Ten Lessons From Ten Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Studies - Early Retirement Now

Last week, we published the Tenth Safe Withdrawal Rate Study! Amazing how time flies! I did about one case study every three weeks for the last 6 months! And I could even include another one if I were to count the one I did for the ChooseFI podcast back in 2017. In fact, the ChooseFI … Continue reading Ten Lessons From Ten Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Studies

Principles of Retirement Tax-Planning - SWR Series Part 44 - Early Retirement Now

March 22, 2021 – It’s tax season in the U.S. right now! Even though that deadline has just been pushed back to May 17, taxes are on everybody’s mind, so this is a good time to write about the topic in the context of the Safe Withdrawal Rate Series. Until now, I haven’t written all that … Continue reading Principles of Retirement Tax-Planning – SWR Series Part 44

The Basics of FIRE - Early Retirement Now

March 10, 2023 – After seven years of blogging in the personal finance and FIRE community, I realize that there’s one type of post I’ve always avoided: How to explain FIRE to a complete newbie. Until now, I’ve outsourced that task and simply referred to the Links Page. But where’s a good overview, all in … Continue reading The Basics of FIRE

#18 Episode - Simplifying the Safe

Remove the Valuation Cap and Discount. Replace it with a Conversion Percentage (%).

Overview | Risk First

A few short articles about what Risk-First is all about

Misunderstanding Savings Growth: Implications for Retirement Savings Behavior

People systematically underestimate exponential growth. This article illustrates this phenomenon, its implications, and some potential interventions in the context of saving for retirement, where savings grow exponentially over long periods of time. Experiment 1 shows that a majority of participants expect savings over 40 years to grow linearly rather than exponentially, leading them to grossly underestimate their account balance at retirement. Experiment 2 demonstrates that this misunderstanding leads to underestimates of the cost of waiting to save, which makes putting off saving more attractive than it should be. Finally, Experiments 3–5 show that highlighting the exponential growth of savings motivates both college students and employees to save more for retirement. Making clear to employees the exponential growth of savings before they make crucial decisions about how much to save may be a simple and effective means of increasing retirement savings.

Killing “Chicken Little”: Measure and eliminate risk through forecasting.

View the “Risk Forecasting” presentation on GitHub.

Cashing Out Retirement Savings at Job Separation

We investigate the impact of employer matching contributions on leakage at job termination. , The U.S. government imposes a 10% penalty to discourage preretirement leakage—cash withdrawal from 401(k) retirement savings before the age of 59.5 years. In our data set with 162,360 terminating employees covered by 28 retirement plans, 41.4% of employees leaked by cashing out 401(k) savings at job separation, most draining their entire accounts. We investigate the impact of employer matching contributions on leakage at job termination. The “composition” of funds in one’s 401(k) balance matters: leakage increases with employer contribution proportion. Micropatterns in our data align more with behavioral than with economic explanations of this effect. We estimate that a 50% increase in employer/employee match rate increases leakage probability by 6.3% at job termination. However, there could be a 35.3% reduction in leakage probability if employees ignore the perceived incentive generated by the account composition effect. Approximately 60% of accumulated assets from a 50% increase in match rate leak out of the system due to the account composition effect attributable to the percentage of assets contributed by the employer. Employers with more generous matches care about their employees’ well-being in retirement, but unintentionally nudge employees to cash out when they change jobs. We highlight proposals to help employers curb avoidable leakage. History: K. Sudhir served as the senior editor and Tat Chan served as associate editor for this article. Funding: This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [Grant 435-2018-0509]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2022.1404 .

Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE): Definition, Benefits, and Risks

A simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) is a seed-funding instrument that issues equity rights to be converted at a later date if triggered.

Identifying heterogeneity using recursive partitioning: evidence from SMS nudges encouraging voluntary retirement savings in Mexico

Abstract Individuals regularly struggle to save for retirement. Using a large-scale field experiment (N=97,149) in Mexico, we test the effectiveness of several behavioral interventions relative to existing policy and each other geared toward improving voluntary retirement savings contributions. We find that an intervention framing savings as a way to secure one’s family future significantly improves contribution rates. We leverage recursive partitioning techniques and identify that the overall positive treatment effect masks subpopulations where the treatment is even more effective and other groups where the treatment has a significant negative effect, decreasing contribution rates. Accounting for this variation is significant for theoretical and policy development as well as firm profitability. Our work also provides a methodological framework for how to better design, scale, and deploy behavioral interventions to maximize their effectiveness.

Rules of Thumb in Household Savings Decisions: Estimation Using Threshold Regression

The rules of thumb offered by financial advisors regarding how much to hold in liquid reserves vary widely and usually imply far greater sums than low-income ho

Cheat sheet: A quick roundup of SoCal fire coverage and safety resources

The basics on active fires and your one-stop shop for resources.

Free EPA 608 Test Study Guide 2026: All Sections + Cheat Sheet

Free EPA 608 test study guide for Core, Type 1, 2, and 3, plus a printable cheat sheet with every number, date, and leak rate the exam tests. No PDF hunt, no signup.

Encryption + Trust & Safety reading list (updated 2026-05-20)

ProjectionLab - Modern Financial & Retirement Planning Tools

Simulate your financial future. Modern financial and retirement planning tools to plan for early retirement, financial independence, and more.

The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security by Scott Galloway

A must-have guide to optimizing your life for wealth and success, from bestselling author, NYU p...