Whatever allows folks to sleep well at night and have enough to pay all bills in retirement is wise, IMHO. Making the most money or taking the most risk is not as important as sleeping well, for us.
Good question, how much do you have already in bonds, was it all in stocks? And will your bonds fall if interest rates increase, because it seems as if they’re heading at least somewhat up, in the short term. The market has gone so high, seems like you can’t go wrong now. However…
Also trying to read the tea leaves. Five billionaires/hedge fund/Goldman Sachs appointments, massive tax breaks for the wealthy in the tax plan proposal. Huge spending, trillions of dollars in debt. I kind of feel like the stock market will be headed up, though that won’t help many in the middle class. Then again, what do I know!
That is good that you have found someone that you like and trust. It seems rather difficult for us. I find it hard to trust anyone in financial matters, particularly if they would be getting a commission based upon what we buy or sell. A friend of my husband’s has control of our Roth, however, he gets a 0.75% annual commission, and it is obviously to his benefit to grow our account. Churning it would not be to his benefit. I just haven’t found anyone besides him that I feel comfortable with.
Yes @busdriver11 - part of why I trust our guy is that he has a client (which I know from my circle; her circumstances is that she has a modest account) from many years ago when his office was just an assistant and him - and she has been happy and he has served her for many years (her H had Alzheimer’s and died within this last year). We went to a class he was teaching, and even my H understands things when Don explains them.
SWAN - sleep well at night - is a good thing.
The best thing is to stay very well educated, and understand the investments and the risk/reward scenario.
I am all for SWAN.
Which is why I swear by melatonin 
I cancelled my order today because of stock drop.
Did you have tech stocks, coolweather? Seems like those were the ones dropping today.
I am pages and pages behind on this discussion, but am wondering, I have not yet seen much talk about real estate as a portion of the portfolio (could be in the 500 pages i have not yet read!). In September of 2008 we were literally making arrangements to talk money out of the stock market and buy a rental, to diversity, Sadly, we had to delay that a few years, but are doing that now. It’s gone quite well, thus far. Where in the diversified portfolio do you consider real estate?
I recall quite clearly Oct '87 as well as the RE depression of the early 90s in CA, followed by the tech bust. We have seen plenty of money go away in the stock market.
We don’t have any real estate holdings other than our primary, and only, residence. It’s been an intentional decision as I see real estate as a time consuming investment in terms of maintenance, upkeep and headaches and large entry and exit costs. Some family members prefer RE to stock investments but they seem to enjoy all the little tasks,renovations, live in more urban areas, and tend to be more handy. For us, its just as well because, despite a healthy local economy, real estate prices haven’t quite returned to pre-2008 levels here.
In response to the discussion about bonds on page 640, I was going to say something like: “Are you people crazy? Interest rates are going to be heading up. That’s definitely not a good time to buy bonds.” But then I remembered that I know a lot less about the markets than I used to know when I was actively moving money around and really paying attention.
It 's true that bond prices will fall when rates go up, but this article explains in pretty good detail the effect on different types of bond funds and the importance of timing:
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/articles/Can-Bond-Funds-Make-Sense-When-Interest-Rates-Rise
I guess I’ll soften my response a bit:
You people MIGHT be crazy for buying bonds right now 
@busdriver11 Yes. My funds have many tech stocks.
We have real estate as part of our assets. We have a property manager so don’t do much “hands on,” though we did manage one of the properties ourselves for several years. We do better having a professional handle all aspects instead of doing it ourselves. We like having real estate, as it provides positive cash flow for us (neither property has any loans or mortgages and maintenance costs less than the rental income generated).
The issue with real estate is that it is fairly illiquid and tougher to distribute among your descendants. It can also be a bit tricky if the property is co-owned and there is a dispute about how it should be managed and when it should be sold.
Re #9649, @WalknOnEggShells , we might be crazy for having recently rebalanced into bonds (partly to stay on our glide path to retirement asset allocation and partly because of price decline). It’s probably the same people considering us crazy now as considered us crazy for rebalancing into equities a few times in the past. Spoiler alert: that worked out really well for us, while the critics were in cash for too long. They sold low, bought high; not a recipe for profit.
I like to have a plan and stick to it rather than listening to the noise.
Re real estate: DS was asking about doing it. I strongly discouraged it for a few reasons:
If you want/need to relocate, it is as much an albatross as a home you own. Value geographical liquidity. Being an absentee landlord doesn’t work.
If you’re not handy enough to do your own repairs, it’s a non-starter.
If you’ve got better things to do than fix a leak (e.g., work, play), it’s a non-starter.
All you need is one “professional renter” to make you insane.
For your own abode, rent and don’t buy until you’re much older. Home ownership has become received wisdom.
At the end of the discussion, he agreed that he’d mix boring Vanguard investments with maybe a few ventures with colleagues in software. Ixnay the real estate.
I got REIT in my kid’s roth account. Other than that, i just have a promary resident and a condo for personal use not renting out. I am also in the sell stocks and buy bonds now group to rebalance.
The January 2017 issue of Consumer Reports (just got ours in the mail yesterday) has a large article/cover story “The New Retirement” - rules, tools and attitudes you need now, whether you’re in your 20s, 40s, or 60s.
I have not read this entire thread either but early in the thread I posted about my experience with Social Security. DH and I (I am older and the primary wage earner) are among the lucky ones who are grandfathered in to take advantage of the ability of my being able to file and suspend my own benefit until I’m 70, while DH (younger and lower-wage earner) can at age 66 get his spousal benefit based on my earnings.
DH turns 66 this January. He had his appointment with SS by phone yesterday to file for the spousal benefit. The woman told him that the law had been changed and that he couldn’t do that. He had to tell her that Yes, he knows the law has been changed, but that he and I are grandfathered in to the old law due to our ages.
If he hadn’t known this with such certainty (because I was sitting at his elbow whispering to him), he wouldn’t have gotten the benefit.
The moral of the story is: Know your stuff! Because Social Security doesn’t, and they won’t advise you.
That’s scary/unfortunate, @VeryHappy, that people are being told incorrect info!
VH, no such luck for me, just missing the grandfathering. Filed for SS anyway. It comes out if I live beyond 90, I’d be better off to wait. I plan not to live that long. 
We have rental properties, and there’s been quite a bit of discussion about them in this thread in the past. If you search the old pages (somewhere around page 200-ish?) you can find some details of what we have.
You can do very well if you get good properties and are picky about who you rent to. Being handy and able to some of your own work helps a lot. It helps a lot if one of you is in the RE business.
The tl;dr version for us is that we will get 2-3x the income from our rentals than we will from our 401k/IRA investments using the 4% rule, even though we’ve invested 2-3x more in the 401k/IRAs than we have in real estate. And we will have a couple million in assets that other people have paid for.
Not everyone is suited to being a landlord though. I’ve got stories…
My H is very handy, but has no desire to be a landlord. It depends on where the property is as to any value increase (and rent increases) one may benefit with.
Very true about SS. Medicare probably also has people answering phones that don’t know their stuff.
Many financial people say take SS as soon as you can, because then your benefits are ‘locked in’. IDK. Will see when I get to 62 if I am not employed…