Yeah, I moved to the silicon valley area for the same reason - abundance of engineering jobs. It seems like there's a tech company on every corner, and while unemployment in california is very high overall, unemployment for experienced engineers in silicon valley is virtually nonexistent. In my opin...

In my experience, the online calculators are great for getting you in the ballpark.  But you always need to do more research beyond the averages to understand how local culture also affects costs. As an example, I was terrified moving from Dallas to the Bay Area because most online calculators use t...

I'm a native Texan currently living in Silicon Valley.  So I've lived both sides. Yes the politics in CA are ridiculous -- gun rights are scarce, union entitlement is infuriating, yada yada yada.  But every state has its pluses and minuses.  Keep your mind open and your plans flexible, and you can r...

I was once the victim of someone who used my identity (name, SSN, and a fake ID) to rent an apartment for several months and skip out on the rent.  I have no idea how they got that information, but suspect it was from my college that stupidly used your SSN as your student ID.  The collection agencie...

Everyone's situation is different.  I personally like to segregate my "cash" from my "investments" mentally, so I keep 6 months of cash buffer in an FDIC bank and the rest invested in the PP.  Many here argue that you should keep a full years worth of cash in an easily accessible...

It's days like this that makes me appreciate the PP even more. Gold took a beating, yet the total PP still beat the S&P. A "down" day or week for the PP sure beats the down days from any of my past investing strategies.

My rookie PP question for the day: In a taxable account, wouldn't TLT be much more tax efficient than buying LT treasuries directly since you'd never have to sell bonds except for rebalancing events (vs rolling your ladder manually as they reach 20 years maturity)? Just thinking about balancing risk...

I understand the risk benefit of direct treasuries and physical gold, but hypothetically speaking, what would be the best combination of four ETFs to maximize diversity of the underlying companies?  Here's my first thought: VTI - vanguard TLT - ishares SCHO - schwab GLD - SPDR Based on what I've rea...

Yeah, partial retirement sounds pretty appealing to me, too.  I like the idea of "retiring" from a high-work, high-reward job and earning just enough to pay the bills doing something really enjoyable while my savings in the PP just chug away without being touched for a while.  Just gotta g...

Yeah -- that early-retiring workaholic is (hopefully) me.  ;) I can't see myself going without work completely.  I'd get bored with no immediate goals to chase.  But we absolutely look forward to not working for a living.  My wife has talked about wanting to go back to school for something completel...

My wife and I (34) have tried (and been burned by) various stock investing strategies in the past and have come to realize that depending on hopes and wishes for what the stock market will do over the next ten years or whether the hot investment advisor will continue his winning streak just isn't go...

I also just started my PP.  I understand the impulse to tinker, especially with a new investment, but just hold the course.  Nothing is happening that Harry Browne did not already account for in the 25x4. I feel much better on a day like to day in the PP than I did a few months ago when the market r...

About a year ago, I set out to create the perfect portfolio.  My goals were: 1) I wanted it to be simple, with 4-5 equally-weighted funds that I could balance without much effort. 2) I wanted to prioritize safety over crazy growth.  I worked out that averaging around 8% a year would work for my pers...

So after thinking about it more, the counter argument in my mind is that getting too cute with tax allocations, adding risk to your easily accessible early retirement funds, and depending on a retirement account loophole (that may no longer exist ten years from now) as part of your plan in order to ...

Thanks for the advice.  I've never heard of a 72T -- I've got some research to do. Honestly, I don't want to over-think it.  The biggest step is just getting into the PP, and I feel great about that.  Even the best-made plans regarding retirement can fall apart two years from now, much less ten.  So...

Hi All.  I'm a new convert to the PP and am thrilled to have finally found what I feel like I've been looking for in the investment world for many years.  I'm currently in the process of converting my assets over to the PP, and am struggling with the issue of allocating the Stocks, LTTs, Gold, and C...