How I Stayed Retired for 10 Years after Retiring in 1999

[Spanky]

I have made some refinements from the past 10 years experience. I found rebalancing so frequently very disconcerting, so I widened my criteria so that I won't rebalance so often, although chances are we won't see that kind of volatility again for a very long time. I am keeping my 1-3 years living expenses cash account, it really helped me stay sane especially over the past year. Company stock is a much smaller % of our net worth at this time as we drew down on that over the past decade. Total net worth is now up 24% from where we started, and only down 20% from the peak in late 2007. Funny, how we can feel good about "only 20% down".

It's difficult to predict volatility in the future. A wider margin re-balancing scheme is not a bad idea to reduce the frequency.
We were down by 18% last year and did not go crazy.

 

[Darryl]

Audrey/Ejman, thanks for the posts very enjoyable reading. Great job executing your plans!