Maximizing portfolio return with very low risk

[Hyperborea]

Just to be clear ........ my goal is to maximize the portfolio return with very low risk .......not so much to rely on the $40K as my sole source of subsistence.

You do need to think about inflation though. *With it all in fixed income you are going to be slowly but surely falling behind inflation. *That $40K / year is going to be like $20K / year in only 20 years with a probably low 3.5% inflation rate (with the same spendthrift administration in power US debt levels will continue to climb and inflation could really ratchet up beyond that).

So maybe you can't handle the recommended amounts in equities. *How much could you handle? *Perhaps you could consider a fixed income buffer (maybe 20% or so) and put the rest into a nice balanced fund that has a reasonable yield and some growth? *A number here are very fond of Vanguard's Wellington and Wellesley funds for this.

[Dante]

Dante,
Are you counting your mortgage payment in the 40k annual expenditures you want to make? My way of calculating costs, SWR etc would be that you'd need to cover that along with all other living expenses out of the 4% SWR (unless of course you have part-time income, like I do, to help bridge the gap).

While your mortgage tax break is valuable now during your peak (highest marginal tax bracket) earning years, that will change in ER.

Specifically, you may find you pay little or no federal income tax.

That makes things like home mortgage deduction and municipal bonds a good idea of the past.

We've had other posts on this topic some months back, but it really works. The key is to deduct your home's property taxes and have home office/part-time business deductions. Then you structure your assets so they are yielding less taxable fixed income and more dividends and capital gains (sorry, back to equity holdings again!). Then you sell appreciated assets only as needed and pay the (much lower) capital gains. In fact, if you are in the 10% or 15% income tax bracket (a reasonable goal for ERs), then your capital gains and dividends get taxed at just 5%, (thanky W).

Anyway, just a headsup that the home mortgage thing might not be so attractive, post-ER. If you then look at your assets as if you'd paid off the mortgage in full, (not sure how big yours is), you may start thinking of hanging onto that dreaded job a few more years.

Others may disagree, but I did the math on my situation some years back and came to the conclusion that I should look at the whole picture on a debt-free basis to get a true handle on my situation and financial readiness to ER.

ESRBob

ESR Bob,

My mortgage is about $195K and the house was appraised at $850K about 2 years ago.

I am definitely thinking of supplemental income - either contract work part-time or home/small business.

Do you know of any discussion boards where people are talking about the sources of the supplemental income - examples, experiences, etc.?

I agree with you on running the numbers on a debt free basis because if (when) our income drops to the level when taxes become very low, there won't be a need to keep the mortgage. I prefer to be totally debt-free anyway - just a personal preference

Dante

[azanon]

I do it just fine in a house that would probably sell for 800-900K. Biggest single expense however is property taxes, and that sucks, but if you live in an expensive house, and its paid off, and even with $8200 year in property taxes, its better than living in a $150K house house, with a $1000 mortgage payment plus property taxes..

LOL - i think if he sells a 600K dollar house and is paid for selling it, i'm guessing he wont have to finance the 150K dollar one. *Dont you think? *

[azanon]

It depends where that house is.

Ultimately i guess this is correct. Where i live (little rock, AR), a 600K dollar house is the top 1/4 of 1% (or better) of houses. You simply dont own a house that nice, and live in a neighborhood that nice on 40K/year, paid for or not, unless you're insane and trying to see just how fast your money can run out.

[farmerEd]

LOL - i think if he sells a 600K dollar house and is paid for selling it, i'm guessing he wont have to finance the 150K dollar one. *Dont you think? *

You missed my point, or maybe I wasn't clear...if a guy making $40K per year, can afford to have a $150K house and make the tax and mortgage payments on it, why would I guy making $40K from his investments have a hard time living in a *paid for house that could sell for much more?

Depends on the house, the location and a whole bunch of factors. What the house is worth has very little do with how much it costs to live there...except for property taxes and that depends largely on the state you are in.

Edit: and even though I could sell my house for $800K or more (maybe much more) very few people would call the house "nice", unless they were being polite. The land on the other hand...with room for a minimum of 11 more houses, and perhaps as many as 50 or more (w/4 acre lots) if a subdivision plan was approved, is where the value is.

[sgeeeee]

Depends on the house, the location and a whole bunch of factors. What the house is worth has very little do with how much it costs to live there...except for property taxes and that depends largely on the state you are in.

I agree with farmer when he says it depends . . . but property tax, utilities and maintenance all scale roughly with house size/house value. So it can make a big difference. As farmer said, it depends.

[azanon]

You missed my point, or maybe I wasn't clear...if a guy making $40K per year, can afford to have a $150K house and make the tax and mortgage payments on it, why would I guy making $40K from his investments have a hard time living in a *paid for house that could sell for much more?

Simple. *

1. *If he sells his 600K house and buys a 150K one, his portfolio just went up by 450K for one. *That's an extra 5K/year at 10% (if he listens to my stock allocation portfolio) for living. * I refuse to entertain a senseless fixed portfolio like my grandpaw had if your timeframe is 30-40 years. *That is unless you were worth several mil, then why take any chance. *But he isnt.

2. *If you think the upkeep on a 600K dolllar home is anywhere near a 150K one, you're dreaming, unless you're talking about an outlier situation like someone referenced here. *Where i live, you're looking at thosands, maybe 10s of thousands more to own a 600K dollar home and all of the added expenses such a home would entail. *

I recommend "the Millionairre Next Door" to get some idea of the lifestyle of someone that lives in a 600K dollar home. *If your home cost that much, you aint frugal in my book unless you're worth 5mil or more. *Sorry if that sounds strict.


Back to you Dante,

You have to realize if you dont come here a lot of these folks are fanatics, and frankly, i find some of them to give recklass advise. *Retiring at 48 on a portfolio of less than 1 Mil, YET insisting on living in a 600K dollar house is a serious matter than I fear you will regret. *

You cant have your cake and eat it too. *Make up your mind. *You hate working like really bad? *Fine. *Sell the house, bring that portfolio up to 1.3 Mil by doing so and MAYBE you'll get by till you die in a paid for, less expensive, house. *Even then, with you insisting on that modest portoflio, you'll be taking a lot of risk if you live into your 80s.

If I were you, and assuming i hated you job, i'd grin and bear it about 3-4 more years, bank a good portion of that killer salary you have, THEN still downgrade the house, and live off of a safer 60-70K/year. *Let be honest here, if you live in a house that nice, how in God's name do you think you'll be content with 40K/year? *Wake up man, you're dreaming.

I like to play it safe AND comfortable. *But that's just me.

(edit) I apologize if that wasnt what you wanted to hear. With my current knowledge of finances (i'm only 33), that's my evaluation of it. I'm being as honest as i can. We're anonymous here, so no harm no foul. If i thought you had it made, i'd say so as well.

[Dante]

Simple.

1. If he sells his 600K house and buys a 150K one, his portfolio just went up by 450K for one. That's an extra 5K/year at 10% (if he listens to my stock allocation portfolio) for living. I refuse to entertain a senseless fixed portfolio like my grandpaw had if your timeframe is 30-40 years. That is unless you were worth several mil, then why take any chance. But he isnt.

2. If you think the upkeep on a 600K dolllar home is anywhere near a 150K one, you're dreaming, unless you're talking about an outlier situation like someone referenced here. Where i live, you're looking at thosands, maybe 10s of thousands more to own a 600K dollar home and all of the added expenses such a home would entail.

I recommend "the Millionairre Next Door" to get some idea of the lifestyle of someone that lives in a 600K dollar home. If your home cost that much, you aint frugal in my book unless you're worth 5mil or more. Sorry if that sounds strict.


Back to you Dante,

You have to realize if you dont come here a lot of these folks are fanatics, and frankly, i find some of them to give recklass advise. Retiring at 48 on a portfolio of less than 1 Mil, YET insisting on living in a 600K dollar house is a serious matter than I fear you will regret.

You cant have your cake and eat it too. Make up your mind. You hate working like really bad? Fine. Sell the house, bring that portfolio up to 1.3 Mil by doing so and MAYBE you'll get by till you die in a paid for, less expensive, house. Even then, with you insisting on that modest portoflio, you'll be taking a lot of risk if you live into your 80s.

If I were you, and assuming i hated you job, i'd grin and bear it about 3-4 more years, bank a good portion of that killer salary you have, THEN still downgrade the house, and live off of a safer 60-70K/year. Let be honest here, if you live in a house that nice, how in God's name do you think you'll be content with 40K/year? Wake up man, you're dreaming.

I like to play it safe AND comfortable. But that's just me.

(edit) I apologize if that wasnt what you wanted to hear. With my current knowledge of finances (i'm only 33), that's my evaluation of it. I'm being as honest as i can. We're anonymous here, so no harm no foul. If i thought you had it made, i'd say so as well.

Azanon,

Perfectly fine. I appreciate the candid comments and am not disappointed at all. Its the contra point of view that makes the forums useful and worthwhile.

I know we began to focus on the Retire Early part of my post, which was fine. My main puprose for the post was to get comments on the portfolio as an income producer and I had set a target of 4%. Even if I continued working I would like to put that money to work that way i.e fixed income with limited risk. I also know now that you think that that is more of a "grandpaw" like approach and probably at 33 would favor a much more aggressive investment style. I am interested in knowing what your portfolio would look like if you wanted to generate 4% return today. Thanks again for your feedback.

Dante

[farmerEd]

>>If you think the upkeep on a 600K dolllar home is anywhere near a 150K one, you're dreaming,

Your just plain wrong on this one....not sure why you insist on using your neighbord as a generalization for every property in the country....it is simply not true everywhere.

You *might* be able to generalize that a bigger house costs more in upkeep than a smaller one, but even then there are way to many factors to even make the statement worthwhile.

BTW: Living in a cheap house doesn't make you a frugal person....it justs means you live in a cheap house. You can live a long time in the same house and all of a sudden its worth a lot...did you all of a sudden become non-frugal person? Thats kind of counter-intuitive.

[retire@40]

I recommend "the Millionairre Next Door" to get some idea of the lifestyle of someone that lives in a 600K dollar home. *If your home cost that much, you aint frugal in my book unless you're worth 5mil or more.

Retiring at 48 on a portfolio of less than 1 Mil, YET insisting on living in a 600K dollar house is a serious matter than I fear you will regret.

Just a comment on not being frugal if you live in a $600K home: Almost every "average" home in my area of the Northeast is selling for $500K to $800K.

Less than 10 years ago, these same homes were selling for half the price, so it's possible to have paid off a mortgage in those 10 years. The yearly expenses for one of these $600K homes is about $4K for real estate taxes, $1K for insurance, and a budget of $3K to $5K a year for all other expenses. So with $9K a year of home expenses, you can still afford to live on $40K of disposable income per year.

[retire@40]

I am interested in knowing what your portfolio would look like if you wanted to generate 4% return today.

You need to invest somewhere that can give you AT LEAST a 7% return. So that means equities or junk/almost junk bonds or real estate. 3% gets reinvested for inflation and you can use the remaining 4%. Don't forget to factor in federal and state taxes. So generally speaking, if you have a $900K portfolio, you can withdraw $36K per year, pay $5K or less in income taxes, and live on $31K disposable income.

Jeez. I agree with retire@40, i.e to get that 7% + today
you need equities, junk/near junk bonds or real estate.
I avoid equities so I am going with the real estate and junk mostly. I average over 7% not counting the real estate. I am quite satisfied with this based on my
options at this time.

John Galt

[charlie]

Dante, I sort of like unclemick's suggestion. You
might consider Vanguard's Wellesley Income
which currently pays about 3.5% dividend. It
has 35% dividend paying stocks and 65% intermediate
term bonds. YTD return is 6+% last time I looked.

Cheers,

Charlie

[azanon]

BTW: Living in a cheap house doesn't make you a frugal person....it justs means you live in a cheap house. You can live a long time in the same house and all of a sudden its worth a lot...did you all of a sudden become non-frugal person? Thats kind of counter-intuitive.

When did i suggest he buy a "cheap" house? I bought my house in feb 2003 for $147,000. It was built in 95', has 1950 square feet, and is of high quality in an upper-middle class neighborhood in the richest area of Little Rock (West Little Rock).

If his housing is higher there, then fine but i doubt its more than double. I used to live in Miami, FL and housing is out of sight down there, but even there it isnt double what it is in LR, AR. Double what i have would be $300,000, still half of $600,000.

[azanon]

Just a comment on not being frugal if you live in a $600K home: *Almost every "average" home in my area of the Northeast is selling for $500K to $800K.

Ive frequented demographic sites (which compare cost of living based on a 100 point benchmark). *Little rock is like 80 on a base score of 100. *I believe the highest score was for Washington D.C. which had a base score of 220. *220 is not quite 3 times 80, and my house ($147K) is upper middle class in LR, so 147x3 = $441. * To restate it, Washington D.C is the highest cost of living. *It only goes downhill from there.

If that's the average price of homes "in your area"; you're living in an upper middle class neighborhood at worst; *that is unless you have waterfront property or something like that then well, gollie gee, the land is what makes it so high.

.......

Debating how valuable a $600K house is, from dante's perspective, is besides the point anyway AFAIK. IMHO, he's not ready to retire yet regardless how "average" his house is. There's no way in heck i'd retire at 48 with less than a million liquid. I seriously doubt he'll find any financial advisors that would endorse that as a good idea either.

I know his main concern is his portfolio, so lets get back to that.

[azanon]

I also know now that you think that that is more of a "grandpaw" like approach and probably at 33 *would favor a much more aggressive investment style. I am interested in knowing what your portfolio would look like if you wanted to generate 4% return today.

Well, again i like the 110-your age formula, regardless of whether you're retired or not. *The primary purpose of that formula is to consider your investment time horizon, consider risk, and to measure the potential affect inflation can have on you. *

Thinking positively, at 48, you could easily have a 40-year investment horizon. *Did you know there has never been a consecutive 15 year period where stocks did not beat bonds? *You can pick a start date, say 1929, 1987, 1973, etc and still, stocks always won over 15 years consecutive. * I dont know offhand how long the market's been in operation (120 years or so?), *but we're batting 120 for 120 using the aformentioned 15 year test. * Thus using history alone, the risk is 0% if your investment horizon is 15 years.

What would i do at 48? *Well i love mutual funds cause they're simple. *I also like international investing cause it often reduces risk (due to less correlation to US stock, esp international bonds) as well as increases returns at the same time.

Using mutual funds and being conservative, id probably do:
10% Large cap growth
25% Multi-Cap International Stock (in developed countries)
15% International Bond
10% Large Cap Value
20% Small cap blend
20% Blend Domestic Corporate Bond Fund (High quality + High yield, such as Janus Flexible Income)

With the combination of Stocks Bonds PLUS the incorporation of International invesments, you'd get a very steady "Balanced Fund" like return that will give you far above 4% most years. * *When you have that 1 in 10 bad year (the historic frequency balanced funds produce a negative return), just make adjustments to your withdrawal rate.

Yes, i'm aware that's 40% in foreign countries. *Wanna talk about risk though? *Risking is putting most of your eggs in one country. * Yes, that includes the US.

[Jarhead*]

When did i suggest he buy a "cheap" house? I bought my house in feb 2003 for $147,000. *It was built in 95', has 1950 square feet, and is of high quality in an upper-middle class neighborhood in the richest area of Little Rock (West Little Rock).

If his housing is higher there, then fine but i doubt its more than double. *I used to live in Miami, FL and housing is out of sight down there, but even there it isnt double what it is in LR, AR. * Double what i have would be $300,000, still half of $600,000.

Azanon:

Any property in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, that is quality home, built in an upper class area with 1920 sq. feet would be considered a good buy for less than $l,000,000.00

You could go far inland and probably buy under those same circumstances for around $500,000.00

[azanon]

Azanon:

Any property in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, that is quality home, built in an upper class area with 1920 sq. feet would be considered a good buy for less than $l,000,000.00

You could go far inland and probably buy under those same circumstances for around $500,000.00

Sounds like a great reason to move. *It amazes me that people willfully pay that. *You folks over there paying crazy money for gas, for electricity, chance of an earthquate, etc etc. * I dont live under a rock. *I'm well aware that the overall cost of living is high enough that he would definitely struggle with 40K/year if he lives in these places.

Again, i would ask him, what do you really want? *To retire or to live the high life in an expensive house? *He clearly doesnt have the portfolio to do both at only 48 years old . *Anyone who says otherwise is recklass IMHO.

[azanon]

www.bestplaces.net

I plugged in LR, Ar, and compared to Los Angeles, CA.

Median housing cost in LR: $107,180
Median housing cost in LA: $231,510

First, this supports my house being upper-middle class in LR, which it is, at $147