Future returns and their impact on SWRs

Today I wanted to talk about the forecasting of future returns and more importantly what implications future returns have for SWRs (Safe Withdrawal Rates). As I showed in my last post, the first 10 year period real return in retirement is the best predictor of SWRs for 30 year retirement […]

When you retire matters a lot more than you think

The starting year of retirement makes a huge difference in the success or failure of a retirement plan. This is the key difference between the accumulation phase of investing and the withdrawal phase of investing. Yet the majority of investing writing does not take this key difference into account when […]

2012 in review

Happy New Year everyone. Hard to believe its 2013 already. Time to look back at 2012 and see how I did versus my retirement goals. For those interested the 2011 review is here and the 2010 review is here. This marks the end of our 3rd year living the full […]

2011 portfolio performance

It’s that time of year again. Time to put on the accountant’s hat, tally up the wins and losses for the year and see if my 2011 goals were met. In this post I’ll take a look at the performance of my portfolio in 2011 as well as some of […]

Longevity insurance – not worth it

There was a recent post at the Times’ Bucks Blog about Longevity Insurance that caught my attention. I decided to run some numbers to see what returns are implied in the current prices of longevity insurance and compare that to the risks, and the alternative of just keeping your money […]

Option selling as an income strategy

I’ve covered one of my alternative investment strategies for retirement portfolios already, in my post on structured products. Today, I’ll introduce the primary strategy I use to generate income from my cash balance – option selling. Cash is an important part of any asset allocation. It allows an investor to […]

The gov’t is waging war on your savings

I wanted to talk about saving money tonight. Specifically, how the government is waging a war on your ability to save money and build wealth. Most people first start to save by building up short term savings, a rainy day fund, emergency fund, etc… Currently, the gov’t is making this […]