Tag Archives: investments

Offering Help to Family and Others

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Advice may sometimes be the help that’s needed.

Monday we mentioned that now is a time for generosity. If you have a portfolio, you’re fortunate. Millions of people don’t, and they may need your help. How do you handle that in a compassionate and reasonable way? 

To begin, you must know how your portfolio functions in your life: do you depend on it for year-to-year living? Or is it for extras like travel, gifts, or luxuries? That distinction is important because if you help by selling investments and giving the proceeds, you reduce future investment income. That’s not the case with income from work—giving part of a month’s income to a relative in need doesn’t reduce next month’s income.  Continue reading →

Coronavirus and the Retired Investor

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This is not your portfolio!

Fear can paralyze us. We fear the Coronavirus, getting sick, and long waits for treatment. We fear the reactions to the virus, including those of business and government. We are shutting down normal life under the edicts of common sense and government proclamation. Retirees, we’re told, are especially vulnerable because of our age, and we seem psychologically vulnerable as well. Gyrating asset markets add to the stress, and many retirees depend on portfolios for their livelihood. Several people I’ve spoken with wonder whether they’ll be able to sustain themselves through and after this crisis. What should we do?  Continue reading →

If You Have Cash, Should You Buy Stocks Now?

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Over the last 15 years I’ve met several new retirees who are waking up to the poor condition of their portfolios. They saved and invested for years, often choosing mutual funds or annuities offered by employers, then changing jobs, picking new funds, and so on. At retirement they own a collection of high-cost accounts and an unplanned, hard to discern asset allocation. To fix things—plan an asset allocation and convert to low-cost investments—they have to sell old assets and buy new ones. They ask whether it’s better to do it all at once or string it out over weeks, months, or years? Continue reading →

Christy Shen Retired at 31: Is She Crazy?

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Christy and her husband, Bryce, retired in 2014 at age 31; they had about $1.16 million saved, which includes about 4 years of living expenses ($160 thousand–my estimate). Can two people make the money last in Toronto, Canada, where they live? What if they have kids? Continue reading →

Passive Investing: Seniors Near the Edge of Change

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New England 2011_001 With Text

I recently taught a course to retirees on passive investing at the University of Georgia’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). Many in the class had portfolios with various brokers or financial planners, some local, some far away, and the portfolios were complicated and laden with high-cost mutual funds as well as individual stocks and bonds. They were not making much money, and they wanted to hear about a different approach. Continue reading →

A Winner: Passive Investing in 2014

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With the end of 2014, year-end investment returns are coming in, and two noteworthy results are these:

  • Passive investing, especially with Vanguard Group, continues to gain momentum
  • Passive investing, according to preliminary results, produced higher returns than many competing styles of investing.

Continue reading →

What the Big Guys Say about Risk at Retirement

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What should your stock allocation be at your retirement date, or in different words, how much risk (variability) should you tolerate near and at retirement? I discussed this issue in a series of posts earlier this year (see links at end), and recently the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article (paywall) about it.  Continue reading →

Make Money by Managing Investment Risks in Retirement

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Managing your trip in a risky environment

Managing your trip in a risky environment

Risk is sometimes the elephant in the investing room, especially for retirees. People understand stocks as ownership and bonds as debt, but risk is hard to grasp and instinctively dangerous.

Later Living has recently published four posts on risk. Risk and high returns go together, so retirees who want high returns must deal with risk. Here are the four earlier posts knit together into one risk story: Continue reading →

Killer Moves Can Help Wrestle Lumpy Retirement Spending

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Afternoon at a long-term care facility

Afternoon at a long-term care facility

Retirement might be easier if spending needs stayed nearly constant from year-to-year, but they don’t. Long-term care, motor homes, family members in need, and other special plans require lumps of cash at particular times. Continue reading →

Later Living Encores: Ola’s Quilt Shop

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When retirees get to their middle 80s, most don’t want to or can’t stay physically active. Instead they relax, take up hobbies or devote full-time to television. Their conversations often concern their health problems. But there are exceptions, like Ms. Ola Coombs.

Ola had always wanted to have her own quilt shop and she got her chance at age 79. Ola’s Quilt Shop in Lavonia, Georgia opened in May, 2006. This year Ola will turn 87. Continue reading →