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birb_cromble  15hr ago (text post)   122 thread views

Weekly Finance Thread - 2027-06-27

A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.

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When planning for retirement, is there a useful heuristic for when it makes sense to pull back on contributing to your 401(k) and stashing money in a taxable brokerage account instead?

Right now I'm operating on a premise that looks something like this.

  • Assume my retirement spending base is the equivalent of the highest inflation-adjusted year I have on record.
  • Assume $15,000/year (inflation adjusted) for private insurance until I can get Medicare at 65.
  • Assume Medicare will exist when I'm 65.
  • Assume social security will not be available on retirement.
  • Assume the market between now and my death at 95 will have 5th percentile performance (ie: dogshit)
  • Assume my tax advantaged accounts will be accessible without penalty at 59.5.
  • Add a small yearly buffer as a safety factor.

My thought right now is that I should keep contributing to the 401(k) until I have enough saved so that I can survive entirely on my tax advantaged accounts from 59.5 to 95, based on those assumptions.

Is this reasonable? I've had "you must contribute to your 401(k) or you will die starving in a ditch" pounded into my head for so long that it seems almost blasphemous to even consider alternatives.

The thing is, you're going to die somewhere and if you are one of the only 5% of people still with enough money to support themselves when they get old, guess what the tax on your pension is going to be? It's like being a prepper after Hurricane Katrina.

Spending money now at least guarantees you'll get something for it, and that something won't be an extra year being cranky and yelling for somebody to change your urine bag.

Spending money now at least guarantees you'll get something for it

That's part of the problem; I'm not really sure what something I would get. I'm pretty happy living a simple life. I'd rather do what I can to secure my current life as much as possible, rather than do anything fancier.

Antique / good furniture is a gimme - long-lived, beautiful, utilitarian. Similarly good china, good cutlery. A nice bathroom. Appliances, tools, robovacs. Jewellery can be a pleasant way to store value in a way that's more visual than a stock certificate. A good fountain pen.

Social clubs/events likewise. (Note that this is a do as I say, not as I do, kind of situation :P). The kind of hobbies that require some equipment. I have friends who fly Cessnas and that seems awesome. Balloonists often co-buy balloons.

Travel isn't a bad way of spending money. You can get too into it, but IMO occasionally going to a nice hotel and getting a couple of tours is still a pretty good way of seeing 'oh, that's what is like...'. I can't be arsed with all the budget backpacking stuff, I'm far too soft for that.

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