Recent content by roger r

I think in general society there is pressure for all people to be extroverts and alcohol is one avenue that can turn the introvert into a gabbler. At least that's how it was for me as a moderate social drinker. It took me a while to be comfortable with my quietness and ignore the pressures...

Some time ago I read in what seemed like a decent study that INTJ's were the most satisfied with retirement. Seems to fit with the stats here. I'm an Aquarius introvert. I enjoyed the book, Quiet. She has a very good TED talk that is in Bill Gates top thirteen favorite TED talks. Susan...

I understand wanting to gift to children (and grandchildren) when they are at the beginning of their career or are not high earners in order to make their life a little easier. When it comes to charities I have no big desire to have a feel good by gifting to them in retirement. My plan is to...

If I were a market timer, I would sell both and buy a U.S. total stock index fund and CDs. As I am not a market timer, I might still do that. Other than routine re-allocations I have been a buy and hold person for ever, but am now shifting away from intermediate and long term bonds and...

In my experience having had IRAs with both, Vanguard has more lower cost options to invest, but Fidelity has more knowledgeable and helpful support. I had a rather sticky transfer of a BDA IRA to my account and started with Vanguard but eventually turned the transfer over to Fidelity who...

For me there was a "honeymoon period" of bliss after retirement. After catching up with some home projects and knocking a few items off the travel bucket list I sort of slumped into some periods of boredom, especially in the cold winter months. Then I found some rewarding volunteer projects...

As a single person I spend about half of that with home paid off, no other debt, and health insurance from pre-retirement employer. All other things considered, it probably depends on one's lifestyle and there is no real answer. The most common thing I hear is that retirement costs less than...

I have less than 50% in equities. When the market was down below 10,000 I rebalanced into stocks a few times, which worked out pretty good. I slept pretty good through those years when my friends were stressed over watching their 401Ks vaporize. You never know when the next dip will be and...

I have not made a science of it, but probably fall into the percent of remaining savings in investments. I have been using 3% as a benchmark, but have had years when I am below this and years when I exceed the 3% at 6 years into things. When I start on S.S., in addition to a very small...

I am actually a little over-weight in Wellington in addition to a hand full of intermediate term funds, which has it's own issues with bond exposure. Not necessarily looking for a consensus, just some additional lines of reasoning that seem to fit into my way of thinking. Thanks for the thoughts!

I am pretty much a buy and hold guy and haven't made any major adjustments to my portfolio other than some informal balancing for a few years. I noticed my Fidelity intermediate bond fund's asset value YTD has already declined more than any hopes of interest income for the year and am think on...

I've had my finger on the bond fund trigger for a long time now and have just never been inspired enough to get out. I will probably hang on for a while longer. Though I'm probably over-due for a rebalancing of my equities into fixed incomes and can't quite face up to shifting over to any bond...

I have a very old friend who is in a similar situation. We've know each other since second grade and both studied finance at the university. He went into the savings and loan biz and I went back to school to study one of the sciences. Not the playboy type, but definately lived it up...

I'm about 50/50. I don't know how much risk there is in not diversifiying, but it's really no big deal from a simplicity standpoint to deal with two sets of statements and a little extra work at tax time. I like vangards index fund selection, but fidelity also has some low fee index funds...

There is a phrase that possibly was coined by my work mates (or maybe it's been around) that once a personal has reached the tipping point and can retire they are on a "victory lap". I stayed on about a year after my tipping point and in some ways it was sort of nice. I was more liberal in...