Recent content by Mysto

I thought so too but if I increase the spending to 20K for example the situation changes. 10 years 200K 20 years 104K ?

I am curious why failure rates increase (smaller balance) with shorter time periods. Example: Spending $10K a year Portfolio $500K 20 Years. Portfolio 50% Stocks 50% Commercial Paper. Results Min 385K Same calculation except time period is 10 years Results Min 284K This does not...

Some areas are a lot more than a decade. We just bought a condo in Sun City Center FL for 65K. The original owners bought it for 87K in 1987.

I'm not any dumberer than I was before I were 60. In fact, I was dumberest in my 20s and 30s! Seriously, I'm 67 in two months and I feel confident in my ability to leave my assets alone and let my allocation do the work. I don't think I really got financially smart until my 50's. Before that...

This will be our (hopefully) final home. If it goes as planned - the next step will be the drool factory or peaceful valley. We are older than some of the group here so we are planning an additional 25 years tops. The place is 25 years old with most appliances-windows-etc original...

Just bought a new (for me) condo in FL. We've always kept a sinking fund for household/vehicle repairs but we've added a lot of new (possible) expenses. Golf cart (our first) garage door (always had car ports) much more expensive windows (Hurricanes) etc. My question is how do all of you...

Ziggy I have no intention of getting into a p match with you. The truth is that current baby boomers have already made a sacrifice in 1983. Our contribution increased and our benifits were cut. There is an indexing of benefits - it's called income tax. The rate at which ss is taxed is not...

Sorry - it doesn't fly - The fixes for the baby boomers were made in 1983. That was good for 75 years based on known baby boomer population. Congress said so. So it's not really demographics - it's congress. The seniors didn't make the deficit - congress did. I recognize that nothing is...

I love all the arguments about how cutting current SS benefits will "save" SS. SS is in its current state because congress spent the money. If there is any savings by cutting benefits congress will spend that money as well. The problem isn't SS the problem is congress.

Major problems with condos for 2011 Four Real Estate Market Predictions for Homebuyers in 2011 Check item #3. I am extremely aware of this as we just lost a sale on our MI condo because the number of delinquents are now too high. This dashes our hopes to retire in FL. We are currently in FL...

I agree with nun. Recently I had a younger friend parrot the popular mantra on SS. It's a scam! It won't be there when I get there. I could do better with the money myself. I asked him about his pension. He has none coming. I asked him about his 401K. After some digging I found out it was...

I am going over my retirement expense budget. We are looking at a permanent move and wanted to see the effects on our retirement plan. I'm finding a disturbing trend. Our personal rate of inflation appears to be about 7%. Increases in HOA, insurance and medical, utilities, taxes, travel, have...

I find that now, when I watch or read financial information from the experts, I tend to discard most of it. All I can think is that we just went through the most significant financial event since the great depression and ,arguably, no one saw it coming. (I know the permabears, did but a stopped...

Several members of the board have used the "bucket" approach to their thinking of asset allocation. Yes a rose by any other name.... but I found that Lucias book made me think a little differently about asset allocation, even if it's only a mind game. By mentally separating the allocations I...

Thanks for the thoughts. Kroeran, the health risk is one that is on my mind. But I guess that it exists for everyone that is not living close to family. There are so many things to consider. Not the least of them is that with the current situation, Michigan may be a good place to be from...