Rebecca Herbst

Founder @ Yield & Spread
382 karmaJoined Working (15+ years)Ogden, UT, USA
yieldandspread.org

Bio

Participation
5

Passionate about effective giving and financial literacy. Early retiree (a la the FIRE movement). Member of Giving What We Can. Board Member for Effective Altruism Salt Lake City.  Ex-commercial real estate cities researcher and economist. Outdoor enthusiast. Creator of  Yield & Spread. We teach working adults how to manage and invest their money. All profits after operating costs go tot effective charities. Learn more at yieldandspread.org

Comments
19

Is there a possible world to "divest" or "spin out" the non-AI work of 80k hours org? I understand that this in and of itself could be a huge haul and may defeat the purpose of the re-alignment of values -- but could the door remain open to this if someone/another org expressed interest?

Hi Antonio - Just seeing your question now. You can check out a number of free and low-cost resources we have at yieldandspread.org. It's an EA-aligned nonprofit that teaches the ins and outs of financial independence and caters to people who want to give back. We have a Learn to Invest course (all proceeds go to high-impact charities) and a number of free resources that will help you make your plans for FI.

Since you're in Portugal, you'll have to adapt the concepts to your local country.  When I did a search for FIRE bloggers in Portugal, it got bogged down by early retiree FIRE expats moving there (like Our Rich Journey and Delyanne the Money Coach). I found one person who early retired and is from Portugal - could be worth trying to connect and see what you get.  Also consider exploring/posting here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EuropeFIRE/

Hey Jeremy - Thanks for commenting. Some of the simplicity comes from the fact that the user will have likely used a traditional FI calculator first. So there is a little learning bump if you have not! Else, there are descriptions of each input if you hover over their names. Here's some further explanation to your questions:

"Traditional retirement age" depends on where you live. In the US it's 65-67. This input is there to help with the calculations for Coast FI and to understand your wealth if you kept working until this age. It is not meant to be your retirement age goal if that's different than what's the traditional one. 

"Passive Cashflow" is separate than your income - it's for things like additional income sources like collecting rent from an investment property or a side hustle you have, 

Retirement savings should definitely be included in your portfolio value.   

Re: Social Security - There is a lot of back and forth in the FI community if this should be counted. Many say yes, some say no. To be conservative it's usually not included in this type of calculator, but I think it's well worth getting those estimates and knowing what they are. Typical FI calcs don't include this just because it's hard to build in!

"Years to FI" will output a text statement if you are FI already (years would be 0 to FI) OR if you have no chance of hitting FI with the financials you put in (years to FI would be n/a). Else it does output a number of years to FI if you are on the right path. It may just be the inputs you used? I'll double check that just in case.

Else - great catch on that error. I thought i caught it in a previous round of edits. Huge help, gonna double check everything. 

Thank you!

Having a baby and becoming a parent has had an incredible impact on me. Now more than ever, I feel more connected and concerned about the wellbeing of others. I feel as though my heart has literally grown. I wanted to share this as I expect there are many others who are questioning whether to have children -- perhaps due to concerns about it limiting their positive impact, among many others. But I'm just here to say it's been beautiful, and amazing, and I look forward to the day I get to talk with my son about giving back in a meaningful way.  

One of the misconceptions I had about the GWWC pledge has to do with the use of a donor-advised fund (DAF). It was always my thought that the pledge was designed to help people give meaningful sums of money sooner rather than later (e.g. donate 10% per year vs. just waiting till you die to make a large lump sum donation). I've now met a few people that have taken the pledge but have contributed most or all of their charitable giving to a Donor-Advised Fund as part of their pledge. And furthermore, they have yet to make any grants from their DAFs as they believe in the the prospect of Investing to Give. I haven't quite fully formed my personal opinion of this yet, but I wonder how GWWC views these scenarios? Contributing to a DAF, of course, is a commitment in that those contributions are irrevocable and must ultimately go to charity. But with that said, in the unlikely scenario all pledge takers were contributing money to a DAF and not granting any funds in the near future, then this to me feels counterintuitive to the pledge itself. Any thoughts?

Great to read this. Did you evaluate The Life You Can Save org as part of this process? Can you share any feedback if so?

Thank you to all those who RSVP'ed to the second part of our Finance for Good Series. Expect the workshop to be interactive, with some exercises and discussions as a group. We're providing an optional pre-event exercise called When Can I Retire?. It’s meant to help you get a better understanding of your financial snapshot -- both your net worth and your spending, and give you the opportunity to use your real financial data during the workshop. If you aren’t able to get to it, no worries, you can always explore during and after the event. See you all soon!

 

 


 

Excited to see this as an offering!

Wanted to share with readers of this post that Yield & Spread has added a free 1:1 coaching program for do-gooders who want to explore and improve their personal finances. We are calling for applicants in this post. If you found the FI-lanthropy calculator helpful, please consider applying. 

There's been some good activity in the Personal Finance space since this post from @NicoleJaneway ! Wanted to share with readers of this post that we have created a free 1:1 coaching program for do-gooders who want to explore and improve personal finances. We are calling for applicants in this post.

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