KISS 3 fund portfolio

[ferco]

Would a 1 million dollar portfolio divided equally between Dodge & Cox balanced, Wellington and Wellesly withdrawn at 5% annual with a 4% inflation increase per year last 40 years and maintain (or even grow) the principal.

What would be the mechanism by which you would withdraw the funds each January 1? For example, Year 1 would you just request redemption of $16,666 from each of the funds and place them in your MM account for the years spending or take the money out quarterly?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Key question here is whether or not you have to wear all that greasy face paint, the platform shoes and stick your tongue out a lot.

That having been said, and I think it needed saying.

Theoretically that strategy might work. Those funds have a historic composite return rate in excess of 9%, which would meet your 5%+4% strategy. But that doesnt mean they'll have that return rate going forward.

A better withdrawal strategy might be to take all the dividends and capital gains that are paid out by each fund over the course of the year (since you're going to pay taxes on them anyhow) and withdraw the remained needed from the fund thats gone up the most, sort of doing a little rebalancing in that manner.

Do note closely that the vast majority of the fund return rates you're looking at presume reinvested dividends and dont include taxes. Look at the numbers that show rates of return for the investment after taxes and after cost of selling the shares. You might find that 9% presumed rate is a bit fat on the bad side.

By the way, this was my conservative strategy employed when I was ER'ed before I got married, except I sold dodge and cox and just split it between wellington and wellesley. Lots of overlap between dodge and cox and the other two...you might be just increasing your expenses and complexity of portfolio for no significant reduction in volatility or income.

 

[Nords]

Key question here is whether or not you have to wear all that greasy face paint, the platform shoes and stick your tongue out a lot.

Ya know, I bet over half of this forum's members wouldn't recognize Gene Simmons with his costume... or without it.