Amateur investors doing OK!

[Librarian]

DH60 retired 2 yrs ago, me57 last year.
Both former teachers with excellent pensions--they more than pay the bills.
Downsized 5 yrs ago & live debt free.


18 mos. ago inherited a bit of money & a year ago Dad gifted money from the sale of his house. About $400K total between the 2.

We have NEVER invested--our pensions were done by our state & on our salary with 3 children, there never seemed to be extra to invest.

We have slowly "diversified". We have a bit in bonds, a bit in stocks & a bit in HYS. All done on our own.

We traveled A LOT the last year since I retired. Monthly, truth be told. The rest of the year is booked with monthly travel as well. Next year we won't travel as often, but are taking some longer trips (a month rather than 1-2 weeks).

When I updated our assets today I was stunned to see that our assets had not decreased as I expected them to (we were ok with that...it was "retirement year" & we were fine with using a bit of our funds to do it.

Our "portfolio" is VERY conservative & it took us a while to feel comfortable buying stock.

But this TRULY shows the power of investing even in the short term.

Thanks to all for helping us learn here.

 

[FREE866]

DH60 retired 2 yrs ago, me57 last year.
Both former teachers with excellent pensions--they more than pay the bills.
Downsized 5 yrs ago & live debt free.


18 mos. ago inherited a bit of money & a year ago Dad gifted money from the sale of his house. About $400K total between the 2.

We have NEVER invested--our pensions were done by our state & on our salary with 3 children, there never seemed to be extra to invest.

We have slowly "diversified". We have a bit in bonds, a bit in stocks & a bit in HYS. All done on our own.

We traveled A LOT the last year since I retired. Monthly, truth be told. The rest of the year is booked with monthly travel as well. Next year we won't travel as often, but are taking some longer trips (a month rather than 1-2 weeks).

When I updated our assets today I was stunned to see that our assets had not decreased as I expected them to (we were ok with that...it was "retirement year" & we were fine with using a bit of our funds to do it.

Our "portfolio" is VERY conservative & it took us a while to feel comfortable buying stock.

But this TRULY shows the power of investing even in the short term.

Thanks to all for helping us learn here.

Depending on exactly what month you invested and what your asset allocation is it's kind of hard to gauge your performance and what benchmark to use for a comparison.

 

[Librarian]

Well without giving exact numbers...

Depending on exactly what month you invested and what your asset allocation is it's kind of hard to gauge your performance and what benchmark to use for a comparison.

That is fair.

But we planned for this travel, know what we spent & were stunned how it didn't diminish our portfolio AT ALL as we had expected it would.

In general terms--it shows the power of investing even in the short term!

 

[Humbooster]

Well done, the most important thing is not to lose money so you are doing ok. I wish you the best in your future travels.