Below we have listed an outline of topics we are working on or thinking about. Some of them already have a link to a blog post. Others to come soon, so stay tuned! We also like to hear about suggestions for things to write about!

Latest posts:

The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 20: More Thoughts on Equity Glidepaths

The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 19: Equity Glidepaths in Retirement

Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mrs. Greece”

The Ultimate Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates – Part 18: Flexibility and the Mechanics of CAPE-Based Rules

How useful is international diversification?

Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Rene”

U.S. Equity Returns: History and Big ERN’s 10-Year Forecast

Active Investing: Opportunity vs. Futility

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 ERN Family Early Retirement Capital Preservation Plan

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)

Grand Canyon Rim to Rim Hike

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”

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?

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

Withdrawal Rates:

• 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
• New research on sustainable withdrawal rates:
  • 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
• Case Studies:
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “John Smith”
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Captain Ron”
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Rene”
  • Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Mrs. Greece”

Real Estate:

• Real Estate: Buy or Rent? Includes: The hidden tax benefits of renting (seriously!)
• Why we’re not optimistic on REITs
• Why would anyone have a mortgage and a bond portfolio?
• Housing Choices in Early Retirement: Rent vs. Own 
• Private Real Estate (coming soon)

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

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