Buddha sat under a tree until he discovered how the universe works and saw how we all get caught in a cycle of suffering that lasts billions of lifetimes. His single minded focus upon seeing that was to help teach people how to personally break out of that cycle and permanently get off the hamster wheel of birth, suffering, death, repeat. To me that says the philosophy is antinatalist since you are definitely trying to avoid at least one birth: your own rebirth! I’d think you’d probably want to avoid the karma of your craving for sexual pleasure causing a new being to be born and hence suffer. They definitely don’t promote reproduction like lots of religions do. The whole point of Buddhism is to get enlightened to break the cycle of reincarnation and never be born again. To die and then just remain unborn forever… kinda-ish.
5 years from retirement. Should we reallocate?
Married couple. Retiring in 2031. 200k per year spend. There will be an 80k per year pension. Here is our portfolio. Should we move more to cash? I don’t like bonds so I do VMFXX or VUSXX. Might do a treasury ladder. Should we sell some stocks in traditional IRAs and have more safe money?
I’m trying to de-risk prior to retirement so as to weather a lost decade in stocks should one happen at the worst possible time for us.
| Investment | Amount | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Stocks | $3,907,061 | 65% |
| Real Estate Equity | $1,400,000 | 23% |
| Cash | $571,000 | 9% |
| Gold | $102,408 | 2% |
| Bitcoin | $64,746 | 1% |
Married couple. Retiring in 2031. 200k per year spend. There will be an 80k per year pension. Here is our portfolio. Should we move more to cash? I don’t like bonds so I do VMFXX or VUSXX. Might do a treasury ladder. Should we sell some stocks in traditional IRAs and have more safe money?
| Investment | Amount | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Stocks | $3,907,061 | 65% |
| Real Estate Equity | $1,400,000 | 23% |
| Cash | $571,000 | 9% |
| Gold | $102,408 | 2% |
| Bitcoin | $64,746 | 1% |
Here is our scenario:
I am ready to buy "bonds" with most of the Cash TODAY. Which bond ETF or other suggestion should we do? Currently leaning to VTG or VGIT.
Both AIs are convinced it is VGIT. They say that since it is backed by us government bonds it is less correlated with stocks. Is there any better choice? Looking to park some of my portfolio in bonds for the long term mainly just because all the research and all you folks keep advising it.
I keep having to remind myself that bonds are not really “safe”. They can and do crash or decline in value. You can lose your initial investment. There is this idea that bonds are safe and you should move money into safety as you approach retirement but I can’t seem to convince myself that bonds are safe. Maybe I’m missing the point of bonds, but don’t we need some amount of money safe so that if the market crashes we will survive? To me safe means “cannot lose value” and then once that is established then I’m looking for “earns the most returns” of the various “safe” alternatives. Is it really only the emergency fund which is really safe? And if so, how much do you folks have in yours? I feel like I’d need a lot more safe than most emergency fund recommendations I’ve read to sleep at night. The best portfolio would just be $10+ million all in cash that you could never lose. That would be my goal. Imagine watching your portfolio cross $10 million and NOT cashing in and then watching it lose 40% and stay down for a decade.
People keep talking about Bonds in this forum. Also, they say a certain percentage of your net worth should be in bonds depending on your age or years from retirement. Why? I have put 3 years of our spending in a Treasury ladder and the rest is 100% invested in VTI / VXUS. How is my strategy sub-optimal? What is so magic about Bonds and having them be a percentge of your portfolio vs just having a safe bucket to weather a downturn and the rest invested?
My wife had some accounts under professional management at Fidelity. I kept telling her it was a scam. Finally got AI to analyze the yearly statements for the past 10 years. When she saw the results she terminated management on all those accounts with one 5 minute phone call to Fidelity customer service. The numbers:
Starting balance 2016: 793k
Ending balance 2025: 781k
Withdrawals: 572k
Total fees paid: 87k
What the ending balance would have been with different passive ETF portfolios:
60% VTI / 30% VXUS / 10% BND: $1.11M
VT: $1.16M
70% VTI / 30% VXUS: $1.28M
VTI: $1.53M
VOO / S&P 500: $1.60M
QQQ / Nasdaq-100: $2.59M
Summary:
Over the 10-year period from 2016 through 2025, we paid about 11% of the starting portfolio, or about 17% including lost growth, for professional management that underperformed the S&P 500 by roughly 6% per year.
I've been using the "Real" brand "Cream of Coconut" but it just doesn't hit very hard. Looking for a more intense coconut flavor. What is the best? Looking for product recommendations but may also try to make my own at some point. Cane & Table in NOLA makes the most delicious homemade coconut cream I have ever tasted. Would love to know their recipe.
Using fist sized chunks of mostly pecan and some cherry and hickory wood.
Using fist sized chunks of mostly pecan and some cherry and hickory wood.
I showed her how much she is paying in fees today and she said we gotta get it the hell outta der so we can VT AND CHILL BOGLEBOYYYEEEEEEES!!!!!!
A lot of what is called fusion sounds so technical and complicated to me and this is just like perfect instrumental rock but since it is so good to me it qualifies as a type of Jazz. Anyway, let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy: