This is really good advice. Particularly in a time where fixed income is yielding lower and lower numbers, and the overall portfolio yield is in single digits, and
sometimes low single digits, paying out standard stock and A share mutual funds commissions can just about wipe out all the profit in the account.
Vanguard is excellent at keeping things simple. I have owned Wellington for over thirty years and recommend it highly. Retired now, I may have been a licensed broker and CFP, but what that taught me is that the pros at Vanguard knew a lot more than I did. And if you like playing the horses, betting on stocks, just limit the total investment to five or ten percent of your total portfolio so if you really screw up, the portfolio marches on according to the goals you have set and your own risk tolerance. And certainly your age.
So many older folk find it very hard to get out of equities into fixed income. But they must... They think because they've held IBM for forty years they still should.
Most likely not, though sticking with conservative blue chips in their equity portion is usually a good idea.
My last career was as a financial planner, and every family I dealt with HAD to deal with budgeting and expense management to some degree.
I had a local couple who were going bankrupt, and it seems getting a divorce also, who wanted financial planning because the wife thought the husband was
hiding money on her, as she could not believe she had to "cut back' when they were making $240k per year. Well, when the dust settled, it was pretty obvious they were spending
$270K per year and their options for financial juggling had run out. Yes, seven thousand dollars a month on your credit card is a significant amount mrs. doe but you can spend anything you want every month as long as you live within your means.
The bottom line was always simple. Save first, spend last. Determine your financial goals, determine what you need to save to accomplish them,
which usually gets down to how much per month or paycheck you need to save. And then, and only then, if there is money left over after normal cost of living and
meeting all your savings goals, THEN go buy your plasma big screen. But usually its spend first, and then save whatever is left, which usually isn't much.
I didn't have kids so I was able to retire at age 60 to take care of my wife when she got sick. Less money per year, but still enough.
And since we aren't "taking it with us", our pull rate is 5%, not 4. Everyone's best laid plans seem to go haywire when bad health comes along, or the grandkids need to go to a special learning disabled school and your kids just can't afford it. Kids are expensive because grandkids are expensive! And worth every penny, priceless actually, but that's of little comfort when the fixed income streams just don't allow it.
and since dementia is becoming more and more common, either because of better reporting or ? that the most responsible retirement plans can explode easily if an uncovered long term care illness eats up your savings at $60-80K per year.
It's scary how many people have SS as their only retirement income. How does one cut back when one is already hungry? Sure the system is gamed and abused, but the reality of so many older folk is really grim. So don't be one of them, control your destiny and retirement by saving as much as you can.
