Beebee3, I held those 3 for over 25 years. Every so often, I’d shift the allocation. I had too much in the bond fund, so I moved a chunk out of that. I’ll have to take minimal required distribution in the next year or so, so just planning ahead. All these funds are in my retirement account.
I was living in Boston in my 20’s, so naturally went to Fidelity. I had 2 funds back then, Magellan and Puritan. Times have changed. The Boston papers would print changes in managers of each fund, so one could feel more knowledgeable.
We have a financial advisor. They rebalance whenever the funds go a certain percentage outside of a target range. I only look at the accounts 2x a year, and expect that they are on top of things. Reviewing 2x a year seems sufficient so far.
FA is a “fiduciary”, & charge just under 1% of the portfolio. Their funds vary depending on if it is in a tax deferred or taxable account, so we have more variety than we’d ultimately prefer if we managed ourselves.
The biggest reason we have a FA is not for the fund management. A Bogle approach is much simpler, and many of the funds they manage are even Vanguard. We want them primarily for periphery financial advice. I don’t want to spend time reviewing weekly or even monthly. Just like I don’t want to do plumbing or make legal decisions without assistance. Some things are best left to professionals, unless you enjoy the process and keep up with changes.
I worked for over 35 years and I am guessing I rebalanced less than 10 times ever. Possibly less than 5. I did change the % I invested as time went on, and as I got closer to retirement reduced the stock %.
Now that I a retired I look more often, but have done nothing to change allocation. I have some money with an advisor and I just checked a risk tolerance box and something to indicate taxes are a consideration.
I am no paradigm of how to do anything financial as when I think I should do something, paralysis sets in. However for the past 30 to 25 years I have had some mutual funds that left alone have served me quite well. A financial advisor takes care of a few others and Fidelity does the rest, though I keep more of that in index than is typical to keep costs low. Having survived the downturns and rebounds since 1987, my inertia has served me not badly and I have relaxed in that some who more actively invest sometimes have ended up with less desirable outcomes.
With retirement, I am aware of the need to reduce risk in at least a percentage of what I own, and will do in consultation with my advisor. I admire those who do well with active investment, just as I admire other abilities. But some of us don’t have the bandwidth to that and autopilot, in my case with a critical eye, has worked thus far.
International stocks are overrated. I know it is standard advice to buy international stocks as a diversification strategy. That may have made sense 50 years ago when countries in different continents had relatively independent economies, so if the US has a downturn that could get balanced out by an upturn in Asia, and so on. The crash of 2008 showed that the world doesn’t work like that anymore. Thanks to globalization the world economies are much more interconnected. If the US economy crashes it takes the rest of the world with it. When the US recovers other countries take longer to recover. As a result, international stocks no longer act as a cushion. US stocks do much better on average, so it barely makes any sense to invest in international stocks anymore.
Vanguard offers one-fund investment option. You pick the fund based on your planned year of retirement. They choose the right balance of stocks and bonds and do the rebalancing on a regular basis. As you grow older you are less able to take risks, so they automatically shift the balance towards safer investments. Here’s an example: VTTHX - Vanguard Target Retirement 2035 Fund | Vanguard
If you do decide to simplify to a target date retirement fund (great plan, imo) make sure you pick the asset allocation you want to start, which may not necessarily be the same as the date you plan to retire. Target Date retirement funds will then get more conservative as time goes one.
agreed, alto personally not a fan of Vanguard’s Target Date funds due to their inclusion of International. If I wasn’t doing my own Two-Fund Portfolio, I’d go with the Balanced Fund or Lifestyle funds.
I have outsourced allocation. I think it is important because my investment strategy is simple.
My income stream from my work has the potential for meaningful upside variability in some years (success fees, stock options) so I concentrate on making money. Investment strategy is more conservative. But I work very hard and don’t have time to regularly check allocations.
Plus, I have lots of accounts for some reason (401ks at two providers, accounts held by our trust and a company that it owns, personal accounts, 529 accounts (for the kids which are being repurposed for grandkids) etc.
I am at the opposite end from @shawbridge as to the amount I have invested (around $500k between traditional IRA, Roth, and investment account), but I trust my Vanguard Personal Advisor to allocate my assets, taking into account my risk tolerance, age and retirement goals. My money is in three Vanguard ETFs plus a small amount in money market fund for new deposits and withdrawal for immediate needs. My advisor moves stuff around quarterly to rebalance, and we do a quarterly call, plus I can email or talk to her as needed.
Operation Warp Speed was itself a government (“socialist”) program (initially funded with $10 billion from the CARES Act), subsidizing the development of seven vaccines (two* of which were eventually used in the US), and the government contracting to purchase the vaccines and distribute them at no charge to the people (although with government-designed rationing priorities during the shortage) was also what most would consider a very “socialist” thing to do.
*The Moderna and J&J - Janssen vaccines. The Pfizer - BioNTech vaccine did not use Operation Warp Speed money.
while technically true – Pfizer did not get up-front cash from Warp Speed – the Trump Admin guaranteed Pfizer that they would purchase the product if it received a EUA. In other words, a prove-it deal, which gave the US first dibs; win-win. In the meantime, the EuroZone was willing to wait for the lowest price.
I wondered if anyone has thought about working a somewhat lower-wage job (not in their profession) part-time to get health benefits in the last few years of work-life? I know the health benefits are key and thinking there might be a middle ground between 1) working really hard at full-time job with health benefits until Medicare kicks in, and 2) stop working a few years before Medicare and pay exhorbitant private insurance rates.
I did a google search of ‘part-time jobs with benefits’ and there were quite a few!
Then again - being a late 50s Starbucks barista isn’t really appealing and does seem a little risky, financie-wise!
@ucbalumnus I hate the reference to ‘socialized’ when referring to things our federal gov’t do for health, safety and welfare of our citizens. Resources were needed to be directed as they were during the Covid 19 crisis for the health, safety and welfare of those within the US borders as well as global - and it continues to be important as it does continue to affect all of us in varying ways.
We have federal and state governments that work for us, just like we buy various insurance for a pool of funds to assist with our health and welfare - and sometimes people ‘self insure’; and sometimes people ‘fall through the cracks’.
Maybe a few on this thread do plan to live outside of the US, or spend a fair amount of time outside of the US in retirement. Safety is a big concern for me - I think of the risks as part of planning any trips.
DH and I value some things more as we age - when one is young, youth and beauty and ‘endless possibilities’ seem to exist. Health and time (and resources) certainly are thought of more as our hourglass of life empties.
We are experiencing changing paradigms and have to work hard to keep the ‘home boat afloat’ - and also with concern for our children, grandchildren, and trying to have their lives be with the ‘home boat afloat’.
Wishing everyone a grand day and lots of things to look forward to.
This is what my brother is hoping to do. He sold his house in central California and he and his wife are moving to Idaho in July. My brother and his wife are both 59 so they have 6 years until Medicare, but my brother hated his high stress job as a plant manager and they wanted to live closer to their son and grandkids. He doesn’t have a job yet, but they have rented an apartment for a year to make sure that they like it there before buying a place. He is going to be looking for a full time job with benefits, just not as stressful as the job he is leaving.
Of course the article notably omits to mention the UK, which has “socialized” medicine and approved the Pfizer vaccine and began injections even before the US. The reason for success in both cases was the avoidance of bureaucracy that bogged down things in the EU, along with the realization that throwing essentially unlimited amounts of money at the problem was still a good investment. That decision was nothing to do with public vs private healthcare.
A much better argument for the US system would be that our willingness to overspend on healthcare creates incentives for companies to invest in developing new technologies, like mRNA. But if you want to reduce spending, you will inevitably reduce those incentives. And given the advantages that the US drug development system has given us, it is somewhat ironic that the Biden administration wanted to remove patent protection for this innovation (as opposed to simply sharing the product with the world), further undermining the incentives for innovation.
That’s what H and I plan to do. I carry our health insurance, and I will retire in 6.5 years at age 55. H is 4 years older than me, but will retire from teaching in 1.5-2 school years. He has to work, or he will go crazy. He has some ideas for easy jobs until I retire and we can move from the area. Once we move, we will both need jobs that will either offer health insurance, or at least cover the premiums and then some extra spending $$$. Right now, being a ticket taker at a zoo sounds perfect to me, but we will see.
A lot of teachers do this. They can retire at 55, get nice pensions, and then just go get some part-time gigs to supplement their income to either pay for insurance or get insurance.
I have a friend almost counting the minutes to retire from teaching, we just had out Varsity tennis banquet and the coach (who is also a teacher) said he has 9 more years left, and every time I’m at work there are people (teachers) literally counting down the days until they are 55 and can retire. My ex husband works for the state and he too I think wants to retire when he’s 55. I’m not sure what his insurance benefits would be for retirees if any since he’s not a teacher and may be grandfathered in, but his plan is so good, it may be hard to replace going anywhere else and he may just need to suck it up a little longer, or see if he can work part-time for the state. But here you essentially get 2.2% x the number of years your worked of your highest 4 or 5 (I can’t remember) years salaries. So, if you qualified for the pension at 55 and worked for 30 years, you will get 66% of your highest years salary. So the fact that many teachers here are making at or above $150k by then they are essentially guaranteed 99k a year in pension (retirement) pay for the rest of their lives and they’re only 55! Crazy I know and many teachers make more than that and many have been working since 22, so actually have more than 30 years in, or even some work longer. My ex husband’s rate because of his position is actually 2.5% of his salary x the number of years he has worked, he’s only around 20 or so, since again he is in a different position, but his salary is also a lot higher than a teacher. Can easily live on what his pension would be, but the flipside is we have 4 kids, and he has 2 additional little ones, so maybe they’ll go on his wives perhaps, but his insurance is beyond phenomenal and cheap. Same price for 2 people or all 8 of them and he has to pay for the insurance for all 4 of our kids until they’re each 26.
My husband is 62-1/2 just about and when we looked at his social security statement this week it now has forms in there about medicare for when he’s 65. I handle all of that stuff, but I still am not all that clear on it. Once he has medicare, do I completely take him off our plan? I’m the primary. So is that one way we save money? Do we also then buy something additional from medicare which would still be cheaper than our current plan? God help me, because he’s useless on anything administrative and since he’s going through it way before me, I am clueless myself.
