u/Jbaker318

Insert your favorite strategy here where spending is reduced during market downturns...

There is a lot of literature out there on guardrail type strategies where you cut back during bad times. And it makes a ton of sense. But curious if there is any literature out there for the opposite? I always like the thought of being a contrarion and maybe this is the most illogical contrarion take but I feel like the best time to take vacations and spend generally is when the markets suck and people don't want to spend money.

A sort of zig when other's zag type of approach. Obvioiusly there is a lot of risk, but I wonder if there is any way to mitigate some risk and enjoy the bleak times when other people will pause.

In my mind the benefits of such an approach would be:

*The vacation spot would be less busy since theoretically less people would be traveling.

* You would likely get better deals on all travel related expenses - air fare, hotels, merch, etc.

* Help out struggling businesses that would be hurting during this time period.

Tried looking a couple of spots to find this kind of topic, because its a little difficult in my head to SEO the correct thing without getting the inverse. Let me know if anyone else has thought about this, and ways to plan for it.

Obviously my plans only work if nobody else does it...so not sure why I'm putting it out into the ether... nevermind disregard!

I'm a WDW'er but think this applies to the entire portfolio. With the big park dedicated budget released by Josh D, and all of the changes that are coming to the parks I wanted to crystalize my thoughts around this issue of spend and utility. I'm a mathy / financial guy, and appreciate things like FOO (Financial Order of Operations), which is a guide by The Money Guy on how to plan and save for retirement. I was thinking about a same framework to apply to our beloved theme parks, and why it is sometimes frustrating when the leadership does not follow this seemingly logic guideline. Anyways without further ado, my list of how money should be allocated by Disney leadership to improve the parks. For the sake of making it memorable, I am going to call it D-POO (Disney Parks Order of Operations), but am open to alternate naming schemes. This is an ORDER OF OPERATIONS, meaning you have to work from number 1 and go down, you cannot skip a step:

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1. Maintenance of currently open attractions / public space - Simple start. Make sure what is open and available to guests is in the best working shape. Yes things will go down; yes that expensive audioanimatronic may not work today and needs to go in B-Mode, that's the nature of the beast, but the intentionality is to get everything in working order as quickly as possible. If Disney was to possibly shoot an official POV video of attractions or the park in general, they could do so on a whim. Fresh coats of paint, the figures working, garbagies emptied, cobwebs removed (minus the Haunted Mansion), ya know make it look spiffy.

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2. Open up closed areas / attractions that were previously available to the public - Little more complexity but I'm not asking for a Tron level attraction to be installed in every nook and cranny. Just get things opened back up and you are allowed to start small. Make it a meet and greet or some little personal show. I get these decisions come around staffing and spending money, well then fine sell some merch or food there. If every space has to have some $$$ tied to it for it to be viable, then get creative. I do not believe Disney fans are allergic to spending money :)

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3. Assess unused space for utilization and purpose - Now we are talking real $$$ and investment. I am not saying every little gap in the parks needs to be filled, but definitely look at all of it. A quiet area with benches and shade is also 100% a good utilization of space, but for every great quiet space there are also areas that have no benches/shade/quiet/purpose. Like step 2, you do not need to put a E-ticket attraction in every single space, but follow the open world video game model, there should be some kind of easter egg / reason / fun thing to do in every nook and cranny. There is a fine line between too much and just enough, and I know the wonderful folks at imagineering can do it.

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4. Plus up the existing attractions / spaces - where I feel current Disney spends way too much time versus the above 3 steps. There are a million examples of these, and Disney typically does a great job in these areas. Buzz Lightyear Spacerangers Spin is one of these - a wonderful upgrade where they left the heart of the attraction and only made it better. This is a great usage of time and money. Make something we all know and love better by adding to it. Not taking away, but by plussing it up. I would typically work on these least beloved attractions first, and then tackle rides that are already great, but I will not stay my welcome and give the Disney corporation more rules. I will let the freedom of their creativity take them where they may. Maybe the plus ups at Buzz were just way better than what they had in mind at Tomorrowland Speedway.

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5. The rip-and-replace - where I feel Disney also spends way too much time versus exhausing the 4 steps above. Unlike step 4, I will provide more guidance and say the Disney leadership needs to rank the rides in order of "art" and utility and work from the worst and go up from there. IE there is no reason to tear up Haunted Mansion when you have [insert your least favorite ride] just sitting there. I think it goes without saying, Disney has a lot of money and time they can spend improving their parks before getting to step 5. It will make fans less unhappy, and I think it is just the optimal way of improving the parks. It is a little reductive sure, but I think it is definitly a strong guideline to lead the leadership versus just going in willy nilly looking at everything and not prioritizing correctly.

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Let me know your thoughts and what you would add to D-POO!

37, still deep in the accumulation phase. But been on a retirement bender as of late. Was doing the B&B thing of what is your point of accumulation. As a 37 year old I have no point lol. So I got to thinking more about flexibility and setting myself up when I do have more of a point - I have a young family so we don't have a ton of free time to go on lavish vacations or anything, nor would I want to with a 3 year old (car rides are a nightmare enough).

Anyways I had just been doing the FOO thing and filling up the buckets, maxing out the Roth 401ks, etc. I been learning about this world and stumbled on the idea of Coast Fi. Used the proverbial calculator and it says at my current rate I can coast fi in 6 years (@ 43). I don't really like the idea of not maximizing the 'easy' buckets: employer match, HSA, and Roth IRA.

Once I get near the Coast Fi # shifting deposits from all in on 401K style deposits to brokerage. I would have my retirement set with the Coast+ (+ being I still do employer match, HSA and Roth IRA), and then start filling brokerage bucket to build a bridge if I wanted to retire early for real. Since I'm not going completely Coast, I think shifting 2 years earlier makes sense because I'm not taking my foot off the gas completely. Basically want to give myself flexibility so I am not retirement rich if something happens and I need funds ahead of retirement.

My plan structure:

* Now until 41 - still go all on FOO accumulation we all know and love - max HSA, Roth IRA, and both Roth 401ks (mine and my spouses).

* At 41 (2 years earlier than actual coast fi #) - Shift to CoastFi+ (TM pending 😉): Continue to max hsa, max Roth IRA, and do 5% 401ks for company match. Effectively will be at 18% savings rate on that end. Shift rest of money to fill brokerage bucket.

* At 51 - Assess how everything is doing and see what retirement looks like. At this point will have a lot more visibility on what the retirement years will look like.

**Obviously Im going to look at this stuff way more than that, just trying to sound cool calm and collect :)

Anyone have similar plan / strat?

Built a very basic tool using TMG's guidelines they give during their annual net worth show - ie at 30 your NW should be 1x gross annual income, and at 40 that should be 3x. So took their multiples, built a polynomial trendline to fill in the gaps (the years between the major decades). Also built in 2 different multiples: Revised Retirement [Accounts / 401K] - Starts close to TMG's guidelines but then shifts to significantly less as other vehicles will start accounting for more of your total net worth, and Revised NW - Starts less than TMG's guidelines due to early on debts (college/home/auto) but then quickly aligns with TMG's normal guidelines.

How to use: Download the sheet as a copy and edit to your hearts content. The YELLOW cells on the Input sheet are meant to be adjusted per your situation. If you want to go wild and adjust your own target multiples (ie you think Retirement multiple at 50 should be higher), then feel free to adjust; the trendline and formulas will adjust accordingly.

Feel free to ping me with any questions. You have to be a bit of a TMG fan to understand the assumptions with the figures. Please no, "Income isnt a good measure, it should be cost," that's a different discussion. Also please understand how TMG calculates Net Worth (and how to calculate home's value). Sorry for those under 30 and those over 65 - TMG doesn't cover that in their multiples guidelines...

This is a very basic V1 version. Pardon the clunky UI :)