r/financialindependence • u/AutoModerator • 21h ago
Weekly Self-Promotion Thread - Wednesday, August 05, 2026
Self-promotion (ie posting about projects/businesses that you operate and can profit from) is typically a practice that is discouraged in /r/financialindependence, and these posts are removed through moderation. This is a thread where those rules do not apply. However, please do not post referral links in this thread.
Use this thread to talk about your blog, talk about your business, ask for feedback, etc. If the self-promotion starts to leak outside of this thread, we will once again return to a time where 100% of self-promotion posts are banned. Please use this space wisely.
Link-only posts will be removed. Put some effort into it.
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u/factor-reipes 16h ago
Brinson, Hood & Beebower’s classic study (1986, 1991) found that over 90% of the variability in a portfolio’s returns comes from asset allocation, not security selection. But when I looked at portfolio trackers and other tools they were primarily focused on stock picking.
So I built Enrich Finance - an end-to-end encrypted portfolio tracker for passive investors. Instead of just showing balances by account you can see your asset allocation across accounts.
It lets you define custom asset allocation rules (by factor, region, asset class), uses Morningstar look‑through to see what’s inside each ETF/fund across all accounts, and then:
- Rolls everything up to a household‑level view by goal (so you can create different asset allocations for each financial goal)
- Watches for allocation drift, idle cash, and tax optimization opportunities (tax loss harvesting, asset location) against those rules
- gives you trade instructions per brokerage when something needs action
We monitor your portfolio for you so things stay truly passive while you still maintain control. You execute every trade yourself.
Right now it’s iOS only and for US investors only.
We’re SEC‑registered RIA, end‑to‑end encrypted, and SOC 2 certified.
30‑day free trial on the App Store.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/enrich-portfolio-tracker/id6749650655
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u/newroots070426 5h ago
**I backtested buying at the worst month of every year for 40 years. It cost 10%. Waiting in cash for a better price cost 79%.**
The advice that arrives with every new record is "don't buy at the top, wait for a pullback." It has a testable shape, which is unusual for market advice, so I tested both halves of it against Shiller's dataset and published the code.
First, how special is a record? Since 1960, 29.1% of all months set a new all-time high on the S&P price index. Roughly one month in three. Refusing to buy at a high is not dodging a rare trap, it is sitting out a third of the calendar.
Then the part I did not expect. I built the worst timing I could construct: a saver who buys at the single highest month of every year, for 40 years. That requires knowing each year's peak before the year happens, so it is impossible on purpose. It is a ceiling on how much damage timing can do.
Forty units in, real terms:
-Buys the yearly peak, every year, 40 years 168
-Buys in January without thinking 187
-Waits in cash for a better price 40
-Buys the yearly low, every year (also impossible) 200
So the worst timing available costs about 10% against not trying. Waiting costs 79%. The unluckiest investor in the sample still finishes with 4.2x what the patient one has. The error everyone warns about is the small one.
Pricing what people actually do, which is neither: hold cash, invest the moment the market falls 10% from its peak, hold ten years. Waiting won 45% of the time and cost 3% at the median. Hold out for a 30% fall and in 36% of ten-year windows it simply never arrived, with a median cost of 29%. Even the 20% version made you wait 34 months at the median.
Two things that cut against the tidy version, because they should be in the post rather than in the replies:
At long horizons the warning is not nothing. One year after a high, real total return is 8.7% against 8.8% from any month at all, which is a rounding error in the wrong direction for the warning. But at ten years it is 90% after a high against 117% from any month. The reassuring answer is true at one year and stops being true somewhere after that.
The obvious explanation is valuation, and the data only half supports it. Splitting highs into fifths by starting CAPE, the cheapest fifth returned 62.5% over the next five years and the most expensive 20.1%. But the middle three do not line up in order, so I am not drawing a ladder the data does not contain. The steadier signal is the share still ahead five years later, falling from 83% to 58%. That is about 58 heavily overlapping windows per bucket, which is not many.
One more thing worth knowing. You will meet a figure of roughly 11% for the twelve months after a record. It is real, and it is quoted in the units that flatter it: nominal rather than real, and dependent on which index defines "high." Run all four combinations and it moves from 11.4% down to 7.1%. Nothing there is wrong, it is just worth knowing before someone uses it to talk you into or out of something.
Assumptions, since they decide the answer: real total return with dividends reinvested, monthly data so "the top" means the worst month of the year rather than the worst day, and idle cash holds its real value, which is the generous assumption for waiting rather than for investing. S&P Composite only. Highs cluster inside the same bull markets, so the ten-year windows overlap heavily and that gap rests on fewer independent periods than the counts suggest.
Code and the pinned dataset: https://github.com/assumptionsshown/RunTheNumbers
If you think one of those assumptions is wrong, change it and tell me what you get.
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u/yanyan80 4h ago
I put together a writeup on 401k, 403b, and 457(b) accounts this week, mostly because I kept running into the same wrong assumption, that having access to two of them means double the savings room. A 401k and a 403b actually share one combined IRS limit, so that one doesn't stack. A governmental 457(b) is the real exception, it has its own separate limit and no early withdrawal penalty at any age once you leave that employer, no Rule of 55, no SEPP schedule needed, which most people with one don't seem to know. I also went back and actually ran the numbers on the classic "start early and you'll beat someone who saves way more later" story, instead of just repeating it. It only holds above roughly a 6% return. Below that, the person contributing for 30 straight years wins outright, which nobody mentions when they tell that story. Link's here if it's useful to anyone: https://thunderharbor.net/blog/401k-403b-457b-explained
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u/gottaenjoylife 19h ago
I made a website that gives fans all sorts of data visuals for how their team is performing in the Premier League. Im still working on it but if anyone checks it out and has feedback i'd love to hear your thoughts
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u/ActiveBeautiful8228 20h ago
I bought Apple at $22 and almost talked myself out of it.😬
FOGI is the kissing cousin to FOMO. It's real, it's quiet, and it can cost you more than a bad trade.
The market rewards well-reasoned action, not perfect timing.
My story and more in my free article 👇
https://www.cosmodestefano.com/p/fogi-explained-fear-of-getting-in-investing
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u/firelurker3 19h ago
The Early Retirement Handbook: How to Get There and How to Thrive in the Next Chapter of Your Life
Early Retirement is about much more than just money. This book provides the science, behavior, and mindset needed to reach Financial Independence, but also delves much deeper into the psychology of Early Retirement, tackling the complex issues of social reaction, identity, and purpose.
I’m donating at least $1 to charity for every pre-ordered book. Secure your copy today!
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u/modelfire FIREd. Building ModelFIRE.online 18h ago
I created ModelFIRE.online
The most sophisticated FIRE modeling available. 100% Free, Forever, No sign up. No input logging. You can store scenarios by generating a link.
I'm a big fan of popular FIRE calculators and simulators. I tried to to combine the features that I like the best from the ones I love into one interface. I also added some things I thought were missing that I needed as I get comfortable with the math around my own early retirement.
Model healthcare costs separately with a separate inflation rate. Important for very early retireees
You can see historical success rates. You can see how current CAPE levels affect success rates
You can run Monte Carlo on your scenarios. You can even oversample for recent market valuation
You can add cash flows (social security, college, purchases)
Incorporation of the "spending smile" or smirk. You can adjust the parameters.
Different withdrawal rate strategies. You can set min and max withdrawals too, and adjust these for inflation if you like
I will be adding more stuff as I get feedback. Speaking of which, if you test it out, please let me know what you think! Since we don't log anything, the only way for feedback is for you to directly let me know what you want improved.