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Sounds about right. I’m in PA as well and when I looked a while back, for a family of 4, it was a bit higher than that for the annual premiums. Now if you were able to lower your income (generated through roth conversions) to say $35-40k (below the family poverty line) I think it would...

Sounds like you have it well thought out so that’s good. My point was to make sure you know in ballpark numbers how much you’d actually be losing in ACA subsidies. It may be more than you think unless you’ve already went onto healthcare.gov and priced it out. Also, I believe the analysis isn’t...

Have you actually done the math on how much in ACA subsidies you are forgoing by doing the Roth conversions and filling up the 10 and 12% tax brackets? I ask because I’m in just about the same position as you in terms of age, net worth, and desired retirement age, and my original plan was...

Curious what the details are around the term and whole life policies (premiums, length (for the term), cash value on the whole life, etc.). Whole life policies are generally not advised but maybe it makes sense in your situation. Although at a high level, it seems redundant to have both unless...

What are your annual expenses, current income and current net worth without the house? Wondering if you can start cutting back now instead of grinding it out another four years. My guess is you probably can’t quite yet, but it’s worth consideration. Personally if I know that I’m not living past...

I’m guessing the reason for not doing this is, as you put it, it reduces your ACA credits so one would have to weight the benefits of resetting cost basis against the higher premiums on insurance. Guessing most folks that CAN sell gains at zero tax are also those that have FIREd and are relying...

Not that I would recommend it, but if you really wanted to guarantee millionaire status by 50, you could just throw your entire portfolio into a 4 year CD that pays out 5%. That'll net you about $950k on just your current portfolio, then add your annual contributions ($42.5k x 4 = $170K) and...

Thanks FlaGator for sharing your experience. But I'm not quite following your comment regarding risk mitigation. Wouldn't I be addressing this risk regardless of whether I'm contributing to a 529 or a taxable brokerage account if the intent of those funds is to pay for education expenses (e.g...

Thanks for confirming my thought process. I was worried that I might have been missing something obvious in my analysis, which is that I feel I can essentially replicate the advantages of a 529 (tax free withdrawals) via tax-free capital gains in my taxable account and at the same time avoid the...

Right now, our HHI is about $330-$350k, so 24% marginal bracket. I should have been more explicit in my original post, but to clarify, my wife and I are planning on retiring in our early to mid 40s (both currently 36) so I don’t plan on having income for about 20 years until SS kicks in aside...

Good point about having to pay for taxes along the way on a taxable brokerage. I forgot about that. And my first kid is only 3 so the time horizon is not really the issue for me. I guess my concern is still that even though I fully intend for both of my kids to go to college or some other...

Please correct me if I’m not thinking about this correctly since it’s obviously a big assumption in my analysis, but I believe I should be able to recognize up to $90k or so annually in LT capital gains and stay within the 0% tax threshold. As long as my taxable income is also below threshold...

So I was on another FIRE forum and someone had commented that it wasn’t advantageous to invest in a 529 if you plan on retiring early. Rather, just throw that money into a brokerage account since you can plan your withdrawals to be tax free anyway, and without the limitations of a 529 (having...

I wouldn’t say it’s disingenuous. I think what he’s trying to get at is there’s little to nothing you can do to avoid pension or SS income (other than to not take it but as you pointed out - that would be silly). However, you may have the ability to avoid or rather reduce your taxes on RMDs...

Bit behind schedule again but here's a brief Year 5 update: * Age: Me and DW are both 35. DD is 2! * Household income: TBD. Gross income this year will be about $500k but includes about $200k severance. Took a voluntary package at work with nothing else lined up at the moment. * Total current...

I'd rather not get into the details as it's a bit complicated. I'll just say that the insured was a former family friend and we had a falling out of favor. I had thought about just calling the insurance company as you suggested and explain my situation, but I'm afraid it may look a bit...

Appreciate everyone's advice. Looks like my action items are to request an in-force illustration to confirm my math and to look into potentially hiring an investigator/tracer or some sort to track down the individual. Thanks for this as I wasn't aware that this type of service existed. It...

Inspired by another thread that was started on a similar topic, I wanted to see if anyone could give me some advice on what I believe is a bit of a unique situation. The long story short is that I am the owner and beneficiary of a whole life insurance policy that has been in place for almost...

Thanks for the update. I have very similar stats as you and it was a very disappointing feeling when I calculated my year-end figures that despite my household income being the highest it’s ever been in 2022, my total investable assets was flat. But I guess that’s in a way a good indication...

Not sure I fully agree with this as it seems to imply that on average, cardholders will not receive more than $550 of value and so its generally not advisable to get the card. I think that is normally the case in the "for every 1 winner, there's a loser" philosophy, but this scenario is a bit...

Agree with your list. Hopefully a 3% SWR, which I understand to be more on the conservative end even with an early retirement, should be enough to absorb most if not all of the unknowns. But maybe I need to build in even more cushion to the plan with a 2.5% SWR.

Good question. I actually have been keeping a very detailed track of our expenses over the last 3 years. Expenses have increased to $100k with my daughter and so I’ve adjusted my FIRE target to $3.3m to accommodate using a 3% SWR. Probably on the conservative side considering my mortgage and...

Slightly behind schedule but here's my Year 4 update. Guess I wasn't in too much of a hurry to share this one given the bear market we're experiencing. Our household income increased significantly, however, our net worth didn't quite follow. We dipped below seven figures for a bit and bounced...

Just my 2 cents from someone who helps administers stock comp plans at my work. Difficult to say which is better without additional details, but generally speaking I would personally prefer to receive RSUs over options. Reason being if your company’s stock declines, the RSUs are still worth...

Our net worth excluding house equity finally crossed $1M last week at age 33. Took about 8 combined years of work between wife and I. Hopefully the next million won’t take nearly as long. Let’s see if this compounding interest magic works as well as they say