Early Retirement Extreme Forums

To keep things simple I always treat all of my withdrawals as taxable income in my planning. That allows me to treat all my account types the same. It also means if tax rates stay the same I'm overestimating my future tax burden a little bit. I use 3% versus 4%, but I would graph it the way you desc...

Re the original post: I suppose I use a hybridized approach. My silly little cabin in the woods provides a good example. From my late teen years through the early part of my professional career I maintained getting such a cabin as a long range goal. That goal drove, or at least affirmed, some of my ...

Tangentially related article about the divide between rural and urban communities ... http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-10-30/howard-odum-transformities-and-the-urban-rural-divide-in-america Is the 'fix' really that almost everyone should move to urban areas? Is that really best? I'm all for i...

I've already quit listening to the candidates. :) The implication to what I'd heard is that from a criminal perspective this alleged backup cache leads to the extent the server was used to store and send/receive highly classified information, illegal destruction of gov't records, and such. Again, du...

The official unofficial word is that the FBI recovered emails from confiscated devices in the Abedin/Weiner investigation, but why is the FBI investigating them? I know Weiner is being investigated for sexting an underage girl, but does that fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI? The whole story s...

I enjoy watching sports and refrain from judging those who do not. :) In a way it's like reading fiction or watching movies. Dramatic structures also repeat, but play out a little differently in each story. Sports are most enjoyable to watch if the spectator identifies with one team/competitor, some...

Unless there's some egregious polling error, or the reported data is purposely distorted to misrepresent Clinton's level of support (at this point I'd have no trouble believing her cabal would do it), this one is pretty much over. Clinton and her network did a masterful job obfuscating and circumven...

What I've learned about a few of my acquaintances out there: if it's not reported on MSNBC, it never happened. If it's reported differently than on MSNBC, it is falsified.

Only you can make that decision. It's too highly dependent on your emotional temperament. You probably know enough of the logical/fact-based arguments. You need to make a decision you can live with, and live with it when times get rough.

I tend to think if anything the supreme court is growing in power and will continue to do so. By declaring the constitution a living document and holding the power as the stewards of the inevitable growth, SCOTUS has the de facto ability to rewrite the constitution at will through reinterpreting wha...

Hmm. Would the pure calculation exclude things like pension and SS income? Today I'd be at 2.0 (if swr=4%). If I ER'd tomorrow I'd drop to 1.0, but in 2.5 years I'd be up to about 1.92 when I start the retirement annuity, then when I take SS (assuming present promised benefit) I'd be up to 2.92. Wel...

Here's a fun one. What politics is probably really like, sadly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHu ... e=youtu.be

I can say with a fair bit of certainty that for my body the old adage that "a calorie is a calorie" does not apply. I'll rank my sweet tooth up there with anyone's, but the truth is that how much of what hormones get activated due to what I eat matters. Of course a more sugar laden diet th...

I attribute my below average susceptibility to colds/flu/etc to handwashing habits I developed being an allergy sufferer growing up with cats. If I touch a cat then touch my face I become an itchy-eyed snot faucet. Dogs are similar but the reaction is less severe. Like jacob I tested as allergic to ...

Many if not most Americans confuse Iowa with Ohio and Idaho. That made me laugh and reminds me of my first cube-mate when I started work in Boston after graduating. His name was Ken. He'd been with the company a little longer and was a nice guy and would on occasion introduce me to other coworkers ...

From the study on page 6, the people who have the highest incidence of staying put are (1) male; (2) white; (3) have a high school education or less; (4) are not the poorest, but have median family incomes in the $50-75K range; (5) live in the Midwest; and (6) live in rural areas. What would you gu...

I can only reflect my own perspective, which isn't any sort of argument for or against anything. It's just one persons opinion/desire. It's about uncertainty. Since I can't predict exactly how much money I might need (or want, for that matter) it makes sense to me to obtain some margin at a time whe...

Be careful you do not lump "Trump supporters" in this manner, as most people who support Trump simply do so because they dislike Clinton. Her supporters are the same. See http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/21/in-their-own-words-why-voters-support-and-have-concerns-about-clinton-and-trump...

Surely once you are dead you have no consciousness and therefore cannot appreciate what is going on anyway? By having a child you agree to that child dying, possibly suffering an agonising death from cancer, possibly suffering from other illnesses along the way and possibly getting raped or assault...

$300K seems like an awful big loan for a $35K income. All I can say is that I wouldn't do it (buy a house that without rental income would bankrupt me). I guess I am even more cautious and even more fiscally conservative. It's a gamble. You might lose. Or you might win.