Roboticus Aquarius

Comments:

• My first and only finance class was taught by a Grad School professor who felt insulted teaching undergrads. Tests had nothing to do with the assigned materials; I was studying 4 or 5 hours daily for this one class. I had to ignore my other classes. After failing multiple pop quizzes, I decided this one class wasn't worth the damage it would cause to my semester, and dropped it. I did eventually end up in finance, it's where my talents manifested, but only after working in accounting for almost a decade.

  Post: The Great Imposter

  Link to comment from May 15, 2023

• I just hope to be lucky enough to have to pay those higher IRMA charges. It will mean a very high retirement income. Of course I'll do what I can to moderate my taxable income, but I suspect there's little I can do to change the tax characterization of 30 years of contributions materially over the course of the next decade or so. Well written article, thanks Mr Quinn!

  Post: Angry at IRMAA

  Link to comment from February 8, 2023

• Periods like this are difficult for everyone, but for investors I'm convinced that they are also an opportunity. In 2022 we doubled our retirement contributions (in $, not %), and we aim to increase contributions by a similar amount this year (3x vs 2 years ago), maxing out all our retirement vehicles. We're lucky to be able to do so, the benefit of 1) kids dropping off the expense list and 2) cash flow improvements from several sources. It seems likely that this decision will pay off over the next 5 years & beyond.

  Post: After the Swan Dive

  Link to comment from January 5, 2023

• Man plans, God laughs. I know, for many people tax planning is a valuable exercise. For us, it seems like a game of pinball. This is not a complaint; we are very lucky to be in this position, but it does make me laugh. We put a fair amount into Roth 401(k)s this year, thinking to balance our tax risk. Then our business income unexpectedly more than tripled in 2022, pushing us into higher income tax brackets. Now we're going back to traditional 401(k) contributions, as it would take enormous income before we pay the same marginal rates in retirement as we will this year.

  Post: Securing Lower Taxes

  Link to comment from January 5, 2023

• Good point. The impact will vary a lot person to person depending on how fixed your costs are, housing being key. The inflation of the past year had very little impact on us because not only were our housing costs fixed, but also we both work from home (very little gasoline usage, less need for dress clothes, etc.). For this reason inflation impacts may be mostly felt in food and perhaps healthcare costs only, and those costs vary as a percent of total expenses among retirees, especially healthcare. Also, folks that rent or need to travel are going to feel it more.

  Post: Nine Retirement Myths

  Link to comment from January 5, 2023

• I'm finding the same thing that you have, Richard. Heck I could claim we're currently living on 55% of our income (which has grown a lot the past couple years), but the fact is that estimating expenses in retirement is really difficult. We are in pre-retirement right now; I'll probably retire in a couple years, my wife will work for a while after that. Our income and expenses are all over the place, many things have changed for both of us. I'm just trying to ensure we have roughly the same income as we did a couple years ago, when we were comfortably break-even.

  Post: Nine Retirement Myths

  Link to comment from January 5, 2023

• Back when I was a little more of a maverick with my investments, I implemented my "Charlie Munger rule" to help keep my feet on the ground. Munger has said words to the effect that the critical element of his investing approach is to avoid doing anything stupid (rather than trying to be smart or clever). I didn't really trust myself to avoid stupid, so I thought about it in terms of magnitude with respect to my portfolio. I set a monthly limit: no transactions (individual or in total) that impacted more than 10% of my portfolio. That gave me time to decide if what I was doing really made sense, and moderated any impact from any decision I later regretted.

  Post: Eye of the Tiger

  Link to comment from December 15, 2022

• Same. Mortgage is fixed 2.5%... food and clothes etc are up, but it's not a big impact. We now both wfh, so spending on gas has been down despite the volatility this year... and local prices are practically back to normal in Colorado. Mostly we notice it in restaurant prices... plus we've increased our standard tip from 18% to 25% as a way to give back and help people working hard at low wage jobs. Plus, we put away a lot the last couple years, and some of it is going into solar for the house, so we'll be largely immune to electricity price increases also.

  Post: Getting Off Lightly

  Link to comment from December 15, 2022

• I opened a Roth IRA for my son when he started working at 15. I told him I'd match whatever he put in up to 50% of his salary. He ponied up the whole 50%, and I matched it. He's 20 now and has a shade under $12,000.

  Post: Earning a Roth

  Link to comment from August 11, 2022

• Financially, not in any way I can imagine. The opportunity cost of my wife staying home was two lamborghinis, which really makes me laugh. That used to be my dream car, though now I couldn't care less about owning one. Emotionally, yes, though it can be hard. Our boys both have issues that interfere with the usual landmark transitions in modern life, and their struggles are painful for us to watch. Before we had kids we asked all the parents we knew of grown or nearly grown children whether they would still have kids if they could go back in time with their current memories. The answers surprised us, it was about 50/50. Several of them had suffered difficulties of one type or another, which made it understandable; they were mostly kind enough to share those difficulties with us.

  Post: Are children a good investment?

  Link to comment from August 11, 2022