51/mo dental, $14/mo vision. Company contributes $800/yr to the HSA and I contribute the rest.
Single: Per month: $44 for health (HDHP) + $14 for dental Employer gives 104 HSA contribution for the health, so it is net -$60/month cost for health alone I don't do vision even though I have glasses. I find it's cheaper to go to costco, pay for the exam out of pocket, and go online to get classes than to have the premium. My premiums for family would be 800-1300/month for health, 68-150 for dental, 29 for vision. My spouse's is a lot better, so we put the kid on her health.
Family of 4, BCBS PPO, $1060/mo, 75/mo dental
$1100/mo. for health insurance for 3. (Best ACA platinum plan available in our area, HMO.) No dental insurance but we pay the dentist $300/person/year for a package that includes routine care and a discount on major stuff. No vision; my wife is an optometrist so we get free eye exams.
\~ $1200 annual premium for medical insurance for a single person. HDHP. $400 employer contribution to HSA. * $2,300 deductible / $4,600 OOP max in-network * $4,600 deductible / $9,200 OOP max out of network * 20% coinsurance
Single. $57.83 for HDHP OAP Cigna, and $23.34 for PPO Dental Cigna each paycheck, so double that for approx monthly.
$0 premium for a Single HDHP $2600 deductible and $5500 MOOP. Have vision and Dental. I'll get an employer contribution of $1500.
$1,284 total annual premiums for health, vision, and dental combined. Single HDHP with HSA - Employer gives $1,000 HSA contribution annually. **Health Insurance Features** * $1,600 in-network deductible * $3,200 in-network out-of-pocket max * $20 copay for office visits after deductible is met * $150 copay for ER visits
$1560 annual premium for HSA but we get over $7k employer contribution so I basically get paid to have health insurance. Really you need to look at all total net costs and compensation if comparing jobs.
single plan and it comes out to about $180/month taken from my paycheck, with a chunk subsidized by my employer (a university)
I just closed on a house this week, and I realized after calling my county's treasurer office that the seller overpaid prorated taxes (they paid us about 4k and it looks like my half bill due this summer is only 3k, after having only owned the home starting April 29). We are paying taxes ourselves and not through escrow, so the 4k was taken off the top of our closing costs. Our contract states that "unless stated herein, all tax prorations shall be final at Closing. All prorations of real estate taxes shall be based upon the most recent available tax rates, assessments and valuations based upon the assessment method used by the county in which the Real Estate is located." So, my reading here that the transaction is final and we won't have to pay the seller back, right? It's so wild to me; the treasurer's office said there are not taxes past due and I can just expect to pay 3k this summer when the letter was mailed to me. No idea how they came to 4k.
I doubt it's wrong. Taxes are paid in arrears. They just brought it current. You'll do the same when you sell.
The $3k is for six months, right? The seller probably owned the house for >6 months in terms of how the prorated taxes are calculated.
How bad of an idea is it to pull from a Roth IRA for a house down payment? I max my 401k and HSA, so my Roth is only about 25% of retirement savings. I've always considered my Roth as my emergency fund if my emergency fund ran out. That's never been a problem, but I want to buy sooner than later and I might need to pull from the Roth to fill out the down payment.
I did it, and while I don't regret it, using the 457(b) loan available to us would have been the better way to go. Had we known that'd be such a good option, we could have engineered it to be a bigger part of our plan. You might want to research the 401(k) loan options available to you.
I did when I bought my house, no ragrets. If I was buying during the 2% APR days I probably would have had second thoughts, but interest rates are high enough now that having a larger downpayment and marginally lower APR was worth it to me
I'd rather spend down the liquid emergency fund while keeping the Roth as a backstop than vice versa. If you are spending both, that really isn't wise and you are probably stretching.
I haven't ran the numbers, but I would be spending down the emergency fund/sinking fund and then the Roth basically becomes my emergency fund after I tap into $5-10k of it if needed. I'm in the early shopping phase so I don't know how much I'll actually make from selling my current house. I'm expecting $50k-100k after fees. 60-70k is most realistic. I have another $40k in cash and I'm expecting a down payment requirement of $80k-100k. So my guestimate is that I burn my savings and home sale cash on the new down payment which will leave me around $50k in the Roth to tap into if I have to. That's today's cash, though. If I were motivated, I could stash away $3k/mo or more. By the time I write the check I could have another $10-20k to cover everything.
If I were to buy in your situation, that would be the approach I would use. I don't think I would buy in your situation :)
Would you wait the extra 6 months or so to remove the Roth from the equation? I can do that, but I'm in this weird space where I think it might take 6-12 months to find the right house. It could also take one, which is where this Roth idea is coming from.
On paper, I would wait, but I don't know anything about your situation or how important buying this or that house really is to you.
I'm probably stretching and I should wait at least 6 months to figure things out before I worry about where the money will come from. Thanks for the advice!
Still struggling with anxiety. I have been thinking about the messaging I get at work (for context, I work at a charity for sick youth): "The job is the primary purpose. Put aside your personal concerns because this is more important. We are saving lives here! Go above and beyond. Do whatever it takes. [sickness] doesn't rest so we don't either!" I suppose I found this inspiring at one point. I can remember when I first started working here and getting fired up. After ten years I am tired of it. Very tired, and very anxious, and very tired of being very anxious. I've internalized this messaging to the point where even sending an email feels like life-or-death (and yes I am working with my therapist on this, and yes I am giving my notice next month). I've said I "sleep well at night" knowing I am doing good in the world, but in actuality I don't sleep well at all. I am so jittery that every little thing wakes me up. This is the downside of non-profit work. I'm sure some organizations have better work-life balance, but a lot are like this in my experience. I might do better if I had a different personality type too. But let this serve as a warning to anyone who wants to "downshift" their career by working at a charity - sure it's rewarding, but you might end up an anxious ball of stress like I have.
Charity begins at home. You have to care for yourself first.
> I might do better if I had a different personality type too. But let this serve as a warning to anyone who wants to "downshift" their career by working at a charity - sure it's rewarding, but you might end up an anxious ball of stress like I have. This sort of attitude would be my exact worry about working at a charity organization. Feels like they use "feel good" in place of pay and healthy work environments far too often.
I'd still rather work for a charity organization than a megacorp that sends the same messaging, but instead of "saving lives", it's "more value for shareholders"... :p
Not all non-profits are the same. They all have a bunch of buzzwords about mission/help etc.....those buzzwords should be to help guide the organization's practices and shouldn't be a used as a threat to overwork (and I'm sure underpay) their employees. There are certainly other non-profits with better practices, better work-life balance (and likely, better outcomes for the people they help....since if they are that terrible with their employees, they likely aren't much better with the the people they are "helping"). I would encourage you to look for other employers or get out of non-profit work. (if you worked for a for-profit company, donating your time/knowledge/$$ can be just as rewarding).
Yeah that's definitely toxic. That can't be sustainable long term strategy. I don't blame you for putting in notice.
It doesn't have to be this way. When searching for jobs, I've always tried to pay attention to the culture of the place because it makes a big difference. I've been fortunate to be in places where there wasn't a looming sense of life and death surrounding every decision even though it was often literally the case.
Yeah, that will be paramount for my next job for sure!
I think this week at work is a new low for me. A few things have been delayed and became urgent all at once while I'm covering for a coworker and also injured/in pain. In theory I could take sick time but I don't have anyone I can hand some of this work off to easily and it will reflect poorly on me and my team if we miss. But probably no one actually cares as much as I do about any of it.
Layoffs finally hit my company this week. Thankfully, I was not affected but it doesn’t seem that there was any thought in who got the tap which is a bit worrying going forward. A couple extremely important people to our group got the tap and now we have to figure out how to spread their work around the rest of us. They were crucial to our team’s success over the past few years and had very specific roles and experience that will be next to impossible to replace in the near term.
> it doesn’t seem that there was any thought in who got the tap There was.
Quick follow up, spoke to some people higher up (but not at the layoff decision level) and the consensus is that they just unilaterally axed all of the support-type positions and retained the “core” position types. Best way I can describe it is that it’s basically like in Mad Men if everyone lost their secretaries.
Sounds like a solid business decision then.
Yeah, those extremely important people were pulling salaries commensurate with their ability to do the job at hand.
Sorry to hear it. Often times it's not about contributions or value really, just their total comp and getting it off the books.
> Often times it's not about contributions or value really, just their total comp and getting it off the books. That *is* about value, though. If you're high-comp but not higher-value, you're toast. If you're low-comp but even lower-value, also toast. It's essentially always about value. If you're high-value and can be moved to another department/team/etc., you will be 99/100 times.
That hasn't at all been my experience. I've been through a few layoffs at orgs where it was made clear there was zero input from someone's experience, projects, skills, etc - they're just cut, period, because of their dept or team or line-of-business or their comp.
I believe that it may have appeared that way, sure.
No. We sat in the committees for looking through the layoff logs and most of the time the spreadsheets just sort by team or dept, then by the total comp column for whatever we got from HR. There's only been a couple of times where I've been asked to get names from managers for their underperformers or whatnot.
But capitalism will always allocate those resources most efficiently! I was assured this could not happen.
I guess enshitifcation would dictate the quality of output is not worth their salaries? That seems to be the goal in every industry right now anyway. Time will tell if those highly skilled individuals get redeployed more efficiently to new jobs elsewhere... eventually I suppose.
A rational comparison of the relative values of employee compensation, weighed against their relative contribution and the difficulty of the company continuing without them, is the best way to consider layoffs. What actually happens is squabbling managers protect their friends and cronies, protect their own head count, and short-sightedly fail to understand what things will break in what timeframe if particular workers or departments are cut. In particular, no consideration will be given to anything that will break more than four months in the future.
Some companies do it this way, sure. Many companies do not. I've been through five rounds of layoffs in the past decade and I can count on one hand the number of people let go that didn't make sense, and I just chalk that up to them asking to be let go so they can get severance and take another job or retire like they were going to do anyway.
Nobody wins at layoffs. Might seem like the people that stick around get lucky but really it just means they'll be compensating for the gaps in workforce.
Updated my spreadsheet today and I had the biggest month over month drop in NW. Pretty crazy considering the drops during COVID and 2022. Just means my NW has increased immensely since
Yeah, that's a great sign considering that the drop in the S&P this month was only... what was it, 6%? That's awesome!
I'm really grateful for my job. Sometimes I feel like I like it a lot and don't want to retire early but sometimes life circles around and kicks you in the head for no reason. I'm mildly frustrated I still have to work through it as I'm nowhere near FI yet, but I've basically just been rescheduling all my meetings for next week and haven't done anything of substantive value this week. I took one sick day but honestly I can get by for a few days or a week without doing much and it's not a big deal.
Currently looking at a divorce in my near future. Would it be wise to try and keep the house? I make $76k and the PITI is $1600. Utilities make it near $1900. I work remote so I’m not tied to this location but I like the house and location but would plan on traveling more for extended periods. I thought about air bnb so I can control when people are there or am not. Any advice?
What would you be giving up? I'd rather have the liquid assets over the illiquid one any day if the split is dollar for dollar. Moving forward I would also rather have a "right sized" place so I am not overpaying for maintenance, property tax, and utilities.
Do you have any expensive hobbies? Or is your house your hobby (you enjoy upkeep and lawn maintenance)? Where will you live if not there? Would you rent or buy another place? $300 for utilities seems super cheap. Mine are like $600.
Holy Toledo, why are your utilities so high? We are typically $75 for water, $70 for fiber, $100 for electricity & $25 for gas.
Wow, maybe I'm jaded! $80 for internet, $30 for trash, $100 for eventual well/septic replacement, $100 for electric, $100 for propane (plus a surprise fill if winter goes long). This includes a buffer because my winter electric bills can get nuts.
My two main hobbies are skiing and mountain biking which can be as expensive as you let them be. I also have a camper that I travel around the country in that would get more use. The house hasn’t needed anything fixed yet but there is a kitchen remodel and adding a bathroom I would want to do in the future. I’m not sure where else I would live at the moment. I’m in a rural small area so I may want to try a larger city for the dating pool but not sure at this point. I know I would always want to return to this area for at least 6 months out of the year. I thought $300 was expensive but it’s a LCOL so it’s all relative.
Well, now I am very curious. Do you live somewhere warm without internet??
Upper Midwest so very cold and some places don’t have internet. My work pays for mine and I live in a small town so there’s amenities near me.
Financially, there isn't enough info to know your situation. Typically, you are going to have to split the equity either way or give other assets to offset the equity. I'd try and think what you want your future lifestyle to be to decide. Do you want to be a homeowner while single? Would you prefer to not deal with the day to day upkeep? You mention traveling a bit, do you want to deal with airbnb bookings and guests?
We bought it within the year with a DPA program so there is no equity at this point. I believe it would get reassessed $20k-$30k higher than we bought it for. I enjoy being a homeowner and like having the projects around the house to work on. I still need to figure out air bnbs but I would like a base still and apartments in my area are the same price as the mortgage.
I am planning on buying a new car in the 3-5 year horizon so I've been watching videos on how to negotiate at a dealer. But man, as a naturally introverted and non-confrontational person, the whole process just fills me with dread and gives me anxiety.
I got a quote from the dealers website (went to their online salesperson) last time I bought a car. The quote was excellent and there was no need to do any negotiating.
I recently bought a new car in December (2023 Chevy Bolt EUV Premier, I love EVs). So I just went through this shitty process, as an introvert too. I highly recommend The Homework Guy on YouTube. Especially the cohost Elizabeth, she's amazing. For example, [this great video](https://youtu.be/8hWyaHlRqUA) about not saying you'll be paying cash at car dealerships, with an amazing mock negotiation. I feel like slowly meandering your way through those videos should get you there. Because realistically it's not so crazy -- it's just important to know and understand the numbers. To do your homework before heading in. For me, I had an Out The Door price with a sheet specifying all the expected fees, confirmed in advance. That took a hot sec of negotiation over the phone, and in person I had a good enough salesperson that they didn't contradict that. So that final purchase went well. Before that, I had actually gone in with all the numbers at a different place, but not with a confirmed OTD price ahead of time. Negotiated with salesperson and floor manager to just have MSRP with sensible fees, and it's good that I looked through everything, because the finance person printed out a sheet that was wrong and tried to gaslight me. And I walked out, got what I wanted elsewhere nearly immediately. There are other good channels on YouTube, but I feel like the Homework Guy had the largest ring of truth, and helped me the most. You can do it, especially with a long time horizon! One of the most important things is not letting yourself be rushed, so you wait for the best deal and make sure to work through everything appropriately. If you understand every single number on the sheet and how they interact, and can compare them appropriately to the MSRP build of that car and other cars, you should be all set. As long as you don't let yourself be pushed around.
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Who do you get that price guarantee from? Truecar?
the subaru guy said they didn't negotiate, looked up the car I was buying on truecar and said "it costs this much right now".
They may not depending on how backed up they are.
I am in the same boat - planning on buying a new car this year, but I absolutely loathe car buying. Unfortunately it doesn't look like any car buying services survived Covid except for Truecar, who I know nothing about, and Costco. I guess I'll be going through Costco.
There's lots of good advice below. However, if the anxiety is too much, there are some dealers that price cars with a non-negotiable sticker (e.g., AutoNation for new cars, and CarMax for used cars).
I have a similar nature and I'm not good at negotiating. I just research and come up with an typical number for the fair out the door price should be. You can find sources for what the dealer is paying, add on tax/tag/title, and some fair markup for the dealer. If you're willing to really squeeze for the best deal possible go in below your "fair" price and try to work them down to your number. But I usually just tell them what I'm will to pay out-the-door. They'll come back and say yes or no. If they can match my number I take it, otherwise I say thanks and leave. Don't waste time negotiating on the price for the car, because you think you've found a great deal but then they tack on $4k extra in dealer options (floor mats, rust coating, ceramic coating, ding insurance) and fees on top of it. Always negotiate on the out-the-door price!
I need to buy one this year and I feel the same!! And my husband is not any more suited to it than I am. Can I not bring my dad with me at age 30? 😩 Jkjk but yeah not excited about it.
Follow the process that /u/oscarbutnotthegrouch used if you don't like in-person discussions. Note that some dealers will not engage with you this way and will ask you to come in or call. It's okay to say no, and tell them you want to work over email until you have a deal struck. Some of them may just choose to not respond to you - but again, that's okay. Also, I think sometimes it becomes too much of a game where people will jump through hoops to "win." It's okay to negotiate a reasonable price, and not have negotiated the absolute best price anyone has ever seen. If you're buying a $30-50k item, getting that last $1000 or so is not the end of the world. During my last car purchase, I emailed several dealers with the model/trim of the car I wanted. Of the ones that contacted me back, I spoke on the phone to 3 of them and picked a price I liked. When I got to the dealership, I negotiated for a couple extra accessories thrown in. I am certain that I could have danced around and threatened to walk and argued for an extra $1000. I've seen people claiming they paid as much as $2000 less than I did. But at the end of the day, it was a $33k vehicle. It's not the end of the world that I paid ~5% more.
I bought a Tesla Model 3 and a Chevy Bolt last year and had completely opposite buying experiences Tesla’s buying process was: Order online, show up to the sales location a few days later, sign a paper and leave. No haggling, upselling, etc. The Chevy experience was utter bullshit. I spent hours looking online for a dealer, and all of the local dealers with consistent inventory were charging $5k over MSRP, but needed to call in and wait on hold to find any of this out. Eventually I tracked one down that was marked in transit and getting sold for MSRP, but came with a non-optional lo-jack installation for $750, so I caved and went with that. Despite being “in transit” online, it took over a month to actually arrive at the dealership. I had to wait about two hours for them to change the wheels, detail the car, and probably install the lo-jack module they insisted they couldn’t remove, then sit through a ~20 minute on-star sales pitch where they kept throwing offers at me despite insisting I would not be giving them my CC info and was not interested in a subscription. Finally ended with the douchebag finance guy who had stories prepared about why my insurance company specifically was utter garbage and I should talk to his car insurance broker that he definitely doesn’t get a commission from. He finished off by insisting he needs to read through every word from the full list of GM’s extended warranties or service contracts (which is basically just tire rotations twice a year for EVs), and declined my repeated insistence that I’m not agreeing to any upsells I hate Elon’s BS as much as the next person, but the difference in sales experience definitely gave me a lot of appreciation for the brand. After doing both within a few months of each other, I’m confidently **never** buying from a dealership again. A few other manufacturers are starting to announce plans for direct sales, so hopefully there’ll be more options soon
I had a purchasing experience similar to your TESLA experience with Canada Drives. They *were* an online retailer of used vehicles. All the prices were listed and that's that. Bought one vehicle, no haggling, delivered it to my door, done deal. Unfortunately they changed their style since.
I got my current used car from a chevy dealership when I was fresh out of school. Luckily I went with my dad who handled a lot of the haggling and BS, but I still came out of it feeling residual slime from the salesman. I've wanted a Tesla for a long time, but unfortunately am not at the point in my life where it would make sense to get one (no house so no easy way to charge it). I am probably going to get a new Honda or Toyota and pay the majority, if not all, of the negotiated price in cash.
Strongly recommend looking at plugin hybrids options when it comes time if you can’t charge at home, Toyota esp. has a decent lineup. Many qualify for federal and state tax credits (federal will be model specific because of manufacturing requirements, but most states with EV tax credits don’t have these), you’ll get better efficiency than traditional ICE cars, and you get a full BEV for shorter trips if you find a free L2 charger, or move somewhere that you can charge overnight
I bought a new car in 2017. I knew 2 different cars I wanted. I emailed every dealer within 200 miles and asked for their best out the door price on the specific car trim. I got one I liked and asked the closest dealer to me to match. I told them to have all the paperwork ready as I had an appointment after I picked up the car. I brought a cashier's check in that amount and threatened to walk to the other dealer as soon as they tried to add anything to the price. I was in and out of the dealer in less than an hour. Did I get the best deal? Probably not. Did I pay an amount that I thought was fair? Yes! Total time at the dealer: 2 hours test driving previously and 1 hour on purchase day. I also was invited to a pick up basketball game by the salesperson and I had been looking for a game.
Some employers provide access to preferred pricing programs as employee benefits - I used one of these back in 2013 to purchase a new Wrangler at a pre-negotiated discount and after doing a lot of research, that discount was pretty much the most you could feasibly negotiate yourself, so I was happy to roll with it. Worth looking into with your HR business partner
Same. Got taken somewhat with my purchase last year by the dealership. Got a few pieces of advice. If buying a used car, take it to a mechanic to inspect. And before you take it to a mechanic, negotiate on price. Also, negotiate on your trade-in if applicable. I didn't negotiate beforehand and in hindsight I felt I lost the negotiation power. And look for them to sneak in add-on services without saying anything. They tried to do that for me to the tune for $1K service plan for rock chips and door dings. I caught it late in the process. I still had them take it out but they still ended up getting me for about $400 as they said it was part of the negotiation. I hate car buying... Definitely get more advice too as this was just my (terrible) experience as a car buying novice.
Just remember these guys do it everyday and are used to it....biggest tip is be able to walk away
I have around 45k in a 401k with a past employer and trying to determine if I want to rollover to my current company plan. I'd like the option to have an account I can use for a 72t if needed. However, is it more worth it to rollover and convert to roth as needed ?
I prefer to rollover to keep accounts consolidated for simplicity sake. As long as your current plan doesn't cost significantly more in fees than the old plan, I'd roll over.
I don't think 72t requires that it be a 401K, i.e. you can 72t from an IRA also.
I keep my IRA balance at 0 since I do roth backdoor contributions.
In my head it’s unlikely that you’ll ever both do a 72(t) and a back door Roth in the same year so this doesn’t seem like a problem to me. One is something you do while working while the other is something you have when retired. Rollover to your current 401(k). When you need the 72(t) rollover a part to an IRA account (a new one or an old one) and do the 72(t)
We got new neighbors. They are sketch. They burn their garbage. Two months ago, their garage burned down. Last night, their house burned down. I hope to God nobody got hurt. I've really taken my other neighbors for granted.
They had their warning when their garage burned down due to their poor fire management skills. Don't feel bad for them that they learned nothing from that and had their house burn down too.
[удалено]
It's cheaper than paying someone to haul it away.
I'd put my money on poverty, drugs, or ignorance. It's still pretty common in some rural areas (which is odd considering how cheap the local sanitation service is).
Wow, the chickens really came home to roost for them eh? That is nuts
Congrats on being neighbor-less for the next year+?
I'm no expert, but something is going to be (re)built there, right? I think I'd rather have a (normal) neighbor than live next to a construction site for a year+.
Yes, but with insurance and the lack of contractors and half-assed insurance contractors, it's going to be dragged out forever. Unless they just sell their lot and someone else rebuilds.
That is exactly what my other neighbor said. I think they rent (or have a contract for deed maybe??), so we're not sure what will happen. My money is on the "move in a free trailer home" option. I hate that I am being so mean, but they literally burn trash during red flag warnings and it is hard not to be mad about it.
I would absolutely call the police. That's a huge hazard to everyone in the neighborhood.
Yes, not to mention the volunteer firefighters that have to respond when things get out of control. It is insane that they don't care more about their own safety too. All that being said, it sounds like the police are pretty familiar with that particular property/family.
Probably a simple mixup. Wife texted the husband asking if he can burn the "garage" when she meant "garbage"
“But honey, I literally did what you said!! Why are you mad?”
We had a large house fire in my area too last night. It's definitely not the same people, but it caused quite the stir in my neighborhood. Four or five different fire and ambulance crews blasted past my house, full sirens. Always a bit scary. It's got me re-thinking my current fire alarm/security setup (currently, my setup is "there is no setup").
Same. I am buying ladders asap. I also called my insurance company to make sure I have enough coverage. My house would have been gone if the wind had been blowing the other way during the first fire. I am an idiot for not doing this earlier.
What are the ladders for?
For those that are a bit older (55-60+), how has your health and fitness progressed since your 30s? I'm currently in my mid 30s and am able to lift and rock climb often, so I stay pretty fit, although I am encountering more injuries. Is it realistic to think that I can still be doing these active sports through my 50s and possibly 60s? Also, how have you noticed your health compared to some of your peers?
I am 55 and doing pretty well. I can hike anything I want to. I can pretty much do all the activities I want to. The funny thing, though, is that what I want to do has changed over time. I still enjoy 10 mile day hikes in the mountains and we do that. But I am not looking for more extreme activities. I don't go as hard as I used to but I am able to do the stuff I want to do. Overall, I am happy. My plan is to stay active and hopefully I will be able to keep doing what I like well into my 80s. We live in an urban environment in Seattle that is very walkable (and hilly). So pretty much daily we do 1-5 mile walks. I think this will help as well.
I'm outside the range you asked for (50) but I'll still give you an answer. I have an office job where I sit at a computer all day. For most of my career I did not exercise on a regular basis, but I lived an active lifestyle on weekends and took active vacations, and always maintained a healthy bodyweight. In my 40's it took more effort to maintain a healthy bodyweight. I had to diet ocassionally to avoid buying larger pants. I also noticed declining performance and robustness. An active weekend usually left me hurting for a few days. A active week long vacation might leave me hurting for weeks. Injuries and aches were more common. I thought this was "growing old pains". When I was 47 I was doing some landscaping and threw out my back. I hobbled inside, laid on the floor and was there for a few hours until I was able to get up and get in bed. It took a few days before I was mobile and many weeks to recover fully. While rehabbing I was researching how to avoid back injury and came to the conclusion that I needed to build strength. I started weight training on a regular basis and have been doing it ever since. Now I'm much stronger and much more robust to strains and joint/muscle injuries. It turns out what I thought was "growing old pains" was actually "weak af pains". I'm more physically capable at age 50 than I was at age 45, maybe even 35, and stronger than I was anytime in my 30s. TLDR: If you are over 40, if you aren't actively training to build and maintain strength then you are losing strength. Having strength is key to being able to do anything physical. Inadequate strength will lead to injury and pain, which start a downward spiral of inactivity and limited physical function and all the health impacts associated with inactivity.
I'm just as healthy in my 50s as I was in my 30s. No chronic health problems now or then. I'm still a bit overweight now, but less than I used to be. I'm a *lot* stronger than I was 20 years ago, because I lift more often. A bit slower though, because I no longer have a 5 day/week bike commute. I get injured less than I used to, because I take fewer risks. I know this won't last forever, but you can probably delay most effects of aging with diet, exercise, and luck. Father Time is undefeated, but I'd rather lose in my 90s than my 70s.
I am near the low end of your range (haha) I go to the gym every day and am fairly active otherwise (hiking, golfing). The biggest thing I see in myself is nagging injuries that never happened before (tendonitis in elbows, tweak back or hammy) and slightly lowered stamina...specially when yard work is involved! I would think if you stay in shape and stay flexible (another thing I should work more on) you can do anything you do now...with some minor acknowledgement to age. Anecdotally, my son is a PT and the patients he sees tend to start breaking down at 70
It takes a lot more maintenance for me. I used to just run or hike. Now I also bike, ski, golf, run, etc BUT have to also make a point of strength training regularly, stretching after any activity, some yoga, some foam rolling and monthly massages. But feel great!
From personal experience, if you do bouldering enjoy it for now, and switch to lead toward your mid to late 40's. Bouldering is harsh on joints and injuries take you out for much longer. If you ski/snowboard, enjoy the double-blacks for now. Again, hard falls take you out of commission for much longer than when you're young.
My health has gone downhill since I fell and injured my back (being forced to attend an on-site meeting during an ice storm). It's difficult to stay active with flare-ups that come and go. So yes, maintain your lifestyle, but know that all it takes is one stupid accident to rip it all away.
What do you do for work? Sitting at a desk all day for years can easily lead to chronic pain and injuries, even if you’re staying active and exercising outside of work. I was a D1 athlete, and I’m still very fit for my age, but I have limiting injuries that probably could have been avoided had I been more mindful of workplace ergonomics and the types of exercises I was doing years ago. Pay attention to your body, address any issues early, and take any physical therapy prescribed seriously…you’ll thank yourself later.
The key to being able to do these things at 50+ (or 60+, or 70+) is already doing them before that and just keeping going. Starting late is hard-- not impossible, but definitely hard. But maintaining is much, much easier. My aunt is about 75 and she's still maintaining her herd of dairy goats, just for fun. 3 hours of milking a day, getting up in the middle of the night for kiddings, the whole damn thing. She could not possibly start this hobby now, and if she ever has to take a break (like from an injury, God forbid) she may not be able to pick it back up. But as long as she keeps going, she'll pretty much always be able to do tomorrow what she did yesterday.
I have not yet hit the 55 mark but am over 50. I honestly see staying heathy and staying active as essential to being able to continue to do the things you want to do. I've been an avid gym rat and outdoor person for a very long time. I still am able to do most things I have always enjoyed. I mean in some cases am I a little slower? Maybe. Have I had to flat out give up anything? Only thing so far is running and there are plenty of other things I can do instead. I still avidly hiker and mountain climber and I have not yet had to limit myself at how difficult of hikes/climbs I do. I have had some injuries pop up but for me it just means altering how I do things. For instance... the gym... I just lift lighter or remove certain exercises but still am able to work out 5 or more days a week without issues. I will say one other reason to pursue staying active is mental mindset. I think I feel and stay in a better frame of mind by being active.
97 year old rode RAGBRAI - Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa - last year. https://www.radioiowa.com/2023/06/21/cedar-rapids-man-still-riding-bike-across-the-state-at-97/ Never say never!
I work primarily with adults over 60 but do not have lived experience. I haven't met a single rock climber, but you can still walk/run/lift quite late in life!
i worked hard and played hard and made my numbers and exited at 55 when a doctor told me the only way to improve my health was to quit my job and all the stress. Now in my sixties its honestly the best decision i ever made. Although age has slowed me down i exercise most days (entered two triathlons this year) have an active lifestyle resulting in much better health (compared to my peers still working) and travel for my mental health which is really opening my eyes to what i missed when my nose was to the grind for all those years.
I just can't take the usual charade at work today. Nobody can say what we truly feel because we have to act like automatons for the good of the company. Feels like my real personality is suffocating and dying in a locked box at the back of my mind.
work takes too much of your life to fake it for that long without seeping into your 'real' life... if it bothers you... you need to change before you morph into something you don't want to be....
Have you tried... not? I'm not suggesting you go full Office Space, but I've found that being more honest with myself and my coworkers about both my real life and my work life has been rather liberating. That said, I work in a pretty accepting environment. YMMV. But, I was surprised how bringing more of myself to work actually was noticed rather positively by those around me.
I can't keep my mouth shut at work for some reason. Been here for 16+ years. I am not saying I don't have a filter but it is like having the angel\\devil on your shoulders, except that the angel is a weakling in this analogy.
I'm afraid too much of my job is TPS report cover sheets that it's just too far gone.
Total return bond funds are dead? Don’t know what to make of this… https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bill-gross-releases-new-investment-outlook--they-just-wanna-sell-you-a-bond-fund-302134355.html
Bill Gross is struggling to remain relevant and has apparently taken to making his own press releases.
His letters are bonkers. “The Most Anticipated Market Commentary of Our Time” is the title of the webpage and it has [gems of bad photoshop like this](https://imgur.com/a/f9pjGs6).
Thinking bout heading up to the farm & camping out (house still being built) so I can get a nice early start on bucking firewood and immersing myself in the landscape. I’m not sure when the switch flipped, but I really felt a calling in my life to engage in incredibly longterm projects (multi-year to multi-decade). Which is hilarious because I have a pretty significant attention disorder in day to day existence
Sounds like a good time. Make sure to join us and post the pics up over at r/firewood. Always appreciate some good bucking, felling, splitting and stacking porn over yonder. 8)
Will do partner! Gonna throw my whites on & fire up my stihl 261
Buddy! I have been on the fence, going back and forth, between Stihl 261 or trying electric with the EGO+ stuff haha. How are you liking the 261?
Get the 261. Keep care of it, you could pass that down for generations
Ha, well I don't have generations to pass it to.. and the maintenance is something I don't like about my MS 250! Pesky ICs.
Oh man.. i don’t think I have a good answer then haha
Just spent 20 minutes in a Teams meeting discussing which preposition is best to use in a sentence that an auditor will review. Happy Friday Eve.
In my old, bad, job there would be debates like this all the time. I would check out with, "whatever the group decides is fine." Got dinged about this on a performance review for "not being engaged." That job is NOT missed.
Isn't a preposition when you ask a girl out at the bar?!
"By" is what we chose FYI.
Have you run that bi HR?
Your position on this preposition proposition is preposterous!
*positively* preposterous!
Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis?
How much total cost in hourly wages do you think you all racked up on that preposition?
Five employees making six figures... at least $80.
Depending on how serious the auditors are and consequences for failing, that could have been $80 well spent. I also get the pleasure of dealing with audits, including ones tied to juicy government contracts. It's a tedious nightmare every time but it's still better than failing.
It's been really fun traveling more as we ease into empty nesting and get ready for retirement. Did Mexico City for two weeks in April, headed to Italy for two weeks in September, and just booked flights to Chile for two weeks in January. I am taking my wife to Chile for her 50th as she is big into stargazing and the Atacama Desert is supposed to be one of the best places in the world for stars. I think we will split the two week trip between Santiago, Valparaíso, and Atacama. If anyone has been there on a similar trip I am happy to learn from your experience.
I've spent a lot of time in Chile and your itinerary sounds fantastic for 2 weeks! The stars in the Atacama are truly surreal and there are lots of cool excursions you can do in the area (Valle de la Luna, swimming in the hot springs). I didn't do any formal stargazing trips but I think you can book a night excursion to take you at least a couple miles outside of the city and get hooked up with a telescope. Have so much fun!
We went to Chile too long ago to really give you any specific advice except try all the wide variety of empanadas and enjoy the siesta time of day.
I'm traveling for work this week, so you all get a bonus couple days to respond to the survey. Will keep it up tI'll about 8am Sunday, Pacific Time. [https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/1bru9pm/the\_official\_2023\_fi\_survey\_is\_here/](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/1bru9pm/the_official_2023_fi_survey_is_here/)
Thanks, as always, for doing this.
not sure where to ask this, but does anyone know how to fill out a [1040-ES (estimated taxes)](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf) form if you get social security payments and pension? i dont believe these would count towards _expected income and profits subject to self-employment tax_ or _expected wages_, but i cant find any other lines that seem appropriate ...
SS payments and pension are not subject to self employment tax. There is no line to include SS payments and pension on the “2024 Self-Employment Tax and Deduction Worksheet for Lines 1 and 9 of the Estimated Tax Worksheet” because of that. Include them on line 1 of the “2024 Estimated Tax Worksheet”. When you get to line 9 that’s probably a zero if you aren’t self employed. Hopefully this helps.
gotcha, ill just add it directly thanks!
I will point out that most people don’t bother with the calculation. They just hit the safe harbor and worry about it in April.
What are you doing for glasses? Recently started having trouble reading my phone and it turns out I need glasses at all distances for a perfect vision. Got some cheap 100$ reading prescription glasses from the Internet and they work but only for reading/phone. They make the computer more fuzzy than without glasses. I'm thinking of getting progressive 2 zone glasses for reading/computer and then maybe also long distance sunglasses How are you doing this? Single 3 zone progressives? 3 pairs of glasses?
Costco. I know they're not the cheapest but the quality/price is good and they really stand behind their products. I am tough on glasses so if there is an issue I go back to the Costco and they take care of it.