Poll:Percent of your cash+invested assets in cash?

[LOL!]

Let's try another "how much cash?" poll with more options to choose from.

What is the amount of cash you have as a percent of your invested assets plus any other cash hanging around?

The idea is not to count net worth, so leave out cars, houses, other real estate (even if you count real property as part of your invested assets). The idea is to count cash in savings, checking, CDs as part of invested assets like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, variable annuities, and those cash instruments.

Also a short-term bond fund or other bond fund is not cash, but something where the NAV does not fluctuate and are easy to get in a week or so like a stable value fund or I-bonds or E-bonds are cash.

It is your call whether you call something like TIAA Traditional Annuity cash or not. It can take a while to get money from TIAA for some folks.

Things like pensions and other income streams (SPIAs) don't get included.

 

[boaski]

15%

 

[W2R]

I changed my vote because while the TSP "G Fund" doesn't lose value, and is sort of like cash, it is not easy to get one's hands on all of it in a week or so. This is because of all the withdrawal rules.

 

[DrRoy]

Now at 3%, after putting 1.1% to bonds this week.

 

[Danmar]

2.6% . Really just "operating cash" to smooth out big purchases or dividends.

 

[aaronc879]

I prefer to be under 5% but I just sold some stock for tax-loss harvesting and have not reinvested the money yet so I am a little over 6% cash currently.

 

[HillCountry]

I am at about 75% now.

I was at 25% one year ago. I sold more than half of my biz last year; and my mega was aquaired in cash recently, which I had considerable stocks and RSU.

Looking forward to deploying my cash, starting early next year.

 

[harley]

Your requirement to leave out investment real estate skewed my answer severely. It would have been <20% had I been able to count the RE, but moves to (barely) <50% without it. Not sure how useful the poll is when disallowing a major investment option.

 

[MooreBonds]

Your requirement to leave out investment real estate skewed my answer severely. It would have been <20% had I been able to count the RE, but moves to (barely) <50% without it. Not sure how useful the poll is when disallowing a major investment option.

I also wonder the differences between those still w*rking, and those retired. I have about 10 years until FIRE, so I'm in the "Under 0.5%" group. But if I were retired, I'd have probably 2%-3%. And that amount would be relatively low because my fiance is a teacher, and would have a steady eddy pension coming in each month. If she didn't have a rock solid pension, I might lean towards 5% cash when retired.

 

[donheff]

I changed my vote because while the TSP "G Fund" doesn't lose value, and is sort of like cash, it is not easy to get one's hands on all of it in a week or so. This is because of all the withdrawal rules.

Same here. I clicked on 2% reflecting actual cash but the TSP G Fund would bring that up to around 10% which is how I subjectively view my cash position. This is a bit like the net worth discussions - it depends on what you are including.

 

[jollystomper]

Not retired yet, have 23% in cash.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

I also wonder the differences between those still w*rking, and those retired. I have about 10 years until FIRE, so I'm in the "Under 0.5%" group. But if I were retired, I'd have probably 2%-3%. And that amount would be relatively low because my fiance is a teacher, and would have a steady eddy pension coming in each month. If she didn't have a rock solid pension, I might lean towards 5% cash when retired.

This.

Might be interesting to do a poll for those in the accumulation phase.

Steady state, I would be 3-4% for emergency fund + working cash, but I'm in the on-going process of diversifying away from company stock concentration as options/shares vest so I generally have a cash pile of varying size that I'm dollar cost averaging into the market that skews my %age at any given time.

 

[scrabbler1]

It's 1%-2.5% for me. Most of that is the cash component of mutual funds, with maybe 0.5% in actual bank account cash. I receive a cash dividend from my big bond fund every month to replenish my bank account's cash. I also take a cash dividend every ~quarter from a stock fund to supplement the monthly cash. I leave a small buffer in my bank account to cover small, unexpected expenses.

 

[racy]

Less than 0.3% by your definition. Interestingly, my Vanguard Flagship Services rep told us that our Short Term Investment Gr. Bond Fund works fine as a cash substitute after I told her we are OK with some principle fluctuation. We have 22% of our total in this fund. It's a Wm Bernstein thing for us, "If you've won the game, stop playing". But, I don't want my cash to get eroded away by inflation.

 

[jkern]

15%

 

[Happyras]

I was just surprised by my own % cash. I thought I had a bit of cash, but as a percentage its nothing. We are in 45% bonds, with <1% cash but still plenty to cover a year of spending.

 

[MooreBonds]

We have 22% of our total in this fund. It's a Wm Bernstein thing for us, "If you've won the game, stop playing". But, I don't want my cash to get eroded away by inflation.

Exactly - when you quit the game, you don't want to find out that you have to go back and play some more because the inflation boogey man caught you!

 

[Lsbcal]

Just because something is liquid does not make it cash. For instance, older high yield Ibonds are cashable but who would cash them when they are excellent long term holds? So for me, they are not cash and represent 7% of the portfolio.

I personally only think short term CD's are cash. A 5 year CD is a bet on interest rates. Sure you can take the early withdrawal penalty but will you time it right or will you take a bit of a hit before cashing out? To me it is not the same as 3 month Tbills or savings accounts. A minor point, I admit.

 

[audreyh1]

In spite of our multi-year expenses cash buffer, cash set aside earmarked for other near-term spending purposes, and allowing unspent withdrawn funds to accumulate in cash each year, we are just under 10% in cash compared to our total investable assets.

It drops down to just a little over 8% if I take out cash from some recent company stock sales that I plan to reinvest in equities longer term.

It drops almost another 3% if I take out iBonds and CDs > 1 year from maturity. I have been counting these as cash inside my retirement portfolio.

So - maybe the answer is about 5.5%. Somewhere between 5.5% and 9.75% (or 8.25%).

I have another 5% of investable assets in short-term bond funds, but I don't count those as cash.

Frankly, I would have more in short-term bond funds and less in cash if I felt the risk reward ratio was better. But short-term bond funds don't compete that well against high-yield cash and short-term CDs these days, and I won't touch ultra-short term bond funds.

Retired. When I was working in accumulation mode I was almost 100% equities, most of it company stock, with an emergency fund in cash and a mortgage which I paid off about 3 years before retiring.

 

[kgtest]

Well at first I didn't include the emergency fund and voted >5 but it's actually around 8.5% with the Emergency Fund. My DW debates that I won't retire for another 20, I give it 15 more yrs as my sig states in 2031. Why work once you have <3Mil?

 

[mickeyd]

This must be the season for asking about ca$h. Seems like this is the 3rd or fourth thread about this.

OK, OK, I'm about 10% so I checked off "less than 10%".

 

[MichaelB]

This must be the season for asking about ca$h. Seems like this is the 3rd or fourth thread about this.

Yeah - does that mean we have to give the same answer in each thread, or can we give different answers just to spice things up a little - you know, add a little variety to life?

 

[LOL!]

The other poll has about double the people in the 50% or more category.

I think the explanation is not that they are faking it, but that the other poll is cash versus net worth and anybody with a negative net worth and any cash at all would have to vote in the 50+% category. That might be all new homeowners and all Millennials with student loans.

 

[Live And Learn]

So I feel sort of silly sitting on 15% of my portfolio in cash. I'm stuck with not knowing where to invest it. Equities at all time highs, interest rates on the rise ... analysis paralysis. Part of my solution was to satisfy 2-ft-itis and trade in my 16 ft boat for a 19 ft model (as an overachiever I added 3 ft instead of the usual 2 !). Still stuck trying to pull the trigger on investing half of what's left.

 

[audreyh1]

This was a very well constructed poll, and interesting results.

So far ~27% of respondents have less that 5% in cash (with a little over half of those having less than 2.5% in cash). Another ~26% have 5 to 10% in cash, and another ~23% have 10 to 20% in cash. That's just over 75% of respondents with less than 20% in cash.