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One of the reasons I don't post more often on this site is the number of grouches. OP's story/question may not be of interest to everyone. His philosophy on work/life may not be to everyone's liking, but he did not say anything offensive or disrespectful, was not selling anything nor...

Interesting discussion. For anyone really interested in research on long term happiness, I would recommend the book The Happiness Curve, by Jonathon Rauch. Turns out the research shows happiness just organically increases with age. The book changed the way I view my own issues with happiness...

Thanks. That sounds like what I will probably do when I get to my withdrawal phase.

I'm not in RE yet, so I'm not sure what I will do exactly. Your approach seems like it is based on sound reasoning. However, there are all kinds of countervailing factors: will pulling out the extra withdrawals from the appreciated asset push you into a higher bracket in the current year or...

OP may want to read this article from Darrow Kirkpatrick. https://www.caniretireyet.com/new-research-the-best-retirement-withdrawal-strategies/ He's not advocating a bucket method, but discussing alternatives for how to draw down from different parts of your asset allocation. Unless you...

SecondCor521's advice explained it for me. Since I was using the "Mixed Portfolio" option, it limited the number of cycles because Firecalc does not have data for all asset classes for the same number of years. If you use "Total Market" you get many more cycles, with the trade off of less...

Thanks SecondCor521. I switched my portfolio to the total market and it pulled 100+ cycles. I appreciate the assistance.

I've been a regular (obsessive) Firecalc user for several years, but I've justed started looking under the hood since it is giving me 100% readings if my wife and I retire today. I'm trying to figure out what historical data firecalc uses and what cycles. I'll start by saying that I think it...

It's sort of a "fuzzy" milestone, but recently, every calculator I use (firecalc, I-orp, Flexible retirement planner) says we have a virtually 100% chance of success if we retire now. There are still a lot of variables (my projections include assumptions about down-sizing and cost of college...

Thanks, pb4uski. That was my thinking as well. After thinking about, it seems logical but I was surprised at how much better my plan looked in Firecalc using that bucket method. I try to take all these calculators with a grain of salt, but appreciate your confirmation. Interestingly, a Monte...

I have read some old posts about the problems with modelling a bucket strategy in firecalc. I am not trying to model a continuous bucket during the full term of my retirement. The plan I want to model is this: I have four years between expected retirement date and the beginning of a pension...

My milestone is not numerical, but more "peace of mind." Our family finally became "financially secure," rather than "financially independent." By that I mean, if we both lost our jobs, we could survive, virtually forever, without working. It would not be the quality of life we want, but we...

I'm officially throwing my hat in the ring. I turn 50 in May 2020. DW is older than me, and a gentleman doesn't tell his wife's age, but she will still be able to call herself "early-retired." Should have a decent pension from DW's employer kicking in in 2024, hopefully $2.5+mm in liquid...

+1 on dumping the VUL. Any form of permanent insurance is not efficient unless you are extremely wealthy and trying to solve estate tax problems. We dumped our permanent insurance two years ago, bought more term insurance and invested the balance in Vanguard funds. The agents will try to...

One quirk is that if you leave your Roth 401K to your descendants, they have to continue RMDs based on their ages. If you leave a Roth IRA to your descendants, there are no RMDs. Sort of a loophole for the Roth IRA as a way to pass wealth to the next generation. You might want to do some more...

I'm midwestern as well. My wife hates the cold. She refuses to drive the Volt in the winter. Says the heater just doesn't get warm enough!:frown: In keeping with this forum's LBYM mantra, I have to say I would never pay anything near MSRP for the car. But as your original post pointed out...

I don't know of any publications, but there are Volt owner forums with discussions of range (it's been a while since I looked at any). Personally, I don't think the car would be all that practical for colder climates, but I recall seeing a number of enthusiastic owners in the northeast. If you...

I bought a 2014 Volt last year. It was still a "new" car. The dealer listed it as 600+ days on the lot, so I got a pretty good deal. All in all, I'm getting what I expected. It's cool technology. Not perfect, but definitely can be an inexpensive car to own if you get a discount or buy used...

Free 866 - I've used both the Fidelity and FireCalc. The relative merits of calculators have their own threads somewhere (I'm sure), but I just want to make a plug for the Flexible Retirement Planner. The Flexible Retirement Planner | A financial planning tool powered by Monte Carlo Simulation...

I'm a long time reader of Darrow Kirkpatrick. In fact finding his blog three years ago was my first exposure to the idea of FIRE. His advice is always unvarnished, common sense and practical. I'm a little perplexed by all of the criticism of his post. ("Hey get a load of this guy! He says...

Ziggy - The dealer gave me a great shopping tip (for when I buy another car in 10 years!). The dealer was located in a less desirable suburb of St. Louis, so the salesman said they discounted the car to get people to make the trip. I was happy to take advantage of the "geographic arbitrage."...

There is definitely a risk, which is why I wouldn't have bought used without a decent discount. This is our fourth Honda, so we pretty much know exactly what we are getting in terms of manufacture quality. (I'll update my post if it turns out the car is a lemon.) One of the reasons we decided...

Since I just went through this calculus for my family, I figured I will share. We live in St. Louis and I just bought a 2013 CR-V with 22k miles and mid-level trim for what I think to be 25% off of the new price. We've bought or replaced three cars in three years and this was the best spread...

Yes the government could confiscate gold like FDR did. Or you could put it in a safe, and get robbed. Or your house burns down and your gold melts into a pile of slag. (And asteroids could strike, and zombies!) We all live with some risk. As I build my wealth and approach FI, I realize...

I don't post often, but this is something I have given a lot of thought to. There are some studies that indicate gold was the best hedge against hyper-inflation of the type seen in Weimar Germany or some of the Central and South American hyper-inflation scares. Real estate has intrinsic upper...