Okay, I’ve saved enough to retire, now what?

[UnrealizedPotential]

I have a little over 40% of my portfolio in a bond income fund. I did this for two reasons. One was because I wanted a certain amount of cushion for when a bear market comes. The other reason is because I needed the income the bond fund provides.

The rest of my income comes from stock funds and a few reits. I know that by having such a large percentage in bonds , I give up some growth. I can live with that. What I can't live with is if my portfolio went down by 50% in a bear market. I am not recommending anything. I am just writing how I get my income and deal with risk. The stock market is a risky place.

 

[audreyh1]

I use a total return approach and use mutual funds. I have a target AA. Each Jan I pull a fixed X% from my portfolio from cash and whichever investments are higher than target AA, and then I rebalance to the target AA if needed. I don’t worry about income generated by the investments although in taxable accounts I do take all distributions in cash during the year and let them accumulate which usually covers my next annual withdrawal.

I could use this approach and have everything in one balanced fund (then don’t need to rebalance), or one total stock index fund and one bond index fund, or a few more funds for broader diversification, so it doesn’t require a complex investment strategy.

 

[Munchkin]

Thanks all. I appreciate all the candid and constructive feedback. I'm glad I stumbled upon this site. I will be doing a lot of research and reading previous threads.

Me too! I think we have enough, we don't have kids, live simply and would love to get off the BS work merry-go-round. Now I'm really dating myself, back in the day you were expected to show up and do your job and now the new hires just tote around a Starbucks cup and their device of choice and nothing ever seems to get done.

 

[bigfan188]

Check out SPHD. Its a low volatility equity ETF that pays a monthly dividend at a 4+% annual rate.

thanks Cheesehead. I like this ETF even in a down /flat market.

 

[PatrickA5]

We're into simplicity. We have all of our retirement IRAs in a single Fidelity Target Date Index fund. AA is 45%/55%. If we need money we simply withdraw what we need and put it into our Fidelity MM CMA account. AA stays the same (for the most part). At this point, we really don't have any taxable investments outside our MM CMA account.

Obviously, this is just our simple way of doing things. Not necessarily the "correct" or "best" way.