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Hi Folks. I recently created and launched a new, free online retirment calculator at https://www.retirementodds.com It handles any number of cash flows with different rates of return and life spans. It also handles your home and any rental property you may have. As I said, its free. It's...

Is there conventional wisdom that says what order to draw down your different types of savings (taxable, IRA, and ROTH)? I've done some analysis that says to always use up taxable savings first (to defer taxes as much as possible), and Roth last (to let it grow as long as possible). Is this...

Should I pull the trigger and retire? What do you think? Here is our situation: Age 53, married, no kids. Total net worth $3m PLUS the house worth $1.3M that is paid off. Annual expenses are between $110-$130K, depending on how much we choose to travel, remodel, or upgrade our cars. Plus...

I do compare to FIRECalc, yes, and the numbers are pretty close. While FIRECalc is based on actual historical returns, mine is based on the actual average and standard deviations of historical periods, but I can pick different periods to see their effect. For example, I can pick 2000-2020 in...

I've been building my own spreadsheet similar to yours for many years (and I'm not FIRE'd yet). I'm currently on version 32 as I've added variables to the calculation along the way. By far and away, the biggest thing I've learned is that a single forecast based on a constant rate of return is...

We have a bi-weekly housekeeper and a weekly gardener. Together they make up 3% of our budget. Upon retirement we plan to terminate them and do this work ourselves, because time will be plentiful and we just don’t know how long our nest egg will need to last. Other similar moves might be paid...

Here's a google sheet that illustrates my point. The first section shows the value of investing ACA subsidy savings. The second section shows the value of tax savings via roth conversions, with no ACA savings due to the higher income generated in the roth conversions. Columns W-X compare...

I’m 52 and about to retire. As I will be living off already-taxed savings for a while, my income will be very low and I could qualify for full ACA subsidies (assuming it is still around). But after some analysis, I decided (much to my surprise) it’s not worth it! The alternative is to do...

Just wondering how many people make the same mistake I made for a while (but have corrected) which is to estimate your retirement spending and/or SWR as the amount of money you spend on purchases, as opposed to that amount plus the income taxes you will also owe. For example, if you spend...

I feel like the decision making process should go something like this: 1. Make some assumptions about future unknowns. e.g. life expectancy, ROI, market volatility, etc. 2. Feed those assumptions into a function that computes probability of success, where success is defined as dying before...

If credit rates are less than the ROI of investing the same money, then a loan is a good thing. Especially if the interest is tax deductible. My mortgage is 2.625% now, but goes adjustible two years from now. I might be FIRE'ed by then, but I will still want to re-fi it into another 5/1 ARM.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm glad most of the votes were for "C" and missing option "D" because those are what make sense to me. For those who said "I just buy something when I need it", my reply is that maybe the better way of asking my question would be "How do you decide if you need...

Say you're retired and living off non-401K/IRA savings....How difficult is it to get credit when you can claim a high net worth but hardly any "income". Does the opportunity to refinance your mortgage basically vanish? What are some strategies for dealing with this?

I'm wondering how FIRE folks (those who are retired) think about "big ticket" expenses like new cars, home improvements, and perhaps new RV's (if you're into that lifestyle). i.e. things that cost upwards of $50K and come every 5-10 years. Do you... A. Deprive yourself of these things for...

I get wildly different results when I use "Total Market" for my portfolio invesment versus "Random Performance" using numbers for mean and standard deviation that I believe to be an accurate reflection of history, for example mean of 7% and stdev of 12%. My question is what is the actual mean...