Recent content by rvbound

Yes, have still been tracking expenses closely and have averaged around 80k per year, but it fluctuates. From 2015-2017, there was a bit of an increase in living expenses from 80k to around 100k, as the toll from work started to weigh heavier and we decided to indulge in some pricy vacations...

Thank you. I was incredibly lucky over the past 5 years.

Thanks. Mostly due to a high savings rate, and buy-and-hold gains in tech stocks. But now sitting on a lot of capital gains, which is yet another reason to retire early, so that I can lower my income to the 0% capital gains bracket.

5 year-follow up Merry Christmas, everyone! I thought I'd provide a 5 year update for all of you, but mostly for myself, as I have found myself returning to this thread many times over the past 5 years to just see how things have gone, and how much farther I have to go. I took the advice of...

I'm originally from NYC. If it's your first time there, depending on your interests, here are some suggestions: Fine arts: 1) Museum of Modern Art 2) Metropolitan Museum of Art 3) Frick Museum 4) Museum of Natural History Walking around 1) Central Park 2) High-line (basically an old...

To answer your question, if I am holding a large amount of cash that I want to be immediately available at an undetermined future point in time, I park it in a savings account with up to $250,000 per bank. The $250,000 limit per bank is to get full FDIC coverage. So if you have more than that...

That's an interesting question you face - deciding between a 670k buyout and a 32k pension for life. I am not an accountant, but I think you can figure out the answer by calculating the present value of a 32k pension. You just have to make a guess about what rate of return you can expect, and...

30% cash, but will probably whittle that down to 5-10% over the next year.

I'm surprised more people don't use Mint.com. With mint I can track my expenses and net worth on a daily (and sometimes hourly) basis. I've tried Quicken a number of times and just found that it required too much manual entry and downloading of files, etc.

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses and talking me off the edge. I will keep at it for another couple of years at least until we have figured out whether or not we are going to have children.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that 420k is pre-tax income. Take home is half of that, and then after expenses I am saving about $130k per year. Still very nice and I feel fortunate to be making a very good living (after a very long period of training), but I don't think working 1-2 more...

So I hit the big 4-0 and I'm wondering whether it's time to early retire. Married, no kids at the moment, wife does not work. I doubt I would completely retire, maybe work part time for a while or take a lower stress lower paying job, maybe work as a seasonal park ranger in a national park...

I think its hard for people not in nyc to understand the peculiarities of working on wall street hence the skepticism. Note that the vast majority of the accumulation occurred from his salary + bonus, not day trading or even investment returns since he kept almost his entire asset allocation...