In a post last week I showed that for the majority of retirees the standard recommended spending model in retirement does not match reality. Spending in retirement actually grows by less than inflation over time. In this post I want to show you how using a more realistic sending model Read more
It’s usually worthwhile to question conventional wisdom. At the minimum you usually learn where that wisdom came from. Often you learn the conventional wisdom is not the best approach. This happens to apply rather well to the topic of retirement spending. Lets take a look at the conventional wisdom regarding Read more
What’s the hardest part of the retirement decision? For many its taking the leap of faith that financially what’s worked in the past will continue to work in the future. And often the start of every single year, during those early years of retirement, brings the anxiety right back again. Read more
Today I wanted to do another yearly update post. This time I’ll refresh the worst times to retire in history with data from 2013 which adds another year in the retirement story of the 5 ‘unluckiest’ retirees in history. See here for last year’s update. As I said in last Read more
Is it possible to achieve higher safe withdrawal rates, compared to a stock/bond portfolio, from a 100% bond portfolio? With bond prices at historical highs? That’s what I wanted to find out. I started thinking in this direction after my look at bottoms up retirement planning and calculating what low Read more
Back in 2010 I posted on an alternative retirement withdrawal approach that allows for higher safe withdrawal rates (SWR). Back then I didn’t have a detailed model of this approach to provide much more insight. Now I do. Its very worthwhile revisiting this strategy and discuss the great benefits it Read more
Today I want to touch on a little understood aspect of safe withdrawal rates (SWRs) in retirement. Using the historical method to determine SWRs (as opposed to Monte Carlo analysis) means that the maximum SWR (approx 4%) is singularly determined by one 30 year period, the 30 year retirement period Read more
Everyone knows that delaying the starting age of social security increases your benefits. Its right there in your social security statement. But most people don’t know how big an impact delaying social security can have when looked at in terms of investment returns. If retirees knew how big an impact Read more
Sometimes it pays to go back to basics. With retirement planning it’s no different. The common, top down approach with retirement planning starts with total net worth and then uses a safe withdrawal rate (SWR), most commonly 4%, to figure out how much one can spend per year in retirement Read more
Today I’d like to address some of the biggest concerns with the IVY portfolios, in particular the timing versions. Three big concerns with the implementation of IVY are management fees, trading commissions, and taxes and that they may impact performance enough to render any advantage mute. These are truly valid Read more
Now that I’ve presented several variations and updates to the IVY portfolios, in this post I update all the relevant portfolio statistics and compare them to some commonly held diversified portfolios. I provide the definitions of the portfolio stats and the various portfolios. I conclude with some brief observations. In Read more