Financial Planning
Decisions, checklists, concentrated stock, and what money is actually for
Most money mistakes are not math mistakes. They are decisions made in a hurry, with the wrong question in front of you, at a moment when the stakes felt too big to slow down. This shelf is about the decisions themselves, the ones that shape a household's finances for decades, and how to think about them before you have to make them.
Here you will find guides on equity compensation and concentrated stock, checklists for the end of the year, plain warnings about fraud aimed at people over 60, and Anton's essays on what money is actually for. Everything is educational and general. When a decision is yours to make, the goal is that you walk into it knowing which questions matter.
A Guide to Equity Compensation Planning for ISOs, RSUs, and Concentrated Stock
ISOs, RSUs, and concentrated stock each carry different tax rules and risks. This guide covers exercise timing, AMT planning, RSU vesting strategies, 10b5-1 plans, and diversification approaches with current 2026 figures.
Incentive stock options (ISOs), non-qualified stock options (NSOs), and restricted stock units (RSUs) are taxed differently, so equity compensation planning starts with knowing exactly which type of award you hold.
Exercising an ISO and holding the shares can trigger the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) on the bargain element. The 2026 AMT phaseout thresholds are lower and the phaseout rate is higher than in 2025, which can make a large exercise more costly to model.
Nyle Bayer · Published · 11 min readMore in Financial Planning
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