Latest popular posts:
Discussing Retirement Bucket Strategies with Fritz Gilbert
Passive income through option writing: Part 10 – Year 2022 Review
A Post-Mortem for a Crypto Exchange: Is FTX worse than Bernie Madoff?
Who’s afraid of a housing crash?
The Bear Market is here. What Now?
Crypto is probably a bad investment!
Timing Leverage in Retirement – SWR Series Part 52
Retirement in a High-Inflation Environment – SWR Series Part 51
Ten things the “Makers” of the FIRE movement don’t want you to know – SWR Series Part 50
Low-Cost Leverage: The “Box Spread” Trade
My Thoughts on the “Passive Investing Bubble”
How To “Lie” With Personal Finance – Part 2 (Homeownership Edition)
General:
- 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!)
- Stealth Frugality
- Our Three-Year FIRE Anniversary
- 2022 FI Chautauqua in Ecuador
- Who’s afraid of a housing crash?
- A Post-Mortem for a Crypto Exchange: Is FTX worse than Bernie Madoff?
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?
- What to make of that Q3 U.S. GDP number?
- What’s wrong with Target Date Funds?
- How to Beat the Stock Market
- My thoughts on the GameStop volatility
- Q4 2020 GDP Update: Are we on track for a sustained economic recovery?
- Is a short-interest ratio above 100% really that scary? The GameStop Saga Part 2
- The Entire Safe Withdrawal Rate Series: Soon to be published on TikTok! Or not?! Happy April Fool’s Day!
- The Emergency Fund: It’s Still Useless!
- Inflation at 7%! Here’s why I’m not running for the hills (yet)!
- Crypto is probably a bad investment!
- The Bear Market is here. What Now?
- Hedging Against Inflation and Monetary Policy Risk
- Recession Or Not?
- Building a Better CAPE Ratio
- Could 2022 be worse than 2001?
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
- The Effect of “One More Year” – SWR Series Part 42
- Pre-Retirement Glidepaths: How crazy is it to hold 100% equities until retirement? – SWR Series Part 43
- Principles of Retirement Tax-Planning – SWR Series Part 44
- A Retirement Tax-Planning Case Study (and Excel Toolkit!) – SWR Series Part 45
- The Need for Precision in an Uncertain World – SWR Series Part 46
- When to Worry, When to Wing It: Withdrawal Rate Case Studies – SWR Series Part 47
- Retirement Bucket Strategies: Cheap Gimmick or the Solution to Sequence Risk? – SWR Series Part 48
- Using Leverage in Retirement – SWR Series Part 49
- Ten things the “Makers” of the FIRE movement don’t want you to know – SWR Series Part 50
- Retirement in a High-Inflation Environment – SWR Series Part 51
- Timing Leverage in Retirement – SWR Series Part 52
- Hedging against Sequence Risk through a “Retiree-Saver Investment Pact” – SWR Series Part 53
- The 4% Rule Works Again! An Update on Dynamic Withdrawal Rates based on the Shiller CAPE – SWR Series Part 54
- Discussing Retirement Bucket Strategies with Fritz Gilbert – SWR Series Part 55
- 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):
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?
- Principles of Retirement Tax-Planning – SWR Series Part 44
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)
- Passive income through option writing: Part 6 – A 2018-2021 backtest with different contract sizes: Guest Post by “Spintwig”
- Passive income through option writing: Part 7 – Careful when shorting long-dated options!
- Passive income through option writing: Part 8 – A 2021 Update
- Passive income through option writing: Part 9 – 2016-2021 backtest: Guest Post by “Spintwig”
- Low-Cost Leverage: The “Box Spread” Trade
- Passive income through option writing: Part 10 – Year 2022 Review