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Early Retirement Now
Personal blog · earlyretirementnow.comeconomicsbusiness
Early Retirement Now is a personal blog at earlyretirementnow.com about economics and business. Since 2017, 22 different Hacker News readers have linked it 28 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-19, and you can follow it by feed.
28mentions?
22HN people?
2017–2026first – last linked?
Too few sampled comments (26) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link it for analysis of safe withdrawal rates, emergency funds, market timing and early retirement planning, and cite its posts as sources in FIRE discussions.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 26 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
You can't afford not to retire early!
Most-linked posts?
- /safe-withdrawal-rate-series/4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-05-12
- /2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-05-03
- /2017/09/13/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-19-equity-glidepaths/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-01-17
- /2016/05/05/emergency-fund/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-11-14
- /2021/05/26/the-emergency-fund-is-still-useless/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-03-17
- /2016/12/14/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-2-capital-preservation-vs-capital-depletion/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-08-18
- /2019/03/27/passive-income-through-option-writing-part-3/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-02-27
What Hacker News says?
I'd suggest ramping up bonds shortly before retirement (and then ramping them back down again afterwards, which the vanguard funds do not do -- mostly because they cannot tell if you have actually retired on your target date).[1] [1]: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2017/09/13/the-ultimate-guide...
Comment linking /2017/09/13/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-19-equity-glidepaths/
on “John C. Bogle Has Died”Submitted My Thoughts on the GameStop Volatility as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> You also can’t withdraw at as high a “safe rate” as people planning for an ordinary retirement at ~65 do Solvable, including consideration of valuations via CAPE PE 10. Based on past data, the safe withdrawal rate (SWR) happens to be around 3.25-3.5% of assets to extend to a 60-year time horizon [1] > at constant 2% inflation (ha!) you need a very safe source of consistent (not average!) 6% returns to retire with…
Comment linking /2017/09/13/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-19-equity-glidepaths/
on “How to Start Google”> Keep in mind that almost all of the FIRE advice available online has been written in a secular bull market that is almost 2 decades long Most of the reasonable FIRE advice (e.g. https://earlyretirementnow.com/ quality) suggests a ~3-3.5% withdrawal rate, which has been measured using historical data way before the current secular market. Is your take that even such withdrawal rate wouldn't work anymore, moving for…
Comment linking /
on “Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth”It's one of the option greeks. The original definition is basically the partial derivative of option price wrt time, i.e. it's the amount by which an option would lose in value per unit of time, when all else is equal. It's always negative. Theta gang just means someone who sells options and expects that option to expire worthless, thereby profiting from the slow decay of option value due to theta. It's a legitimate…
Comment linking /2019/03/27/passive-income-through-option-writing-part-3/
on “Reddit’s profane, greedy traders are shaking up the stock market”Check out https://earlyretirementnow.com/2021/05/26/the-emergency-fund... from Early Retirement Now. He also links to other posts debunking the need for emergency savings.
Comment linking /2021/05/26/the-emergency-fund-is-still-useless/
on “Nevada’s public employee pension fund invests passively and beats peers (2016)”A mortgage is a sort of reverse bond. Ideally, you pay it off aggressively shortly before you plan to retire. This whole blog series is great, and I'd recommend it, but this particular post is the one responsive to the mortgage and retirement part: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2017/10/11/the-ultimate-guide...
Comment linking /2017/10/11/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-21-mortgage-in-retirement/
on “Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator”You won't necessarily have to, but yes, no risk no reward. Doing this is what people who have retired have to do whenever there is a market crash. Really this shouldn't be that controversial. It's super simple: Which does better long-term? Stocks or cash? That's pretty much all I'm saying. There's a ton of data to back up what I'm saying. https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/05/05/emergency-fund/
Comment linking /2016/05/05/emergency-fund/
on “Save like a pessimist, invest like an optimist”Depends where/how you want to live. Retiring at 35 you should be able to get away with a 3.25% SWR [0], which'd give $65k/yr from $2M. But a) that'd be mostly long-term capital gains, which have lower taxes than regular income and b) you wouldn't have to save for retirement. So you'd probably end up with the spending power of someone making ~$80k salary [0] https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/14/the-ultimate-guid…
Comment linking /2016/12/14/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-2-capital-preservation-vs-capital-depletion/
on “Midlife: A Philosophical Guide”May I suggest taking a look at https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide... - it's the best guide I've ever found on optimal safe withdrawal rates.
Comment linking /2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/
on “How and Why Athletes Go Broke (2009)”The ERN blog had a few nice posts regarding market timing: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2018/02/21/market-timing-and-... https://earlyretirementnow.com/2018/04/25/market-timing-and-... In the second one he simulates a momentum strategy which does pretty well, which can be used along with multiple other signals to increase confidence. I was thinking of simulating using leverage after these kind of drops to try to i…
Comment linking /2018/04/25/market-timing-and-risk-management-part-2-momentum/
on “The mother of all crashes is coming and it won’t be fun”"In our financial plan, you will never find the one staple item that every financial planner calls the cornerstone of a responsible financial plan: the emergency fund. We have none. Zilch. Nada." https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/05/05/emergency-fund/ If you get fired you can live off severance and liquidate some of your investments.
Comment linking /2016/05/05/emergency-fund/
on “Every thought about personal finance I've ever had, as concisely as possible”Everyone tosses around a 4% safe real withdrawal rate (SWR), but that number is just a starting point. The Trinity study was for a 30-year period where success was defined as ending with a non-negative account balance. If you're retiring at 30, you're probably looking at a 40-60 year time period and want to avoid sliding into the grave just as your account balance hits zero. Here is an in-depth analysis which seems…
Comment linking /2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/
on “Tech workers who are engineering a mid-30s retirement”I think any time you string together a series of worst case scenarios all being true at the same time, you're going to end up with something ridiculous. It's silly to ignore social security since at the bare minimum, if congress does nothing, people will still get roughly 75% of the benefit. One tool I like better than the online calculators is the spreadsheet at https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-s…
Comment linking /safe-withdrawal-rate-series/
on “How much is enough to FIRE in San Francisco?”If you're interested in being financially independent, I would take a look at the following article: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide... They look at the 4% rule, what it's based on, and see if it's actually valuable for those looking into early retirement.
Comment linking /2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/
on “Ask HN: How do you invest your money?”My favorite analysis on this: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2018/03/21/best-investment-ev...
Comment linking /2018/03/21/best-investment-ever-homeownership/
on “Should I Buy a House?”For work that's been done on withdrawal strategies, see the Safe Withdrawal Rate series at https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/ How does your strategy differ from the many ERN evaluates?
Comment linking /safe-withdrawal-rate-series/
on “Retirement Calculators for Engineers”Those rates and risks are meaningless without a baseline, as Einstein and 28 other Nobel Prize Winners may agree. If you're familiar with the early retirement community, the simplest strategy is withdrawing a fixed percentage of your initial retirement portfolio, adjusting for inflation every year. For an 100% equities portfolio, these are the odds of success over a 30 or 60 year horizon[0] when backtested against S…
Comment linking /2016/12/14/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-2-capital-preservation-vs-capital-depletion/
on “The Tontine Coffee-House (2018)”That is not accurate. The 4% withdrawal rate is based on the Trinity Study[1], which showed that it was unlikely to exhaust retirement funds over a 30 year retirement. It already includes compounding and draw down calculations. There's a whole active debate around exactly what numbers are sufficiently safe over what time horizons and what portfolio mixes. For a fun long read, see ERN's series on safe withdrawal rate…
Comment linking /safe-withdrawal-rate-series/
on “After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires”I disagree. Not with the facts stated, but your interpretation of them. With defined risk positions, the risks are easy to understand. Of course you can't compete with the institutions, but should that be a reason not to invest at all? Again, with defined risk positions there is no way you can blow up an account. Options expiring worthless works for you if you're a net seller. Others have written extensively about s…
Comment linking /2019/03/27/passive-income-through-option-writing-part-3/
on “Ask HN: Do you have a daily cash stream?”7% is in line with historical growth rate (below it, actually) Cost inflation is assumed to be 3%, which is why the withdrawal rate is 4% (4% + 3% = 7%) Anyway a 4% withdrawal rate is fine for 30 years (the duration of the trinity study) but a lower withdrawal rate (say, 3.25%) is needed for longer timespans like the 65-ish years of life expected of someone just graduating college, see this: https://earlyretirementn…
Comment linking /2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/
on “The colossal problem with universal basic income [video]”It probably depends greatly on your personal circumstances but if you are already investing, or have a Home Equity Line of Credit available, or good credit so that you can get credit cards, then it's quite possible that an emergency fund is just not required (or in other words you keep your emergency fund invested) https://earlyretirementnow.com/2021/05/26/the-emergency-fund... I think younger folk or those in a les…
Comment linking /2021/05/26/the-emergency-fund-is-still-useless/
on “Ask HN: How do you protect your emergency fund from inflation?”My first comment was based on the simplistic onboarding flow before being asked to login. I've poked around the site a little more and have additional comments. The site is for folks that are ok with a probability of success. There are folks that want better guarantees, probably annuities. Wade Pfau, who has been researching retirement planning for 15+ years has a good description of the issues in his Retirement Pla…
Comment linking /safe-withdrawal-rate-series/
on “Show HN: Fortunately – Understand the tradeoffs of financial decisions”The 4% figure comes from something called "The Trinity Study" and most definitely considers inflation. For more information about safe withdrawal rates then you probably want see https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/
Comment linking /safe-withdrawal-rate-series/
on “Charter Houses – Once you get your first $10M”Sadly international diversification is far less effective during downturns, which is exactly when you need it. It really turns out that the old adage "when the US sneezes the whole world catches a cold" is borne out by the evidence: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2017/08/23/how-useful-is-inte... I started getting concerned about the US stock market being overvalued in about 2019. If I'd followed my gut and ditched t…
Comment linking /2017/08/23/how-useful-is-international-diversification/
on “The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else”I really like the "early retirement now" spreadsheet for that reason. ( https://earlyretirementnow.com/2018/08/29/google-sheet-updat... ) It allows you to plug in expected cash flows and your allocation model, and compares it to the stock market history to get a safe withdrawal rate. Using that you can also try out alternate scenarios like "what if I converted x00k of my savings to an annuity in exchange for a predi…
Comment linking /2018/08/29/google-sheet-updates-swr-series-part-28/
on “Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator”> Housing can not be both an investment and affordable. Mathematically this isn’t true, as housing (even owner-occupied housing) pays a dividend [0]. So a house whose price tracks inflation (0% real price return) that pays a 4% dividend in net operating income still has a respectable 4% real return. Juice that return way up with a fixed-rate mortgage and you still have a great investment without home prices racing p…
Comment linking /2017/11/15/that-house-over-there-is-an-investment/
on “To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning”
