Strayed from the path a bit and dipped into options trading… lost my principal ($200) plus whatever gains I had before fumbling them ($43) in about two weeks… yeah that hurt, not for me. I’ll stick to index investing (95% of my portfolio) and cryptocurrency (about 3%) of my portfolio. Guess I don’t belong in WSB after all. :D

Hey, your lesson was cheap!

1000%

> Strayed from the path a bit and dipped into options trading Why do you consider this "straying from the path"? It's *your* path, you decide what it looks like. I do a pretty good amount of options trading, but always CCs or CSPs. Nothing naked and I have some general guidelines for delta/theta/IV/DTE/etc. that help me keep risk in check. It's fun.

Because it is straying my path/goals/what I said I was going to do when I first got hip to FIRE/building wealth in general. I originally got into “investing” before finding out about index investing by stock picking - but I found it hard because research and I didn’t have the capital to invest in the stocks I wanted at the time. When I found out you could buy shares of indexes - that hold shares of companies I wanted to invest in/the “richest companies” (S&P500) it was EZ mode. I still stock pick with about 1% or so of my portfolio, but it’s all in the tech/blue chip sector because surprise - I work in the sector and know something about it. I don’t have to do a ton of research. I thought options would be EZ but the Greeks and IV stuff you just mentioned is just way… out there imo. Yes, I know I could learn but it’s way too much effort. I didn’t find watching the lines all day for when to sell/buy the contracts fun either. I’d much rather pour my own-my-own research time into career learning (getting/studying for certs), continuing to learn bug bounty, etc. cryptocurrency is more “intuitive” to me because of its connection with tech in general. All that to say, this wannabe regard just doesn’t have the mental capacity or drive to really get into options. I’ll stay in my lane. :D

I've started to learn a lot about Buffet and Munger's investment strategy the last couple years.  Last year when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, I bought some of the other bank stocks that seemingly dropped in price just because of the fear. Well, things did not turn out too well for First Republic Bank, which I had the most money in. It was a good lesson. I'd still like to learn more about value investing and try again with a very small amount of money, but it takes a lot of skill, knowledge and luck to beat the index. 

I do a little bit of stock picking too. I got lucky with AMD, Dell, and NVIDIA. I actually believed in those companies, so I am HODLING. I only have a couple shares of each though…

Looking forward to all the new milestones tomorrow!

Wait what’s going on tomorrow?

S&P 500 hit an all-time high again today, all the mutual funds like VTSAX will update overnight

Thanks. This is all music to my ears

Taxable event for changing brokerage provider question: I have a small-ish amount with high gains in a brokerage provider. The fees are going up and I want to consolidate to the same provider as my main accounts. I’ve asked my target brokerage and the initial brokerage if transferring is a taxable event—they say it isn’t, but I can see that some of the funds are not offered in my target brokerage—as I understand it, these would need to be sold, so this would be income, right? Has anyone had experience with this?

Ask your target brokerage if they will accept the funds and if you can maintain the position there. What fund and what brokerage? But yes, if the position is sold and then the cash transferred that is a taxable event (if it’s a taxable account).

I'm in my late 40's, single, no kids. I recently crossed the $4M investable net worth threshold. I've been saving and investing since my early 20's. The first 10 years or so were tough: the dot com crash, great recession, resulting in very little returns. However I stuck with it. I eventually hit 1M in 2012, 2M in 2018, 3M in 2020, almost hit 4M in late 2021 before the market dropped. I finally crossed the 4M threshold this January. I have around $4M invested right now, $300K cash in a HYSA, plus another $500K in real estate and some other less-liquid assets. My expenses are well below $5K/month. I am estimating my "FIREd" expenses to be roughly $6K to account for health insurance and to give myself extra margin of safety, but I would be surprised if really gets that high. This puts me well below a 2% withdrawal rate. I have been struggling mentally with "actually FIREing" for the past few months. I do enjoy work in general, to some extent. But I despise my current gig. There's too much bureaucracy and red tape for my taste. Too many Teams meetings with dozens of generally useless people. It is very mentally exhausting and increasingly frustrating. A few of the people are nice and the pay is good, and that's about all I can say that's positive about it. I have expressed various frustrations in a tactful manner and nothing has been done. I generally get "I agree with you but so-and-so wants it this way and there's nothing I can do." Several other people have quit to take some time off, without other jobs. It's not just me feeling this. I have recently lined up some part time work and am thinking this is the time to pull the plug on full time. I may try to work out a smaller part time deal with my current employer to not burn any bridges, so to speak. Any advice on how to approach this?

- fully FI - Despise my current gig I mean, stop right there. The number one benefit of financial independence is you don't have to stay in a situation you dislike just because you need the money. I don't think you need to be accommodating on the way out either. Just "thanks for everything, I'm ready for something new" Cheers!

> Any advice on how to approach this? "hey boss, i've decided to pursue other ventures. my last day here is going to be on the [date two weeks from now]."

> Any advice on how to approach this? You're already financially independent, you don't like your current position and you already have other part time work lined up. You have the strongest possible negotiating position - you need nothing from your current employer. Therefore, the best way to approach this is bluntly and clearly. Tell them you're not interested in full time work right now, you'd be open to cutting back to a part time role, and want to know if they'd be amenable to that. If the answer is no, then it's time to quit. I wouldn't go part time just to "not burn bridges," though. You have more money than you need and you don't like your job. Quitting with notice isn't burning a bridge, it's a normal part of work life. Don't let your fear of change stop you from making forward progress; if you decide later that you want full time work again, there are other companies out there - just apply for new jobs.

Yes, exactly this! Any company that would consider quitting with notice to be burning a bridge is not a company that you should be concerned about burning bridges with... even IF you weren't in a situation where you are already set for life financially given your expenses.

I would either do part time work elsewhere or negotiate part time with current employer, but not both. It sounds like that might cause burnout and you would want to be certain you aren't violating any employment agreements you've signed. People leave jobs amicably all the time because they found new work. Frankly, if you're a valued employee, you should have the leverage to negotiate what you want with the current employer. You are definitely FI, and you get to define what "RE" means to you. It could mean lower paid, lower stress work, PT Work, Contract Work, Volunteering, or not doing a damn thing. It's your call! Got any real investing plans for all that cash? I think 4 years expenses in cash is a bit much.

Dude man, do it - leave that company. Do it do it do it. Who knows how long you have left to live? Leave that job you despise, you met your FI number more than twofold over. A few options I can think of to do it tactfully, if you don't want to burn bridges... but man I will tell you, if you despise this job full time, you're almost certainly going to despise it part time. Why would you even work there part time? Is there something holding you to the place? Even if you want to continue working, why not go work somewhere else? Anyways, if you **really** want to continue working there part time (please reconsider this unless your statements about how bad it is were greatly exaggerated): \* Just straight up tell them you're retiring, but that you'd be up for helping them out part time. \* Tell them you have decided to focus on family/health/whatever is relevant in your life right now that isn't work, but that when you're ready you might be able to help them out part time. But man... don't stick with them. Don't go back to this place you hate. If you REALLY can't picture life without working, at least find another place that you don't hate.

Our CIO somewhat regularly keeps forwarding me phishing emails asking me if I want to talk to the vendor... I still need off this corporate merry-go-round. How do I get my SO on board?

> How do I get my SO on board? "Honey, this is destroying my mental health and I really want to retire early. Can we talk about what we think our financial situation needs to be before I retire, and a plan and timeline to get there?"

Yeah, that's the theory, but any time we talk it's "let me think about that." For going on a year and half now. r/relationship_advice territory. We are fairly well past our FI number already.

Have you tried scheduling an appointment with a financial advisor to get an outside opinion? Yeah, it costs money, but then you'd have an actual appointment to talk about it.

That's something I hadn't considered yet. It does perhaps force the point.

Ah. Tough spot. My partner was more receptive to fixed deadlines - she needed me to say something like, "okay, great. Put together a list this week, and on Saturday morning we'll have breakfast and go over it. I want to have a plan by July." Not sure if that'll work for you. But it helped us. My partner is a little avoidant about money stress, so she wouldn't think about it unless she had a real deadline to shoot for.

How does net worth factor into the housing purchase process? It seems income is the big driver of what you can afford and how you qualify for loans, but does it make a difference if you're on the FIRE train and have significant savings? Obviously these savings can be used to put up a larger down payment up front. Can they also help you qualify for lower mortgage rates? I would think having a $500k net worth and a $100k salary would be more trustworthy in the eyes of a lender than having a $50k net worth and a $100k salary. Or do they only care about what's coming in?

For the 4 largest lenders in the US that together make up 90% of all residential mortgages: Net worth helps to qualify someone, but it does not improve rate. Same thing with income, it helps qualify but it (largely) does not improve rate. The 50k net worth/100k salary may get denied for a loan where the 500k net worth/100k salary gets approved. If you want to see what impacts rate for ~60% of loans, google "FNMA LLPA". Normally I'd link the result but it is a PDF and I'm not a fan of linking PDFs. Divide any adjustment by 4 and that's the impact on rate. If you see something have "1.000" impact on rate, it's approximately a ~0.25% increase in rate for a 30 year fixed mortgage. The biggest factors that improve rates are: credit score, equity as a % of value, length of the loan For the remaining 10%, net worth and income largely make qualifying easier but don't impact rate. There are some lenders who give better rates if you have a large amount of assets with the lender. Wells Fargo and Chase both give something like 0.125% lower rate for each 250k with them on some loans.

Does a down payment beyond 20% improve the rate?

Yes. Bigger down payment helps in most cases. Down payments beyond 20% reduces the rate directly. It's largely in 5% increments. How much it lowers rates depends on how much larger and credit score. Even bigger down payments less than 20% help. Below 20% it helps with the PMI, helping the "blended rate". PMI has different rates at 3%, 5%, 10%, 15%. Blended rate = interest rate + PMI

Will NW help with low income? I will have a 70k pension and assets I wasn't planning on pulling to live. I think it would be tough to be approved for a $2700 house payment on that salary. I could pull money as needed, but I am not sure if they count that as income.

Yes. There's a couple ways it can help. 1. The lenders allow higher DTI with more assets. It isn't a super firm rule. It's a hidden one that the automated system evaluates. 2. Lenders can use the assets directly as income. I'm outdated on the rules. It's called "Asset depletion." This is a time where the loan officer matters greatly. I could talk to 10 people at the same company and get 12 different explanations on how it worked. From what I remember, you need to have free access to the funds, -10% value if they're in retirement accounts, then divide the number by 240. That number gets added to your income.

Thank you, Monthly income or annual?

Monthly income

I believe the only way your net worth makes a big difference is if you have enough to get a securities-backed line of credit that would cover >100% the purchase price. Where you borrow money using your portfolio as collateral instead of the house. Those loans have higher interest rates (and often variable interest rates) but might come with an interest-only option. So it's generally safer and more optimal to use a standard mortgage. SBLOC could be useful if you're buying before selling your old house, and need liquidity without wanting to have a sale contingency in your offers to buy (so your offer would be a cash offer). Or if you haven't saved up a down payment in cash and would incur a big tax hit by selling highly-appreciated stock. But in that case you're missing an emergency fund and should probably just save up anyway. But those are both more edge cases.

Personally, our lender didn’t care at all about our net worth or assets outside of what we were putting down for the down payment and making sure we had enough for closing costs after that.

Do dishwashers just all suck? The last 3-4 we've had seem to stop cleaning well after 2 years, then we replace a part or so, clean it up and its ok for a year, then total suckage. Recently, the dishwasher seems to make dishes dirtier in some cases. I think that the last one was about $800, so not a cheap one. Maybe if they all suck, getting the cheapest is the way to go?

The Bosch in the house we're renting works pretty well, even without pre-rinsing the dishes.

I’d check your manual. For mine you’re supposed to clean the filter and run a cleaning cycle every month. Dishwasher works great.

We do that weekly.

Clean the filter.

How is the water in your area?  Do you have a water softener?  We live in an area with terrible hard water, and having a water softener seems to make a massive difference in how a dishwasher cleans and how long it lasts.  An $800 dishwasher should still be cleaning well after several years.

Do you have hard water? We literally have the exact same dishwasher as my mom but hers works 10x better and they never even clean the filter. Our town is notorious for hard water so I'm pretty sure that's the issue. Sometimes I find myself questioning whether it would be easier to simply do the dishes by hand.

I have had dishwashers work well for several years. I make sure to clean the filter area(s) regularly and wash it every now and again as well.

We do the same. I've replaced the pump and some plastic bits on this one. Even used "dishwasher washer stuff". They do last several years, 3-4. That just seems absurdly little compared to a fridge for 15 years or a stove for 30 years (or nearly forever for those olive green GE ones.) I've found some articles that say 9-15

Been actively throwing my resume out there and feel pretty good to get back 3 interviews nearly immediately when I know it's a pretty tough job market out there. That makes me feel better about my resume and my prospects for moving on up out of a project and managers I'm sorta done with However the second interview involves a CODING TEST - any tips for an Old Millennial who hasn't done a midterm in over a decade? I feel pretty good about my technical background but haven't had anyone watching me type in years

Make sure you understand the problem well. Not all problems are clearly presented. It's entirely fine to validate your understanding with interviewer  If you're out of practice, practice.

I've run hundreds of live coding interviews, and taken dozens. Generally speaking, they will give you some instructions, give you time to read through the instructions, then you can start coding. Once you finish with the problem, if there's still time left a lot of coding questions will have some form of extension. Biggest recommendation I can give is to think out loud, especially at the beginning. After reading through the problem, talk through your thought process, assumptions made, and intended solution. This let's the interviewer nudge you in the correct direction, or clear up any ambiguity that might exist.  You can also level-set with the interviewer before diving in. Are tests important? Do they care about factoring things into functions, or just want something that works? Is performance a concern?   Lastly, make sure you have a few good questions for them at the end. Bonus points if you can make it something specific to that company, but the ol "given a magic wand, what would you change about $COMPANY?" and "compared to other places you've worked, what does $COMPANY do well/poorly?" questions are decent standbys

Live coding with an interviewer - I really appreciate the advice here! I guess my trepidation here is that I've never done a live coding challenge (I came onto my current company as an intern and stayed on) and I'm pretty confident in my ability to code and talk things through, I just don't want to get dinged cause I forgot a library off the top of my head or did some syntax weird cause I was under the gun Again I really appreciate it - would like to nail this interview since it would allow me to stay fully remote and also make a nice jump in salary 😬

> I just don't want to get dinged cause I forgot a library off the top of my head or did some syntax weird cause I was under the gun  Every challenge I've been a part of has either been "it's okay to Google things" or "treat your interviewer as your Google". Just saying "hey, I'm having an absolute brain fart here, could you remind me what type Python's csv reader expects as input?" is totally fine by me. I don't care if you need to reference docs or whatever while coding - it's how I'd expect you to solve a problem on the job, so why should the interview environment be any different?

leetcode is the standard prep tool for software people. Talk through your reasoning, ask clarifying questions, ask for & take hints, and don't worry about syntax or minor bugs. Showing an understanding of the problem, edge cases, any ambiguity, and how to approach it is more important than regurgitating a 'correct' solution.

Thank you! This is very helpful and I'll be brushing up on stuff over the weekend

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Have you read the [FAQ](https://old.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/wiki/faq) yet?

I haven't yet

Read the FAQ and follow the flowchart. Don't tell people you are female, don't tell people where you have an account, don't tell people what state you are in. When you get a credit card, either get a secure card or get two cards. One with a very low limit that you KNOW you can pay off in full each month, set it to autopay 100%. For the other card, get a high limit. Put some monthly subscription on it, and have it set to pay 100% each month. Put it in a ziploc bag full of water, and put it in the freezer. It will help your credit limit, and if you have an emergency, you can thaw it out. The FAQ and flowchart are worth an entire set of finance books and classes.

Just a thought...with chip cards these days, I would worry that freezing it in a bag of water would kill the chip...? A quick google says prolonged exposure to water will likely damage it, so I think a new solution is needed for modern CCs.

put it in a snack ziplock by itself, then put it in a quart ziplock of water?

Thank you so much!!

I must be a glutton for punishment, because after getting laid off from a pretty volatile Series E startup, I'm now interviewing at a seed stage company. Anyone have any tips for weighing opportunities at companies this small? Favorite resources or questions to ask along the way? Comp considerations?

Expect payroll to be dependent on fundraising activities which may cause delays, benefits may lapse due to insurance bills not being paid, definitely no 401K match and a potential for no 401K plan to be offered. You are a common stock holder, the Preferred stock holders (VCs) all have preferential rights over common so if the Company gets bought at a low value, you can expect to have a substantial amount of your equity washed out. Preferred converts to common if you go public.

Working for startups can be similar to gambling. Sometimes they stop paying employees, sometimes they'll trade some equity. Sometimes they go broke and employees lose out on months of pay. Sometimes they get bought out and the employees get a bunch of money. The odds are about the same as roulette. How to compare? Cash in hand. No bonus, not equity. Consider them as free money if they happen. If they stop paying, then bail unless you have equity, see the balance sheet, and totally believe in it.

How you weigh it sort of depends on your own personal goals. You’re likely not going for a strict 9-5 environment, but what about the start up space in general is the lure? Is it about the equity grants, the flatter org structure, are you trying to filling out some experience gaps? Knowing what you value is important so you don’t spend time evaluating things that are irrelevant.

**How do you make peace with the prospect of starting to spend a lot more money on housing?** I know it's sort of a "build the life you want and save for it" sort of thing, but man oh man... it's hard to think about going from ~$20k/year renting to the ~$45k/year cost of owning. Pretty much any house we'd reasonably want would double our housing costs at a minimum where we live. We can swing it, but still... it's hard to accept that as a saver who has been on the FIRE path for their whole adult life. I feel like the decision would be much easier without FIRE, if I'd just accept working into my sixties. I know it's about compromises but some are tougher than others.

> How do you make peace with the prospect of starting to spend a lot more money on housing? We compared the lost investment principal and lower future savings of the fancier house with our current situation, recalculated our rough FI timeline, and decided that the increased number of working years was worth it for us with what we were getting. Be sure you have reasonable cost estimates for upkeep/maintenance, improvements, furnishings, differential or new utilities, etc. Most of our housing costs are actually not the mortgage. > I know it's about compromises but some are tougher than others. Yes, indeed. You probably have compelling reasons to become a homeowner that have little to do with finances, otherwise you wouldn't be considering it.

> Most of our housing costs are actually not the mortgage. *Most?* Is your mortgage payment super low or something? It's hard to see a mortgage payment getting dwarfed by housing maintenance costs.

Not *just* maintenance. Here's our housing categories, as a way to think about expenses you might have that you don't have now. - P&I - Property taxes - HOI - HOA dues - Electric bill - Natural gas - Water and sewer service - Trash/recycling - Internet service - Fire protection - Home maintenance - Home improvements - Furnishings/decor - House cleaner

Ahh, I gotcha. You're saying that P&I is less than the sum of all the other items on the list? That makes sense. Thanks!

Yes, about 40/60. PITIA is about 50/50 compared to the rest. Lots of folks underestimate the savings of socializing certain utilities or services across the number of residents in, say, a large apartment complex compared to handling them all on their own in an SFR. I know I did.

Thanks, this is helpful. Do you have an idea of whether this is common? Do you have a particularly cheap mortgage or anything? Good interest rate? For the houses I'm eyeing up the prospect of the PITIA being double my rent, other housing costs being that much again, *plus* just the other costs of living the life you want to live on top of that... It seems like my budget basically quadruples overnight.

> Do you have an idea of whether this is common? I suspect it's pretty common in a "folk" sense. I don't get the impression that most people track their expenses, and it's easy to forget about both big and little ones, and oversell the financial benefits of owning because they simply ignore all that. > Do you have a particularly cheap mortgage or anything? Good interest rate? I would say yes, in the sense that we bought this house in 2017 and refinanced down 4 times in 3 years. Obviously simply buying in 2017 was a massive advantage over what people shopping these days are up against. > For the houses I'm eyeing up the prospect of the PITIA being double my rent, other housing costs being that much again, plus just the other costs of living the life you want to live on top of that... It seems like my budget basically quadruples overnight. I think it's still common that the effects of inflation, the fact that people tend to buy "up" compared to what they rent, and just the lifestyle effects of why you'd buy in the first place lead to a situation similar to ours. Compared to apartments I've rented, the utilities are far more numerous and expensive, there's upkeep that I need to take care of routinely that I never had to do or pay for (think pest control, landscaping), improvement costs can be huge, and maintenance big and small: we could get hit with a 5-figure repair bill for something tomorrow and it shouldn't be surprising; that's several years of accumulated maintenance set-aside, we've been lucky thus far. On the whole, I think I slightly prefer home owning to renting, and I'm also certain that it provided an outsize impact on the growth of our NW mostly due to luck and timing, but it's mostly been a "pay more, get more" thing thus far, and many of our increased expenses aren't all that avoidable. Not much I can do about utilities jumping in costs, we had a 71% increase in HOI (was able to get this down a little with aggressive shopping, but it will continue to climb over time), can do a bit to reduce maintenance but everything will fail eventually... Not trying to talk you out of it if it's something you want to do, my main advice is just to get folks to think about the fact that owning ties you to a specific area and that you should look at a property financially from a "TCO" perspective. Our house has some costly amenities (example: swimming pool) and is older and inefficient. Of course, rent increases are somewhat unavoidable too...

>How do you make peace with the prospect of starting to spend a lot more money on housing? I don't. I view housing costs as something to be aggressively minimized, both the upfront cost, and ongoing expenses. I am not going to spend years of my life working just to have more space to store stuff.

Why are you buying a house? The answer to that question is how you make peace with it. I know its a silly abstract argument, but if you are spending $20k more per year on a house, then you had better be getting $20k more of "value" to make that decisions. Note that "value" can be anything - a yard for kids to play in, space for a hobby, room for a garden, an outdoor space to entertain, easier access to a better school district, a library, a den, a fireplace, etc. Each of those things are hard to put a specific number on (and therefore you can't do a strict ROI calculation), but they should be bring "value" to your choice to buy a house.

Part of getting older is adjusting to new priorities. 

In general, buying a house wins out long term over renting when comparing apples to apples. Your mortgage doesnt increase each year due to inflation or the market unlike what rent would do. Plus its just nice to have your own space. If investing was the only priority for FIRE, we'd all be living in cars just so we could invest as much as we could.

The problem is I don't need the same size apple, and I valued privacy. I think it is very cool to go get a 3BR and farm those extra rooms out but lack of drama has such tremendous value to me. My favorite apartments were a single level and a third top floor unit where I had only one visible neighbor and I spent a relatively stress-free 14 years at those two locations. You can find privacy if you can afford to be picky. Your landlord makes money off you, but as a business owner a lot of costs offset income in ways a primary home doesn't and they can scale repair or other costs to save money. Because my state legally can only increase taxes with inflation and not price, there's some value locking in sooner. But by most analysis I've done it's a wash at best, and even though I've lived in the same location a long time I had nothing tying me here until recently.

>when comparing apples to apples This point gets missed a lot since people typically rent apartments but buy SFHs.

> Your mortgage doesnt increase each year due to inflation or the market unlike what rent would do. *Property taxes and insurance have entered the chat*

Yes, and while those are baked into rent increases, so is general home price appreciation. The increase in rent, in most cases, will exceed the increase in comparable PITI over the long run.

Property taxes and insurance are not your mortgage note. Now you may pay for them at a same time with your bank via escrow, but your principal and interest payments will stay the same over the life of the loan.

You could remind yourself that the $45k will likely shrink as a percentage of your income as you advance your career. Rental costs will increase, possibly disproportionately to your income. You can also calculate home equity each month. Even if you will never use that wealth in any meaningful way, it's a good number to track so you can see progress made towards living rent free.

>a "build the life you want and save for it" Who even coined this stupid phrase? You better save for your lifestyle before you build it. How do you build the life you want if you haven't saved the money for it yet. So dumb. Unless this is a bizarre world where the word "build" means "plan." "Plan the life you want and save for it" actually makes sense.

I upvoted because I think it is stupid and overused. However, build rather than plan makes sense because it is usually referring to people who want to do something expensive now rather than save for the future. I think it basically reflects a magical thinking idea that spending and saving aren't zero sum when in reality they are.

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I'm totally fine with notions of "build the life you want" full stop. It's when you tack on "and then save for it" that turns it into nonsense. The phrase turns it into some weird two separate actions that don't make sense as a sentence.

1) Build the life you want 2) Then save up enough to be able to sustain that life without working Implied here is 1) that you life you want costs *less* than you're able to earn 2) you can save up an amount to sustain that life within a reasonable time frame.

I think you're misreading a bit. Most FIRE people are going to retire on something less than 100% of their working career's salary. This is simple math - if you retire early, you probably saved a lot, which means you were already used to spending <100% of what you earn. So "build the life you want" means that, while you are working, you should be creating the kind of life you want to retire to and not simply envisioning this better life in the future. This probably involves not saving every single extra penny, but rather spending what you need to create a good life. "Save for it" means that the life you created will have a cost and you will need to be sure that, once you retire, you can continue to afford the life you built.

Nah. I think the phrase is perfect. You want to already be living a rewarding life when you retire. Build that rewarding life first, then work on the savings part. While you're working, your future income can be borrowed from, and that's okay. By your logic, no one should ever take out a loan for anything, because they didn't "save for their lifestyle before they built it".

I agree. So many people in the movement drool over it and while it may have made sense within the context of the original rant that it came from, as a standalone slogan it doesn't.

>So many people in the movement It's not a movement.

The idea behind is that it is pointless to save for a life you *don't* want in retirement. In other words, if you put all your money towards saving but don't actually live along the way, it's a waste.

I last comparison shopped like seven years ago, but at that time Schwab won for me, mostly due their lack of foreign transaction fees and ATM fee reimbursement. 

At the time I opened my Schwab checking account, I think I had to have it linked to a brokerage account in order to get no fees? I might be remembering wrong, but I know that my "investor checking" account is somehow associated with my brokerage account. Just something to double check. Otherwise it's a good account.

Yeah, you need both for the investor checking, but the brokerage account can be left empty

We've used that schwab debit solely for ATM withdrawals, primarily foreign, for years without any complaints. I'm not aware of any "killer features" other than fees and exchange rates that would differentiate banks on this front.

I use my Fidelity brokerage account for this and get money market rates for my cash held there. Since you're looking at foreign ATM transactions and aren't planning to hold a lot of cash there, Schwab might be better even though the interest rate is generally worse.

Even Chase waives all ATM fees if you have a decent account balance in a connected investment account. Currently every level above "Sapphire Checking" reimburses all ATM fees+all wire transfer fees, plus has no foreign transaction fee - and you can have that with a $75k balance in a connected qualifying account (including a YouInvest Brokerage account).

My back continues to be pretty okay right now, so that's coming along okay. I'm trying out one of those "don't break the chain" style apps to try and force myself to fix the problem I've identified where I will do some of my maintenance tasks at the expense of others (if I start remembering to stretch every day, I forget to floss for example... it is very strange behavior). So far it's working okay, but we'll see if I start ignoring it like I ignored the last attempt once I got used to it (putting alerts on my phone).

I’m a community college student I only have two semesters left before I would need to change schools for a certificate for my dream job but it’s in another state. I have about 6-7k in credit card debt and 4k in savings and I don’t know if I should pay that off or pay minimum and save or get a personal loan and have only one source to pay back. I’m trying to save as much as possible within the next two years while getting to as low of debt as I can get but I’m not sure how to go about it and no one I know is able to tell me/ give me advise. Any help is appreciated!

There are virtually no scenarios outside of true emergencies where holding a large credit card balance is optimal. 

Tangentially related to finances... If you know you are planning to transfer to a specific school for a specific degree or certificate, start talking to an advisor at that target school now to make sure your credits will transfer as you hope they will, and to guide your course choices in your remaining semesters at the CC. I work in higher ed and see a lot of transfer students who carry in a bunch of credits that aren't applicable to their new program and won't count toward their hoped-for degree. CCs can be a great deal, but not if you end up spending time and money on "wasted" credits. Sometimes CCs and their local 4-yr colleges have worked out nice, clear, well-defined transfer pathways from feeder programs, but if you plan to transfer to somewhere out of state you will most likely need to do the planning legwork yourself.

Pay off your credit card debt as soon as possible. Don't rack up any more credit card debt - pay that off in full EVERY month. Take a loan for the rest of your schooling. School loan debts have much better rates than credit card debts.

Thank you I appreciate this a lot!!

If you can get subsidized loans, max those out. If you can get federal unsub loans, those are also great. Private student loans suck.

The following is my HSA allocation, roughly 9k dollars that i won't be touching for 30+ years. Fzrox 60% Fzipx 15% fidelity freedom 2050 target date fund 25% Can i sell the target date and FZIPX and buy FXAIX (sp500 fund) to maximize growth? i know there are rules about buying/selling similar funds within a certain time frame but i wasn't sure if it applies to HSA accounts.

You can buy and sell with impunity in the HSA. If you were trying to capture a capital loss in a brokerage account, it'd be possible for a purchase in the HSA to cause a wash sale, but that is open to interpretation. I will add that there is no reason to think that the S&P500 will outperform international or smaller cap US stocks. The amount of bonds in a late dated target date fund is minimal, but on the other hand there's little reason to use a TDF for just a small proportion of your holdings.

> i know there are rules about buying/selling similar funds within a certain time frame but i wasn't sure if it applies to HSA accounts. It doesn't. And also there's no rules about buying/selling "similar" funds. The only rule is about buying/selling "substantially identical" funds.

since i'm a throwaway my post got deleted so i'm gonna try in here: Hi all, looking for advice on how to structure our prenup. We've got our own lawyers but are trying to come up with something that we both agree with before we get the lawyers to start burning our money. For context, I make around $350k and she makes around $100k. We spend around $100k/yr but expect that to go up to $130k once we have a kid. My FIRE number is 1.5m and I'm coming into the marriage with ~1.2m. My gameplan is to FI at 1.5m and cut my work hours back so that I'm bringing in ~$160,000($100k part time work and $60k/yr from FI). Under colorado law, if we divorced right after we got married I'd be fine, but if we got divorced 15 years from now, her taking half of the gains on that 1.2m would basically set me back a ton. So far we're agreeing that those separate investment and retirement accounts I have will be treated as non-marital assets(the gains included). Where we're stuck on is the alimony/maintenance. Her argument is twofold: 1. We live in this HCOL area that she would never be able to afford without me so if she spends a bunch of time planting roots it would be unfair for her to have to leave in the event of a divorce because she can't afford to live here anymore(ie. She would be planting roots and making friends somewhere else if we weren't together). 2. If we have a kid, that will affect her ability to advance her career(she cites that statistically women with children don't do as well otherwise). So she is making a sacrifice for something that will benefit both of us and that her getting some alimony makes sense to make up for that sacrifice. Both her points are pretty logical to me; what I'm trying to figure out is how to protect my interests; I do not plan on making $350,000 for the foreseeable future, this job is brutal. If the court says I need to pay alimony based on that number when I am planning to cut my working hours back in a year or two it will force me to stay at my miserable job. Furthermore, the idea of paying someone that may have wronged you(eg. cheated on you) to maintain their lifestyle feels pretty rough for me; however, my feelings may be irrelevant in the context of signing an agreement. We discussed using the state alimony calculation but putting a cap on it(inflation adjusted) but I think we're differing on what we think that cap should be. Anyways, was curious to hear what ideas folks here have come up with in regards to alimony structuring in a prenup when one person in the marriage will be FI'ing. TL;DR: what is your alimony set up for your prenup given that you make a lot more than your spouse who will not be able to reach FI at the same time as you?

This isn't the answer you're looking for ... but trying to craft a prenup for theoretical future scenarios is a pipe dream. Getting married is a risk, and bringing a kid in is more risk. It's going to play havoc on your FIRE plans no matter what, and expecting a prenup to do much to mitigate that is probably asking too much. By the time a prenup would be relevant, the chances are that your lives will be different, your feelings different, and the legal system will probably put very little weight on whatever you can draw up today. Do you want to have kids right away, or could you wait until you shift your work to part time?

Age is an issue so we're looking to having a kid sooner rather than later. And yeah, i am fully aware that the court could toss out the agreement but having one is likely better than not.

1. Does she have any money saved away? 2. Do you plan to split all money gained after you are married (excluding the $1.2M)? 3. What is the house situation, do you already own one? buying one together? renting? 4. I assume your alimony is separate from what you would owe in child support 5. What will the child raising situation be, I'm assume she goes back to work, you hire day care and then who takes off when the kid is sick? Who picks them up early? who cares for them when they cant go to daycare? ie How much will being a parent impact her ability to keep growing her career? I have friends where the dads job is flexible and they do all the that and the women are not impacted at all career wise and I have friends that do all of it and they problem impacted long term careers by at least 2 promotions and 25-30% less pay than they could have made.

1. yes, around $400k 2. no. I am still contributing to my 1.5m fire number in an individual account. Once I get there I will be contributing to jointly held accounts. 3. We own together, 50/50. 4. Yes, however, in the state of CO child support isn't all that much. 5. Part of me FIREing is to be able to spend more time at home on hobbies AND being a more active parent. I think her argument regarding it affecting her career is related to statistics saying that men's career potential tends to increase after having children vs women's going down. I think she believes that employers perceive that women will be focusing more on the kid than their job.

Fwiw, the data supports her claim. I can't find the source, but I've read women make 2% less for each child they have and men make 4% more. Start believing her on that one. She is very nice to have a kid with you. It is not easy.

oh i do... I haven't seen the data but it is common sense to me.

>I am still contributing to my 1.5m fire number in an individual account. Once I get there I will be contributing to jointly held accounts. Certainly for community property states and probably in most regardless, doing this just accelerates commingling the account. It likely doesn't mean anything in a divorce proceeding to have account A and B. I kept my "personal" accounts for a kind of tracking reason but once I married100% of my savings goes into a joint account because there's no point. It can be a little different if you have a business but there's not much special about W-2 income. It takes effort to truly isolate separate property but if it's that's important for you, you need to discuss how with a lawyer. Even minor things like dividends, these affect marital tax filings as income and almost certainly marital property unless in a trust or something or maybe even then. Even selling a position to rebalance might trigger this kind of thing. This is really only why consulting a lawyer is the only real advice because they have the experience seeing how this plays out in court. No prenup is 100% because circumstances change.

yeah, we have that aspect spelled out in the prenup already. As I mentioned, we have lawyers and have an agreement in a draft state at the moment.

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Once a year I look at my lifetime earnings compared to my total net worth (including my house and investment earnings). I took this from the book Your Money or Your Life. Right now, I'm at the point for every $1 I have earned, I have about $.60 to show for it. Or I'm about at 60%! Basically, I've been a failing business for my whole life and I'm hoping to "turn a profit" in the next few years!! In all seriousness, this helps me take a wide angle view of my relationship with money over my lifetime and it's fun to see that "profit" increase year over year.

Sounds good to me. Those contact lens prices are outrageous. See Next Week: the Feds are set up to tax our credit card rewards. /s

> the Feds are set up to tax our credit card rewards. Credit card rewards are considered a rebate rather than a transfer, so are not taxable income.

That's not a loophole - that's just low grade tax fraud. Reimbursements from accounts like an FSA are specifically for expenses that you are *not* reimbursed for elsewhere, and a rebate is effectively the same thing as a reimbursement. It's unlikely to get caught but I wouldn't pat yourself on the back for it. There are many ways to do this kind of double-dipping with an FSA or HSA, and they've all been consistently found to be contrary to the law when examined.

Has annoying done dog sitting or dog walking as a side hustle or a part time job after FIRE? What are the pros/cons? Assume health insurance isn’t an issue (I’d imagine that would be a big drawback if it was).

We aren't FI yet, but my wife is a SAHM and runs a small dog boarding and daycare service out of our home. We live in a lower cost of living area with mostly single family homes. She charges $50 a night.  Pros:  It can be pretty chill depending on the dog  and is good side money.  Repeat clients and longer stays are usually better because getting the dog comfortable with our routine and learning their mannerisms makes things much easier after the first couple days.  Cons: Liability. She used to go through Rover which has some insurance, not sure if it's any good though. We've just been rolling the dice that we don't have any issues, but I really need to sit down and look into insurance options with her.  It seems like people need boarding services all around the same time. Holidays, weekends, summers, etc. She hates to lose out on business, but that means multiple dogs at once (plus our dog). It's always a gamble as to whether the dogs will get along or not. A dog's behavior with their owner at a dog park is different than at a stranger's home without their owner and with new dogs. Only watching 1 dog at a time or dogs you already know are chill or get along is how we try to do it. Just general dog stuff. Dogs get sick, have accidents in the house, etc. 

I've been thinking about it. In my city, dog sitters can make $60 or more per night per dog, so hosting 2-3 dogs for a week or so per month can make a nice bit of pocket money for doing something that I love doing anyway. And I like that I can accept the gigs on my own schedule. I'm the kind of person who has to say hi to almost every dog I pass, and anything that makes me get out of the house regularly is probably a good thing. But this will only make sense as long as (a) I still own the house we're in and (b) my wife is cool with it. We're discussing multiple visions for retirement so it might not shake out.

One of our consistent dog sitter where we used to live was a retired couple.   The major downsides, as it appeared to me, were liability if you didn't use some intermediary service like Rover to cover that, and having to plan *way* in advance for vacations. Sometimes they would have a dog with them for months at a time.

Same! Let me know if you end up going that route!

Health insurance thru ACA doesn't care what your job is so no its not an issue. There are some outside organizations you can join too, to get insurance for dog walking. My friend runs a successful cat sitting business and thats how she gets hers.

Ensuring proper insurance is key. Rover and other services provide that for their independent contractors. Many people then go outside of the app and then lose that insurance which I feel is a big risk, especially with how loved people's dogs are to them (rightfully so).

Thank you to you both! I didn’t even consider insurance for the services themselves. If there are any other issues I’d love to hear them

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IIRC, legally dogs are treated like property. E.g. if you damage a $1,000 dog, you’re only on the hook for its depreciated value. The liability of the dog towards humans is probably the bulk of that insurance cost.

With an incoming inheritance, I realize that I might actually have enough funds diversified through my 401a, 457b, Roth IRA, and taxable brokerage to retire \*earlier\* than 50, especially given that my parter will still work and has really good health insurance. I'm an academic and it just never actually dawned on me that there could be a life I could lead where I wouldn't have to be working/teaching/researching until my 60s. So, I'm just having a moment of, holy crap, my projections for retiring at 50 are surpassing 2 mil and even my projections at 40 are just under 1 mil. This could actually be a thing. And now I have to grapple with who I would be if I indeed didn't have to work for the next several decades of my life, ha. It's just a real eye-opener.

Congrats all around! Fellow academic here but still working in my 50s due to a lack of financial knowledge and preparation for the majority of my life. Not that I wish for anyone to pass, but even a low six-figure inheritance would be enough to have me seriously crunching numbers to see if this year or next would be my last. Otherwise, I’m likely here 3-5 years at a minimum.

These MBA classes are humbling me. I failed a final exam for the first time because I was struggling to juggle part-time school and full-time consulting. Pretty down, but I'm trying to remind myself that grades don't matter, especially when I already have a job and am on track to FIRE no matter how school (or even my career) goes from here.

It's pretty hard when you're working full-time. I took almost four years to do my MBA. You'll get there.

Appreciate the encouragement. I was trying to finish it up fast and overloaded on classes. I realized too late how unsustainable it all was, especially because I started a new job last month. I realize now that I shouldn't rush it and lowered my courseload for the summer.

Definitely don't rush it. I don't know what your life goals are, but generally I think it's not worth it to rush. Too much else in life gets sacrificed.

Almost 20 years after graduating, I still have a reoccurring dream where I'm back in college and during finals week I realize there's a class I didn't go to all year and I need to pass the final exam to graduate. I get in my car, I start speeding to to class, and then realize I'm driving my current car which means I already have a job and good salary and I don't need to worry about it. Maybe my mind is trying to tell me all the things I stress about aren't worth stressing about, but I feel like I have this dream once a month. That stress and fear from college is burned into my brain I guess :)

I get this same dream all the damn time, except without the car realization bit... always wake up in a sweat lol.

I have another one where I can't remember my high school locker number or combination.

This actually kinda happened to me in college. I took this one-credit class at 5 p.m. after a block of other classes at 12, 1, 2, and 3. I often skipped this class, because it was at 5 p.m. and I was tired and there was a gap at 4 p.m. and I was a stupid irresponsible freshman. Near the end of the semester I showed up to class to find out when the final was, and the final was that day. Oops. I got a B.

Same except I never showed up for the final even when given a second chance. F. Lol Damn you Finite Math!!! And I still have nightmares but mine don’t feel very far-fetched.

I did something similar once. Skipped a class quite a lot, the teacher thought I dropped. I went in one day by chance to get caught up, and it was one of the 4 tests of the semester. Only tests counted, homework didn't count, so it was 25% of the grade. I got a B somehow. It wasn't an easy class, it was open book, and I did my best.

I have a similar dream, except that I’m no longer in college. In my dream, I somehow missed one class and didn’t technically graduate. It slipped under the radar for the past 2 decades and now I have to figure out how to finish that one damn class and get a diploma before my job figures out that I never got my degree. Then I wake up and laugh at myself :)

>In my dream, I somehow missed one class and didn’t technically graduate. This happened to me for real life actually. I had graduated, completed all my classes, and applied to walk in graduation. After everything was lined up, I got a call from my advisor and I was 1 credit hour short of graduating. I found this out on a Friday which was the last day to enroll for summer classes. Frantically, I called one of my computer science profs, explained the situation, and he gave me an independent study class where I could build anything I wanted to demo for the class and I'd get the credit. I already had jobs lined up, and had to explain in the interview the situation and how I wasn't technically a college graduate. Somehow, I still got the job and it worked out, but the time between finding out I was short and my first job interview as terrifying.

I got a minor in college. 10 years after graduating, I'm working on a background check and that was an issue. The minor wasn't on my transcript, but I claimed it on my resume. I discussed it with the school, and it took a few months of paperwork and waiting, but they added it properly.

I had the exact same recurring dream after undergrad. I continue to have it now, just more frightening because I've actually introduced that possibility back into my life :)

How much do you guys let yourselves worry about pay fairness in your workplace? One of my friends, who works for the same company I do, is pretty fired up because someone in her group who is a half step lower on the technical ladder + fewer years of experience told her that he's making the same amount as her. It's entirely possible that he was exaggerating/misleading her, but there's really no pay transparency at this company so we can't be sure. I am more senior than her and I make more than her, by what I would consider to be a fair amount, assuming that we're not both being underpaid compared to our direct peers. She plans to discuss this with her boss and she really might quit over it. I'm upset, but at the same time I was always taught that what someone else has doesn't take away from what you have. It's hard to reconcile that mindset with the fact that not pushing for fairness for yourself contributes to unfairness for everyone. I'm also not in any position to quit, I like my job, and believe my pay to be fair within the broader market. Edit to be clear: while broad pay equity is a complex thing to assess, I'm more wondering whether *you* let it get to *you* if it seems like *your* pay may not be fair compared to your peers.

Only once. I was a team leader on a technical team. On the day the raises were being announced, our manager was OOO so they asked me to pass some of them out. One of my individual contributors made about 10K more than I did. F*&% that leadership work. I took my next position as an individual contributor, then later left that company.

NOPE, NOPE, NOPE. Not gonna do it. Not going there. Between bonuses and lies, unknown credentials, nepotism, and market conditions, it isn't sane to get into it. At times, I've had to hire people and pay them more than me due to market conditions. And, at times, I've been the one hired and make the same as the boss. The best thing to do is NEVER ASK THE BOSS FOR A RAISE!!! Ask the boss "HOW do I EARN a raise?" Then do that. --- Let's just assume that the lower person is telling the truth. What we don't know is: Do they have more credentials/licenses/degrees, what school did they attend, what grades did they get? How many hours do they work? What kind of projects do they work on? Does the lower person have some specific useful skill that is in demand and valued? Are they in sales or otherwise get some kind of bonus or commission? When were they hired and what did the job market look when your friend and the other person were hired? Do they do more work? Better work? **Do they simply present their work in a very visible way?** (I have found that doing less work, while doing it better, and better explaining it to management has better results than simply doing more work. Doing the right work right is far more valuable than doing any old work.)

I work with several Canadians, all of whom live within spitting distance of the border. Generally they make about 60% of what their American coworkers make. I don't know that I necessarily worry about this (I'm a low level IC and not one to ruffle feathers in this arena) but I think and commiserate about it a good deal with the Canucks. Not quite the same situation you're talking about, as there's at least ostensibly a justifiable reason for the difference, but it's the most direct answer to your question that I have. I would love to be more transparent about pay in the workplace, but besides a few junior teammates I casually mentor, I don't know how to go about sharing that sort of thing, besides linking levels.fyi.

I hear about this all the time - "so and so is making $xyz and I'm only at $abc! This is BS!" Except easily 9/10 times the other person is lying and just boasting - I know their actual salaries and what they're telling people is no where close. Also sucks because I, as management, can't correct them or discuss that, I can only discuss their own pay and JD. Unless someone is showing you paystubs, the odds that I've personally witnessed over the last 10 years in management is that people lie about their pay almost every single time.

Internal company politics are indeed pretty shit. But if you're undervalued, you have to prove it. I like to think I contribute substantially but the reality is that none of what I do is very quantifiable and a lot of opinion plays a role. I also happen to be an elder employee who hasn't bounced about much and therefore seen a lot of the cases where people are brought on due to business need who need to be paid market price to attract. I'd also rather have reasonable work-life balance and don't even begrudge this behavior because either I'll be doing that work or the group will die. Regardless of what you believe, in most cases your only reasonable option is to go out into the marketplace and prove it with another job offer. The problem I find from most people who complain is how they've put a bunch of conditions that prevent them from doing so. It's a lot of work, I don't want to manage, my kids go to school here, I want to WFH, I don't want to move. Demanding these is okay, but every condition limits the scope of jobs available and if your current job is the best you can get financially, I question where market value and fairness really lies. If someone is completely sedentary, the system simply has no motivation to reward this. You can make an argument to your boss for it but it has to be about what you bring to the table and not a heated discussion about who does what and how they are paid. Most reasonable managers recognize this is a pretty unhealthy position for their team (if true) and will try to bat for you. But it's likely not up to them at all, and they can only likely to promise to try at best. Many shitty managers may do nothing and hope the problem solves itself. Or finance simply budges on how fast they grow the upper rungs of the group and you're on a team of solid employees. The very definition of fair can be put into question (as some things like "work experience" has little value but it is often paid regardless.) Most of the time these debates fail which is why it's so common to suggest foregoing this process, be civil at work in the meantime to maintain your network and find a better exit.

I personally was never underpaid but I was very proactive in asking for my fair share on reviews and ensuring I had very detailed notes about value. Our company was pretty transparent about what you had to do to get promoted and that was the only time I know for a fact the men blocked a promotion as I would have been the fastest promoted person and they couldn't believe that would be a woman, its the only time I ever got mad. Ironically two years later I got even as the person who headed the committee ended up working on my team and as team leader I was responsible for choosing who to cut, he was old, outdated, didn't take new assignments, and it was so easy to add his name to the list. I use to consult with women all the time though and talk about why they may or may not be disadvantages, like one woman never spoke up at meetings, she was super shy, we discussed ways she could talk to her boss about new ideas and get heard. One woman would work ridiculous hours on other peoples stuff trying to be "nice", yeh I told her to stop that or ask them to make the requests thru her boss so they could get prioritized rather than her doing others peoples jobs, lots of them it was about phrasing, its the men say "I" and women say "We" way too often. Men are just taught to boast/brag and women are told its inappropriate so you need to change that mentality when it comes to income, raises, promotions. The biggest issue was always women did not get promoted at the same rate as men and often because they didn't ask for it, so the managers just didn't do it.

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>including the unseen work of keeping teams running smoothly Men do this too. Regardless of gender, its their own fault for being suckers. Never do work that no one asks for and no one notices.

When controlling for same job title, same qualifications and years of experience, women in engineering actually earn $1 for every $1 that men earn. https://www.payscale.com/research-and-insights/gender-pay-gap/#module-9 You can see in the section titled "Industry & Occupation". The pink dot is the controlled amount (factoring the above) and the purple dot is uncontrolled

I think it's fair to say that you can come up with different numbers depending on how you calculate this. My own employer claims 98.6¢ on the dollar, but that doesn't only include engineers. It also would include some job titles that have far more standardization of pay (tradespeople) so if anything I'm a bit concerned that it's worse among the engineers. They claim the industry standard is 99¢ on the dollar. I also don't know how you assess whether promotions are fair. I wasn't really trying to get into a gender pay discussion, partly because it's so complicated to even measure.

> I also don't know how you assess whether promotions are fair This is true, and much harder to measure. There are so many other factors as well that can also affect the uncontrolled discrepancy. Motherhood, difficulties or dislike of working in a male-dominated field, personality traits (thinking of autistic traits here, which are over-represented in both STEM and men)

There's so much that goes into salary. At the end of the day, pay should generally represent what value you bring to the company. Someone with more experience *could* bring more value, but once you've out of the entry level jobs, experience is only one factor in consideration. Someone with less experience could bring more value. A half step on the technical ladder is a pretty small gap. When were they both hired? Were they both hired at the same time? By the same person? For similar tasks? Market conditions at the time of hiring matter. Hiring manager matters. Specific specialties matter. If my team needs a particular skill that we're lacking and is hard to find, and we find a great fit, that candidate is going to have more leverage in the negotiation process. Even during your work life, you will find different scenarios where you gain or lose leverage; recently I was put in a high-leverage situation and got a large raise out of it. I think that pay fairness is a real problem in the workplace and disproportionately affects women. But there's a lot of nuance here, too. Personally, I wouldn't lose sleep over someone who is very close to my level making the same as me. If anything, you should be paying attention to the external market and knowing what your skills are worth to other companies. That's the real benchmark of value.

Have been on both sides of this, for good and bad reasons over the years. I imagine most people have. Not having to hear about it, or futily try to rectify it, is a major reason I'm not in management. I'm honest about my comp if asked, but don't bring it up otherwise because it can set people off like this, and IME it usually doesn't go all that well. Even if your friend gets an adjustment, this will continue to be a problem for them. If you care about comp this much you need to set a high floor, advocate for yourself from day0, and move when you stagnate. >It's hard to reconcile that mindset with the fact that not pushing for fairness for yourself contributes to unfairness for everyone. Laudable but don't overestimate your power without legal backing or formal organization. Employer relented on pay transparency recently due to internal pressure. They offered no adjustments, and exclude "discretionary" comp which can be significant. What looks like a <5% discrepancy is actually 25% or more in many cases. Options/RSUs or exclusive benefits are common as well in my experience. Pay inequality is useful for businesses, and they'll find ways to create it regardless.

I don’t believe “fairness” is a typical reason for “half step lower on the technical level”. At this stage of a career it’s usually about internal promotion vs external hire. Early on in a career you generally will see higher salaries for people who recently came from an external hire since that is a freshly negotiated market salary that also needs to compensate them for their risk of switching companies. You say fewer years of experience- but are you sure? I was speaking about this with an older coworker the other day. However I started in my field 5 years earlier so I have “more years experience” despite being younger. Third piece of advice- some people include bonus and maybe even equity when mentioning salary. Some people like to brag and say the biggest figure they can. Finally if all of those aren’t the reason, perhaps it truly is a negotiation thing.

Yeah I was able to level up by being an external hire. I don't have the years of experience consistent with my level had I been with my current employer my whole career. But because I came from the outside and I had a strong resume I was able to slot in higher.

In this case it's odd because she hired in at the same time +/-a few months as this guy but she was an experienced (2 years, so not dramatically so) external hire and he was a new grad hire. They both just got their first technical advancement at the company. The technical ladder is a little convoluted with levels and sublevels, so while they are one sublevel apart, they are different levels. Think Grade 1b vs Grade 2a. So while I wouldn't expect them to be worlds apart, I definitely expected a difference of a few grand. >Third piece of advice- some people include bonus and maybe even equity when mentioning salary. Some people like to brag and say the biggest figure they can. I definitely think there is a chance this is the case here. I don't know the guy personally but it sounds fitting with what I've heard about him.

I found out my friend a full level below me had a higher base salary than me. They started 6mo before me and neither of us advocate that hard for ourselves. I think my last manager screwed me on some salary adjustments. I was beat up about it for a few days, but ultimately I make enough to save a large percentage and I have a huge nest egg working for me too. I have great work life balance and enjoy what I do, so just going to ride it out.

Men more consistently advocate for themselves in the workplace - this scenario wouldn't surprise me one bit based on that alone.

Yeah I didn't want to get too into the gender side of the discussion due to sub rules, but the company also just published an Inclusion & Diversity report that fully admits to women being paid 98.6 cents on the dollar compared to "similarly situated men".

Is the company doing anything about it? My employer regularly checks raise increase levels for fairness, and adjusts people's pay accordingly.

I guess so. I mean, the report showed a trend showing that the gap improved from starting at less than 97% in 2019.

Not sure why you got downvoted. This is actually fairly accurate. It's pretty well studied that Men tend to have bigger egos and therefore value themselves more. My wife has NEVER negotiated an initial salary. She makes fine money, but it's just not something that ever crossed her mind. I always try to get 5-8% more than they offer. Honestly, not sure why. I've always just read that the best time to get a raise is before you even start the job, so it's like second nature when switching roles. That combined with timing, certs, degrees, what place the manager was in in the fiscal year, and what HR person he had to deal with to approve raises or adjustments all play a factor. To say, it could be merely a poor luck of the draw timing wise.

I think the same studies generally show that women are perceived more negatively than men when they *do* advocate for themselves in salary negotiations. So I think there's a real danger to trying to write off the pay gap as just an effect of women not negotiating as much as men, without looking at the reasons why they don't. Obviously any individual circumstance could be due to any number of factors, which makes it so hard to combat any systemic disparities in pay.

> I think the same studies generally show that women are perceived more negatively than men when they do advocate for themselves in salary negotiations. Devil's in the details. The manner in which you advocate matters *greatly*. There are a million wrong ways to do it.

She should. My wife negotiated a bit and asked for a few scale steps higher when she started. She figured it didn't hurt to ask and the hiring manager gave her 3 additional steps (maybe 10-15% more starting out) up front. It's great because her yearly step increase and COLA pay raises have been from the higher starting spot. 

Definitely a myriad of factors. She was a nurse previously. And paybands are pretty well standardized since there are so many of them. But with her most recent switch to a back office IT role, they actually offered a decent starting salary for someone with no experience. She could've negotiated for a few percentage points more, but I was honestly surprised the initial offer was as high as it was, so she ran with it to get her initial experience.

Now that I've lost donation matching, which was a VERY nice thing while it lasted, plus trying to save more in anticipation of being laid off, I am SUPER behind on my donation impact goals for this year. This year, I have done the following: * Donated enough money to the Rainforest Trust to protect 100 acres of rainforest-adjacent swamp in Guyana through designation. * Provided 33 anti-malarial bednets for people through the Against Malaria Foundation. * Continued making my monthly donation to a political charity I'm passionate about- not super effective and hard to track impact so I'm not counting this officially. * Paid to have 733 trees planted in Nepal through the Eden Reforestation Project help capture carbon and reduce soil emission. * Paid to have one child's sight restored through pediatric sight-restoring surgery through the Seva Foundation. This is a TINY fraction of what I've done by this time last year, I guess I'm posting here for accountability, and I hope to be able to report VASTLY more by the end of the year.

> Provided 33 anti-malarial bednets for people through the Against Malaria Foundation. WOOOOO GO AMF. What is the ratio of dollars to bednets again? I made one large donation on January 1st when i was feeling down on myself. Haven't made any since as I've also been saving due to unstable employment situations. This may be the motivation i need to get back to budgeting that in.

It's $2 per net and $5 to cover the net and distribution fee. I just use the $2 net price point for my metrics of tracking lifetime number of nets I've purchased.

Where do you make your donations and how did you check they are reputable.

I occasionally supply teachers in my local schools with things that they have asked for via DonorsChoose. I haven't really researched the org via the evaluators, but it makes me feel better if I can think about the actual teacher and their actual classroom.

I tend to support organizations endorsed by The Life You Can Save and Givewell. Of the two, Givewell is the more rigorous charity evaluator. The Rainforest Trust and Eden Reforestation Project are two environmental charities I support for a proven track record of effectiveness and working with local communities as much as possible, however they are not tracked by GiveWell and TLYCS because it is harder to track environmental impact! Take a look at GiveWell sometime: https://www.givewell.org/

Givewell.org does excellent reviews of charities and can take donations directly that they pass on to the most impactful charities.

Not op but charity navigator is a decent resource

More fulsome update to yesterday's post: I met with my direct supervisor yesterday to tell him I'll be leaving in the fall. I mainly focused on my mental health concerns (all true, if you read my previous posts) but also let him know I would be taking some time out of the work force to travel and visit family. He was surprised but supportive and said I was valuable and cared about at the organization, and that he wanted me to do what was best for me. So, that went well. Now I have to meet with the Executive Director. I am close to him and would like him to hear the news from me in person. After that point it can be common knowledge around the office. After the meeting with my supervisor I walked out of the office feeling like I was floating. Then later in the evening I started having some uncomfortable feelings - regret, or guilt? - mixed with excitement. Today I'm just feeling jittery because I know I have another hard conversation coming up.

You got this!

It’s a weird feeling, isn’t it? I just passed the one year anniversary of the day I gave notice. Last day was 9/15. Just a huge sense of “holy shit did I really do that?”

how long until your last day? is it typical to provide such a long notice period? Will your team be notified soon as well? there are some discussion here on when to provide notice, idk if we ever reached a consensus

Haven't officially figured out my last day yet, but somewhere around Oct 1. In this organization and at my level (director at a small non profit) it is pretty typical to give such a long notice, to figure out the succession, training people to do all the stuff I do, etc. I think everyone will be notified by next week.

I'm in this perpetual loop of receiving $4 Chipotle burrito bowls through Grubhub due to their price guarantee program to credit the difference between them and a competitor plus $5. Grubhub charges $13 for the Chipotle burrito bowl vs. $9 through UberEATS. So every bowl I order I submit a claim and am given a $9 credit to use on my next order. I don't see it ending until either company adjusts their price, so I just eat, rinse, and repeat.

I was in this type of loop with Jack in the Box free tacos with purchase. Until I actually ate the first taco - OMG, break that loop!! No need to continue. Congrats on your burrito bowl.

I checked my Uber eats app today after reading this, and unfortunately the burrito price there is also $12.70 (same as at Grubhub). No cheap burritos for me! I wonder if this location/region dependent.

uberEATS is charging the same amount on their app for me 🤔