This is the part of the series I’m most excited about: turning my spreadsheet into free, online Roth conversion software — really an optimizer — that you can run on your own numbers, without owning Excel or knowing what a solver is.
Continue reading “Free Roth Conversion Software (Coming Soon)”Tag: FIRE
The Roth Conversion Math: A Linear Program
This is the “show your work” post in the series. If you came for the FIRE strategy you can happily skip it; if you want the Roth conversion optimization written out as an actual linear program — decision variables, constraints, objective — this is for you. It mirrors the Excel + OpenSolver model I described in part 2.
Continue reading “The Roth Conversion Math: A Linear Program”How Much Should I Convert to a Roth Each Year?
This post is about a question I keep circling back to as an early retiree: how much to convert to a Roth in any given year. Not whether to convert — I’m already sold on that — but the actual dollar amount, year by year. It turns out to be a surprisingly good little optimization problem, and this is how I think about it.
The Roth Conversion Ladder (and Its Blind Spot)
If you retire before 59½ with most of your money locked in a traditional IRA or 401(k), you run into an awkward problem: the money is there, but reaching it normally means a 10% early-withdrawal penalty on top of income tax. The Roth conversion ladder is the classic FIRE workaround, and it is the setup for everything else I want to write about in this series.
Continue reading “The Roth Conversion Ladder (and Its Blind Spot)”Barista FIRE vs Coast FIRE: Which Half-Exit Fits You?
I retired early, and I still work — which sounds like a contradiction until you learn the vocabulary. The FIRE movement splits the “quit your job before 65” idea into flavors, and the two that generate the most confusion are barista FIRE vs coast FIRE. Both are half-exits: you leave the career, but you don’t fully unplug from income or from math. The difference between them is what does the heavy lifting afterwards — your part-time paycheck, or compound growth you banked years earlier. Having lived on the far side of this decision for over a decade (boss-free, but rarely idle), here’s how I’d explain the two to a friend deciding which door to take.
