Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season. We are in our winter location for this year, San Diego, enjoying the relatively warm weather, the surfing, hiking, catching up with friends, and just having an overall relaxing time. Today I wanted to follow up on my last post on investing Read more…
One thing that has always bugged me about retirement calculations is the lack of detail in most of the retirement data and recommendations. Take for example, the 4% safe withdrawal rate that I’ve discussed here many times in the past. The 4% rule says that 4% is the maximum amount Read more…
We are living through the greatest test of the 4% safe withdrawal rate in history. Sounds like a big overarching statement but that’s what the data tells me. A little over a year ago I questioned whether or not the year 2000 retiree would be the first to destroy the Read more…
How are the majority of retirees getting by? Do they have enough in savings and investments to make ends meet or live the lifestyles they want? This is a topic I think about a lot. Being on the road full-time and living the RV lifestyle my wife and I meet Read more…
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 Read more…
The 4% rule of thumb for retirement savings is under threat. After 10 years of retirement, through the end of 2009, individuals who retired at the beginning of the year 2000 are potentially on a path to run out of money before the end of their 30 year retirement period. Read more…
Well, its finally time to put it out there. Since I started blogging I’ve been trying to build a base of background posts to get me to this point. Today, I want to share with you the retirement model that I am using to fund my retirement. I think I Read more…
I’m not a huge fan of investing in bonds, although I do invest in them from time to time. In general, their prospective returns are lower than stocks, they’re taxed at marginal income rates, and individual bond issues are harder to research/buy/trade than individual stocks. However, the most surprising reasons Read more…
I’ve talked a lot about how much it takes to retire and safe withdrawal rates and ways to increase safe withdrawal rates. See the series of posts here. All of these discussions and studies I reference are based on a certain retirement model. Lets call it the portfolio value retirement Read more…
I haven’t talked about safe withdrawal rates (SWR) in a while. For earlier discussions on what the SWR is on how to use it in retirement see the series of posts here. The SWR basically determines what is the maximum a retiree can withdraw from their portfolio every year and Read more…
In an earlier post I introduced a method to time the market, based on the 200-day moving average, that produced higher investment returns, lower volatility, and lower drawdowns than a buy and hold portfolio. As I’ve stated here many times lower drawdowns (max principal loss in any period) is critical Read more…