The Tamias Blog
FIRE, retirement planning, and the ideas behind smarter financial decisions.
We Backtested a 20-Stock Options Strategy Over Six Years. Here Is What We Found.
June 2, 2026 · 13 min read
Options income sounds like a clean solution for FIRE: monthly cash, no selling. We built the bot, ran the backtest, and the results are more honest than most people admit.
The Dutch Pension Gap Most Employees Never Diagnose
May 28, 2026 · 9 min read
If your employer contributes 5% to your pension, you may retire on 30% of your working income — while a government-subsidised top-up mechanism sits unused. A diagnostic for employees in the Netherlands.
The Psychology of Money: Why Behaviour Beats Intelligence
May 21, 2026 · 9 min read
Morgan Housel's quiet masterpiece makes a single, uncomfortable argument: financial success has less to do with what you know and almost everything to do with how you behave.
Brazil Aged Without Getting Rich — and Your FIRE Plan Needs to Know That
May 20, 2026 · 10 min read
Brazil spends on pensions like a wealthy nation, but its income per capita tells a different story. Here is why the demographic crisis is not a government problem — it is a direct risk to your financial independence plan.
PERMA: The Framework That Tells You What Your FIRE Number Cannot
May 20, 2026 · 10 min read
Your retirement number tells you when you can stop. The PERMA model of wellbeing tells you whether stopping will actually make you happier — and the answer is more complicated than most FIRE plans assume.
The Agricultural Trap: Why Your Career Might Be History's Biggest Fraud
May 20, 2026 · 9 min read
Harari argued that wheat domesticated humans, not the other way around. The same logic applies to your salary. The more you earn, the more the system captures you — unless you plan the escape.
The INSS Dilution Trap: What Every Brazilian Expat Needs to Calculate
May 19, 2026 · 12 min read
You left Brazil, built a career abroad, and forgot about the INSS. You might be one month away from a lifetime pension of up to R$3,600/month — or about to pay R$21,000 to shrink it.
Brazil's 2026 Pension Reform: Why Private FIRE Just Got More Urgent
May 18, 2026 · 13 min read
In 2026, millions of Brazilians who planned to retire through the INSS discovered they no longer can. The government moved the goalposts again — and that is the definitive argument for building your own financial independence.
Does the 4% Rule Work in Brazil?
May 18, 2026 · 10 min read
The most famous rule in retirement planning was built on American data from 1994. Brazil has a different inflation history, thinner market data, and some of the highest real interest rates on the planet. Applying the same number could be a costly mistake.
Know Your Withdrawal Floor
May 17, 2026 · 9 min read
Dynamic withdrawal strategies promise flexibility — but only deliver it if your floor is far enough below your target. Most retirees have never stress-tested the gap.
The Risk That Average Returns Cannot See
May 10, 2026 · 10 min read
Two portfolios. Same starting balance. Same average return. One finishes with over a million. The other hits zero by year fourteen. The difference is timing — and it is the risk most retirement plans quietly ignore.
The Retirement Smile: Why You Will Spend More Than You Think — Just Not When You Expect
May 5, 2026 · 8 min read
Most retirement models assume spending declines steadily with age. Four decades of consumer data show a U-shape instead: high early, lower in the middle years, then a sharp rise driven by healthcare costs.