Planning to ER next year, in my 30s.

[dex]

Financial Advisors job is looking after their business - not yours. They are best in selling.

Scott,

I have been in the financial business for a number of
years and appreciate most of the arguments you made
regarding diversification, markets etc. The only question
is finding a manager/adviser who is truly capable of
producing consistent returns over a long period of time.
If you find one, please do share since I've not come
across one yet.

Some food for thought...what we typically think is
diversification in investment isn't necessarily so in
today's world economy, espeically if another crisis occurs
as it did with Russia in 1998. Correlation tends to move
to 1 under extreme conditions. These extreme
conditions happen more frequent than "hundred year
storms" as "experts" would like you to believe.

Again, with all sincerety, I'd like to know how you make
out.

Regards,

dx

In spite of thinking I am smarter than the rest of the people on the planet, at one time I consulted
financial advisors (CFPs). I never got one thing
I could use. Happily, I found this site and
a mountain of useful advice and information,
not to mention cheap entertainment

JG

[IDunno]

Quote:

I've been reading these forums for about a year now (and posted a couple of times), but thought it was about time for me to introduce myself. *My name is Scott, my wife and I are in our mid-30s (no kids yet), and we're planning to ER in about a year.

Just a quick update -- as of today, I'm almost officially ER'd. My employment agreement is ending today, and while I will likely be doing some consulting with them, it should be no more than a couple hours a week, and shouldn't last more than about 6 months. So I consider myself to be ER'd at 5PM. My wife probably will within about a year.

Of course, I might end up backing out of ER, by starting a new business again. It may be too tempting. And I have no idea what the next few days/weeks/months/years will be like. Or what I'll tell people I'm doing. This site has been a great resource so far, and I'm sure it will continue to be.
-Scott

[bow-tie]

Quote:

...as of today, I'm almost officially ER'd.... My wife probably will within about a year. * * * * * * * * * * * * * *-Scott

Wow, outstanding job and congratulations. Best of luck to you. Now... to fill up all of that free time...

[BUM]

Danger Will (Scott) Robinson! You pioneered hard for your $$$$ " did it all yourself". Thats the key.

DIY

BUM

[Helen]

Another way of thinking about the portfolio management fees is that if my SWR is 4% and my mgmt. fees are 3% I'm giving away 25% of my annual income for someone to do a few hours of work a year on my portfolio.

I'd rather buy a total international index fund, a total US market index fund and a total bond index fund, move 4% a year into a mmf rebalance once every two to three years and be done with it.

I'm hoping in 8 years Vanguard will offer one fund with a 33.3% split between the three above mentioned funds so I won't even have to rebalance. I can automate the 4% withdrawal and be done with it. Beats the hell out of paying 1% of my total portfolio and the returns will be pretty damn good too.

The beauty of this is that it will be so easy, if I preceed my partner in death I won't have to worry about who she will hire to manage the portfolio.

-helen

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Another way of thinking about the portfolio management fees is that if my SWR is 4% and my mgmt. fees are 3% I'm giving away 25% of my annual income for someone to do a few hours of work a year on my portfolio.

Well said. But that's 75% your giving away, right?

REW