Start here

Latest posts:

Can we raise our Safe Withdrawal Rate when inflation is low? – SWR Series Part 41

Should we preserve our capital and only consume the dividends in retirement? – SWR Series Part 40

Is an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) better than a Retirement Account?

Is an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) Worth the Risk?

Do we really have to lower our Safe Withdrawal Rate to 0.5% now?

The Shortest Recession Ever? My Thoughts on the State of the Economy

My Thoughts on the “Passive Investing Bubble”

Passive income through option writing: Part 5 – A 2018-2020 backtest: Guest Post by “Spintwig” (plus a quick update on last week’s volatility)

Passive income through option writing: Part 4 – Surviving a Bear Market!

Asset Location: Do Bonds Really Belong in Retirement Accounts? – SWR Series Part 35

How To “Lie” With Personal Finance – Part 2 (Homeownership Edition)

The Yield Illusion: How Can a High-Dividend Portfolio Exacerbate Sequence Risk? (SWR Series Part 29)

General:

• A short introduction
• Some of the things that keep us motivated to achieve (and maintain!) financial independence
• The ABC (and D through J) of Early Retirement
• Top 10 reasons for targeting more than 25 times annual spending
• Happy Birthday, USA
• The dangers of getting close to retirement: “Yeah, I’ll do that when I’m retired!”
• My Interview on the Physician on FIRE blog!
• Happy Thanksgiving!
• Grand Canyon Rim to Rim Hike
• Guest Post on Budgets are Sexy: My Top 7 Disagreements With Personal Finance Experts
• Our Interview on The Green Swan
• This place has extreme wealth inequality, yet everybody is happy!
• Our interview on “From Cents to Retirement”
• You want to know our savings rate? Which one?
• Our Net Worth (as of 3/31/2017)
• Five Unfortunate Facts about Student Debt in America
• The Other Student Loan Crisis: Half of Parent Cosigners Facing a Shaky Retirement
• Good Advice vs. Feel-Good Advice
• Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “John Smith”
• The ERN Family Early Retirement Capital Preservation Plan
• Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Captain Ron”
• Check out ChooseFI today for Big ERN’s first podcast appearance!
• Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Rene”
• Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for Mrs. “Wish I Could Surf”
• Our Net Worth as of 9/30/2017
• Guest Post: Why geographic arbitrage is so important to retire early and what you can do to about it
• Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mr. Corporate”
• Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Ms. Almost FI”
• See that house over there? It’s an investment!
• Happy Thanksgiving 2017!
• Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mr. Corporate Refugee”
• Meet Mr. Millionaire Math! (Plus Three Year-End Smart Money Moves)
• Our Net Worth as of 12/31/2017
• Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mr. and Mrs. Shirts”
• Ten Lessons From Ten Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Studies
• Guest Post: Should you invest in Stocks or Bitcoin?
• Some of my Thoughts on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies
• My podcast appearance on Millionaires Unveiled
• Meet the ERN family!
• My best investment ever: Homeownership?!
• Does Big Ern really exist?
• Our Net Worth as of 3/31/2018
• The 2018 ERN Family World Tour
• Eight Lessons After Eight Weeks Of Early Retirement
• Did Suze Orman just pour cold water on the FIRE movement?
• We Are Homeowners Again!
• Happy FIRE-versary! Reflections after one year of early retirement
• Some Random Thoughts on the State of the World
• The Ultimate Tax Hack: We Are Moving To Monaco! (No, we’re not! This was an April Fools Prank!)

Asset Allocation:

• Our most recent Asset Allocation 3/2016
• Some really bad investment ideas to avoid. If it’s recommended on TV, it’s probably a bad idea!
• List of index ETFs and Mutual Funds
• Early Retirement Math 101
• Our $0.00 emergency fund strategy
• When bonds are riskier than stocks
• How to create a no-limit Synthetic Roth IRA in a taxable account
• Saving for a House Down Payment
• The ultimate retirement account comparison in one single Google Sheet
• Gold vs. Paper Money: A Rant
• Lower risk through leverage
• Why an emergency fund is a bad idea in one single chart
• Beat Behavioral Bias: Mental Accounting
• The Great Bond Diversification Myth
• Trading derivatives on the path to Financial Independence and Early Retirement
• Top 10 reasons for having an emergency fund – debunked (Part 1)
• Top 10 reasons for having an emergency fund – debunked (Part 2)
• We just went from millionaire to dead-broke with one simple accounting maneuver
• Passive income through option writing: Part 1
• Passive income through option writing: Part 2
• Shorting an inverse ETF? A bad idea! (Or: Why “Beta-Slippage” isn’t alpha)
• Cash Management in Early Retirement
• Why would anyone have a mortgage and a bond portfolio?
• Seven reasons in defense of debt and leverage: Yes, you CAN have too little of a bad thing!
• An addition to the ERN family portfolio: Preferred Stocks
• Happy Birthday, Bull Market!
• The end of CAPE Fear? What happens to the Shiller CAPE ratio when we roll out the weak 2008/09 earnings?
• Have bonds lost their diversification potential?
• The scariest week for the stock market is also scary profitable!
• How to invest a windfall: Lump Sum or Dollar Cost Averaging?
• We are so skewed!
• Active Investing: Opportunity vs. Futility
• U.S. Equity Returns: History and Big ERN’s 10-Year Forecast
• How useful is international diversification?
• This fund returned over 100% year-to-date. I’m still not buying it!
• The Shockingly Simple/Complicated/Random Math Behind Saving For Early Retirement
• Nervous about sky-high stock prices? Five ways to cope with “CAPE Fear”
• How much of a Random Walk is the Stock Market?
• Joined at the hip: The Macroeconomy and the Stock Market
• Market Timing and Risk Management, Part 1 – Macroeconomics
• Inflation Risk for Early Retirees – Part 2
• Guest Post: Farmland Is The New Gold
• My best investment ever: Homeownership?!
• Inflation Risk for Early Retirees – Part 4: Hedging
• How crazy is it to invest an emergency fund in stocks?
• Market Timing and Risk Management, Part 2 – Momentum
• A dog, a homework and a reader question about Robo Advisors
• Here’s an idea for a new ETF
• Good and bad reasons to invest in individual stocks rather than index funds
• A Reader Case Study: Whole Life Insurance
• The Ten Commandments of Whole Life Insurance
• So what, we retired at the peak of the bull market? Here are seven reasons why we’re not yet worried…
• Trading like an Escape Artist: How I made money in October trading S&P Futures Options with 2x leverage
• The OptionSellers.com debacle: How to blow up your portfolio in five easy steps
• Will FIRE turn into “Fake Independence Rapidly Evaporating?” Relax! We’re going to be fine, despite the recent stock market volatility!
• How can a drop in the stock market possibly be good for investors?
• Yield Curve Inversion: Eight Reasons Why I’m Not Worried Yet
• A Bond/CD Ladder Toolkit
• How To “Lie” With Personal Finance
• My thoughts on Small-Cap and Value Stocks
• Does A 4% Withdrawal Rate Survive a 60-Year Retirement? (Guest Post by Dr. David Graham)
• A Different Way to Plan Retirement – Guest Post on “Monte Carlo” Simulations by “Gasem”
• Can a Rising Equity Glidepath Save the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate Over a 60 Year Retirement? (Guest Post by Dr. David Graham)
• Another Option Strategy Failure: Why it’s “Nickels in Front of a Steamroller” and not “Benjamins in Front of a Baby Stroller!”
• My thoughts on the “Upcoming Recession”
• Stuck With a High-Expense-Ratio Fund? Here’s a Google Sheet to Weigh the Pros and Cons of Dumping that “Stinker” in Your Portfolio!
• How To “Lie” With Personal Finance – Part 2 (Homeownership Edition)
• Who’s Afraid of a Bear Market?
• Feeling scared already? It’s not even a Bear Market yet!
• It’s a Bear Market now, all right! But what kind of bear will it be?
• Some Financial Lessons from the First Quarter of 2020 (incl. Jack Bogle’s Revenge)
• COVID-19: Some Empirical Observations and Reasons for Optimism
• Three Equity Investing Styles that did OK in 2020
• Are we in another Bull Market now?
• My Thoughts on the “Passive Investing Bubble”
• The Shortest Recession Ever? My Thoughts on the State of the Economy
• Do we really have to lower our Safe Withdrawal Rate to 0.5% now?
• Is an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) Worth the Risk?
• Is an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) better than a Retirement Account?

Financial Planners and Robo-advisers:

• Why we don’t trust financial planners
• Be your own zero-cost homebrew Robo-adviser
• Why we don’t use Robo-advisers
• We just saved $42,000 by not switching to Betterment
• A dog, a homework and a reader question about Robo Advisors

Withdrawal Rates:

• The Safe Withdrawal Rate Series. I recommend you check out the new intro page first before going through all parts: The Safe Withdrawal Rate Series – A Guide for First-Time Readers 
• All posts in chronological order:
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 1: Introduction
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 2: Capital Preservation vs. Capital Depletion
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 3: Equity Valuation
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 4: Social Security and Pensions
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 5: Cost-of-Living Adjustments
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 6: A 2000-2016 case study (or: Welcome to the Potemkin Retirement Village)
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 7: A Google Sheets Toolbox
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 8: Technical Appendix
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 9: Are Guyton-Klinger Rules Overrated?
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 10: Debunking Guyton-Klinger Some More
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 11: Six Criteria to Grade Withdrawal Rules
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 12: Six reasons to be suspicious about the “Cash Cushion”
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 13: Dynamic Stock-Bond Allocation through Prime Harvesting
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 14: Sequence of Return Risk
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 15: More Thoughts on Sequence of Return Risk
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 16: Early Retirement in a Low-Return World (and why we don’t worry about Jack Bogle’s return prediction)
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 17: More on Social Security and Pensions (and why we should call the 4% Rule the “4% Rule of Thumb”)
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 18: Flexibility and the Mechanics of CAPE-Based Rules
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 19: Equity Glidepaths in Retirement
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 20: More Thoughts on Equity Glidepaths
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 21: Why we will not have a mortgage in early retirement
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 22: Can the “Simple Math” make retirement more difficult?
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 23: Flexibility and its Limitations
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 24: Flexibility Myths vs. Reality
  • The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 25: More Flexibility Myths
  • Ten things the “Makers” of the 4% Rule don’t want you to know (Part 26)
  • Why is Retirement Harder than Saving for Retirement? (SWR Series Part 27)
  • An Updated Google Sheet DIY Withdrawal Rate Toolbox (SWR Series Part 28)
  • The Yield Illusion: How Can a High-Dividend Portfolio Exacerbate Sequence Risk? (SWR Series Part 29)
  • The Yield Illusion Follow-Up (SWR Series Part 30)
  • The Yield Illusion (or Delusion?): Another Follow-Up! (SWR Series Part 31)
  • You are a Pension Fund of One (or Two) – SWR Series Part 32
  • How to Calculate Your Safe Withdrawal Rate without using Simulations – SWR Series Part 33
  • Using Gold as a Hedge against Sequence Risk – SWR Series Part 34
  • Asset Location: Do Bonds Really Belong in Retirement Accounts? – SWR Series Part 35
  • Safe Withdrawal Math with Real Estate Investments – SWR Series Part 36
  • Dealing with a Bear Market in Retirement – SWR Series Part 37
  • When Can We Stop Worrying about Sequence Risk? – SWR Series Part 38
  • How often should we rebalance our portfolio? – SWR Series Part 39
  • Should we preserve our capital and only consume the dividends in retirement? – SWR Series Part 40
  • Can we raise our Safe Withdrawal Rate when inflation is low? – SWR Series Part 41
• Case Studies:
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “John Smith”: Seven-figure net worth, but not quite ready for FIRE yet. Big ERN would recommend a few more years in the workforce!
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Captain Ron”: Early retirement on a sailboat. How much can they withdraw from their $3m portfolio to stay afloat (pun) in retirement?
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Rene”: No need to worry about the recent layoff: You are more than ready for early retirement!
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mrs. Greece”: More than ready to retire due to large portfolio size and moderate living expenses, especially if the husband keeps working!
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mrs. Wish I Could Surf”: Alternative investments (real estate hard money loans). Keep the mortgage or pay it off? Either way, more than ready to retire!
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mr. Corporate”: Geographic Arbitrage by moving to a low-cost European country. Roth Conversions and zero tax liability!
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Ms. Almost FI”: Your name is a misnomer. You are ready to retire now even when self-funding substantial long-term care expenses in the future!
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mr. Corporate Refugee”: How to deal with a large portion of the net worth tied up in a house in a high-cost-of-living area.
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mrs. Wanderlust”: Substantial supplemental cash flows due to buying an RV and then selling it later.
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mr. and Mrs. Shirts”: Ready to retire this year, but should Mr. Shirts work for another nine months for some additional big payday?
  • Wrapup and summary of the 10 case studies: Ten Lessons From Ten Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Studies
  • Where are they now? A Case Study Update with “Captain Ron”
  • A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for Becky and Stephen – also see ChooseFI podcast episode 152R where I talk with Jonathan and Brad about this case study!
• Older research (pre-SWR-Series):
  • Pros and cons of different withdrawal rules
  • The 4% Rule is not as good as we hoped:
    • Part 1 – equity expected returns
    • Part 2 – bond expected returns
    • Part 3 – the small sample problem in historical simulations
  • Cash Management in Early Retirement

Real Estate:

• Real Estate: Buy or Rent? Includes: The hidden tax benefits of renting (seriously!)
• Why we’re not optimistic about REITs
• Why would anyone have a mortgage and a bond portfolio?
• Housing Choices in Early Retirement: Rent vs. Own
• See that house over there? It’s an investment!
• My best investment ever: Homeownership?!
• We Are Homeowners Again!
• How To “Lie” With Personal Finance – Part 2 (Homeownership Edition)
• Safe Withdrawal Math with Real Estate Investments – SWR Series Part 36

Taxes:

• That sneaky 30% Federal Income Tax Bracket
• Tax Loss Harvesting: what is it and how large is the expected benefit?
• We just saved $42,000 by not switching to Betterment
• Good and Bad Reasons to Love the Mortgage Interest Deduction
• Here’s an idea for a new ETF
• Stuck With a High-Expense-Ratio Fund? Here’s a Google Sheet to Weigh the Pros and Cons of Dumping that “Stinker” in Your Portfolio!
• Taxation of Social Security: The Tax Torpedo & Roth Conversion Tightrope
• How much can we earn in retirement without paying federal income taxes?

Derivatives:

• How to create a no-limit Synthetic Roth IRA in a taxable account
• Trading derivatives on the path to Financial Independence and Early Retirement
• Passive income through option writing: Part 1
• Passive income through option writing: Part 2
• Our Interview on the Amber Tree Leaves Blog
• Trading like an Escape Artist: How I made money in October trading S&P Futures Options with 2x leverage
• The OptionSellers.com debacle: How to blow up your portfolio in five easy steps
• Passive income through option writing: Part 3
• Another Option Strategy Failure: Why it’s “Nickels in Front of a Steamroller” and not “Benjamins in Front of a Baby Stroller!”
• Passive income through option writing: Part 4 – Surviving a Bear Market!
• Passive income through option writing: Part 5 – A 2018-2020 backtest: Guest Post by “Spintwig” (plus a quick update on last week’s volatility)