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We've spent the last six years traveling year round and our rafting trip through the Grand Canyon still ranks as one of our best travel experiences ever. It's a fairly physical excursion but one that is completely accessible to a wide range of people. I think our group ranged in age from maybe...

Here's what the internal rate of return looks like for the "Delay SS until 70 Decision". You have to live until about 74.5 before you break even. If you die sooner than that, you lose tons of money. If you live longer, the returns turn very positive relatively quickly. If you live until 76...

Wouldn't it make the most sense for the person most likely to live the longest to delay, which I think would normally be the female spouse if both are healthy or the healthiest of the two otherwise?

Thanks for the suggestion. As far as prices go, our original home and default base is the New York City area, so most places look "cheap" by comparison . . . and spacious. :)

Had to look it up but I'd say The Villages has ruled us out for at least another 10 years. We'll probably rule it out thereafter, though. :)

I'd consider FL as a base for when we're not traveling. Our problem is that we're really keen to live in a city where we don't need a car every time we want or need to go somewhere. That rules out most of the U.S. and much of Florida outside of Miami. Anyone know of any good walkable Floridian...

Start telling people "no" Or, more precisely, "Sure you can have that procedure/medication, as long as you pay for it yourself." And to doctors/hospitals, "sure we'll pay for that procedure/medication, but not at the price you've been charging."

You know how that ends, right? It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. A far, far better resting place that I go to than I've ever known. :dead:

If you believe in mean reversion then flat after several years of ~15% compound annual gains has to be good because we can revert in only two ways: either slow and steady or fast and painful.

How many early retirees does it take to change a light bulb? None, it's too much work.

My first response to the question of "Will it work" was "It's Forbes, so no." My second response is well, it depends on the meaning of "works." It's a % of portfolio approach so by definition it can't ever go broke. But whether it maintains purchasing power with a 5% WR and a 100% equity...

Yes, definitely get knowledgeable. It's a class of securities that has tons of variability between securities and plenty of trap doors. You should know what straight, cumulative, convertible, participating, callable, put/call, variable, subordinated, junior subordinated, and trust preferred...

We spend about 10 months a year overseas and I had thought briefly about factoring this in to our asset allocation. I decided against it because we don't have a permanent residence anywhere outside the U.S. nor are we expecting to. For expats who mostly intend to live in a single country and...

I'd have to spend a lot more time working through the math to see how this works but at first blush it just doesn't seem right. Here are the initial assumptions . . . So bonds return 5% and are taxed at 25%. Equity is assumed to be taxed at 15%. He then changes the scenario as follows . . ...

VAT is one one way. A carbon tax is another. A wealth tax is a third. Taxing Roth withdrawals directly is a fourth. Including Roth withdrawals as "income" for determining things like taxes on SS is a fifth. Using asset based means testing for government benefits is a sixth. Lots of ways to skin...

+1 Anyone who plans to retire and live off an investment portfolio needs to internalize this point. Down markets are part of the bargain. One of the tricks markets play on investors and retirees especially is that they can make you feel richer than you really are. A good way to look at your...

You'd have found plenty of folks pooping the sheets here just like everywhere else in 2009. Following forums like this through multiple market cycles provides a front row seat to mass-investor sentiment. After long bull runs the optimists come out and you see plenty of articles about 100%...

I think what you mean is that a PE based on trailing earnings spiked in 2009 because earnings collapsed. CAPE meanwhile fell to around 11x in March 2009 and some of us said at the time that future returns would be higher as a result. Now those excess future returns have been realized and it's...

And if you bring that forward from 2000 until May 2016 your average annual return over the past 16.5 years bumps up to 2.0% real with dividends reinvested. The good news is that valuations on the S&P 500 have dropped from 44x to 26x over that time period. So instead of being ridiculously...

I guess you're talking about this from yesterday's Fed Minute's release. . . Fed Is Seriously Considering Raising Interest Rates in June, Meeting Minutes Say Or maybe this from two days ago . . . Consumer Prices Climb 0.4% in April I'd say the most likely Fed action is to raise rates. If...

+1

Yup. And if you own any meaningful amount of international equities in your portfolio that flatness over the past year looks a bit more like down-ness.

My approach is not to pay an insurance company to shoulder any financial risk I can manage on my own. Car deductibles of any size fall in to that category.

I never claimed that the value of these places is in their objectivity. The value is that they help us understand another culture's perspective; witness their hardships; perceive their humanity in a way that isn't possible from 9,000 miles away; and possibly open our eyes to aspects of our own...

It all depends on other factors. A long-run sustainable government debt load is generally viewed this way . . . Sustainable Debt to GDP = (primary deficit)/(nominal growth rate of GDP - nominal interest rate on government debt) Tell me what all the other numbers are and I can solve for X...