The worst retirement article I've ever read

M

mrWinter

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Mar 27, 2017
Messages
199
Since I've been learning about early retirement I've never seen any article as bad, misleading, inconsistent, generally wrong, and perhaps dangerous as this one. The big takeaways being:
  • none of the tools we have to estimate what you can withdrawal are worth anything
  • any asset allocation different than 60/40 invalidates any SWR metric
  • Since the 4% rule doesn't work for someone retiring at age 40 just throw it out
  • you aren't saving nearly enough
  • you are saving too much
  • You can't possible calculate the effect of social security or pensions so just forget trying to calculate anything!
  • You're probably going to die by 85 so why in the world should you prepare for the possibility that you would need your money to last longer?
  • But, women live longer and on average earn less and have less saved so... [no further conclusion drawn from this point, despite contradicting the above]
  • You can't predict all your financial future so don't bother learning anything
  • Just save whatever you can, it will all work out. "You got this" whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.

Sad that people get presented with this confusing junk. It's hard enough to figure this stuff out without outright misinformation. Anyone seen worse or does this take the cake for you too?
 
Two comments that are just my opinion:

1. This article is a classic case of letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.

2. The article reminds me of why I do not read the Huff Post.
 
Another fluff article. The good news is that you too can write articles for the internet! To earn a few extra dollars (probably literally just a few), you don't need to know much, as long as you can put a sentence together, and can write something that draws clicks.

Urrrgh, is my main reaction to this type of thing, before tuning out completely.
 
On point #5 it states about the 4% rule being developed when bond yields were much higher. than now. I have seen this negative point quoted a bunch of times.
The Trinity study verified the Bengen research and Firecalc has validated it too. So it is misleading to state that a current 40% bond portion of the portfolio will cause a failure, as there are also other alternatives to bond funds as we all know.
 
The 3.3% rule is my choice.

Huff is a low bar for articles, and this one illustrates why. 1/25th of investments or 4% is restating the same metric. To split this into two rules reminds me of the boy who was trying to write a two page assignment, but only had one page written.

The unwritten part of the article is that if you are solely invested in a low return market, you can diversify to other areas that have better returns. Diversifying not only reduces risk, it can enhance returns.
 
"The 4-percent rule is conditioned on the idea that all our portfolios will be a precise 60/40 mix, which doesn’t take into account an individual’s tolerance for risk."

Because, of course, we all know that the mix needs to be precisely 60/40 - the slightest deviation from that (61/39, for example, or perhaps 59/41) could spell havoc and disaster :LOL:

Seriously though, most of us are aware that portfolio survivability doesn't change a great deal over quite a wide range of asset mixes, although the volatility does.
 
*** The Trinity study verified the Bengen research and Firecalc has validated it too. So it is misleading to state that a current 40% bond portion of the portfolio will cause a failure, as there are also other alternatives to bond funds as we all know. ***

i have certainly added REITs as bond proxies in the current 2 years as interest-bearing securities have matured or redeemed
 
Got you to click on it. Thus, it served its intended purpose.
 
I saw it and kinda skimmed it but thought it was so stupid that I did not finish.... went on to another article...
 
Here's the worst book on retirement I've read: "The Retirement Maze," by Bob Pascale et al. Here's a random sample, from p. 37:

"But very quickly, somewhere between Years 1 and 2, retirees hit a low point. Their overall quality of life ratings fall sharply, down to almost half that of those retired one year or less and those still working. Beginning in Year 3, their quality of life perceptions start to recover, but only slowly, and it's not until they are 8 or more years into retirement that we finally see their ratings improve to their starting levels, that is, to when they were still working."
 
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Not the worst I've seen. In between the fluff they tell you:

-Just because a 65-year old can retire on $1 million now and live comfortably doesn't mean that a 35-year can retire and live comfortably on $1 million 30 years from now
-Sequence of Returns Risk: you could have bad luck and retire into a bear market and have a big % of your nest egg evaporate
-the 4% withdrawal rate is based on a portfolio that includes 64% equities so don't think you can do it if you've got all your money in CDs
-In considering whether you can draw enough from your portfolio to meet expenses you need to factor in any SS you expect to collect although that can change in the future.

Not much anyone on this Board would find enlightening.

The worst item I ever saw on the subject of retirement was a meme on FB claiming to figure out what you'd have if you had all the funds you and your employer paid over the years, accumulated at 1% interest. It was meant to prove that SS was a bad deal. First, it assumed an "average income" of $30K/year over 40 years. Do you know anyone who made $30K/year in 1975? Even now I think half the population makes less than that. It then applied the CURRENT SS contribution rate to $30K/year (never mind that the wage base was $17,500 in 1975 and the contribution rates substantially lower) and accumulated that at 1%. Even then I couldn't duplicate their numbers- they were way too high.

And yet it's been reposted by two of my contacts.
 
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ER Eddie said:
Here's the worst book on retirement I've read: "The Retirement Maze," by Bob Pascale et al. Here's a random sample, from p. 37:

"But very quickly, somewhere between Years 1 and 2, retirees hit a low point. Their overall quality of life ratings fall sharply, down to almost half that of those retired one year or less and those still working. Beginning in Year 3, their quality of life perceptions start to recover, but only slowly, and it's not until they are 8 or more years into retirement that we finally see their ratings improve to their starting levels, that is, to when they were still working."
Click to expand...

geee !
and i have been blaming the medications ( depression is an acknowledged side effect of some of them )

i was retired only a month before the medical intervention

lucky i didn't rush of to the psychologist and spend another slice of the nest egg


thanks i will keep that in mind
 
athena53 said:
Not the worst I've seen.

The worst item I ever saw on the subject of retirement was a meme on FB claiming to figure out what you'd have if you had all the funds you and your employer paid over the years, accumulated at 1% interest. It was meant to prove that SS was a bad deal. First, it assumed an "average income" of $30K/year over 40 years. Do you know anyone who made $30K/year in 1975? Even now I think half the population makes less than that. It then applied the CURRENT SS contribution rate to $30K/year (never mind that the wage base was $17,500 in 1975 and the contribution rates substantially lower) and accumulated that at 1%. Even then I couldn't duplicate their numbers- they were way too high.

And yet it's been reposted by two of my contacts.
Click to expand...

Yeh that one annoyed me so much I ended doing a spreadsheet and posting it to show how flawed that logic was.
 
*** -Just because a 65-year old can retire on $1 million now and live comfortably doesn't mean that a 35-year can retire and live comfortably on $1 million 30 years from now
-Sequence of Returns Risk: you could have bad luck and retire into a bear market and have a big % of your nest egg evaporate ***

indeed i am very concerned about inflation and a bear market in the next 18 months is possible as well , well that will be one way to test my strategy , if it all happens ( an inflation spike triggering a market crash )
 
Oz, welcome to the forum.

Since you've already become a prolific poster less than 24 hours after registering, how about learning to use that little "quote" button at the bottom of each post to make your responses easier to read?

Thanks
 
There is a whole category of articles these days about how to retire blah blah blah, or else 'look at how these retirees are suffering' or else 'look at how these retirees are living the high life. I call them all 'retirement porn' because they are enticing enough to make you want you want to look. They mostly are not interesting to read anymore. So the moniker 'worst' has a fairly low bar.
 
REWahoo,

i haven't fine tuned my skills on this site yet ( each site is very different ) ,
i am still trying to remember to use American spelling , i usually post in Australia and New Zealand

( where most of my stocks are listed )

i'll do what i can , but after me learning to ride a bike .. i would advise against holding your breath

cheers
 
Oz investor said:
REWahoo,

i haven't fine tuned my skills on this site yet ( each site is very different ) ,
i am still trying to remember to use American spelling , i usually post in Australia and New Zealand

( where most of my stocks are listed )

i'll do what i can , but after me learning to ride a bike .. i would advise against holding your breath

cheers
Click to expand...

British Commonwealth spelling isn’t so very different from American (US). Your posts will be perfectly inteligible. We do have many posters from Canada - not all are US.

I once was corrected by a British lady (I think) on a FB foreign language forum about using practice as a verb. She was getting annoyed and felt the need reiterate the rule of practise versus practice. I had to explain that the US spelling rule was different.
 
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spelling is one thing choosing the appropriate word is another

to make it worse the father's side were from New Zealand ' where they speak the Queen's English better than the English themselves , so i have to fight with 5 dialects ( the other grandparent was Scottish )

auntie ( on the father's side was even more strict than that ) the other sister on that side worked as middle management in one of the international hotels see was a little more relaxed about it

however modern spell-checkers are a diverse lot and confuse many even more

auntie ( on my mother's side ) was a big fan of Canadians she made several friends working along side them in WW2 ( and several American women as well )

i am trying to remember if i worked with many Canadians ... and i think the answer is no , plenty of Europeans and South Americans though , a few Africans ( white and colored ) plenty of Asians as well , not that race or nationality ever mattered to me .

re:- intelligible , the medications i am currently on affect me significantly , so am trying as best i can

cheers !!
 
Do you think there are a lot more "retirement" articles than there used to be, or are we just paying more attention to them because the topic interests us?

timo2 said:
There is a whole category of articles these days about how to retire blah blah blah, or else 'look at how these retirees are suffering' or else 'look at how these retirees are living the high life. I call them all 'retirement porn' because they are enticing enough to make you want you want to look. They mostly are not interesting to read anymore. So the moniker 'worst' has a fairly low bar.
Click to expand...
 
Looking at the comments above, I think that the main elements by which an article is rated is "does it make me feel more or less comfortable?"If it makes us more comfortable, it's a good article. If not, it is the worst.

At least we are consistent.

Ha
 
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