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Hi
I feel a bit self centered lamenting my losses, but I'm craving a little new perspective, some peace of mind, and I'd like to tell my story, my plan, what happened and what I'm experiencing and ask for some down to earth advice on moving forward.
We recently received an inheritance and at age 42 I had I million cash plus a paid off 230k home. Managing that much felt a little outside our comfort zone and my past stock picking (average to below average) left me with alot of self doubt in managing that much so we hired a top notch financial planner in our town. Our plan was to FIRE at age 50-55, when our little one went off to college, and we had 2 million net worth. The FP really did a decent job, by most standards, or at least it appears that they did. We are in a "growth and income" strategy. Though our "FIRE" date was fairly soon, 10 years give or take, he felt we needed some decent stock exposure due to our long retirement time (age 50-90 we hoped!!) -- he had us nicely indexed, around 70-30 stock bond, mostly vanguard type ETFs, etc. with enough cash when needed. Our strategy included paying myself and my wife and contributing 10,500 of each paycheck to a SIMPLE retirment plan, then replacing that money from the cash portion of our portfolio.
Now, a year later, our 1 million portfolio is around 580,000 as of yesterday morning. Every scrap of planning, right down to the DECADE we retire seems to be gone. I just dont' know what to do. It's hard because I know we're STILL well off, better off than most people in the world, but that doesn't change how I feel. Our pain is our pain. I've kept a cool head so far, well that is not true, I've "acted" how a person with a cool head would act -- I'm staying put for now ... I can only hope and pray that history repeats itself and the next few years will be above average years for stock market returns.
I've been avoiding realestate because our plan was not to be tied down. I own two small business and have strategies setup so I only need to work 20 hours per week, give or take, so I can keep that up indefinitely or work more hours -- that might be good for me! But I just have an overwhelming feeling, like I've had for the past couple of years, that there are better ways than the stock market.
I'd love to hear some stories, some feedback, some advice, some perspective. I'd also like to help someone else who's feeling knocked over.
Thank you in advance.
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