> I expect to move into a higher tax bracket as I get older.

A common mistake I observe is that "get older" may be in reference to "working life."

The proper analysis should be tax rate now vs tax rate at disbursal. For most people, disbursal is when they are not just older, but also retired. And for most people, retired means low/no income.

Why?

Because retired.

If you're still working when you're old and in a high tax bracket, do you need to be disbursing your retirement funds? Most likely you'd leave them alone until you stop working.

> $6.5k would only ding me maybe 2-3 months of expenses. I still have the $10k+ worth of I-bonds as last resort if my life really went to shit after 10 months lol

Fine.

As long as you acknowledge that you have a plan or are willing to accept a smaller emergency fund for a period of time.

Perhaps it should also prompt you to re-evaluate whether or not you actually desire a 12 month EF.

> I’ve been listening and reading articles, books, and podcasts to understand that Lump Sum is best in the long run. I understand it’s not by much that’s lump sum is better than DCA, but doing it monthly or weekly would it feel like I’m timing the market. That’s a psychological issue that would mentally kill me if I kept seeing the market go up or down and then have 2nd thoughts. I’d like to keep emotions out if I can.

Investing as the money comes available is a reasonable approach too. (ie Set auto-investments to occur every payday) This is often mistaken to be DCA, but it is not. DCA involves intentionally holding cash and avoiding investing until a defined time period.