the-numbers
A fixed withdrawal rate and an optimal spend-down curve are solving two different math problems, and confusing them is why so many retirees die rich by accident.
the-numbers
Comparing a debt's interest rate to an expected market return is the right first step and the wrong last one — here's what the standard shortcut leaves out, and why the answer changes once you're the one drawing the portfolio down instead of building it up.
the-numbers
The asset allocation logic that works while you're saving actively works against you while you're spending — and the years spent switching between them are where the real tax and sequencing damage happens.
the-numbers
A Roth conversion ladder doesn't unlock tax-advantaged savings early — it converts a five-year wait into penalty-free access, and the real planning problem is what covers you during that wait.
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A fixed 4% rule asks a portfolio to survive every market it might encounter; a guardrail strategy asks the retiree to adjust instead — and that adjustment is what buys the higher starting number.
the-numbers
Two retirees can earn the identical average return over thirty years and end up with completely different outcomes — because in early retirement, the order returns arrive in can matter as much as the returns themselves.
the-numbers
Multiplying your current monthly budget by 300 produces a number that feels precise and isn't — here's the tracking method, the lumpy-expense fix, and the withdrawal-rate math that actually gets you there.
the-numbers
Mr. Money Mustache showed that savings rate outweighs investment returns in determining time-to-FI — Big ERN showed why the real world makes that math messier, not wrong.
money-in-a-broken-system
Lyn Alden's phrase isn't about acceleration—it's about the fiscal arithmetic that makes debasement the path of least resistance, and what that means for planning a forty-year retirement.
money-in-a-broken-system
When government interest payments grow large enough, the central bank's ability to fight inflation with higher rates becomes a question of fiscal arithmetic — not monetary credibility.
the-numbers
A market crash costs you nothing during accumulation and everything during withdrawal — not because the loss is bigger, but because you can't wait for it to recover.
the-numbers
FIRE portfolios optimized for historical stock-bond returns assume the currency itself holds stable — but monetary debasement over a forty-year horizon changes what "real return" actually means.