I took a few hundred photos of the contents of the house, including opening cabinet doors & dresser drawers, and then uploaded the photos to iCloud.
Title/deed to house & cars stay in a safe deposit box.
Am most likely underprepared, so look forward to reading others’ suggestions.
I am adulting! I just paid the estimated taxes on the Roth conversion all by myself!
Please clap.
Standing ovation from Colorado. (I know it’s a pain, even though I do none of it myself. FA defines quarterly amount. Hubby makes it happen, though sometimes with a bit of grumbling.)
With the Los Angeles fires I’m reminded that it can happen here. I’ve seen some good lists it’s just a matter of putting them into practice. My friend reminded me that it’s highly likely that one won’t be home when an evacuation is called. She suggested having copies somewhere else, cloud or in person of things like passport, insurance policies. She has backpacks prepared for each family member to grab if they need to leave quickly.
Another thing my husband and I talked about was how a lot of people don’t know what their homeowners policy actually covers. If one needs to rebuild to a higher code if that isn’t in your policy my can’t afford to make the upgrades.
This week my goal is to go through our trust and make note of what needs updating. I’ve put it off but almost a year.
I just got in the mail my copy of the 2010 edition of The Four Pillar of Investing by William J Bernstein, and it has a lot of very useful information IMHO. It was originally written in 2002, and in this edition there is a 2010 Postscript. John C Bogle wrote “A triumphant return! This new edition of Four Pillars reaffirms the vital, but simple, message of its predecessor. Reading it is like meeting an old friend who brings new wisdom into your life.” The author is interesting - born in 1958, he has a PhD in Chemistry and MD/Neurologist, and cofounder of the investment management firm Efficient Frontier Advisors. His bio is on Wikipedia. I speculate his interests and thirst for learning had him become expert in investing.
This book purports to “show you how to determine your own financial direction and assemble an investment program with the sole goal of building long-term wealth for you and your family.”
I got my copy via Amazon. Eventually I may look at author’s other books (bestselling author of The Investor’s Manifesto).
Anyone thinking about making changes to their investments (or retirement plans) due to the risk of lower stock market returns in the coming years?
I try to remind myself that none of us can see the future when it comes to investing and that these uncertain (feeling) times are the best time to have a written IPS so that you already know what your plan for uncertainty is before facing uncertainty.
I also repeat (as needed) these quotes from John Bogle,
“The winning formula for success in investing is owning the entire stock market through an index fund, and then doing nothing. Just stay the course.”
“Don’t do something—just stand there."
Harder to do than it sounds/looks.
I also comfort myself that if buying index funds and rigorously controlling costs isn’t the winning play - there are bigger problems than just lower market returns, and I have no control over that. 
Looks like an interesting book. Thanks for telling us about it.
Meh, I got that book a few months ago and skimmed it. The reality is, you’re going to do your asset allocation however you choose to, not based upon what anyone else says. I predict that you will not change anything based upon reading this book. I wish I hadn’t. I was going to get rid of a bunch of my Vanguard Primecap funds, and he said this was one of the few actively managed funds worth considering, so I hung on to it. We have way too much of this fund. Big mistake.
It can be helpful to read a variety of books / articles. Even when you don’t agree, it gives points for contemplation and discussion with spouse and/or FA.
Have you looked at the various funds’ information with Morningstar? You have to remember this book was updated in 2010, and the fund managers for Vanguard Primecap Funds certainly have changed since that time as well as perhaps their investment directions. Also if this fund has gone down, look at historical data. IMHO do not ‘dump’ while it is down.
You have your own ideas and investments and have been doing it a while. From what I remember you have purchased a lot of real estate over the years that you manage and recently purchased forestry land. Taken advantage of your knowledge in your geographical area for a lot of years with an investment plan.
There are some on this thread that may have things in very conservative things, do not have a fiduciary financial advisor, don’t know who or what to trust. May not have the foundational knowledge pulled together in this book.
Certainly we can be concerned about things we cannot control, but we can control how we learn and research - finding out our risk tolerance and how to SWAN while also gaining decent returns on our investments.
DH has over our years working with FA has ‘caught up’ a bit on understanding our overall financial picture and how our overall plan has been shaped. My educational background had me more interested in learning and managing our investments prior to working with FA, but I still manage DH’s sizable 401k with very satisfactory results. Since it is invested in stock funds, when it gets too big (for our risk tolerance, have to diversify out of too much in stocks) we have spun off to purchase recommended annuities which are good at the particular time (as I have explained before in this thread). I also have explained my dislike for bonds, although some of the 3 stock funds within DH’s 401k do have some bonds in them (looking at the breakdown of the largest assets in the portfolio).
DH and my first annuities with FA were with both of our prior IRA funds - we had invested in 10-year annuities and in March and April 2023 reinvested in 10-year annuities with another annuity insurance contract. DH has 3 sizable annuities from spun-off funds in 2015, 2018, and 2021 - all funds pulled off of 401k (and each has different contract terms and length of contract - from 6 years to twelve year contracts). FA also managed all our Roth IRA funds; we have spun a bit more to Roth IRA from DH’s 401k in our low tax years prior to RMD. I had some Roth IRA conversions from prior work earnings. I was SAHM for 18 years and also fought aggressive stage IIIa cancer; my sunset career allowed some OK cash flow (using my nursing license) and also got me to where I earn a bit more with my own SS versus spousal off of DH’s. Any on this thread know that career reentry is tough and also have to usually get in way below capabilities (my pay was at the bottom of the pay with RN/BSN at my facility, but I also worked PRN so I had flexibility - for most of the years, I got overtime with working over 8 hours a shift even if I didn’t work 40 for the week, sometimes worked part of another shift or worked a double shift). Since we were empty nesters at that time, I could work often as I wanted, weekends that I was available; when they started piling on too much with responsibilities/duties while also expecting one to finish the work in 8-hour timeframe, I got a job change to do nursing admission assessments for rehab (so defined duties/responsibilities). That worked out great - I worked enough hours to qualify for health insurance, so when DH left work at age 64 1/2 (and I am 4 months younger than DH) I was able to save over $1,000/month with employer health insurance from what COBRA rates would have been – I retired right at age 65. After working one year, I also qualified for 401k, and they had 2 stock funds within the Fidelity plan that had the best returns (one is a stock fund which we also have within DH’s 401k) - employer matched 4% so I took advantage of that match.
The two things I have done with our 401k is make sure I am in the right funds there (we currently are in 3), and the right asset allocation in these 3 funds. Looking at current and prior period returns, what has not only gone up the most over various months/quarters but what has weathered the downturns over various months/quarters. At one time, with prior investments, we were in 4 funds and 25% each - but adjusted the investment in each fund based on having better weathered downturns. Went from 4 funds to 3 funds when company plan went from one financial group to Empower and Empower offered one fund that was better than 2 that we previously had (kept the other 2 funds). Our retirement cash flow is from these annuities (monthly withdrawals - maximum taken out w/o penalty) in addition to SS; we have no pensions. Largely the fund principal is maintained from returns within the annuity - all based on the contract and the investment choices within the contract (there are times when we can make a change on the investment choice). We just recently did an investment change within one of DH’s annuities based on FA’s recommendation. They handled the paperwork with the annuity, all DH had to do was sign the prepared paperwork. That is what we pay FA to do for us.
We have a group/semiannual ‘state of the markets’ by the financial group, and have our individual appointment lined up with FA. Between these meetings and what we monitor at home and do with our 401k, we have our financial plan managed pretty well.
Always ‘things to do’ - keeping up with tax laws, our RMD when that time comes, and how we will manage property/house change when that time comes. Involvement with DDs on guiding them with information and support (teaching so they learn what we have learned).
You must have the first edition of the book, as mine is the second edition and updated in 2023. Morningstar seems to have no problem with Primecap, but I am uncomfortable with how they weight it, over 12% of it in Eli Lilly. One thinks, if I get an ETF or mutual fund that there are so many stocks in it that there is a balance, but Primecap has over 12% in LLY. One may think they’re being smart by not owning individual stocks, but when you realize that you actually have XX dollars in one stock, maybe that’s not a good idea.
Nothing wrong with reading a book, as there’s always more to learn, but I doubt this will change anything about how you arrange your portfolio, it sounds like you’re set.
It sounds like you’ve done a thorough research and found a suitable investment scheme for your situation. Good job!
But even in the S&P 500, 4 stocks make up a quarter of the index - Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon.
So even the index most use - is very concentrated.
In addition to Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook/Meta, Tesla and NVidea – those seven stocks (Known as US’s Big 7) were 27% of the S & P 500 rally in mid-2023. Our FA semi-annual ‘state of the market’ typically does talk about these particular stocks and how they have ‘swung’ or influenced the S & P 500. Mid-2024 those 7 stocks made up 11.14% of the S & P 500, and S & P 500 was up 17.56% from 1/1/2024 - 7/5/2024. Equity-weighted S & P 500 would have had performance up 4.39%, with the ‘bottom’ 493 stocks up 6.42%. During that time Nvidia dwarfed the other 6 of the Big 7 as far as returns, while Microsoft is the largest stock in the S & P 500 at that time, worth $3 T (I believe the GNP of Germany and Australia).
An understanding of YTD returns, with return versus drawdown - how to work out the risk for return and the risk for drawdown. On Jan 27th we will have our ‘state of the markets’ presentation, so will see the FA ‘picture’ of current financial markets, most recent year and most recent 6 months.
Yes, we all push the index which has done great thanks to tech but is not diversified.
For those who want diversification, there are equal weight funds instead of market cap weighted funds.
They’re not as glorious when the markets are great but they’re certainly more diversified.
My spouse and I are 46 and almost done paying our own student loans (probably took out something like $100K over the years). We married at 21 and have been on our own financially since then. Spouse’s parents have a lot of money but sure didn’t spend it on their kids’ educations. I paid for all my own schooling. A series of bad luck events made us miss out on any loan forgiveness even though we’ve both worked for qualifying employers since graduation.
And despite our 2 PhDs in STEM, we’re not super high earners (haven’t ever made it to $150K combined, most years have been way less). Needless to say we’re making different choices with our kids.
We’d decided to take a LOT of money out of retirement to pay off our highest interest student loans, because we’d been struggling for years to afford the payments. Split into one chunk in Dec 2019, and another in Jan 2020, for tax purposes. So then our “income” was too high for the good covid relief payments. Sigh.
However, our retirement savings is better than most people in our situation, only because my spouse had oddly good benefits as a postdoc. And we have good equity in our home. The numbers aren’t huge but we seem to be on track to retire by 60 if we want to, even at our current savings rate.
We’re 46, and hope to start living our retirement “lifestyle” by age 50. That will mean downsizing our home, and having our kids launched. We are currently living on about as much money as I’m projecting for our yearly retirement expenses (I’ve likely overestimated expenses). So at 50, we plan to increase our retirement contributions by $40K/yr. $25K of that will come from ditching the mortgage and $15K from the kids launching and/or possible raises. That should get us to our “number” by 57 (though we don’t plan to retire til 60 or older).
So I’ve started planning in earnest including exploring SS strategies. I’ll ask my questions in another post.
Does anyone have favorite Excel spreadsheet(s) for tracking retirement savings / cash flow? We have accounts at various firms, so relying on one firm’s online tools isn’t practical.
I’ve always just used my own Excel sheets for financial stuff, but they’re not very fancy and only have simple formulas. For some stuff I use online calculators and enter the results into my spreadsheets. I need to start using a better system before I get further entrenched in my cobbled together tools.
I was going to bite the bullet and program all the needed formulas into my own sheets. But then I realized surely someone has already done that. But the potential for embedding malware into Excel sheets has me wary about googling and downloading unless I know I can trust the source.
Has anyone used the free sheets from Vertex42? They look pretty good.
Bogleheads?
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Retiree_Portfolio_Model
I’m not opposed to paying a reasonable amount for a really great resource. This one looks intriguing and comprehensive — anyone tried it?
https://www.completeretirementplanner.com
We don’t use budgeting software, though I might want to do that in the future. Yes, I just download all our transactions periodically and categorize and sort them in Excel (sigh). I don’t want to worry about improving that until some later time, so budgeting isn’t a necessary component.
Make as much retirement contributions as you can with Roth IRA first. How well you have your investment choices will also have an impact, with your nest egg gaining with the time value of money and investment gains.
Great that you have a goal, but the health care insurance and out of pocket expenses between age 60 and age 65 might have you reconsider as you get closer to age 60. DH did retire at age 64 1/2, and I was able to pick up our health insurance with my employer, which saved us $1,000/month from what COBRA would have cost us. And COBRA is only for 18 months, unless those laws change. Who knows what changes will be made for Medicare and Social Security. DH was going to stay working until I turned 65 (4 months after him) but his boss made his work time miserable, and he saw we were solid with our retirement funds. It worked out fine, and we feel good with our nest egg as it has retained its value.
Once your kids are launched, you can see if it makes sense to downsize at your current area. Selling and buying expenses could take enough out of the savings to make sense. Also, as time goes on, you might actually want to live near grandchildren (for example) or in another area for specific reasons.
Learn as much as you can with managing your retirement funds.
DH and I are both 68. You were born the year we graduated college. Our children are 28 and 30 - well launched. I do want to live near grandchildren once the parents purchase a home and are very established (son-in-law will have a job change but should land in their city). DH has hobbies where we are and need to see about establishing them in new location. Until then, I fly and spend time where the grandkids are (I am talking 5 grandchildren, as #5 is due in March) – DD1/SIL both will be continuing FT work. DD2 is single, BF of 5 years - she says she wants to follow the way we had children later in life (we turned 38 and 40 the years they were born). We have been married 45 years.
