wheres ray lucia's bucket planner?

[mathjak107]

just looked on ray lucia's site and i no longer see the bucket calculator...is it gone?

 

[2B]

It's probably being reworked. Anyone on his bucket plan near the end of bucket 2 would be feeling less than happy they signed up for his program. This little rough patch we've hit is probably going to spawn a vast new array of FAs with new programs to make [-]them[/-] us rich.

The people with established systems have to rework them to get out of the obvious question for the next decade. "How would your plan have worked through 2008/9?" Unless the market goes up 100% in the next 12 months, there's a lot of rework to do.

 

[mathjak107]

yeah 4% on bucket 1 , 5% bucket 2 and we wont talk about 3 right now is tough to get

 

[ziggy29]

The people with established systems have to rework them to get out of the obvious question for the next decade. "How would your plan have worked through 2008/9?" Unless the market goes up 100% in the next 12 months, there's a lot of rework to do.

True. But that doesn't necessarily make a sound plan. I mean, the "100% cash" was up 2% in 2008, but that doesn't make that a sound long-term retirement plan.

The bottom line is that I think we'll see this period used in more backtesting, and I think we'll also see some asset allocations become more conservative. It's easy to say you can tolerate a 40% drop in some online test of your risk tolerance; it's quite another to actually lose 40% in real money.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

It does look like Ray has been resting on his laurels a bit too long; he never did come up with a coherent plan to offset the exact situation we are in now, esp for late bucket 2 tappers. His value-averaging work-around is vague and untested (basically where you do a little partial rebalancing when stocks are way up only).

His underlying concepts strike me as on-target, but he seems to be kind of stuck. We'll see whether his online bucket machine makes a re-appearance.

 

[2B]

I'm still waiting for the first advance order for a copy of my retirement planning book. It's geared towards the current and near retiree. There is one bucket entirely dedicated to safe money that can fund the basic, minimum acceptable retirement. You can then create as many other buckets as you like that would fund the "extras" you would like to have but could live a "good" retirement with few or none of if the economy tanks.

I stumbled onto this approach when I set my original 60/40 AA in August 2007. The 40% fixed/cash was intended as the minimum amount needed for an acceptable retirement.

I never imagined that the crash would put my AA to almost 45/55 but my cash dollar amount has remained unchanged. I am still FI and if I'm forced into retirement before my time I know I won't be eating cat food and living in an old refrigerator box. Protecting this basic level of retirement has kept me from following my secondary goal of maintaining a 60/40 AA.

If the market ever gets back up there or my continuing 401k and SERP contributions into equities do it for me, I'll go back into the 60/40 mode. That would actually increase my cash/fixed amount and support a higher level of retirement.

 

[Gpond]

Lucia's timeframe for the use of buckets is a moving target but bucket 2 when I first started listening to him, I believe around early 2005, was 5 year money. I have heard him say bucket 2 is anywhere from 5 to 12 years since.

Well the stock market is underwater back to 1997 - 12 years.

What are you suppose to do? Use your hole in the bottom bucket 3 money to replenish bucket 1?

 

[2B]

What are you suppose to do? Use your hole in the bottom bucket 3 money to replenish bucket 1?

That's what his book said. That's probably why his website is "under renovation."

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

I think more frequent rebalancing is the key to avoiding the doomsday scenario. Just how often and/or how much is unclear but mechanically that should avoid the situation of a 70 yo 90% in stocks.

Such rebalancing is well in line with conventional planning so at least it's not a weird or gimmicky plan. I would still lean to a "bonds first" withdrawal strategy, just not as dramatic as Lucia's scheme given what I know now.

 

[2B]

I think more frequent rebalancing is the key to avoiding the doomsday scenario. Just how often and/or how much is unclear but mechanically that should avoid the situation of a 70 yo 90% in stocks.

Such rebalancing is well in line with conventional planning so at least it's not a weird or gimmicky plan. I would still lean to a "bonds first" withdrawal strategy, just not as dramatic as Lucia's scheme given what I know now.

The risk with a "bonds first" strategy is that you create the same situation that Ray Lucia creates intentionally. If equities perform with a good average performance over that time frame, you have more money to spend. If you get the swan dive we're in now, you get a rude awakening during the latter phase of your retirement.

 

[Gpond]

2nd hour today Lucia said he thought housing has bottomed. Recommends buying a house now.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

The risk with a "bonds first" strategy is that you create the same situation that Ray Lucia creates intentionally. If equities perform with a good average performance over that time frame, you have more money to spend. If you get the swan dive we're in now, you get a rude awakening during the latter phase of your retirement.

Agree, which is why I figure I'll dilute it with periodic rebalancing on the light side. So it's not a full-blown "bonds first" approach, but more of a "no rush to tap into stocks just to rebalance yearly" deal.

That would disqualify me as a purebred Lucia bucketeer, I guess.

 

[mathjak107]

i set up a phone meeting with ray for the end of march to address some of our issues on the forum.... im looking forward to this chat

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I saw the animated ad for Buckets of Money yesterday. (Trying to find it again today.) The time frames were 7 years yesterday.