The Tamias Blog
FIRE, retirement planning, and the ideas behind smarter financial decisions.
The Perfect Coupon Timing Is Worth R$ 116 (and You Still Can't Capture It)
July 17, 2026 · 10 min read
There's an elegant optimisation hidden in the regressive tax table: buy on the right date so the first coupon dodges the priciest bracket. We ran the numbers. It's a mirage — and the mirage teaches more than the result.
Reinvest or Spend: The Question That Decides Between Coupon and Zero-Coupon
July 17, 2026 · 10 min read
The fight between a coupon bond and a zero-coupon one isn't settled by watching interest rates. It's settled by a question about you: will the money this bond produces go back to earning, or become an expense? The answer inverts everything.
The Tax You Don't Pay Today: Why Deferral Is a Source of Return
July 17, 2026 · 10 min read
Most investors compare tax rates. Almost nobody compares the timing. But when you pay tax changes your return as much as how much you pay — and over a retirement horizon, deferral is worth more than a point a year.
The High-Coupon Myth: Why Getting Paid Sooner Doesn't Mean Earning More
July 15, 2026 · 12 min read
The semiannual coupon is sold as passive income and a clear advantage. It is really a risk swap — and for anyone still in the accumulation phase, an expensive one: the taxman collects even when interest rates never move.
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.