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Hi All. For those of you that used the divicalc.com tool that I put together a few years back, I spend a couple of days and got it working again. It's not battle tested, so if you find bugs, please let me know. For those of you who are interested what happened was that when Verizon bought...

Good morning party Firers! I haven't been on in a while but I'm in need of some advice. For some background, here's my financial situation and personal situation: Financial: Net Worth: ca. 6.8m Main house: 580k (no mortgage) Second/Investment/Future retirement house: 1.2m (870k mortgage)...

DW and I have been thinking about it for a while but are now pulling the trigger. Selling our 1.3m socal home in an expensive are and getting a 500k house in a less expensive area about 30 miles east. A bit further from the beach but the difference in what we bought the house for pays for the...

I'm shopping around for umbrella insurance and thought I'd ask you fine people if there is a company you've had a good (or potentially more important, bad) experience with? Any words of wisdom would also be welcome. Thanks!

Hi all. I've been running an experiment/test where I took 3 months off work without compensation to see what it would be like. Financially, we are FI... the question is should I ER... and to what degree. While time off is not the same as ER, it seems to simulate it to some degree, especially...

How this couple saved $1 million and retired in their 30s Summary: It's the story of freedomwithbruno.com (if you follow that blog at all) who are an early 30s couple that went from debt to ER. The article is decent... nothing amazing... the COMMENTS are gold. It reminds me that most of...

Hi all. Since I'm trial running "early retirement" I got the urge to program something mildly useful and entertaining for myself. Since I have consistent income on the brain I thought I'd take a stab at seeing what cash flow various investments would yield in different periods of time. (for...

I'm kind of embarrassed to ask this question, but here goes. Looking at the vanguard website for distributions for Wellington Investor Shares I see ST and LT capital gain distributions at the end of the year (https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0521&FundIntExt=INT#tab=4)...

Not completely... just partially or mostly? Here's my situation. I had a pretty decent stock/bond target and was moving toward to "near 0 maintenance" investment strategy but I just had this block on buying bond ETFs. So here's what I did. I took 50% of my "fixed income" block and built a CD...

I'm currently taking an extended work leave/testing our ER. It took less than 24 to get a weird reaction. My daughter currently goes to a playgroup and today I took her and hung around a bit. One of teachers asked if I had a day off from work. I said no. She looked at me oddly and asked if...

Hi party people. I introduced myself about a year ago and things have moved more or less as planned. Super odd for me. I'm starting an extended sabbatical today... partially to recharge... partially to test run life with no job. I am early 40s with 2 young kids and am looking forward to...

It's a bit technical, but there's decent summaries. I personally don't have a pension, but I think these things are generally important. Hidden Debt, Hidden Deficits: How Pension Promises Are Consuming State And Local Budgets | Hoover Institution I found the authors method of calculating...

Since I have 2 young kids (1 and 3) ER is likely to be largely consumed by them. Actually a major reason I want to RE is to spend more time with them. DW and I have been thinking about home schooling. Both of us went to "normal school" and it was ok so we're not like "school is dangerous and...

Moderator Question/Comment: I read through the FAQ to try and make sure I'm not violating any policies. My intention is to try and make a tool that I (and maybe others?) might find useful. Since I believe in rapid prototyping and iteration, I'm hoping to get some early feedback. If this is in...

As I'm moving closer to the RE part of Fire, I have finally decided on my preferred asset allocation (pretty simple 60/40 vanguard with 2 years of cash). The problem is... My current allocation isn't very close to that. Did you guys have that problem? If so did you just shift it quickly or do...

Hi all. I'm planning the RE part and of course this leads to the fun topic of health insurance. I'm 40, DW 35. Kids are 1 and 3. I've used Kaiser for years and am pretty happy but... Once I RE we plan to travel around the US quite a bit. I haven't done a lot of research but was wondering if...

50% joking. But I've been wrestling with OMY for over a year now and am not that much closer :). Since I'm a programmer turned manager I crave a direct project so I was thinking about making a calculator that evaluates to cost/benefit of OMY taking into account financial and non financial data...

Looking for more practical/experience advice. DW and I own a house in socal. Roughly 1.2-1.4m value (who knows exactly :) ) and owe about 680k. I'm currently out of country for work so we're renting it for about 1200 over mortgage (5500/mo rent, 4250/mo mortgage, insurance and taxes). Were...

I'm sure many of us have endured some kind of loss in the past few weeks. I'm no exception and have spent more time than is justified worrying about it (haven't actually DONE anything because I believe it's just...well... Whatever). But wanted to say I'm happy to have a family and friends... My...

Hi Guys. As I'm getting closer to Fire (less than 1 year) my mind is switching from accumulation to spending... something all of us have to do. Just like everyone I spend hours doing all kinds of spreadsheets and calculations... the easiest one being using FireCalc to get to 100%. At my...

Hi guys. Just looking for some basic advice here. I'm probably going to FIRE in about a year and for the first time since about 17 y/o will be REDUCING savings... yikes. So for the past few decades I've mostly just saved and invested fairly "aggressively." This was a mix of buying individual...

I found this gem posted back in January of 2008. It's interesting to read the reactions: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/falling-home-prices-32491.html I looked at one of the homes in question and it indeed sold for 430k in 2005, was foreclosed in 2007 and sold for 170k in April...

I have to admit. As I get close to FIREing I am obsessed with this idea of waiting until the "any minute now" market correction... Saving almost all my salary between now and then... Then investing it all at that time and get this huge relief that I entered at a good time. It's like a wet dream...

Hi Guys. I've been kicking around the idea of FIREing soon (1-2 years). Financially it all looks so nice and rosy... having gone through 2 crises (I was in tech in 2001, I was lucky to not own a house in 2008) I have seen and felt how crushing that can be. I also am aware of how when things are...

DW and I are slowly digging out where (and if) we move after FIRE (probably 2016-2018). Currently live in socal. 1.2m house (owe 680) which is slightly above average... Decent schools... Nice neighbourhood. Why we want to move: DW LOVES privacy, gardening, trees, rural areas and were in...