The Economy

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

For any high COL area aside from the heart of SF or NY, I would say this is the maximum, reasonable, high standard of living budget for a family of 4:

$100k mortgage
$80k tuitions
$30k top tier Obamacare
$30k home maintenance
$25k au pair
$25k luxury cars
$20k property taxes/insurance
$20k food
$20k vacations, clothes, subscriptions, utilities, other

So that’s about $350k for everything you could possibly want/need as a reasonable human being. Every single one of these items can be comfortably cut by 50-100%, of course. But even at $350k as the bare minimum to be happy for an asshole who will not compromise on any aspect of living, that would make about $9M as the magic number for early retirement using the 4% rule. If you want to live like an asshole, don’t retire on $3M.

 

[physicsfactor]

If you want to live like an asshole, don’t retire on $3M.

That was my main takeaway. Retiring on $3M at age 34 is doable but not living like he wants to live. He sounds like an idiot.

 

[aiw]

Send you kids to public school.

 

[DrKlahn]

If you are a family of four as opposed to a single person living it up, what is the point of living in a high tax, high COL area if not for the public schools?

 

[physicsfactor]

I would assume public schools in San Fran are pretty good?

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Well it's the worst of all worlds financially if you live in the actual city of a high COL place, right? Bad public schools, higher COL than the suburbs 30 minutes away. The person in this Post article apparently has chosen to purchase a home in the heart of SF, which has bad public schools, because he is an idiot. Of course he could instantly sell his home in a hot market and downgrade to a larger, cheaper home in the suburbs with great public schools, but then he would need to drive 30 minutes to sit in a coffeeshop in SF in order to enjoy retirement every day.

If you're in NY, I know you have to go to Park Slope/Scarsdale/Bronxville for good public schools, unless your kid tests into one of the magnets. I assume it's the same situation in SF, and to a lesser extent, Boston/DC/Philly/LA/etc. This is a large public HS in SF: https://www.greatschools.org/califo...ve-Keys-Independence-High-School-Sf-Sheriffs/. Apparently ~6 kids out of 600 per class graduate in 4 years. Granted, the elementary schools in cities are generally better than the middle schools or high schools (because it takes a few years for all these kids to fall behind), so you have some time to figure out how to make the move to the suburbs before your child is basically lost academically forever.

 

[DurhamSon]

I would assume public schools in San Fran are pretty good?

Half of SF kids are enrolled in Private, that's insane. How does city governance even let that happen? Where's the pushback; it has to be a bitter pill to swallow to already pay that high income taxes and COL while still shelling out $40k+ for tuition. What amenities could possibly justify that?

San Francisco Teachers Union Avoids Strike By Reaching New Deal With District – California Globe

californiaglobe.com

 

[physicsfactor]

Wow. I knew a family who moved here (Bentonville, AR) from an affluent area of LA about a decade ago, and I was surprised to learn they were excited about the public schools here.

I guess I incorrectly assume that the nice areas of large US cities have much nicer public schools than the rough areas.

There are plenty of well-off families here who pay for private schools which is hilarious because they aren’t as good as the public schools other than the parents getting to feel like they might have more control of what happens at school.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Every big city in America is a mix of poor minorities going to public schools and rich white/Asian kids going to private schools. You don't live in the city with a family unless you must for financial survival (it's the only job you can get) or you're so ridiculously wealthy that you can afford to send your kids to private school while paying $10k/mo for a small 3br apartment. American public education outside affluent suburbs is a disaster, has been for a long time, will absolutely not get better in our lifetimes.

 

[DukeNukem05]

Wow. I knew a family who moved here (Bentonville, AR) from an affluent area of LA about a decade ago, and I was surprised to learn they were excited about the public schools here.

Did they not like how schools in LA taught evolution?

 

[bfactor]

SF proper has poor schools but just a few miles down the peninsula and south they're very good. Not sure why anyone would live in actual SF with school age kids or what I would even do as a retired person in the city, that's certainly an unusual lifestyle choice at any income.

 

[physicsfactor]

Wow. I knew a family who moved here (Bentonville, AR) from an affluent area of LA about a decade ago, and I was surprised to learn they were excited about the public schools here.

Did they not like how schools in LA taught evolution?

Possibly. They also didn’t like needing bars on the windows.

 

[DrKlahn]

Well it sounds like the "retirement" he had in mind is more of a semi-retirement in which he would be some kind of thought leader. For that, you probably do still need to live in NYC or SF.

 

[CK86]

My tiny stock that has been frozen for 33 weeks just had a letter sent from 15 members of the House Financial Services committee to Gary Gensler about it. This is in addition to another member that wasn't on the committee that sent a letter to Gensler about it 10 days ago. Might finally be nearing a resolution after almost 8 months of being stuck in limbo.

Here's a short article about it.

15 Congress Members Have Now Requested MMTLP Update from SEC

A total of 15 congress members are now requesting an MMTLP update from SEC Chairman Gary Gensler relating to fraud allegations.

franknez.com

Finally a positive update (god knows I've needed something positive) - today is day 420 of this $mmtlp fiasco and it's still on-going. Rep Ralph Norman said this morning that he is going to be asking Rep James Comer to subpoena the SEC for the share count audit data after receiving a response to our bipartisan open letter that had upwards of 70 congressional reps involved. The letter was addressed to both Gary Gensler and Robert Cook (CEO of FINRA), only Cook responded to it.



Pretty please let the end of this shitshow be near with real reforms to follow and us finally getting paid after being screwed around for 2.5+ years.

 

[aiw]

You trust Comer and Norman? Lololol

 

[CK86]

You trust Comer and Norman? Lololol

There are 100+ reps from both parties that have signed onto this.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Edit: Looks like this is just publicity for this guy’s actual company.

I wonder how Lyft’s mistake got through all the layers of review. Surely someone intelligent in Finance, Legal or IR would’ve immediately been taken aback when reviewing the earnings release and seeing this very important number for the company blown up 10x.

 

[DrKlahn]

Mistakes like this get made in public filings all the time. This one just happens to be a doozy. The controls in place aren’t really designed to pick up typos—it’s just normal folks like us reviewing them (and not as many as you might think).

 

[DurhamSon]

Wild. Within a few hours was convinced she was talking to a "CIA agent" and that her identity had been linked to cartel/terrorist activities, and that the *only* way to protect her money was to give it in a shoebox to some guy in the back of a tinted SUV without telling her husband or police or lawyer.

I wonder, do most married couples have only joint finances, mostly joint, or mostly separate? We only deposit enough our joint to pay for monthly mortgage+bills, but our savings and investments are separate. Just can't get comfortable with the idea that someone who isn't me could withdraw tens of thousands at once, and can't even think of a scenario where i'd want/need to, let alone have someone do it in my stead.

 

[Devilsforlife]

Astounding stupidity. Holy shit.