The Retirement Planning/ Investment/ Savings Thread (5 Viewers)

[springbox]

I'm definitely not going to bother trying to time anything. Keep maxing my 401k and Roth, if there's still a country in 30 years I can probably retire, and if there isn't no investment plan was gonna save me anyway.

anybody want to talk about the wages that were paid back in the “olden days” compared to the cost of a house “back in the Middle Ages”

You guys act like everyone made $95,000 a year and houses were a couple hundred bucks. Fuck you all, you want to complain about how it is now in YOUR world, but if anyone talks about how it was (and it was the same) it’s “ok boomer”.

ITS NEVER BEEN EASY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE STARTING OUT.

I don’t have sympathy for someone looking for a “ladder”. I don’t have any advice that you will listen to because “it’s hard”. Boo fucking hoo, your hair barrettes are going to cost you $2 now instead of $1.89. Suck it up, get a second job if you are just sitting around playing games on your $2000 PlayStation and your $150 month internet feed.

If you are a member of this site then you have no room to bitch about “how hard it is”. You are in luxury land and nobody cares if your china chips are $.47 or $1.08. When you have to buy food instead of poker chips - or use your McDonald points because you have no money to eat - then your whiny shit may be worth listening to.

I think a lot of young people are looking for get rich quick schemes and are way too used to spending on a lot of the conveniences of modern life instead of saving. Costs have gone up, but wages have too. People max out their credit cards on dumb shit, and use student loans as an alternative to finding a job. The housing complaint, however, is pretty genuine. In 1990 the median homebuyer was ~35 years old, now it's 56. The median home price in 1985 was about 3.5 times the median household income, now its about 6 times as much. Homeownership in the place you work or where you grew up is off the table for most people under 40 unless you're making double median income or received a windfall in some form.

 

[Poker Zombie]

The housing complaint, however, is pretty genuine.

I will agree on this.

Investors own roughly 24% of the single-family housing market. Institutions account for about 10% of this, but the rest is smaller groups/individuals that own more than one house and rent or AirBnB all but their main home. This spiked in the 2009 housing crisis as those who had the means and forethought bought up foreclosed homes for a fraction the price. They have no reason to release these homes, and they shelter the income as a business or in a trust, creating generational wealth.

There was another twist in the housing market after the 2020 pandemic. Work from home became a thing, and people that once would have rented an apartment in a metro area are now renting in the suburbs. Developers are taking advantage of this as well.

I can't imagine anything that would cause this trend to change.

 

[Taghkanic]

And that is how you play the short game…

But buying and selling is not for everyone, as I say, your mileage may vary.

EDIT, forgot to say thanks to all that DM me who are looking for the info that I was using and I will be using email in the future to communicate with you all, because we’re not out of the woods yet, now that all the auto trades are done, we have to sit by a couple days and see how things shape out, especially with China,

The vast majority of people who try to time the market, pick stocks, etc. do worse than if they had just bought an index fund which invests broadly in the overall market and held it long-term without regard to the ups and downs.

This includes almost all investment advisors.

The ones who do better in the short-term are mostly just lucky, but they all think they are geniuses. Meanwhile you pretty much never hear from anyone who tried to get in on a falling market, but picked the wrong moment.

 

[Poker Zombie]

The ones who do better in the short-term are mostly just lucky, but they all think they are geniuses.

I'm sorry, are we taking about investing or poker players?

 

[DrStrange]

I have neglected to diversify my holdings into more than my home currency - 95+% of my assets are denominated in US Dollars. The thought being that my retirement expenses were going to be US Dollars only, so why "protect myself" against currency variation.. I am beginning to wonder if that was/is a mistake.

Should we be diversifying into non-US Dollar assets? Not thinking so much about world equity funds as that is partially deferent than currency hedging. Rather holding assets in other parts of the world / other currencies to partially insulate us from a decline in the US Dollar.

 

[Highli99]

I have neglected to diversify my holdings into more than my home currency - 95+% of my assets are denominated in US Dollars. The thought being that my retirement expenses were going to be US Dollars only, so why "protect myself" against currency variation.. I am beginning to wonder if that was/is a mistake.

Should we be diversifying into non-US Dollar assets? Not thinking so much about world equity funds as that is partially deferent than currency hedging. Rather holding assets in other parts of the world / other currencies to partially insulate us from a decline in the US Dollar.

Are you concerned the USD may stop being the world’s reserve currency and be replaced by another fiat currency, or is your concern with fiat currency itself?

 

[CraigT78]

I have neglected to diversify my holdings into more than my home currency - 95+% of my assets are denominated in US Dollars. The thought being that my retirement expenses were going to be US Dollars only, so why "protect myself" against currency variation.. I am beginning to wonder if that was/is a mistake.

Should we be diversifying into non-US Dollar assets? Not thinking so much about world equity funds as that is partially deferent than currency hedging. Rather holding assets in other parts of the world / other currencies to partially insulate us from a decline in the US Dollar.

That why you crypto, bro.

 

[Poker Zombie]

I have neglected to diversify my holdings into more than my home currency - 95+% of my assets are denominated in US Dollars. The thought being that my retirement expenses were going to be US Dollars only, so why "protect myself" against currency variation.. I am beginning to wonder if that was/is a mistake.

Should we be diversifying into non-US Dollar assets? Not thinking so much about world equity funds as that is partially deferent than currency hedging. Rather holding assets in other parts of the world / other currencies to partially insulate us from a decline in the US Dollar.

Some people diversify with gold as insurance vs a weakening dollar.

 

[Darson]

I have the traditional boglehead three fund index tracking portfolio with 60% domestic equities, 30% international and 10% bonds.

The domestic equities have outperformed the international over the last 20 years - until this year. There is a reason for diversification hence I’ve stayed the course. I was tempted to go all in on us equities but kept my eyes closed and let the plan play out.

 

[DrStrange]

I am focused on the potential for a declining value of the US Dollar and Dollar based assets. Should I swap Dollar based bonds for Yen or Euro denominated bonds? The risking risk of default in the Treasury market is concerning - is it even plausible that US Treasuries could be priced more like fragile first world economy bonds in the next few years?

There are a host of extra risks moving to foreign currency assets. Things like exchange rate fluctuations, an extra layer of taxation, less liquidity. These add up quickly when investing in an asset that barely covers inflation after taxes. As I think about it, this is a tradeoff taking lower effective yields to gain a layer of protection against a partial collapse of USA debt instruments and the value of the US Dollar. It is a fancy way to buy a bit of {expensive} insurance against disaster.

Buying international equities is easy. There are many funds to pick from. Not simple nor obvious - just easy to do. It is true that internation equities have been a tragic asset class for decades. Foreign equites have been the worst performing items in my portfolio since 2000 - 25 years of poor performance. It is pretty obvious which nation was the biggest winner so far this century when you look at market returns.

 

[ekricket]

Just going to bump this today for all the doomsayers. How’s it going now?

 

[CptainCanuck]

Just going to bump this today for all the doomsayers. How’s it going now?

And by that I mean, I’ve put all my money under a mattress.

 

[Lil Tuna]

Just going to bump this today for all the doomsayers. How’s it going now?

 

[johnjohn]

 

[DrStrange]

It has been an interesting month.

I discovered there are more substantial tax matters to consider when diversifying into foreign currencies. Maybe not so much with stocks or real estate but foreign debt has pretty thin yields that can be quickly reduced to less than inflation by double taxation. My advisors were uniformly discouraging.

As for tariffs, the situation is early. Some of the worst cases didn't come into effect, but they weren't taken off the table either. Many matters are on a ninety-day hold pending finding a mutually agreeable solution. There is cause for hope. No promises, just hope. Not singing "happy days are here again"

The baseline 10% - 30% tariffs are still in play and taking effect. Surely better than reciprocal taxes plus the baseline taxes. The baseline tariff is one of the largest tax increases in American history. It is yet to be seen who is ultimately going to pay the tariff - my bet is the end consumer will pay the bulk of the tariff. We will have to see.

There will be a lot more certainty by Labor Day. No doubt the markets are going to undergo some significant gyrations that may end up averaging out to not much. Or perhaps not. I ponder at the wisdom of giving me a tax cut while raising total taxes on the working classes - what could go wrong?

There is a whole new matter that I have just begun to pay closer attention to, the imminent uptake of artificial intelligence into commercial applications. I had put this into the "someday, maybe in a few years" category, but have been convinced it is likely to be adopted in a big way in 2025-2026. Productivity could skyrocket. Corporate profits in aggregate might soar. There will be some huge losers too but that is to be expected with new technologies.

I wonder if the economic benefits from AI could end up outweighing the costs of tariffs, from the point of view of investors. Higher productivity could easily lead to job losses. But that isn't a problem for the investor class, it is a big opportunity. Even some of the more hostile tariff environments could be oversome with large enough productivity gains.

I remain committed to doing nothing with my stocks and bonds. I hold no gold nor crypto and do not plan on buying any. I still plan to participate in three natural gas projects in 2025 while declining to participate in oil exploration projects. My real estate holding are static. That market is poor and illiquid.

Hard to go too wrong standing pat -=- DrStrange

PS I still worry about the world's willingness to finance the Federal deficit. The ten-year treasury yield is higher than I expected. But I find no cost-effective defense.

 

[ekricket]

It has been an interesting month.

I discovered there are more substantial tax matters to consider when diversifying into foreign currencies. Maybe not so much with stocks or real estate but foreign debt has pretty thin yields that can be quickly reduced to less than inflation by double taxation. My advisors were uniformly discouraging.

As for tariffs, the situation is early. Some of the worst cases didn't come into effect, but they weren't taken off the table either. Many matters are on a ninety-day hold pending finding a mutually agreeable solution. There is cause for hope. No promises, just hope. Not singing "happy days are here again"

The baseline 10% - 30% tariffs are still in play and taking effect. Surely better than reciprocal taxes plus the baseline taxes. The baseline tariff is one of the largest tax increases in American history. It is yet to be seen who is ultimately going to pay the tariff - my bet is the end consumer will pay the bulk of the tariff. We will have to see.

There will be a lot more certainty by Labor Day. No doubt the markets are going to undergo some significant gyrations that may end up averaging out to not much. Or perhaps not. I ponder at the wisdom of giving me a tax cut while raising total taxes on the working classes - what could go wrong?

There is a whole new matter that I have just begun to pay closer attention to, the imminent uptake of artificial intelligence into commercial applications. I had put this into the "someday, maybe in a few years" category, but have been convinced it is likely to be adopted in a big way in 2025-2026. Productivity could skyrocket. Corporate profits in aggregate might soar. There will be some huge losers too but that is to be expected with new technologies.

I wonder if the economic benefits from AI could end up outweighing the costs of tariffs, from the point of view of investors. Higher productivity could easily lead to job losses. But that isn't a problem for the investor class, it is a big opportunity. Even some of the more hostile tariff environments could be oversome with large enough productivity gains.

I remain committed to doing nothing with my stocks and bonds. I hold no gold nor crypto and do not plan on buying any. I still plan to participate in three natural gas projects in 2025 while declining to participate in oil exploration projects. My real estate holding are static. That market is poor and illiquid.

Hard to go too wrong standing pat -=- DrStrange

PS I still worry about the world's willingness to finance the Federal deficit. The ten-year treasury yield is higher than I expected. But I find no cost-effective defense.

TLDR: an asteroid may destroy the earth. Or not.

Just kidding! It’s fine to plan and think about scenarios - but there are good ones as well as bad ones to plan for.

If you are busy entertaining despair in the back of your house, you might miss opportunity at the front door

 

[johnjohn]

It has been an interesting month.

I discovered there are more substantial tax matters to consider when diversifying into foreign currencies. Maybe not so much with stocks or real estate but foreign debt has pretty thin yields that can be quickly reduced to less than inflation by double taxation. My advisors were uniformly discouraging.

As for tariffs, the situation is early. Some of the worst cases didn't come into effect, but they weren't taken off the table either. Many matters are on a ninety-day hold pending finding a mutually agreeable solution. There is cause for hope. No promises, just hope. Not singing "happy days are here again"

The baseline 10% - 30% tariffs are still in play and taking effect. Surely better than reciprocal taxes plus the baseline taxes. The baseline tariff is one of the largest tax increases in American history. It is yet to be seen who is ultimately going to pay the tariff - my bet is the end consumer will pay the bulk of the tariff. We will have to see.

There will be a lot more certainty by Labor Day. No doubt the markets are going to undergo some significant gyrations that may end up averaging out to not much. Or perhaps not. I ponder at the wisdom of giving me a tax cut while raising total taxes on the working classes - what could go wrong?

There is a whole new matter that I have just begun to pay closer attention to, the imminent uptake of artificial intelligence into commercial applications. I had put this into the "someday, maybe in a few years" category, but have been convinced it is likely to be adopted in a big way in 2025-2026. Productivity could skyrocket. Corporate profits in aggregate might soar. There will be some huge losers too but that is to be expected with new technologies.

I wonder if the economic benefits from AI could end up outweighing the costs of tariffs, from the point of view of investors. Higher productivity could easily lead to job losses. But that isn't a problem for the investor class, it is a big opportunity. Even some of the more hostile tariff environments could be oversome with large enough productivity gains.

I remain committed to doing nothing with my stocks and bonds. I hold no gold nor crypto and do not plan on buying any. I still plan to participate in three natural gas projects in 2025 while declining to participate in oil exploration projects. My real estate holding are static. That market is poor and illiquid.

Hard to go too wrong standing pat -=- DrStrange

PS I still worry about the world's willingness to finance the Federal deficit. The ten-year treasury yield is higher than I expected. But I find no cost-effective defense.

Any other insights on natural gas projects that you are paying attention to? I have not been looking at that at all.

 

[DrStrange]

Natural gas prices have come up significantly, though nothing close to the 2022 peak. Still today's prices are double the lows of 2024. Unlike oil, natural gas has minimal competition from OPEC. The market sets the price. Oil prices are kept aloft by cartel decisions and can crater the same way. Weather extremes in the winter tend to set the price of natural gas.

All of my planed drilling projects are in Oklahoma. It isn't fast. Lots of these tracts were started in 2018ish. But the primary operators went broke and left a legal mess followed by a scramble to find a new operator. I am a bit player, nowhere near the size of major companies running the show. Each project is going to cost $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 in total, me paying my proportionate share.

The good thing about drilling for gas, rather than getting gas as a side production from an oil well is there is ample pipeline capacity to sell the gas. Sometimes natural gas produced as a by-product of an oil well has limited access to pipelines and can't be sold for anything close to market price. There were months last year where I had to PAY the operator to burn my gas as a flare because it couldn't be sold for enough to pay the pipeline fees.

It is glorious during good times and agony during bad times. Profiable on average - the variance is a killer. -=- DrStrange

 

[Highli99]

Natural gas prices have come up significantly, though nothing close to the 2022 peak. Still today's prices are double the lows of 2024. Unlike oil, natural gas has minimal competition from OPEC. The market sets the price. Oil prices are kept aloft by cartel decisions and can crater the same way. Weather extremes in the winter tend to set the price of natural gas.

All of my planed drilling projects are in Oklahoma. It isn't fast. Lots of these tracts were started in 2018ish. But the primary operators went broke and left a legal mess followed by a scramble to find a new operator. I am a bit player, nowhere near the size of major companies running the show. Each project is going to cost $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 in total, me paying my proportionate share.

The good thing about drilling for gas, rather than getting gas as a side production from an oil well is there is ample pipeline capacity to sell the gas. Sometimes natural gas produced as a by-product of an oil well has limited access to pipelines and can't be sold for anything close to market price. There were months last year where I had to PAY the operator to burn my gas as a flare because it couldn't be sold for enough to pay the pipeline fees.

It is glorious during good times and agony during bad times. Profiable on average - the variance is a killer. -=- DrStrange

You’re a land man!?

 

[DrStrange]

one of my ancestors was a land man in the 1930's - 1950's. Now we are independent operators. VERY small-time operators.

 

[nezara]

Each project is going to cost $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 in total, me paying my proportionate share.

Group buy?

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

Brand new to this thread, as I was looking to see if there is a PCF investing thread, and this seems to be the most currently active that's somewhat on topic. Is there another thread that discusses specific investing ideas that I haven't found yet?

I've only read the first couple posts from Forest, and this last page. Doesn't seem that this is exactly what I'm looking for, which is possible investing ideas to further investigate. Yes, I know, there are plenty of other places to look for investing ideas. But why not tap my PCF friends as well? I figure anyone who can afford $10K sets of poker chips probably knows how to make money in the market!

Specific situation is I just recently retired, and I've rolled my employer 401K into a self directed IRA that I've been managing for about 15 years. I've done well with it, and expect that I can continue to do better investing in a personal portfolio of stocks, rather than being restricted to the mutual funds available in the 401K. Plus I really hate the firm that manages my 401K - T. Rowe Price. HORRIBLE customer service. I now have almost everything with Fidelity.

So, sitting on a retirement portfolio that's over 20% in cash at the moment. Fidelity is currently paying 3.98% on the money market fund where the cash sits. Not too uncomfortable with that short term, as market volatility so far in 2025 indicates that a correction can take place at any time. My current investment profile is primarily dividend growth stocks, with some pure growth stocks.

If this is not the place to discuss what I'm looking for, and there isn't another appropriate thread, I also had the idea of creating a PM for a limited access discussion for a small handful of members, if anyone is interested in that. Probably better than discussing specifics here where anyone in the world can access it.

Happy Investing!

 

[DrStrange]

There are crypto and speculating threads. Some others are buried in the politics section - quite a lot about investing can involve political matters as well.

I am a big believer in mass market index funds. Most people aren't willing to do the work to successfully invest in individual securities. Many people aren't able to do the work anyway. Very few managed accounts outperform the indexes after fees.

(as an aside, private wealth management for the exceptionally wealthy is a different matter. High risk investments. Investments in closely held securities and/or unregistered securities. Investments that leverage the tax code with the client's other personal assets. Highly illiquid investments. These types of investments can outperform the market. But you likely need an eight or even nine figure net worth to afford to do this.)

It is true that a skilled stock picker may be able to outperform the market. Just like it is true the most skilled poker players can beat the rake. I encourage people to join an investment club to safely learn how to invest in individual securities. If it were easy, everyone would win as we would all be well above average. The last time we suffered through a painful long-term downturn was 2009-2011. Before that was the dot.com bust. Few people have any experience with what happens when market disaster strikes.

YOLO style investing is for "fun" money. Doing it the YOLO way with life changing money . . . . well, I don't have the stomach for that.

This thread is more aimed toward strategies about saving for, preparing for and the successfully retiring with ample money. Some thoughts about investment mix, especially as we navigate changes in risk tolerance due to age or other considerations. There should be discussions about wills, trusts and estates plus insurance and other considerations as we age.

This thread is not so much about stock picking. Be careful out there -=- DrStrange

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

There are crypto and speculating threads. Some others are buried in the politics section - quite a lot about investing can involve political matters as well.

I am a big believer in mass market index funds. Most people aren't willing to do the work to successfully invest in individual securities. Many people aren't able to do the work anyway. Very few managed accounts outperform the indexes after fees.

(as an aside, private wealth management for the exceptionally wealthy is a different matter. High risk investments. Investments in closely held securities and/or unregistered securities. Investments that leverage the tax code with the client's other personal assets. Highly illiquid investments. These types of investments can outperform the market. But you likely need an eight or even nine figure net worth to afford to do this.)

It is true that a skilled stock picker may be able to outperform the market. Just like it is true the most skilled poker players can beat the rake. I encourage people to join an investment club to safely learn how to invest in individual securities. If it were easy, everyone would win as we would all be well above average. The last time we suffered through a painful long-term downturn was 2009-2011. Before that was the dot.com bust. Few people have any experience with what happens when market disaster strikes.

YOLO style investing is for "fun" money. Doing it the YOLO way with life changing money . . . . well, I don't have the stomach for that.

This thread is more aimed toward strategies about saving for, preparing for and the successfully retiring with ample money. Some thoughts about investment mix, especially as we navigate changes in risk tolerance due to age or other considerations. There should be discussions about wills, trusts and estates plus insurance and other considerations as we age.

This thread is not so much about stock picking. Be careful out there -=- DrStrange

Thanks. That is kinda what I expected about this thread. I'm not really interesting in the politics thread. I did that a few years ago. Too much anger. It's not worth enduring that for a few good investing ideas.

I've been working at individual stock investing for 15+ years. Made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of lessons. Some fairly costly. I have a solid idea where most of the money is going, so just looking for a few ideas for the "fun money" as you put it. And always interested in hearing about a new (to me) dividend growth stock.

I love dividend growth investing, and I wish I had discovered it sooner, before making some dumb investments trying to hit homeruns back in the early days of my education. I do feel that with the amount of work I put into it that I can beat the index funds. The idea is that the funds have to buy cross sections of the entire market, whichever sectors they are investing in. So they are buying both the good and the bad, and If I can identify which is which, I only buy the good. I'm never going to buy 100% winners, but I've done pretty well at keeping the losers to a minimum.

 

[CraigT78]

I Yolo everything into NVIDIA. Thankfully I'm quite good at poker. That's all that keeps me afloat.

 

[Frogzilla]

Index funds sounds great if your goal is to never get a yacht

 

[mike32]

Index funds sounds great if your goal is to never get a yacht

I’m fine with index funds and my 2002 23’ pontoon boat.

 

[Darson]

I want to pretend that I can beat the market but there is only one man on the planet who has done that over the long term. So I pretend with a small stash.

I have 80% in index funds and real estate, 10% in some tech stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Google) and 10% in crypto.

I sell now and then to keep the 10% allocations in play money. I had to sell a bunch of Facebook after it went up loads.

If the crypto hits I’m buying a yacht but if it goes to zero then I’m still fine.

 

[DrStrange]

I could adopt a YOLO style of investing but on steroids. Needing eight figures to buy a reasonable Yacht plus seven figures annually to crew and operate it even a 20% annual return isn't going to cut it.

Sounds like a baller flip. Win, I get the yacht and enough money to run it until I die. Lose, I live in a cinderblock subsidized apartment eating what I can get from charity and food stamps.

--or--

I could invest with prudent aggression and end up with enough money to live in a million-dollar home, fly first class whenever I want to, drive luxury cars and spend my wealth however I want. But no private jets, no yachts not even a private island retreat. 100% of the time.

Those of you who have played cards with me know my answer already. I would take the sure thing life of luxury and forego the coin flip of rich beyond avarice or a lifetime of grinding poverty.

Let's go! buy a quick pick with this week's paycheck and pray for luck. Rinse and repeat until dead or filthy rich.

 

[CraigT78]

I was just kidding about Yolo everything into NVIDIA. I took all of my META holdings that I bought at $70 a share and sold at $598 and punted that into NVIDIA (wish I didn't).

But all of my other investments are roughly following this strategy, I rebalance at the beginning of every year:

50% VTI
25% VXUS
15% VNQ
10% VONG

I also have a bunch in company stock that I bought at a 15% but that was when the share price was $30+ (currently $7.71 - thanks Roundup).

The plan is that when I retire, I'll pull three years of living expenses and put it into something conservative, and then do so every year to replace, so I always have three years of expenses in a relatively safe investment - while keeping the rest of the nest egg invested semi aggressively.

I've got a number target and I hope to reach it by 58 and then I'll peace the fuck out of work. It would be sooner, but I want to keep playing poker lol.