u/ResponsibleCorgi93

The US market has been on a tear. I retired in 2022 and the difference between my inflation adjusted swr and my SWR if I were to retire today is starting to get pretty large. Like 15% large.

My essential expenses are already 50% of my SWR so the rest is all fun money.

I'm up more than 25% in my net worth despite some large capital expenses in just one year.

Right now I'm at 300k in Sgov and the rest in 75% us equities / 25% international for a total of 4.6M

My reasoning was that the 300k could sustain me at my minimum spend for 5ish years if I tighten my belt.

However, with the insane gains lately I'm thinking it might be smarter to move closer to that 20-30% fixed income number.

People have been predicting a bubble and recession for years now, but the fear is finally starting to get to me now.

I'm thinking of making a big move like selling my 25% gains minus inflation (4%?) and putting it into fixed income. But that's like 800k! That would almost quadruple my fixed income & tbh I don't even have that much in tax advantaged accounts to rebalance like that.

So maybe I'd do 300k and then theoretically I could last 10 years in a downturn or use some of it to buy the dip in a recession which I think is the main idea to keep to 20% fixed income and 80% equities.

VTI is up 14% YTD. If that kind of growth lasts to the end of the year and next year it grows the same amount, I would still be growing like 350k in that year, which still is a massive increase in the difference between my inflation adjusted SWR from when I first started vs if I was to do a reset then.

If I take profits of gains minus inflation each year of the bull run, I still come out really well despite having lost some potential gains. In the case where the market crashes, I now have a huge fixed income buffer that I can use to rebalance.

These are wild times, let me know what you think.

Long time fan of the sub, I'm glad to have like minded people to theorycraft ideas with. I've learned so much.

So here's one that I've been trying to figure out:

I bought a house last year and used an SBLoC which is SOFR+1.9% and right now is around 5.5%. The loan amount was 500k. I paid off 200k so far this year and planning to do more if I'm able to keep my magi under 200k to avoid NIIT.

The question I have is how to think about the interest payments. I was originally thinking about them as mortgage payments, so they counted against my annual SWR. But the SWR is built off of Investment accounts value minus Loan amount, not including the house value.

In reality, I have the loan amount also invested in the market, so if I were to pay off the whole thing my SWR would stay the same, but my interest payments would go from $1400 to $0. So that leads me to think that maybe I shouldn't be considering the interest payments as part of my SWR budget.

Is this a sound approach or is there a different way to look at this?

I spent the first 3 years of retirement significantly under my SWR, year 4 was close to it and now in year 5 I'm predicting that I'll blow right past it.

I retired in Jan 2022 with 3.6M @ age 36, I'm now at 5M @ age 40

My original idea was to use the Trinity method with 3% for my SWR. That put me at 120k for this year and I'm likely going to be in the 130k-145k range for this year due to needing a new roof, major car expenses and other major home expenses.

Looking at other calculation methods:

• Trinity with 3.5% gives a SWR of 141k - GK guardrails starting at 4% gives a SWR of 150k
• A full reset (pretending I'm retiring now) with Trinity gives these values:
  • 3% - 133k
  • 3.25% - 144k
  • 3.5% - 155k

Originally I was freaking out because I was blowing way past my original 120k budget, but after looking at these methods and seeing that other methods put me in the 120-155k range, the upper 145k spend doesn't seem too bad especially since a bunch of costs this year were one time expenses.

I'm curious what other people would think / do in my situation?

The things I've been thinking:

• Don't worry because it's in the range of all of these models & SWR is uncertain because we can't predict the future
• Don't worry about it because my spending was 172k under budget for the first 4 years with the conservative 3% rule
• Worry a little bit and commit to a lower WR for next year to make up for it
• Stick to the original budget of 120k and pull the remaining amount from my credit line at 5.5% interest where I'd do interest only payments until a year where there's >15% return and that's when I start paying it down back to a comfortable level
• Cancel upcoming vacation to save maybe $6k if I can recoup my sporting event tickets, the hotels are refundable. Also try to change from not checking my spending to scrooge mode again like during the saving period. No eating out, no entertainment, etc. I can probably save 12k+ if I go into hardcore saving

Any other options?

Over the past few weeks this has had me super stressed and worried sick. I think I'm finally seeing it in a healthier light with some of these options above, but yeah still stressed about it.

What would you do?

So I tried being a Gith Tav, roleplaying as much as possible & following everything that Laezel says. It ended up pretty weird & immersion breaking.

We make our way to Zorru, he kneels and says to go to the mountain pass & marks it on our map. We go there immediately. We can tell something weird is happening because we have the artifact & Voss wants it, but by now we know it's protecting us. So we have to lie to Voss and say we'll join the search party. All other dialogue options lead to combat.

Afterwards Laezel says the creche must be nearby so we keep exploring, level 3 now we head into the mountain pass. She notices markings on the ground indicating the creche is nearby. So we push forward to the monastery.

We found the back door, told the guards we need to be purified. We break the Za'thisk, we suspect the machine would have killed us, but it made no sense. We have an insight that the tadpole researcher would kill us if we say the tadpole lives, so we lie and say it's dead.

Laezel says there must be a traitor that broke the Za'thisk. So we have to report it to the Inquisitor.

We go to the commander, she somehow magically knows we have the artifact and we give it to her. She opens the door to the Inquisitor, we reveal the artifact to him. Vlaakith arrives, we go inside the artifact, try to kill the person inside. It doesn't work. Laezel says we need to leave and tell the Inquisitor & Vlaakith what happened right away.

We do so, but the Inquisitor says he doesn't care & we must die. We have insight saying this was the plan all along. We narrowly escape the battle thanks to many misty steps.

We note that we need to return later to get our revenge.

Voss finds us when we try to leave the mountain pass. He tells the story of how ascension is a lie & he knows someone in Baulder's Gate that can help us with the person inside. We need to meet him there.

We don't know how to get to Baulder's gate when he leaves. Going back to where the Gith party is, we find a road sign that says Baulder's gate is to the north west. But the red dragon destroyed that bridge. Our only options are Moonrise towers west, Elturel to the south and there's no sign for to the east. We try the path to moonrise towers because that's to the west & we want to go north west.

We find the path is blocked by powerful undead, so we backtrack and decide to explore to the east and see if we can get around and find a different bridge to Baulder's Gate.

We get to the risen road & find those bridges are out too. Our only option is south to Elturel and hopefully find a way there.

We head south, maybe those teethlings and druids would know how to get to Baulder's gate. The grove is blocked with a wall of thorns. We head in the only direction we haven't explored & come across the dead bodies of every teethling outside the blighted village.

We see Aradin again, we fought with him before & want to ask where Baulder's gate is, but he only wants to talk about the quest for the night song. We ask about it because we need more power if we want to be able to kill those undead blocking the path to moonrise.

He says it's below the goblin camp, but he doesn't tell us where that is.

We find goblins at the Blighted Village & attack for revenge because they attacked us at the beginning, they are enemies. We head south from there towards Elturel. The way to Elturel is blocked, we need a boat to cross the river.

We head back to the blighted village, the only way remaining is to the goblin camp. Maybe we can find the night song, use its power & defeat the undead.

We make our way through, but get stopped by a guard. We intimidate them & they reveal information about the three leaders.

We find one right away, talk to her & end up killing Priestess Gut in her private room. There's way too many to start killing them all at once. We go into her locked door to try and find more treasure. Kill the ogre guard, and head further, finding the underdark.

Eventually we find the myconoids and the girl with the boots. She's surely going to die, so we inspect her and take her boots, it's only practical.

We don't talk to anyone else there, istiks. We keep exploring, get stopped by the Duegar. They are too powerful for us to fight, but they want these boots, so we hand them over and get passage to Grymforge. There we find out the duegar are working with the Absolutist cultists who we know are enemies because the vision with Priestess Gut and the chosen revealed that. They are all enemies, but much too powerful to kill all at once.

We find a small group of three to kill first, but they are trying to break through a wall. We find out that there's adamantine and an ancient forge back there. We kill them, blast our way through, fight Grym, get some armor and come back for the rest.

We find an exit to the shadow cursed lands and take it. We are unaware of the curse because we all have casted light on our weapons. We find a patrol of humans and are attacked by the shadows. The humans say there's a safe haven nearby and we follow them to the Last Light Inn.

We are immediately attacked by Jahiera and interrogated. She is now an enemy, but in the meantime Marcus comes to vouch for us and we tell Jahiera that he's a True Soul. She tests him, he grows wings and flies away leading us into battle with a bunch of undead hands.

Jahiera fights alongside us but we know she's an enemy and we need revenge so we fight her at the same time. We narrowly escape this battle and she lives. They are too powerful.

We leave and try to find a back way into the Last Light Inn so we can get our revenge. We can't find a way, but we do encounter the deeper curse and can't penetrate it.

We keep exploring and find a dryder escorting a group of goblins through the curse with a bright lantern. He says it protects them from the curse, so I know I need that.

We intimidate them, they drop the lantern and move off into the darkness and die. We grab the lantern and continue. We see a sign for Baulder's gate, but we are stopped by a Gith patrol on the way. They are far too powerful but we manage to get past them using our misty steps.

We head towards Baulder's Gate and now there's an immersion breaking pop up that says we have to remain here.

At this point, there's been nothing telling us to go to Moonrise towers, somehow we avoided any mention of it aside from the street sign & now we finally found the path to Baulder's gate, but yeah, the game blocks us.

So yeah that's what happens if you try to follow Laezel exactly doing what she says.

It was kind of a let down to be honest. The only direction we had that entire time was goto the creche, got betrayed, then goto Baulder's gate, every way is blocked. Finally find a way through but the game stops us.

It was a fun challenge though, especially at the beginning trying to figure out how to duo with only Laezel on honor mode and get past all of this hard difficulty.

I'm curious what would happen if I try again, but in the mountain pass skip past the undead and find the goblins in the shadow cursed lands. I wouldn't have the lyre to summon the dryder, but I wonder if they would have told me to go find Minthara to get the lyre? Maybe they would have told me about Moonrise to give me a reason to go there because then I'd know there's Absolutists there?

The idea discussed in this thread is to find Lazael asap and follow only her instructions while roleplaying a Gith.

Despite having played the game a number of times, it's hard for me to get into the headspace of a Gith Tav. Are they purely evil towards non Gith races? Maybe pragmatic yet brutal and rude?

My Tav is a sorcerer, a gish? My main goal is to set up Lazael for success by either Hold personing every target I can to get her to land crits, or put them to sleep or otherwise control the battlefield.

We of course skipped Shadowheart on the Nautilloid. She spawned at the door to the crypt, insulted me and said I should stay back. I stepped forward to challenge her, I won't be told what to do. She attacked me, she is now a burnt corpse next to the door. She had some fine armor that I was able to equip despite being a sorcerer. Being a soldier for Vlaakith has its benefits!

Then began my search for Laezel, we made such a good team on the Nautilloid.

First I ran into some intellect devourers, which i quickly dispatched with a minor illusion and a Nautilloid tank explosion. Their name is an irony for how quickly they were fooled.

I ran across a strange elf that attacked me, although when I head butted him to get his knife away from my throat, he still wanted to talk and introduced himself as Astarion. He had no helpful information, so we parted ways.

(I'm curious if a Gith would have killed him in this situation. Probably to get revenge, whoops)

Then I came across a portal brimming with magic, and touched the sigil. Despite my mission for Laezel, I'm drawn to magic. A hand came out and talked to me. I used my power to quiet down the portal, but then I lost control of my body and found myself pulling this man out of the stone. (I thought quieting the sigil would make it disappear, the hand along with it, but the game forced me to pull him out without giving a choice after that option).

I didn't trust this man, so I killed him despite his warning. (I never chose this option in any other playthroughs, so it seemed like a good idea at the time, but if I am truly curious about magic maybe I would have kept him alive).

His warning seemed real after his death, a horrible necrosis emanated from his body and a projection of himself gave me instructions on how to revive him. Given the warning and this terrible necrotic power, it seemed wise to revive him, although I took the scroll of true revival for myself.

I left him at the sigil, he said we need a healer, but I know I need a creche and he will slow down my journey.

Next I stumbled across the top of the crypt, more aliens there. They spoke of raiding the crypt so I thought they should be quickly dispatched so I could gather those resources instead.

Two of them were standing haphazardly underneath a large stone block trap, easy kills. The other two were too powerful for me to take on alone, so I fled, hoping that they had not found and killed Lazael.

I continued searching and didn't have to go far before I found her. She was trapped and these aliens were talking about taking her away and killing her. I snuck around out of sight, cast a fog cloud over them and quickly cast a fire bolt to destroy the trap. Laezel was free, but one of the aliens escaped the cloud and we began our fight. She proved a weak opponent, after putting her to sleep and I witnessed Laezel's mighty strength cut through her with a devastating blow. This Laezel would make for a fine companion and perhaps a worthy mate.

Despite the danger of the other alien lingering in my fog cloud, Laezel took the time to start a conversation. I was unable to stop her in time and we found ourselves in another battle with the last alien. My magic was waning, but this man with his bow was no match for both of our combined powers.

Laezel told me of one called Zorru at a nearby camp who we must find to locate a creche. I informed Laezel of the crypt and the remaining two enemies of Vlaakith there. Perhaps this is the camp those teethlings she spoke of.

She ran over promptly and threw, yes THREW the tiny pitiful man off of the balcony into the vines below. We dispatched him swiftly with our crossbows from above while taking heavy fire from the sorcerer on the opposite balcony. Perhaps we should have made camp for the night for she proved quite formidable without my magic.

Lazael took the lead, using her superior tactics we feigned a retreat, then later slit the sorcerer's throat while she had her back turned.

We made our way into the crypt using deception, determined to find this Zorru and kill anyone that stands in our way. And several did. We did not find Zorru, but we found some treasure that may prove useful on our journey. While searching for treasure we awakened a powerful undead being. It was puzzling that he did not destroy us when he had the chance, but we dared not tempt fate.

We fled from the crypt and finally set up camp for the night. Even Laezel could see that without rest, we would surely perish in the next battle to come with our wounds being so dire.

Laezel wishes to speak, but I write these notes in case it may aid any future of our brothers or sisters that have been scattered from the Nautilloid.

I entered Act 3 for maybe the 5th time, determined to beat the game on honor mode.

I beat the game only once so far, completing it in dishonor as an evil durge and watched the world burn.

This time I'm a goodie two shoes elf, trying to make the world a better place. Once I made it past rivington, I started enjoying the game more. I LOVE act 1 & 2 and always quit during Act 3. This is probably the 20th campaign I've started.

I think the switch happened when I noticed I can ignore all of the warnings about the Absolute's army bearing down on the city & chill and explore.

I think Rivington is also overwhelming for me due to all the people and noise of them chattering away. It's such a harsh contrast to how quiet the rest of the game is. Once I got used to that or was able to tell myself to ignore it, things started looking up.

It felt like I had so much new content in my favorite game, almost like a new expansion dropped haha.

I'm almost done with all of the side quests. Somehow I have maybe 4 or 5 of the clown body parts but it still says I'm only half way done in the quest journal.

This is my first time ever seeing Minsc which is cool. I'm not a huge fan of wacky humor these days, but I still found some gear for him to get him ready for the final battle. Hopefully he'll grow on me.

I also found Cazador's mansion for the first time. I managed to complete all of the puzzles on my own without spoilers, which was surprising to me! Astarion ascended which I'm not sure how my character feels about. I mostly wanted to see it happen for the min maxing I've heard about. I had no idea he could turn into gas and float around, that's been so cool to play with!

Another weird thing is happening, I'm actually using spell scrolls and crafting elixirs. Maybe bc I beat the game already after never needing or using them I know that I can just try them out for fun.

I found the Baahl Tribunal around level 9 and refused to become an assassin for him, so they attacked me. Luckily I went in with only my Tav & the others were able to rez me with Withers. I'm not sure how that fight is going to go now that I'm level 12 I think I can handle it, but looking at their abilities it seems like the main guy is going to be pretty invincible and level 16 is insane on honor mode.

I'm curious if I even have to fight them to get to Orin. I found the other entrance to Orin in the sewers, but the door won't open bc I refused to collect the hands. So going back to the Tribunal is the only option. Hmm I also just realized I don't think I've warned everyone on the murder list yet about the assasins.

I'm also considering killing Gortash first now because Orin kidnapped Halsin and he's been tortured for a few days now and I feel bad. I don't doubt she would murder him in front of me if I enter her chamber without Gortash's Netherstone.

I think I still have a lot left of the Lower City to explore. I came across a place having a funeral for a water person, but forgot to go back there. Oh and I also paid 20k gold to find out how to open the portal to the House of Hope, but I refused to help Rafael, so I don't have a quest to go there & the Emperor that I'm trusting said not to go in there. I decided to kill the merchant that swindled me for so much money, but she didn't drop all of that gold! Grrr

One thing that's funny is I decided that it's cool if Astarion goes off on his own to steal things, despite it being a good natured run. But he does get himself into a lot of trouble. He ended up triggering a fight with the entire bank guards on the docks which was the longest fight so far. One thing I couldn't get around in there was the arcane teleporters that block access to a few vaults. I figured out Misty Step works to get around them, but none of my characters have that spell & I ran out of scrolls. So Astarion will probably dedicate a whole day just to looting those with our two Misty step items that refresh on a short rest.

The Sorcerous Sundries also makes way more sense now. The first playthrough I did that made it into Act 3 I remember going in there and I had no idea what was going on. The game's lore was so confusing to me. I think that's because I was doing a dark urge run as my first time in act 3 & murdering everyone leaves little time for the lore to be established. This time I had the night song with me & she really enjoyed murdering Lorrokan. I was pretty worried he was going to take control of her with his magic wand, but he doesn't attempt it at all if we choose to fight. Idk if I would ever see the ending where I hand her over to him because that would be evil, but saving the night song is a good act.

I'm very curious what the final battle will be like with all of these allies I've gathered. Last time I waited until I was on the platform with the dragon to try and summon my allies, but I don't think I was allowed to any more? I can't remember but I do remember that I didn't really have many allies in that dark urge run anyway haha. Is there any downside to summoning them immediately when you start the final battle in that big courtyard?

The other time I tried the final fight I ended up trying to dash past the Dragon and the other enemies bc I saved at a bad time on honor mode & was in a horrible position every time I had to restart. This party is much stronger and I understand the game way better now so I'm curious if I can actually kill all of them this time. I'm not sure if I'll have enough damage to kill the brain in however many turns you get, but I've been saving up bombs so I can always go that route if I need to.

Oh! I also saw Ansur's corpse for the first time. That's one of my last remaining side quests. I know people fight Ansur, but the quest makes it seem like we can get him to help save the city so I'm curious how that'll go.

Okay I think I'm giving myself permission to play all day again today. It's been fun recapping my journey!

Naked.

Pretty sure I just beat the game!

I was so sad the first few runs I did that I couldn't figure out how to get Shadowheart to like me. Eventually I gave up and went for the other companions on future runs.

This time I gave it the ole college try and pushed myself to brave it into act 3 without restarting to play a new build.

We did it boys!

Hi! I'm looking for a cutie to text and call with, let's be friends first and see where things go 🙂

I retired early a few years ago from video game dev. Big bonus points if you can guess which hit game I made!

I've had a bunch of time to explore fun projects and hobbies. My latest has been setting up my new lake house for summer. Just got myself a paddleboard and can't wait to take it out on the water.

My latest obsession is the Bricks and Minifigs scandal, Reckless Ben is such a great storyteller.

Fav games: Baldur's Gate 3, Rocket League, X-Com, EverQuest

Currently reading: Jurassic Park & The Afterlife of Billy Fingers

Sports: WNBA & NFL

I'm also into self improvement, yoga, meditation, hiking, driving my car with the top down, and traveling.

I'm 6'0, a bit chubby but working on it. My home gym is slowly expanding and fun on the lake should help. Also want to get back into rock climbing soon.

Hit me up if any of this sounds good to you!

Hi! I'm looking for a cutie to text and call with, let's be friends first and see where things go 🙂

I retired early a few years ago from video game dev. Big bonus points if you can guess which hit game I made!

I've had a bunch of time to explore fun projects and hobbies. My latest has been setting up my new lake house for summer. Just got myself a paddleboard and can't wait to take it out on the water.

My latest obsession is the Bricks and Minifigs scandal, Reckless Ben is such a great storyteller.

Fav games: Baldur's Gate 3, Rocket League, X-Com, EverQuest

Currently reading: Jurassic Park & The Afterlife of Billy Fingers

Sports: WNBA & NFL

I'm also into self improvement, yoga, meditation, hiking, driving my car with the top down, and traveling.

I'm 6'0, a bit chubby but working on it. My home gym is slowly expanding and fun on the lake should help. Also want to get back into rock climbing soon.

Hit me up if any of this sounds good to you!

I'm in town for the game on Saturday and saw there's a little festival happening at Gainbridge after the game.

Is there anything Fever related going on tonight or tomorrow leading up to the game?