[Coronita]

[quote=Myriad][quote=flu]Since I won’t be able to touch my 401k/IRA until 65, my other thing is my non-ira/401k investments with 4% dividend returns would generate $40k/year after taxes if I could consistently hit a 4% dividend return.[/quote]

Sounds like you have a lot of income & assets by the time you’re 60. Why not retire then and start moving all your IRA/401k to Roth?
I’m looking at what to do to reduce my taxable income at 72 to avoid hitting the Medicare IRMAA limits. Mostly involves retiring early enough to move assets from non-Roth to Roth when i retire (assuming markets don’t just die from here on out)[/quote]

Hmmm that’s a good point…. haven’t thought about this. Right now, my 401k is roughly split 50/50 between a traditional 401k and Roth 401k., though this year it’s closer to 40/60 I wish that tax free 30% gain in the S&P500 last year would be the case for a few more years, lol.

Thanks for the suggestion. Need to research.

[Coronita]

You know the funny thing is that, if I wanted to, I could start at 9am at my job, and attend meetings after unproductive meetings all the way to 5-6pm, and in that meeting have virtually nothing to do, except log into piggington like I’m doing now and/or buy and sell stocks from Charles Schwab. And I could probably do this for 3-4 days, every week if I really wanted to.

However, if I wasn’t working… I would probably be at home right now, occasionally log into piggington like I’m doing now and/or buy and sell stocks from Charles Schwab too…

The difference is… I’m getting paid a lot to attend many unproductive meetings, that allows me to log into piggington to post and occasionally buy and sell stock from Charles Schwab, given a cell phone subsidy and medical/dental/vision plan, and getting a 401k match from the company too….And the actual work I do need to help get done only occupies a fraction of my time, that could be done much quicker if companies just didn’t get so entangled in a lot of bullshit meetings. I have a theory. 80% of meetings, you’re listening to someone talking that doesn’t really move the needle.

[Coronita]

[quote=gzz]I am thinking of retiring next year, when I will be 39.

Partly because I am tired of being slightly overweight. Best shape of my life was between school and my first professional job. I ate fresh lean meat and veggies twice a day and worked out daily as well. I looked like a fitness model.

I just don’t have the energy to exercise daily and run a business. Being diagnosed with borderline hypertension which runs in my family is another issue. I am about 135/85 in the middle of the workday with coffee.

Hoping to control it by cutting salt way back and limiting caffeine to 300mg per AHA guidelines. I already eat pretty healthy otherwise and exercise intensely 4 hours on the weekend, plus 4 hours a yard work a week, and walk everyday.

My Dad meanwhile just officially retired this month and is already thinking about a part time job or consulting![/quote]

I’ve learned the hard way if you don’t have your health, it doesn’t matter how much money you have because you won’t be in any condition to enjoy it, and Uncle Sam or someone else does.

For me, going to work keeps me engaged to people and I like what I do. The difference is, these days it’s under my terms, I’ve had conversations where a senior exec said jokingly “we have to be nice to you if we don’t we?” and my standard response with a nice smile on my face is “pretty much…if you think I am adding value…and if not, you should fire me.. I would”. I’m not overly concerned of losing my job, and while there are basic work ethics and work etiquette, I’m not an unreasonable person like *cough* some of my other peers who get butt hurt at the slightest criticism.

The thing I don’t understand is that all these tech companies have a lot of perks like a free gym, clubs, etc. And a lot of colleagues don’t even bother taking advantage of it. And then 10-20 years from now, they look like crap, feel like crap, and spend more time seeing their doctors. It ain’t worth it. No matter how busy I am, I schedule meetings around my gym time. Or some meetings I just don’t bother to attend. Fortunately for me, this crossed my mind when I was 30, not when I’m in my late 40ies like many of my peers are now sadly dealing with.

As far as early retirement, I’m not sure I will ever fully retire. But one thing is important for me is a perpetual income stream. Counting on stock appreciation or asset appreciation isn’t going to cut it, because things don’t appreciate forever. I’m looking these days for income streams, whether it’s property that generates a lot of cashflow or stocks/funds that have reliable dividend income.

My current rental income will be around $65k/year right now after cost. Not bad, not great.

Since I won’t be able to touch my 401k/IRA until 65, my other thing is my non-ira/401k investments with 4% dividend returns would generate $40k/year after taxes if I could consistently hit a 4% dividend return.

So I think right now, if there’s decent alignment, I could have about $100k-110k/year in passive income. But there are costs to quit right now.
…Health insurance for me will be roughly $25k-30k/year, so that leaves me around $70k, no large debt hanging over my head, and my kid’s college mostly funded, there would be incidentals. Also, I would be limited to what I could contribute to my future IRA/401k instead of doing a maximum 401k/IRA contribution right now.

Ideally, I’d like to get my rental income up to around $100k to be comfortable. Not there yet…But this would be my path for the next 20 years until I’m 65, where the remaining in the IRA/401k would be available, which if all goes well will be around $1.5-2million if I don’t screw up majorly with it.
Meanwhile, until I’m unemployable, there’s no reason for me to quit early. I don’t hate what I’m doing, my health is ok, I have plenty of free time and under my terms, my company pays my health insurance, they provide a matching 401k, free gym time, pays for my cell phone, and my salary allows me to maximize my 401k contributions each year and have plenty of left over….without the stress of running a business, at the cost of paying higher taxes.
I’ll keep going until I get fired and become unemployable, lol. Or where the time spent on the job isn’t worth what it pays me.

These unusual melt-up’s in the stock market for the past few year are a lucky windfall. They provide unexpected large windfalls, and yes they probably won’t last forever and left on the table, there’s a risk of them going down….That’s why personally, I like taking money off the table every so often and pay of debt. Because you can’t lose by realizing gain. It’s not a question of winning, it’s then how much did you win by. Not that it would be a case for me, but if the economy goes down, and everyone’s losing their jobs, it’s a great feeling when you don’t need to worry about making mortgage payments on the roof over your head. Then, I’m not stuck taking a job I hate with shitty pay just to pay the bills…and ruining my health by stressing out over money…

[Coronita]

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[Coronita]

[quote=gzz]Re: paying down low interest mortgages… I’ve always regretted doing this. Same regret when I made a big extra payment on my 2.8% fixed student loan.

So many solid unloved blue chips out there that pay a 4% or more dividend and have p/e of around 10.

My current faves are KMB and KHC. I also have Vanguard’s international high-div fund VYMI that pays a little more than 4% and has gone up 8% since my Sept 2019 purchase.

I think there’s a big middle area where conservative investors avoid stocks entirely or just get index funds, and aggro investors stick to rapidly growing companies.

Even if the return is the same, you can sell the stocks if you need the money, but once you repay a purchase mortgage, you’re unlikely to be able to get the same good rate again. 30 year 2nds are rare and cash out refis have a higher rate than purchase mortgages.[/quote]

there is a point in life where you want to arbitrage a low interest loan with higher returns higher risk investment and take additional risk to build wealth

there is another point in life where you want to protect what you’ve built

People get screwed when their goals get mixed up. Those decisions I make irrespective of what the market is actually doing. Why take on extra risk if you don’t need to?

I use to regret paying off my loans. I don’t anymore, because my cash and investment portfolio has basically returned back to the same level last November and went over the previous level end of December. And now all my properties in SD are free and clear. So technically I don’t need to work. Then again, current company is paying me a lot and I get a senior management position so why not. if I stayed at home, I’d get fat and and lazy. Whereas I like going to the free company gym.

I’m not a proponent for doom and gloom. I am not a proponent of pie and the sky euphoria. I’ve learned taking profits and doing something with it constructively is the best thing for me because it’s self-governing to prevent an unexpected disaster from wiping out what you gained . Extreme thinking’s tends to be wrong over an extended period of time

[Coronita]

[quote=spdrun]Whoopssss! Looks like our tariffs on Chinese goods are staying till at least November…

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-loses-perch-at-29000-stocks-turn-negative-as-report-says-china-tariffs-will-remain-until-after-2020-election-2020-01-14

Dow +11, Nasdaq -24.[/quote]

It’s like AMD short sellers that were cheering when they saw AMD go from 32 to 28 before getting creamed going to 49. But hey, without shorts buying to cover at a loss, there wouldn’t be buyers for those selling at a profit. Ha!

[Coronita]

.. meanwhile ….market keeps melting up…lol..

Dow crosses 29k.

[Coronita]

Brick and mortar companies are getting their asses kicked online retail did well over the holidays and Apple is doing ridiculously well.

I don’t know but if I bought a house or rental properties with a loan, and I saw my stock portfolio book a 30% gain in S&P 500 index funds alone last year… I’d not get greedy, take some (but not all) money out the market and pay down some (or all) of my loans just so I could live free and clear or enjoy almost 100% cash flow on rentals….as part of a more general diversification and retire earlier “fxck you money, I no longer need to work” strategy…

After all, there will be probably be a day when all this does correct, but when that happens and how severe is anyone’s guess, you probably should take part of it off the table to secure your future and laugh the way to bank, knowing IF the downturn does happens you are already 20x better off than people who completely sat out of the markets and need to play catch up…. Plus, if there is a downturn, you would be at the front row seat to pick up any discounted assets..And if there isn’t a downturn, you still have 1 foot in the game to real the rewards too. But that’s just me. I wouldn’t trust myself to being able to accurately predkct the future. I’m told I am pretty dumb. And being pretty dumb I need to dumb-proof myself. I suspect theirs probably part of population doing this too as part of their retirement strategy of building a fortress.

[Coronita]

here’s something interesting to invest in given all the tax law.changes.

https://fundrise.com/opportunity-fund

[Coronita]

[quote=rent4now]We recently switched to Tmobile’s Home Internet. We have been pleasantly surprised by the speeds. We average well over 50Mb/s and up to 90Mb/s.Its $50/month compared to $80 we were paying for Cox.
May not work for gamers or others needing faster speeds but for the average household, it works great.[/quote]

That’s good to know !

[Coronita]

Out of all the investing books I’ve read, I really enjoyed reading this book about the virtues of long term, slow drip passive investing

There’s some differences though. The book talks a lot about drip investing in index funds, particularly Vanguard. But these days, especially with all the changes to $0 fee brokerage accounts, you aren’t restricted to Vanguard anymore. You can do the same thing with regular drip investing in ETF’s that track the indexes, like VO, VB, VOO… This race to the bottom of $0 commission really makes it so much easier for starting out.

drip investing imho is a hedge against yourself and your attempt to speculate and/or market time and getting it wrong .

[Coronita]

it’s certainly been very fun for the past few years being part of the run up and taking money off the table to diversify elsewhere. If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have been able to buy and own most ofy properties free and clear simply on a engineers salary alone. not saying it wouldn’t have eventually been possible , but it certainly cut the timeframe down by 10-15 years. Thank you Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, Powell

Everyone wins with a 401k, retirement plan, or drip investment plan. it’s a good thing.

In Federal Reserve Can Kicking We Trust.

[Coronita]

markets going up again despite Iran conflict . AMD gets another upgrade, lol.

Melt up be damned. Meh,not gonna try to make sense of it.
Enjoy the ride!

[Coronita]

What do you guys think of as a long shot Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

[Coronita]

another run for record highs with the indexes despite the Iran conflict ….interesting.

[Author]

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