Not a market timer, but...

[TX_Ret_Soon]

Around the first of the year I realized we are closer to having to pay for college than I had realized. Time flies! About 2-3 years out from first withdrawal, and ESAs still in index funds, 90-100% market based. I was busy and didn’t do anything about it until about a month ago, when I switched all three kids into bond funds. Did so at a pretty good peak. Volatility and drops avoided. Rises too, probably, but this close it is the right time to not worry about the volatility.

IRAs and TSP/401Ks, current employers and previous, still in the market. Don’t care, have 14+ years on that.

 

[VanWinkle]

Around the first of the year I realized we are closer to having to pay for college than I had realized. Time flies! About 2-3 years out from first withdrawal, and ESAs still in index funds, 90-100% market based. I was busy and didn’t do anything about it until about a month ago, when I switched all three kids into bond funds. Did so at a pretty good peak. Volatility and drops avoided. Rises too, probably, but this close it is the right time to not worry about the volatility.

IRAs and TSP/401Ks, current employers and previous, still in the market. Don’t care, have 14+ years on that.

Good call on reducing risk as your time horizon has lessened. The change in the market makes it look good, but the decision was correct no matter what the market reflected later.

Best to you,

VW

 

[EvrClrx311]

My ex-wife's father in law decided in November 1999 to move the entire $87,000 he and his wife had in savings for their daughter into the NASDAQ... I was 18 at the time and remember hearing him say that they may be retiring earlier than expected, because the market can only go up...

He figured it was foolish to leave college savings in bonds when the market was making 25% a year... He sold in December 2000, but not after stubbornly holding on, "for the market to repair itself"...

My ex-wife and I ended up paying for the second half of her education with student loans. Maybe that actually worked to our advantage (learning to manage loans and saving kind of thing... but I'm the glass half full type)

I often wonder if my ex-wife and I had been born just a few years earlier, how differently that might have gone for her parents. Sometimes you're on the lucky side of things... sometimes not so. I was only 18 at the time but learned a valuable lesson in watching this... if you're going to try to time the market, just do the opposite of what seems to "make sense"... since everyone is selling right now, maybe it's actually time to buy?

I guess we'll know in a few years.

the easier approach is to just stay the course... hard to regret that in the long run. All this said, I echo the other comment that it sounds like doing what is in the best interest for your situation is always the right move. Sometimes it just comes at the right time too... and that's a good feeling huh

 

[YoungSaver]

Curious on your thoughts on that now?

 

[mickeyd]

Note to OP: What does your Investment Policy Statement (IPS) indicate that you do at this juncture?

 

[target2019]

Around the first of the year I realized we are closer to having to pay for college than I had realized. Time flies! About 2-3 years out from first withdrawal, and ESAs still in index funds, 90-100% market based. I was busy and didn’t do anything about it until about a month ago, when I switched all three kids into bond funds. Did so at a pretty good peak. Volatility and drops avoided. Rises too, probably, but this close it is the right time to not worry about the volatility.

IRAs and TSP/401Ks, current employers and previous, still in the market. Don’t care, have 14+ years on that.

Good choices moving to less risk. Of course the children's college accounts are handled as separate decisions apart from personal retirement accounts. So you hit the nail squarely on the head. Congratulations.

You could still lose some account value, though, depending on the type of bond funds and how the world goes in the next few years. Just be aware of that.

 

[big-papa]

Wouldn't do this for my own personal savings since that needs to pay for 30-40 years of retirement, but when my in-laws purchased a 529 for our daughter they went with the equivalent of a target date fund which handled this pretty much automatically such that it shifted from nearly all stock at the beginning to nearly all bonds by the time college started.

 

[OldShooter]

Short term investments for short term needs. I tell the students in my Adult-Ed investing class that "long term" starts at 5-10 years. I posted the chart below recently in another thread, but it illustrates: