Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

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snapvestor
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by snapvestor »

JupiterJones wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:53 am As a Gen-Xer myself, most of my investments are tied up in collectible G.I. Joe action figures (with Kung-Fu grip!)
Whew, I’m not alone!
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SantaClaraSurfer
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by SantaClaraSurfer »

snapvestor wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:24 pm
JupiterJones wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:53 am As a Gen-Xer myself, most of my investments are tied up in collectible G.I. Joe action figures (with Kung-Fu grip!)
Whew, I’m not alone!
I know you are both, kind of, joking. But selling collectibles is a great way to find an odd Gen-X dollar.

(For me it was selling two crates of PS1 and PS2 games.)
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tooluser
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by tooluser »

I am at the bleeding edge of GenX. I started investing when you had to call or write your broker to do a trade. You had to actually speak with, or interact with a human (with all their faults) through a phone call or long-distance physical writing on a piece of paper, either of which method you would also be charged for, to effect even your most basic plans. And then the $40 commission per trade at a discount broker - that's a 1% fee on a $4000 trade. Now removed.

I think one of the main items that eventually shaped my investment thinking was a desire to weather changing and often unfortunate times. Grandparents had made it through the Great Depression and had their investment wisdom, such as "never buy stocks". Parents started with Dad working and Mom raising kids, then switched to both working. Oil embargo and massive inflation. Layoffs increasing in frequency, major disasters always in the news. Once the parents retired it was all "thank goodness for the stock market". Technology advancing and changing everything more and more rapidly. I think GenX sees all this turmoil as normal, something you just have to deal with, in ways that other generations do not.

I think it's precisely that sense of instability that led me to understand and embrace the diversified approach. The OP's post doesn't look like buckets to me, but as an exploration of many of the dimensions needed to invest successfully. That kind of discussion didn't exist, at least in public, back in the days when I started investing. There was a very large amount of word-of-mouth advice, most of it awful. The only bonds I encountered when younger were EE savings bonds and WWII war bonds. All I knew when I started was "thank goodness for the stock market". And yet, as two ~50% stock market "somewhat less than once-in-a-generation" declines in my adult lifetime has proved, one must also beware of it.

So spreading investments in a variety of ways appears to be the best answer to the ever-changing situation. I've always got winners and losers in my portfolio. Optimizing the mix to any point in time does not appear to be achievable.

Also: Kel-Bowl-Pak
Last edited by tooluser on Sat Jul 10, 2021 9:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
L82GAME
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by L82GAME »

SantaClaraSurfer wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:56 pm Full disclosure, my wife and I have an average age of roughly 46 y.o. with me being older and her younger, we are empty nesters with two college age kids, and we are double income and not planning on retiring soon.
My wife and I are both Gen-Xers and also have an age spread, but ours is seven years with an avg. age of roughly 52. We have one child who will head to college in ~4 years. I won't comment specifically regarding your investing strategies. Big picture comment; you're saving well and in a low cost manner, and thinking critically about an intelligent portfolio construction relative to an eventual decumulation strategy.

My wife's family has a multi-generation history of Alzheimer's on her mother's side, and her father suffers from dementia. These facts, in combination with our age spread and that I'm the major bread winner has lead me down another path of planning over the past year. In that vein, have you considered the following?
  • Adequate life insurance, respective to each partner, relative to your circumstances while you both are still relatively young and healthy before run-of-the-mill health challenges may occur in middle age;
  • A LTC strategy as part of your planning, which may include spending down assets until you qualify for Medicaid, or ensuring that your portfolio accounts for baseline retirement costs + LTC, or LTCi, etc.;
  • Given your age spread, does the younger spouse want to retire at the same time as the older spouse, or reduce to part-time/seasonal hours, in order to allow for "go go" fun years together in early retirement;
  • Portfolio construction relative to who may be left behind to deal with investments depending on if/when one predeceases the other;
  • Estate planning including at a min. wills, PoAs, Health Care Directives, HIPAA authorizations, and correctly designated beneficiaries listed on life insurance policies and all financial accounts.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand…” - Thoreau
jzachary
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by jzachary »

Thanks for starting this thread. Most posts on this site seem to target the young or retired.

I'm on team no-slice-and-dice. Our investing approach keeps things as simple as possible. We are on the frontend of Gen-X and are looking at retiring within the next decade. Our approach is
  • Max out TSP with an allocation of 2/3 stock and 1/3 TSP G fund. In the stock allocation, we are 2/3 US and 1/3 international.
  • IRAs are in Vanguard Wellington, with new Roth IRA contributions going into Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD).
  • Max out HSA investments in Vanguard Wellesley. We keep enough in an HSA checking account to cover our deductible, but we pay for all medical expenses out of pocket. Those expenses are very low. I treat the HSA accounts as a medical insurance policy, hence the conservative approach. However, I've recently starting putting new contributions in SCHD, as well.
  • Wife has a rollover IRA in SCHD.
  • Taxable is cash heavy at this time. We are building a new home in a LCOL area, and we are not second guessing that decision. We recently relocated from a HCOL area to be closer to family. Children are grown and in professional careers, college and weddings are behind us, and we earned the house we want. Lord knows, it would be the first time.
  • We do what we want. We are prudently frugal and selectively extravagant.
Our plan is to continue building a foundation for investment income in the future. That means hanging on to our substantial investments in Vanguard Wellington for as long as possible, shift new money to SCHD, stay the course on TSP, and pay off our house within the decade.
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MrBobcat
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by MrBobcat »

snapvestor wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:24 pm
JupiterJones wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:53 am As a Gen-Xer myself, most of my investments are tied up in collectible G.I. Joe action figures (with Kung-Fu grip!)
Whew, I’m not alone!
lol, mine are tied up in comic books and matchbox cars (though I still have my GI Joes).

Comic books taught me about inflation. My folks gave me a $1/week allowance. When I started I could buy 5 20 cent comics, then the price went to 25 cents and I could only buy 4, then it went to 30 cents, and then they went to 35 cents. I asked for a raise, but they said no, you can start doing extra chores if you want more money. The 70s were brutal on comic book prices.
Nohbdy
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Nohbdy »

MrBobcat wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:53 am
snapvestor wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:24 pm
JupiterJones wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:53 am As a Gen-Xer myself, most of my investments are tied up in collectible G.I. Joe action figures (with Kung-Fu grip!)
Whew, I’m not alone!
lol, mine are tied up in comic books and matchbox cars (though I still have my GI Joes).

Comic books taught me about inflation. My folks gave me a $1/week allowance. When I started I could buy 5 20 cent comics, then the price went to 25 cents and I could only buy 4, then it went to 30 cents, and then they went to 35 cents. I asked for a raise, but they said no, you can start doing extra chores if you want more money. The 70s were brutal on comic book prices.
I have a friend who thought comic books would surely be a great investment. He has about a pallet’s worth of full collections. This investment has not provided steady income, unfortunately.

For me it is nintendo and atari game cartridges. No expected return, but some part of my id still sees the same unattainable row after row of things I couldn’t afford to buy (but often did anyway) on paper route income, now sold in cheap lots on ebay. If only I had invested that paper route income in a roth ira, I could now withdraw my contribution and buy all the games…

There are life lessons here in inflation, and also the rapid depreciation of most consumer goods, especially tech.
Ron Ronnerson
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Ron Ronnerson »

Nohbdy wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 11:12 am
For me it is nintendo and atari game cartridges. No expected return, but some part of my id still sees the same unattainable row after row of things I couldn’t afford to buy (but often did anyway) on paper route income, now sold in cheap lots on ebay. If only I had invested that paper route income in a roth ira, I could now withdraw my contribution and buy all the games…
Yeah, but then you would’ve missed out on some of the best stuff that Gen X childhood had to offer. I’m not so sure you didn’t make the best decision. I had tons of comics, Atari & Ninetendo cartridges, and action figures. I spent everything I could scrounge up on these things as a kid. No regrets.
DB2
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by DB2 »

MrBobcat wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:53 am
snapvestor wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:24 pm
JupiterJones wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:53 am As a Gen-Xer myself, most of my investments are tied up in collectible G.I. Joe action figures (with Kung-Fu grip!)
Whew, I’m not alone!
lol, mine are tied up in comic books and matchbox cars (though I still have my GI Joes).

Comic books taught me about inflation. My folks gave me a $1/week allowance. When I started I could buy 5 20 cent comics, then the price went to 25 cents and I could only buy 4, then it went to 30 cents, and then they went to 35 cents. I asked for a raise, but they said no, you can start doing extra chores if you want more money. The 70s were brutal on comic book prices.
I could see that being a great lesson in youth about inflation...especially as the 70s hit.
snapvestor
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by snapvestor »

SantaClaraSurfer wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 11:52 pm
snapvestor wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:24 pm
JupiterJones wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:53 am As a Gen-Xer myself, most of my investments are tied up in collectible G.I. Joe action figures (with Kung-Fu grip!)
Whew, I’m not alone!
I know you are both, kind of, joking. But selling collectibles is a great way to find an odd Gen-X dollar.

(For me it was selling two crates of PS1 and PS2 games.)
I’m definitely a big kid even now and during a recent home remodel turned a small 10x10 room into a 15x30 room for my toy collection… Video games, toys, board games, arcades… I’ve slowed down my buying in the last two years but I still get the itch once in awhile. I buy only games 20+ years or older now mainly due to room but also because it’s the sweet spot for me growing up. I grew up on Intellivision and 8bit Nintendo. Nothing beats plugging a cartridge into a game machine and flicking on the power switch for instant enjoyment.
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LatentStoic
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by LatentStoic »

Punching my ticket here on the Gen-X Boglehead thread, as my wife and I are both in the front (oldest) Gen-X year, born in 1965; she's 56 and retired, I'm 55 and was a December enrollee in the Bogleheads 2020 retirement class.

I am happily on the fourth leg of Rick Ferri's investing journey, also in the context of a conservative AA: "The Education of an Index Investor: born in darkness, finds indexing enlightenment, overcomplicates everything, embraces simplicity."
Bogleheads Retirement Class of 2020 at age 55, with Vanguard since 1992. Paraphrasing Rick Ferri, I was “born in darkness, found indexing enlightenment, overcomplicated everything, embraced simplicity.”
stan1
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by stan1 »

Early Gen-X so I had no regrets when our TRS-80 with cassette tape storage and upgraded 16KB of RAM was replaced with an original IBM PC with not one but two 5 1/4" floppy drives. Definitely preferred the TRS-80 over my cousin's Commodore PET. Even then I didn't care for the PET's chiclet keyboard or its embedded cassette recorder that was difficult to clear tape jams from.

The TRS-80 games were written in interpreted BASIC so they came with the source code, so I had to set up the two computers side by side and retype the source code for my Empire game into the new PC (no printer at the time).

As for investing my father bought me about $200 worth of Atari (Warner Communications) stock. Transaction was made by my dad writing a very formal letter sent by USPS mail to a stock broker a Merrill Lynch with the buy instructions. I realize these days my dad would have been reported to child protective services for buying me an individual stock, but Warner was probably a good one to help me see the value of indexing. If only he'd bought me $200 worth of AAPL or MSFT instead.
lazynovice
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by lazynovice »

jzachary wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:33 am Thanks for starting this thread. Most posts on this site seem to target the young or retired.

I'm on team no-slice-and-dice. Our investing approach keeps things as simple as possible. We are on the frontend of Gen-X and are looking at retiring within the next decade. Our approach is
  • Max out TSP with an allocation of 2/3 stock and 1/3 TSP G fund. In the stock allocation, we are 2/3 US and 1/3 international.
  • IRAs are in Vanguard Wellington, with new Roth IRA contributions going into Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD).
  • Max out HSA investments in Vanguard Wellesley. We keep enough in an HSA checking account to cover our deductible, but we pay for all medical expenses out of pocket. Those expenses are very low. I treat the HSA accounts as a medical insurance policy, hence the conservative approach. However, I've recently starting putting new contributions in SCHD, as well.
  • Wife has a rollover IRA in SCHD.
  • Taxable is cash heavy at this time. We are building a new home in a LCOL area, and we are not second guessing that decision. We recently relocated from a HCOL area to be closer to family. Children are grown and in professional careers, college and weddings are behind us, and we earned the house we want. Lord knows, it would be the first time.
  • We do what we want. We are prudently frugal and selectively extravagant.
Our plan is to continue building a foundation for investment income in the future. That means hanging on to our substantial investments in Vanguard Wellington for as long as possible, shift new money to SCHD, stay the course on TSP, and pay off our house within the decade.
“We do what we want. We are prudently frugal and selectively extravagant.” This should be in your signature line in your profile. I am tempted to steal it for my own.
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MrBobcat
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by MrBobcat »

LatentStoic wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:17 pm Punching my ticket here on the Gen-X Boglehead thread, as my wife and I are both in the front (oldest) Gen-X year, born in 1965; she's 56 and retired, I'm 55 and was a December enrollee in the Bogleheads 2020 retirement class.

I am happily on the fourth leg of Rick Ferri's investing journey, also in the context of a conservative AA: "The Education of an Index Investor: born in darkness, finds indexing enlightenment, overcomplicates everything, embraces simplicity."
Exactly where we are at. She was born 1965, me 1966 and have gone through all the steps and we've now embraced simplicity. 3 more years and we can join you in retirement. :D
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tooluser
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by tooluser »

MrBobcat wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 3:06 pm
LatentStoic wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:17 pm Punching my ticket here on the Gen-X Boglehead thread, as my wife and I are both in the front (oldest) Gen-X year, born in 1965; she's 56 and retired, I'm 55 and was a December enrollee in the Bogleheads 2020 retirement class.

I am happily on the fourth leg of Rick Ferri's investing journey, also in the context of a conservative AA: "The Education of an Index Investor: born in darkness, finds indexing enlightenment, overcomplicates everything, embraces simplicity."
Exactly where we are at. She was born 1965, me 1966 and have gone through all the steps and we've now embraced simplicity. 3 more years and we can join you in retirement. :D
The journey has been good. Most of my portfolio has been simplified to Vanguard LifeStrategy funds, but I re-started my investment strategy ten years ago with a 10-speed portfolio that is still a sizeable portion. It was and still is very useful in seeing how the trends in various sectors/factors ebb and wane. Just by rebalancing I buy low and sell high, in a relative sense. I haven't tracked returns, and I doubt it has done better than the broader funds I now pursue, but it has had a knowledge-increasing effect along the journey. At this point it's mostly calming to see that the market froth worldwide goes around and comes around, but it wasn't that way at first.
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SantaClaraSurfer
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by SantaClaraSurfer »

L82GAME wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 4:57 am
My wife and I are both Gen-Xers and also have an age spread, but ours is seven years with an avg. age of roughly 52. We have one child who will head to college in ~4 years. I won't comment specifically regarding your investing strategies. Big picture comment; you're saving well and in a low cost manner, and thinking critically about an intelligent portfolio construction relative to an eventual decumulation strategy.

My wife's family has a multi-generation history of Alzheimer's on her mother's side, and her father suffers from dementia. These facts, in combination with our age spread and that I'm the major bread winner has lead me down another path of planning over the past year. In that vein, have you considered the following?
  • Adequate life insurance, respective to each partner, relative to your circumstances while you both are still relatively young and healthy before run-of-the-mill health challenges may occur in middle age;
  • A LTC strategy as part of your planning, which may include spending down assets until you qualify for Medicaid, or ensuring that your portfolio accounts for baseline retirement costs + LTC, or LTCi, etc.;
  • Given your age spread, does the younger spouse want to retire at the same time as the older spouse, or reduce to part-time/seasonal hours, in order to allow for "go go" fun years together in early retirement;
  • Portfolio construction relative to who may be left behind to deal with investments depending on if/when one predeceases the other;
  • Estate planning including at a min. wills, PoAs, Health Care Directives, HIPAA authorizations, and correctly designated beneficiaries listed on life insurance policies and all financial accounts.
Life Insurance: We are covered, and with college being mostly paid for and good insurance coverages, we are now in good shape. Of the two of us, I am the one whose employment has gaps and spells contracting, and also earn less, so, though I'm covered through her employer with a very solid plan, I really should purchase a small plan via my former university just to cover the immediate expenses component my death would incur. Whenever I'm FT with an employer I purchase all the insurances and all the optional buy ups. They are a good deal.

LTC Strategy We don't have that insurance yet. Open to hearing advice. We would most likely fall in the camp of incorporating LTC if needed in the portfolio given where we will likely end up, and not be candidates for a spend down.

Age spread I enjoy working and hope to be healthy and fit to work, in some way, maybe part time or self employed, up to 67. She really enjoys her role and is growing into more responsibilities. She will likely work to 60 or 62 at least, and earn much more than me doing so, which could be at least 5-7 years of her working and me retired or part-time. Our main plan is to do things and be happy now, and make sure to have as good a 50s/40s, 60s/50s together as possible so that when we get to 70s/60s we aren't trying to race to do things. We are very happy and lucky now. As I mentioned, we were quite happy when we had much, much less net worth. Maybe investing in our own long term health is also a smart idea?!

The age spread impacts the 401(k) plans. First, we will have a high income with high marginal tax rates right up to the point I take RMDs, there won't be any years where we don't. Second, I'm not really going to tell the higher income, younger earner to put her 401(k) in bonds in her early 40s when she has 30 years to let that account run. (Also, growing that account is precisely what can give her protection if she lives much longer than me, knowing I will likely die first.) What seems most fair is to set both accounts to our respective target dates and let them grow. We have a high marginal tax rate, so the benefit of 401(k) contributions is quite large on the front end. The hourly financial adviser we consulted most recently endorsed this approach. Basically, to be tax smart now and tax smart based on our situation later, but not tax avoidant. She said, "look, given your ages you may have a high income in retirement if things go well, that comes under the category of problems you'd like to have."

Trust/Legal We have a lawyer-created Family Trust with a Will and solid directives and beneficiaries that a quality law firm created with our input. We will update it every five years or so.

I agree, it's not too soon for Gen X'ers to think about all of these topics. Thanks for the feedback and the reminder.
FindingPaths
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by FindingPaths »

This was a fun thread to read, I need to ponder refactoring some. Thanks OP!

I'm in the front side of the GenX at an avg 44. We have a 9yo so we see that timeline ahead.

* Kid: 529 with a semester or two but the rest is on them.
* Kid: Custodial that they save and we match.
* Kid: this year we're setting them up with their own contracting business and rothing them (we own a family business and that gives them flexibility to do yard work / etc and donate to the fund. we think this will knock it out of the park for them later in life.)
* Us: Majority of funds manually follow the 2055 Vanguard fund (VTI/VXUS/BND/BNDX) but not sure if I like the BND/BNX choice.. need to think on that a lot this year.
* Us: 1% Crypto into fundamental researched positions for adoption--no meme coins, still up 8% for the year so its a nice cheap DCA and 50% are staked.
* Us: 4% Small factor tilt into cyber security and healthcare, positions have been good, should continue if the focus and silver gen keeps moving.

Most of our money was generated through a windfall so we're converting a bIRA into a brokerage trying to juggle the transfer to keep the investment growth counter the taxable hit back in to regain the lost power over the 10 years. IRAs/SEP we had are small in comparison but we continue to max out. Hopefully we'll put a 401k in as soon as I change our companies designation and we'll max that out for all three of us.

If I can I'd like to know I can start a draw at 55-60 but I'm a creator so if I don't, awesome, if I do, awesome.

It'd be nice to get out of this sideways market cha-cha but it is what it is.
NiceUnparticularMan
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

L82GAME wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 4:57 am Given your age spread, does the younger spouse want to retire at the same time as the older spouse, or reduce to part-time/seasonal hours, in order to allow for "go go" fun years together in early retirement;
As the younger spouse in our spread situation, I would suggest this is obviously the right solution. Negotiations are ongoing . . . .
Portfolio construction relative to who may be left behind to deal with investments depending on if/when one predeceases the other;
Nonetheless I am very worried about this, particularly after a recent health scare, given the complexity of what I have done (a complexity I now for the most part question). So I now plan to radically simplify everything when we retire, and maybe sooner depending on some other things.
NiceUnparticularMan
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

Ron Ronnerson wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:23 pm
lazynovice wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 12:31 pm
MrBobcat wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 12:25 pm
Ron Ronnerson wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 9:46 pm One thing that’s sort of interesting to me is the different stages that people who are the same age can be in. My wife and I turn 47 this year and our daughter just finished kindergarten. The fact that we became parents at the very tail-end of our 30s vs. earlier affects all sorts of choices we’ve made as a result. Many of our friends have kids who are already grown up while others our age have children just as young as ours. It’s sort of strange.
I feel the same way, my best friend (same age as me) oldest just graduated from HS and has another one going to start his Jr. Year in HS. My youngest graduated college 6 years ago. I used to feel slightly jealous when he and his wife traveled and did things prior to kids, now not so much as I wouldn't want HS kids in the house, and now we can travel while he's stuck paying for college, lol.
I see advantages to both approaches. I think having adult children in our prime earning years makes it far easier to pay for things I might otherwise not have paid for. Taking them on vacation, helping with car purchases so I know they are safe, helping with weddings, etc etc. If I had kids later, I probably would have said “Sorry, can’t help” and I might have saved a lot of money in the long run. Interesting to watch my friends who waited longer take their kids on much nicer vacations than we could so maybe not.
I agree about the advantages (as well as disadvantages) to both. One thing that comes to my mind is how vastly different travel was in our 30s vs. these days. In our case, becoming parents at age 39 meant that we could travel pretty freely throughout our 30s. We were younger and had plenty of energy and were kid-free. We tried to utilize that time period and took trips to places like the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Dubai, Croatia, Greece, and a bunch more. However, we had much less money to our names at the time and it was a tricky thing to try to use the opportunity to visit these places but do so on a budget.

It's been so different in our 40s. We’ve taken multiple trips to Hawaii, Disneyland, and Las Vegas (to visit family and enjoy swimming at the Mandalay Bay pool). We’re in a much better place financially so are able to spend more freely now on vacations but haven’t been interested in venturing too far from home during the kid's early years. When our daughter gets a little older, we’re hoping to start doing some international travel again. We’ll be in our 50s then and hopefully we will still have enough energy to enjoy it as much as we did in our 30s. On the one hand, it will be neat to take our daughter along and share the experiences with her. On the other hand, it won't just be my wife and me. So, yes, there are upsides and downsides.
We started like you but just never stopped. We've dragged our kids to a bunch of different countries on a near-annual basis, although mostly in Europe because that to us is pretty easy to do with kids as long as you have a decent budget to work with--we stay in centrally-located vacation rentals, hire tour guides with vehicles to take us on day trips, that sort of thing. We have yet to take them to a Disney location . . . .

Not saying one has to do it that way, but if your kids are traveling internationally from 6 months on, they at least get used to it. Jaded, even. One of my favorite kid stories is us standing outside a gorgeous church near Barcelona, and my son saying loudly (enough to get a chuckle out of many nearby), "Eh, I've seen better."
NiceUnparticularMan
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

lazynovice wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:35 pm Traveling with family means condos and bigger hotel rooms plus 4x airfare and 4x food.
Not to turn this into a travel advice thread, but vacation rental apartments has made it so much easier to travel with kids. Decent hotels in central locations (so as to not be taking long public transportation rides to sights), with enough space such as to not be on top of each other, plus eating out each meal, is expensive! Apartments typically have way more space, and more flexible space, per money spent, and then you can shop for groceries and eat a lot of meals for a fraction of the cost of eating out.

Of course sometimes there are misadventures associated with this approach, but same with hotels really. It also makes the most sense if you are spending at least several nights per place, but that also is a good idea with kids.
lazynovice
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by lazynovice »

NiceUnparticularMan wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 6:31 am
lazynovice wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:35 pm Traveling with family means condos and bigger hotel rooms plus 4x airfare and 4x food.
Not to turn this into a travel advice thread, but vacation rental apartments has made it so much easier to travel with kids. Decent hotels in central locations (so as to not be taking long public transportation rides to sights), with enough space such as to not be on top of each other, plus eating out each meal, is expensive! Apartments typically have way more space, and more flexible space, per money spent, and then you can shop for groceries and eat a lot of meals for a fraction of the cost of eating out.

Of course sometimes there are misadventures associated with this approach, but same with hotels really. It also makes the most sense if you are spending at least several nights per place, but that also is a good idea with kids.
That is what we did- VRBOs. It allowed us to eat breakfast in the room and snack at night, but compared to a couple in a standard hotel room, more than double the cost for lodging. And we’d still eat the other meals out which wasn’t too much more during kid menu days but once they hit the teenage years…
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drumboy256
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by drumboy256 »

SantaClaraSurfer wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:56 pm Throwing up a thread for those us in this smaller demographic generation that's been in the news of late.

Whatever your numeric age, if you fall outside of the "retired or retiring very soon" universe but have left (or never been in) the young accumulator "100% stocks" or "FIRE" universe, some of these thoughts may be relevant to you. Full disclosure, my wife and I have an average age of roughly 46 y.o. with me being older and her younger, we are empty nesters with two college age kids, and we are double income and not planning on retiring soon.

1. EE Bonds / I Bonds: I think these both make sense for Gen X because the 20 year horizon and the 3.5% guarantee on the EE Bonds can provide a really nice income floor 20 years out at a low price point. Given that there are not pensions for private sector employees going forward, this helps fill that guaranteed retirement income niche, but in a smaller way. The I-Bonds work really well as a steady buy and hold place to park cash and have it hold its value against the CPI. All we have to do is purchase these regularly. (Personally, we purchase about $9,000 EE per year and $5,000-$8,000 I Bonds per year.)

2. Long Term Treasury Bonds: This is a topic that gets a bit confusing here for Gen-X'ers because people of varying ages and retirement stages have distinct views. I've recently been using Long Term Treasury Bonds (via SCHQ in taxable, and VLGSX in my 401(k)) as a go to Bond Fund purchase with every Equity purchase. For this purpose, I think they work really well. So, in taxable, if I purchase $800 in Equity Index funds, I'll make sure to purchase $200 in SCHQ Long Term Treasuries. I only started doing this in 2021, but despite the doom and gloom, every single LTT purchase I've made is up for the year...and pays a steady dividend...and will provide us protection if equities drop. I've read so many posts that are negative about Long Term Treasuries, but frankly I see it the exact opposite of most critics of Long Term Treasuries if you have a Gen X horizon. Making steady LTT Index Fund purchases allows us to confidently make Equity purchases and (hopefully) stick to our IPS in coming decades.

3. 401(k) / RMDs: Edit to make it clear we max our tax deferred. Our approach to 401(k)s has been to max them out in a Target Date Fund formula based on our retirement age targets. We don't expect to draw on these until either of us reach the RMD age, and that age keeps getting pushed back by new policies. So, for example, I'm not planning on drawing on my 401(k) for 23 years and my wife for 33 years, or so. Personally, I think that makes having any kind of "for certain" tax planning with regards to our 401(k)s premature. Our goal is simply to contribute the max and leave on auto-rebalancing within a low-cost TDF. This means we are equity (and also International Equity market weight) forward in our 401(k)s versus trying to park as many Bond investments in them as possible for tax reasons, which makes no sense to me given our time horizon. We are essentially set and forget on a Vanguard TDF glide path in our 401(k)s.

4. International: We are attempting to be market weight with International whenever possible. Our long term horizon is 40-50 years, so I don't think any other approach makes sense. That's easy to do with both of our 401(k)s in a Vanguard universe, so we are simply sticking with the Vanguard allocation. While US over-weighting seems to have worked for many of our respected Boglehead colleagues, it just doesn't make sense to us at our age and looking forward for multiple decades.

5. Housing: We are currently renting and have been for the last six years. We don't really see a downside to this as the fees/taxes/interest of most places we'd be interested in buying in our area more than equal our current rent. Also the idea of a 30 year mortgage being a "no brainer investment" for a two income household is, at a minimum, changing more to a strong "it depends" kind of consideration in our experience. What will mortgages and resale value look like 25 years from now? That's a non trivial question.

6. Taxable Brokerage Accounts: We are huge fans. The flexibility we've gained by pooling our college, retirement, and spending savings in one place has been a force multiplier. Building a savings/investing war chest in a taxable brokerage account also really flips the script with regards to job changes and navigating a changing job environment. We can use brokerage account funds at any time for anything we want or need, including investing in our own careers. The peace of mind and flexibility gains are super powerful.

7. Municipal Bonds: We've steadily been purchasing Municipal Bonds and haven't regretted it yet. It's a complement to our EE and I bond purchases, and adds to our diversification with tax-free dividends.

8. Stock/Sector Fund: We steadily put about 5% of our total investments in a mix of Individual Stocks and Sector Funds. We keep this in a separate brokerage account that we don't rebalance. We don't think of this as play money, more that we have a long term commitment to make steady investments that have very long term growth potential. Looking forward, whether this pays off or not, we could also use some of these funds for charitable giving/donating down the road.
Ah yes... I've been waiting for a topic like this because for the most part, it seems Gen X or Zenials (which I would consider myself leaning Gen X with Zenial tendency--- either way, you label me, you'd still be wrong....) are told to sit down and shut up. That said, you bring up some very good points that gets talked about quite a bit here and I would bet, others probably feel the same way I do.

1.) EE/I-Bonds. Honestly, I doubt I'll ever use these or sign up for these because it sounds like TreasuryDirect is a pain in the ass. Not only that but having assets outside of a single umbrella is not ideal (at least for me). I think its great that people can find yield in a safe way but I think people touting them as the second coming of Jesus need to calm down.

2.) I would consider myself an apostle of Vineviz because the first 20% of my Bonds are LTT. 6 months ago, I had 0% Bonds. What changed? Realizing that my portfolio was 1) not diversified enough and 2) I couldn't stomach a 40-50% drop of my retirement accounts. Not owning LTT as a core tenet of your portfolio seems wrong to me--- not like you're drinking the wrong koolaid wrong--- but still, a burger without cheese wrong. You mention sticking to the IPS--- this is most key to me. If your risk tolerance changes, the first place you need to go is look in the mirror--- say the words out loud and then update your IPS and plan accordingly.

3.). It is much easier to save money that it is to budget RMD's. It's hilarious actually how much easier it is save and invest vs. figure out how to pull money out when you're retired. After re-reading the Wiki a few times and a lot of scenarios, pulling money out of a "Bond" fund, sell stocks to backfill Bonds but then what next? Sequence is also important--- Taxable, Tax advantaged- tax deferred, tax advantaged - no tax Roth generally is the play but to your points, its almost like we need flash cards on this.
3a.) Second point here is I've come to the conclusion that a Roth 401k (if offered) is really only for those folks who are bored and have too much money that they know what to do with. Now before people jump down my throat about "BUT 0% TAX!" Cool story bro--- technically, I would rather have tax advantaged, tax deferred with the OPTION of doing a backdoor Roth later down the road IF I SO CHOOSE. This to me is a big missed point (imo) in the conversation around understanding a persons "nominal" tax rate of Federal + state to lower your income. I would also say, funding your Roth IRA accounts early on (as I'm trying to convince my niece to do so....) is the best gift anyone could give themselves later on.... provided they're buying VTI or VT. 8-)

4.) "Tale as old as time...." How much International to buy? What to buy? Factor invest against EM or value EM? Holy lord..... I hold VT in a few rollover IRA and Roth IRA accounts which is sitting around 56/44 split. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. If you own 30% international as part of your wholistic portfolio, you've achieved around 99% of the International market. So what does my IPS say? Own 20-30% of the International market. Right now I'm sitting at 13% International and I am buying FTIHX to bring that number number up over time of which I'm not sweating "FOMO" of missing out because my plan (to me anyways) is solid and will move the needle over time which may or may not be what other people would do but hey, I'm fine with it. Your mileage may vary.

5.) Housing. I will fully admit that somehow, stupidly, we've market timed on buying and selling housing of which our current house has gone up in value by almost 40% in the last 5 years which is nuts. I also am not a firm believer in investing in housing as an "asset" class to earn income because honestly, I don't have the time to do with being a landlord and I also have a viewpoint that housing shouldn't be artificially withheld from people that want to buy a house. Renting vs. owning-- having never rented (a house, had a few apartments/condos), I don't have a view point of that.

6.) Taxable yes, how soon you can get there? Totally depends on your savings rate, if you and your partner/spouse is working as well--- oh yeah--- do you have kids? $1.5M per kid later--- taxable is nice if you can get to it. Personally, I'm working as sole provider for the family so the DW doesn't have to work and home school the kids as needed. Is that everyone? Of course not. I'm on the verge of replacing our combined incomes under my one job which is at a Fortune 100 company--- but it's a grind. My hope is to start our taxable next year.

7.) Muni bonds--- *yawn*. That's my reaction to them. Maybe I don't understand them enough to care.

8.) Play money--- again, like taxable, if you've got money to spend, I say why not.

9.) [My personal addition to the conversation] - I think we (as a community) need a good push on actual "saving rate" conversation. Planning, purchasing, percentages etc. are all cool, but unless you're saving at least 10-15% of your paycheck with matches, you're going to miss out on compounding faster. My thinking of this is trying to figure out a glide path for saving of which I'll point the mirror at myself--- when I got my first job in my industry at about $14/hr that's around $27k a year (SO MUCH MONEY!!! :moneybag :moneybag :moneybag )

Roughly, if I had saved 50% of my paycheck towards a Roth or even 401k, I would suggest a glide path to myself as the following:
20-25 - Save 50%
25-30 - Save 30%
30-35 - Save 25%
40-45 - Save 20%
45-50 - Save 15%

Reason being--- life gets expense with kids between 25-40 of which if you've saved that money early on, it's compounding. Of course, this would just be a guideline since technically, if you followed this glide path and moved up jobs/promotions etc. you could in theory, max out any employer 401k + match and a Roth.

Food for thought. Great thread!
Promise is one thing. Fulfilling that promise is quite another. - Sir Alex Ferguson | 20% IVV / 40% IBIT / 20% IXUS / 20% VGLT + chill
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by MoonOrb »

+1 to VRBO/AirBnb for traveling. The amount saved on food alone really adds up. Not to mention, there's something to be said for not having 3 meals out/day (at least for us, when we might eat one meal out every two weeks; if we were to eat 2-3 meals out a day for a week or two, ugh).
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by lazynovice »

drumboy256 wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:20 am
7.) Muni bonds--- *yawn*. That's my reaction to them. Maybe I don't understand them enough to care.
If you do not have a taxable account you don’t need muni bonds. If you have room in your 401(k) to hold your bond allocation you don’t need muni bonds. They are just a way to hold bonds in taxable without federal income tax on the interest. If you own a fund that only invests in your state, then you have no state taxes on the interest. They make a lot of sense for high earners in high income tax states. I’d say until you need them, that is all you need to know.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by drumboy256 »

lazynovice wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:38 am
drumboy256 wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:20 am
7.) Muni bonds--- *yawn*. That's my reaction to them. Maybe I don't understand them enough to care.
If you do not have a taxable account you don’t need muni bonds. If you have room in your 401(k) to hold your bond allocation you don’t need muni bonds. They are just a way to hold bonds in taxable without federal income tax on the interest. If you own a fund that only invests in your state, then you have no state taxes on the interest. They make a lot of sense for high earners in high income tax states. I’d say until you need them, that is all you need to know.
Good to know. Seems like a lot of the attention for them is folks in CA.
Promise is one thing. Fulfilling that promise is quite another. - Sir Alex Ferguson | 20% IVV / 40% IBIT / 20% IXUS / 20% VGLT + chill
NiceUnparticularMan
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

lazynovice wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:01 am
NiceUnparticularMan wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 6:31 am
lazynovice wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:35 pm Traveling with family means condos and bigger hotel rooms plus 4x airfare and 4x food.
Not to turn this into a travel advice thread, but vacation rental apartments has made it so much easier to travel with kids. Decent hotels in central locations (so as to not be taking long public transportation rides to sights), with enough space such as to not be on top of each other, plus eating out each meal, is expensive! Apartments typically have way more space, and more flexible space, per money spent, and then you can shop for groceries and eat a lot of meals for a fraction of the cost of eating out.

Of course sometimes there are misadventures associated with this approach, but same with hotels really. It also makes the most sense if you are spending at least several nights per place, but that also is a good idea with kids.
That is what we did- VRBOs. It allowed us to eat breakfast in the room and snack at night, but compared to a couple in a standard hotel room, more than double the cost for lodging. And we’d still eat the other meals out which wasn’t too much more during kid menu days but once they hit the teenage years…
To be sure it is more expensive for us compared to the days we'd be using a cheap B&B or hostel somewhere on the outskirts of whatever town we were visiting . . . .

But I will say we usually found in comparable locations, we could get a modest rental apartment with separate sleeping spaces for less than the price of two decent hotel rooms, or a hotel room with truly separate bedrooms. Maybe not less than a single room with four sleeping places in one space, but usually the extra amount above one hotel room but below two hotel rooms was more than worth it for some separation.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by FindingPaths »

lazynovice wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:38 am If you do not have a taxable account you don’t need muni bonds. If you have room in your 401(k) to hold your bond allocation you don’t need muni bonds. They are just a way to hold bonds in taxable without federal income tax on the interest. If you own a fund that only invests in your state, then you have no state taxes on the interest. They make a lot of sense for high earners in high income tax states. I’d say until you need them, that is all you need to know.
Where can I get more info on this? As someone who just about only has taxable accounts I'd like to dig into it further.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by hornet96 »

drumboy256 wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:20 am

3.). It is much easier to save money that it is to budget RMD's. It's hilarious actually how much easier it is save and invest vs. figure out how to pull money out when you're retired. After re-reading the Wiki a few times and a lot of scenarios, pulling money out of a "Bond" fund, sell stocks to backfill Bonds but then what next? Sequence is also important--- Taxable, Tax advantaged- tax deferred, tax advantaged - no tax Roth generally is the play but to your points, its almost like we need flash cards on this.

3a.) Second point here is I've come to the conclusion that a Roth 401k (if offered) is really only for those folks who are bored and have too much money that they know what to do with. Now before people jump down my throat about "BUT 0% TAX!" Cool story bro--- technically, I would rather have tax advantaged, tax deferred with the OPTION of doing a backdoor Roth later down the road IF I SO CHOOSE. This to me is a big missed point (imo) in the conversation around understanding a persons "nominal" tax rate of Federal + state to lower your income. I would also say, funding your Roth IRA accounts early on (as I'm trying to convince my niece to do so....) is the best gift anyone could give themselves later on.... provided they're buying VTI or VT. 8-)
3) I have started to think about this lately as well. We hope to retire in the next 10-15 years or so, at which time the discussion will flip to "what is the best way to start drawing down all of this money we've saved for so long?" Particularly if we retire a bit before 59 1/2, notwithstanding the special provisions of 401k's allowing penalty-free withdrawals at 55 if you retire from that plan's employer. It seems like the withdrawal strategy decisions will be much more complicated than the saving & investing decisions - especially for those BH's who try to make use of every kind of advantageous account possible (401k's, Backdoor Roth's, iBonds, taxable accounts, etc.)

3a) I'd disagree a bit here, although maybe my disagreement fits into the "folks who have too much money" situation. :happy If you're already maximizing all tax-deferred space, plans that allow for an in-service conversions of after-tax contributions to Roth (i.e. "Mega Back-Door Roth") effectively provide for additional tax advantaged space. $19.5K is the limit for pre-tax contributions, but 401k plans currently have a total limit of $58K per year for all forms of contributions (EE + ER, pre-tax and after-tax), which would allow one to potentially get an ADDITIONAL ~$39K into a Roth account each year (less if you get an ER match on your pre-tax contributions). So for those with very high savings rates, the question isn't "either/or," but rather it's "why not do both - max out pre-tax AND after-tax contributions to tax favored accounts." :sharebeer
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

drumboy256 wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:20 am Not owning LTT as a core tenet of your portfolio seems wrong to me--- not like you're drinking the wrong koolaid wrong--- but still, a burger without cheese wrong.
Nominal LTT or long-term TIPS?

If you want a portfolio biased toward unexpected disinflation/deflation protection, nominal LTT might be a good idea.

If you want a portfolio biased toward unexpected inflation protection, the right answer may be zero nominal LTT, because LTT are just going to offset whatever else you are doing to create that unexpected inflation protection. But then you could do TIPS instead.

Either way, you are getting very low expected returns these days. So the price of that protection has gotten high. I don't think that means you definitely shouldn't buy some, but I do think it means you should be careful not to expend those costs in ways that are just going to offset anyway.
9.) [My personal addition to the conversation] - I think we (as a community) need a good push on actual "saving rate" conversation. Planning, purchasing, percentages etc. are all cool, but unless you're saving at least 10-15% of your paycheck with matches, you're going to miss out on compounding faster. My thinking of this is trying to figure out a glide path for saving of which I'll point the mirror at myself--- when I got my first job in my industry at about $14/hr that's around $27k a year (SO MUCH MONEY!!! :moneybag :moneybag :moneybag )

Roughly, if I had saved 50% of my paycheck towards a Roth or even 401k, I would suggest a glide path to myself as the following:
20-25 - Save 50%
25-30 - Save 30%
30-35 - Save 25%
40-45 - Save 20%
45-50 - Save 15%

Reason being--- life gets expense with kids between 25-40 of which if you've saved that money early on, it's compounding. Of course, this would just be a guideline since technically, if you followed this glide path and moved up jobs/promotions etc. you could in theory, max out any employer 401k + match and a Roth.
Yeah, I am skeptical this can really get mapped out because careers, families, and so on can develop in lots of unexpected ways, both good and bad (and what is good in some ways may be bad financially, and vice-versa). I also note that sometimes spending more young can be an investment in higher future earnings, whether that means education, maybe a relocation, or so on.

So I do think people should be trying to get started saving early, due to compounding, particularly in tax-advantaged accounts.

But exactly how much now versus later I think you just have to feel out over time.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by lazynovice »

FindingPaths wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 10:14 am
lazynovice wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:38 am If you do not have a taxable account you don’t need muni bonds. If you have room in your 401(k) to hold your bond allocation you don’t need muni bonds. They are just a way to hold bonds in taxable without federal income tax on the interest. If you own a fund that only invests in your state, then you have no state taxes on the interest. They make a lot of sense for high earners in high income tax states. I’d say until you need them, that is all you need to know.
Where can I get more info on this? As someone who just about only has taxable accounts I'd like to dig into it further.
Here is the wiki page:
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Municipal_bonds

I use Vanguard Tax Exempt Intermediate Bond Index in the ETF form (VTEB). I do not want to take state specific risk. If the economy in my state goes south, my job is more sensitive to that than say someone who lives in California. And state taxes where I live are not too bad. If I owned more of it or lived in a higher tax state, I’d reconsider.

You’ll also find a lot of threads on it by searching for tax exempt bond funds or even the VTEAX which is the mutual fund version. There are others beside Vanguard who offer them besides Vanguard.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Bagels »

Thank you for your thoughts, Gen-X'er.
SantaClaraSurfer wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:56 pm Full disclosure, my wife and I have an average age of roughly 46 y.o. with me being older and her younger

Same, but we were blessed with zero children. :wink: My wife is not into investing so the choices are up to me.

Savings bonds: Yes
Long term treasuries: Yes. I know boglehead conventional wisdom says no, but I came to appreciate them by way of Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio.
International: Was never interested. I only hold international stocks in Vanguard's Target Retirement 2035 and an Israel ETF.
Muncipal bonds: torn. Income doesn't justify it, but I used to hold it in the name of diversification. Now it's just treasuries and some corporate bonds.
missing [b]madsinger[/b]’s monthly reports
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Ron Ronnerson »

NiceUnparticularMan wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 6:25 am
Ron Ronnerson wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:23 pm
lazynovice wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 12:31 pm
MrBobcat wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 12:25 pm
Ron Ronnerson wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 9:46 pm One thing that’s sort of interesting to me is the different stages that people who are the same age can be in. My wife and I turn 47 this year and our daughter just finished kindergarten. The fact that we became parents at the very tail-end of our 30s vs. earlier affects all sorts of choices we’ve made as a result. Many of our friends have kids who are already grown up while others our age have children just as young as ours. It’s sort of strange.
I feel the same way, my best friend (same age as me) oldest just graduated from HS and has another one going to start his Jr. Year in HS. My youngest graduated college 6 years ago. I used to feel slightly jealous when he and his wife traveled and did things prior to kids, now not so much as I wouldn't want HS kids in the house, and now we can travel while he's stuck paying for college, lol.
I see advantages to both approaches. I think having adult children in our prime earning years makes it far easier to pay for things I might otherwise not have paid for. Taking them on vacation, helping with car purchases so I know they are safe, helping with weddings, etc etc. If I had kids later, I probably would have said “Sorry, can’t help” and I might have saved a lot of money in the long run. Interesting to watch my friends who waited longer take their kids on much nicer vacations than we could so maybe not.
I agree about the advantages (as well as disadvantages) to both. One thing that comes to my mind is how vastly different travel was in our 30s vs. these days. In our case, becoming parents at age 39 meant that we could travel pretty freely throughout our 30s. We were younger and had plenty of energy and were kid-free. We tried to utilize that time period and took trips to places like the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Dubai, Croatia, Greece, and a bunch more. However, we had much less money to our names at the time and it was a tricky thing to try to use the opportunity to visit these places but do so on a budget.

It's been so different in our 40s. We’ve taken multiple trips to Hawaii, Disneyland, and Las Vegas (to visit family and enjoy swimming at the Mandalay Bay pool). We’re in a much better place financially so are able to spend more freely now on vacations but haven’t been interested in venturing too far from home during the kid's early years. When our daughter gets a little older, we’re hoping to start doing some international travel again. We’ll be in our 50s then and hopefully we will still have enough energy to enjoy it as much as we did in our 30s. On the one hand, it will be neat to take our daughter along and share the experiences with her. On the other hand, it won't just be my wife and me. So, yes, there are upsides and downsides.
We started like you but just never stopped. We've dragged our kids to a bunch of different countries on a near-annual basis, although mostly in Europe because that to us is pretty easy to do with kids as long as you have a decent budget to work with--we stay in centrally-located vacation rentals, hire tour guides with vehicles to take us on day trips, that sort of thing. We have yet to take them to a Disney location . . . .

Not saying one has to do it that way, but if your kids are traveling internationally from 6 months on, they at least get used to it. Jaded, even. One of my favorite kid stories is us standing outside a gorgeous church near Barcelona, and my son saying loudly (enough to get a chuckle out of many nearby), "Eh, I've seen better."
Haha! Love it! :D
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Dude2 »

As a fellow Gen-X'er don't you consider us to be sandwiched in between two great forces? On one end you have retiring Boomers who will be liquidating their portfolios as they age, therefore offering their shares for sale -- the danger here is that there is far more selling than there is buying which could cause prices to float downward. As they all retire, deflationary forces work on the economy as their labor is removed from the pool. Then, on the other end, you have young people that need to have faith that the stocks Boomers are selling are worth buying. If no faith, stock prices have nowhere to go but down. All of this discussion is predicated on the "greater fool theory" of stock valuations -- no other value method being accepted or proven.

Being of a generation that has little faith in institutions and very cynical, believing that markets only work from greed and that the primary force in play is about how to screw the other person, it is incumbent upon us to take care of ourselves, i.e. do not rely on social security, do not expect monotonically increasing stock market when you need it -- put the oxygen mask on yourself first and figure out a way to provide your family income in retirement without gambling: Total Market index funds only in proportion to what you could afford to lose, fixed income, real estate otherwise.
Then ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

Dude2 wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 4:39 am As a fellow Gen-X'er don't you consider us to be sandwiched in between two great forces? On one end you have retiring Boomers who will be liquidating their portfolios as they age, therefore offering their shares for sale -- the danger here is that there is far more selling than there is buying which could cause prices to float downward. As they all retire, deflationary forces work on the economy as their labor is removed from the pool. Then, on the other end, you have young people that need to have faith that the stocks Boomers are selling are worth buying. If no faith, stock prices have nowhere to go but down. All of this discussion is predicated on the "greater fool theory" of stock valuations -- no other value method being accepted or proven.

Being of a generation that has little faith in institutions and very cynical, believing that markets only work from greed and that the primary force in play is about how to screw the other person, it is incumbent upon us to take care of ourselves, i.e. do not rely on social security, do not expect monotonically increasing stock market when you need it -- put the oxygen mask on yourself first and figure out a way to provide your family income in retirement without gambling: Total Market index funds only in proportion to what you could afford to lose, fixed income, real estate otherwise.
For good or ill, these markets are global. If you want to think of all this in supply and demand terms, you have to think in terms of the global supply of marketed financial assets (which is only a subset of productive assets, and not a fixed subset), and the global demand for such assets (also not fixed, as capital looking to invest in assets has other options).

The general story of the financial world in recent decades is that the demand for these assets has grown faster than their supply, and so valuations/prices have gone up. I am skeptical cohort-size effects in the U.S. will actually matter much in that context. And even if you tried to model it, it would be complicated in the long run as you would have to model both the demand-side and supply-side effects.

For example, labor is an important factor in production, and so the supply of productive assets is in part a function of the labor supply. So, if the supply of labor is decreasing relative to the supply of capital as a large cohort saves rather than consumes and then retires and tries to live off the returns on theirs savings, you could actually see increasing asset prices.

And, we have! Again I think that is more a global thing anyway, but clearly the U.S. dynamic so far has not stopped that from happening.

Now as I understand it, though, you are suggesting that wealthy Boomers (the ones who own most financial assets--keep in mind that ownership of financial assets isn't proportional to wealth but rather concentrated among higher-wealth retirees, with lower-wealth households having a higher percentage of their wealth in the form of Social Security, sometimes pensions, and sometimes a residence) at some point will spend their capital invested down to zero. I don't find that all that likely, as although that could happen in some individual scenarios, most times wealthy retirees end up dying with a lot of financial assets, basically because they self-insured against longevity but on an aggregate basis they lose that bet.

So, it is not so much they are trying to sell their financial assets to younger generations near the end of their lives. More often, they simply pass away, and those assets are inherited by younger generations.

Anyway, of course if younger generations, on a global basis, stopped believing in investing in marketed financial assets, that could eventually do bad things to financial markets. But I do think we need to avoid overgeneralizing from US cohorts to global cohorts, particularly with so many of those global younger people living in developing countries. And I also think they will face a familiar problem: if not marketed financial assets, than what? Nowhere else is necessarily better, particularly given that if your capital is chasing after a certain kind of asset, why wouldn't other capital too? See, e.g., housing bubbles.

Which gets us back to the real fundamental issue being the global supply of assets versus the global demand for assets, aka the global supply of capital looking for assets to buy. I am actually pretty confident the global supply of capital will continue to grow robustly in coming decades. I am less confident the global supply of assets will grow in kind. Which wouldn't necessarily mean a big price drop, but it could mean persistent low returns.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Greg in Idaho »

Dude2 wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 4:39 am
Being of a generation that has little faith in institutions and very cynical, believing that markets only work from greed and that the primary force in play is about how to screw the other person
I think it is more about counting on getting screwed (rather than trying to screw others) in some way(s) and compensating with additional savings and a healthy dose of MMM style bad-assery. Cynicism - yay!

Irony - our other generational core, might not be just an existential salve/coping mechanism, but manifest in our doing rather well because of our cynicism, lack of trust, and that chip on our shoulder...
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SantaClaraSurfer
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by SantaClaraSurfer »

Rewinding to consider feedback that emerged in the thread:

1. EE Bonds / I Bonds: Majority see this as too complex / not simple enough / not needed. That's fine! However, just a reminder that Gen X are at an age to take advantage of these bonds, and, as we get closer to retirement, we will not be able to do so like we can now. Also, twenty years from now, like most folks at age 70, we will be on the hunt for guaranteed income! EE bonds in a 20 yr. ladder pay out a guaranteed 3.53% over 20 years, so $10,000 becomes $20,000, of which you pay ZERO tax on your principal and no State and Local on the remaining $10,000. And the yield to maturity, if you can do without the initial stake for 5-10 years, becomes extremely competitive (h/t ThisTimeItsDifferent for the code) meaning you won't likely be selling your EE Bonds after year 10 for any other investment.

Code: Select all

Year	Balance	YTM	Ratio YTM
0	$1,000	1.0353	2.0000	3.526%
1	$1,001	1.0371	1.9980	3.710%i
2	$1,002	1.0391	1.9960	3.914%
3	$1,003	1.0414	1.9940	4.143%
4	$1,004	1.0440	1.9920	4.401%
5	$1,005	1.0469	1.9900	4.695%
6	$1,006	1.0503	1.9880	5.031%
7	$1,007	1.0542	1.9861	5.420%
8	$1,008	1.0588	1.9841	5.876%
9	$1,009	1.0642	1.9821	6.417%
10	$1,010	1.0707	1.9801	7.070%
11	$1,011	1.0787	1.9781	7.874%
12	$1,012	1.0889	1.9762	8.887%
13	$1,013	1.1020	1.9742	10.204%
14	$1,014	1.1198	1.9722	11.985%
15	$1,015	1.1453	1.9702	14.526%
16	$1,016	1.1845	1.9683	18.446%
17	$1,017	1.2528	1.9663	25.281%
18	$1,018	1.4015	1.9643	40.155%
19	$1,019	1.9624	1.9624	96.238%
20	$2,020
2. Long Term Treasury Bonds: Most argue to keep it simple and go with a mixed bond fund. Fewer, but significant numbers, are open to vineviz's thinking about LTTs. My point, Gen X, with a longer horizon, is in a different spot than older investors on this one. So, it's worth at least considering LTT as an option as available to you.

3. 401(k) / RMDs: This was more situational for respondents based on current / expected marginal tax rate and also what kind of tax deferred options are open to you. For our situation, I am still in the camp of Standard 401(k) put into Target Date Funds. It's simple, straightforward, and does what the 401(k) is intended to do. Some of the youngest Gen X cohort have 30 years until RMDs...ie. the year 2051.

4. International: Consensus was strongly in favor of including Int'l. Perhaps a generational shift. International was not controversial.

5. Housing: No stigma to renting. Highly personal / situational. Another, albeit smaller, generational shift?

6. Taxable Brokerage Accounts: Those who have 'em, like them.

7. Municipal Bonds: I seem to be the only person who likes these. (That's not true, of course.) For anyone in a high tax state / marginal tax bracket, the returns and performance are better than many might think.

8. Stock/Sector Fund: Most strongly abstain from individual stocks and sectors. My thinking. Keep an IPS. Invest 95% in broad, index funds. Feel free to invest the rest according to a different, thought-out strategy, with no expectations of out performance. Track it and evaluate. You can always simplify (or donate) someday or simply stop and forget about it...and then see.

This thread also kicked up many other topics from children, to 529s and vacations, Gen X culture, and collectibles, LTC and Life Insurance and Planning. I truly enjoyed reading the responses and felt a kindred spirit in our common experiences. (kel-bowl-pak)

I would only add, now is a great time for all of us to save and plan AND to enjoy life and take care of our health.

Both investments are worth every penny.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Dude2 »

SantaClaraSurfer wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 9:06 pm Rewinding to consider feedback that emerged in the thread:
2. Long Term Treasury Bonds: Most argue to keep it simple and go with a mixed bond fund. Fewer, but significant numbers, are open to vineviz's thinking about LTTs. My point, Gen X, with a longer horizon, is in a different spot than older investors on this one. So, it's worth at least considering LTT as an option as available to you.
This is the only one that possibly I disagree on, although disagree is far too strong. Simply put, is the risk worth the reward? I'm talking about comparing this to the performance of TBM. Just as people will say that finance isn't physics and you can't try to nail down anything as we do in science (such as to try to fix a reference frame of some sort and measure things relative to other things with any hope of precision or accuracy), anyway, just like that, I would say that academic theories often don't pan out in the real world either, i.e. the noncorrelation of LTT versus stocks. I certainly don't want to pile on to the countless post talking about the 30 year bull market for bonds has come to an end, etc. I'm trying to say that the philosophy behind LTT is sound, and I don't disagree with it. However, even Vineviz often voices the preference for LT TIPS mostly because inflation risk for LTT versus reward is large. (Reality check: There's inflation risk everywhere really, and TIPS won't save you.) A combination of LTT and stocks works well in a particular economy with a particular set of assumptions. TBM floats with the market, takes on a variety of more risks without exposing itself so much to inflation risk. I haven't said anything about interest rate risk because this idea of matching duration to need addresses it; however, all of my life I've never been able to know if some circumstance was going to cause me to liquidate. I'd rather keep my duration shorter. Essentially this post is about a monkey knife fight between LTT and TBM. Place your bets.
Then ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Wricha »

sandan wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 12:00 pm I'm at the tail end of X and can't relate to the op. There are too many buckets and rules for an uncertain future. The smoking gun example is municipal bonds. Why bother when there are tax deferred accounts and interest rates are low. This reminds me of the old school bogleheads trying to slice and dice everything.
There is a difference between tax deferred and tax free. That gun may not be smoking so much. But I speak from experience which may not repeat itself.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Wannaretireearly »

Interesting thread. We're roughly mid forties.
There is the concept of not always being on autopilot in the book die with zero. I haven't read everything, but I think the concept is whatever you've done to get 'here' may need to change from now on. I believe the concept is untying the purse strings, and aggressively spending now in your 50s vs 60s vs 70s.
“At some point you are trading time you will never get back for money you will never spend.“ | “How do you want to spend the best remaining year of your life?“
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by hornet96 »

SantaClaraSurfer wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 9:06 pm
7. Municipal Bonds: I seem to be the only person who likes these. (That's not true, of course.) For anyone in a high tax state / marginal tax bracket, the returns and performance are better than many might think.
I go back and forth on this myself. One the one hand, we are now in the highest tax bracket, so munis seem to be the obvious choice. On the other hand, if the goal is to hedge a high equity allocation in the taxable account, treasuries seem to be the more obvious choice. As a result, for the time being we just hold all of our bond allocation in tax-sheltered accounts, with the taxable account being 100% stock (for now).

At some point, though, we expect (hope?) that the taxable account will dwarf our tax-sheltered accounts, and we would run out of room in the tax-sheltered accounts to add more bonds. At that point or maybe even a little before, we'll probably just add munis via VG intermediate tax-exempt to the taxable account, to keep in line with general BH principles. Although then if at some point we are fortunate enough to worry about munis exceeding 50% of our bond allocation, I may have to consider adding treasuries back into the taxable account as well.

So as is the case for most things, with munis the answer to me seems to be "it depends." :sharebeer
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SantaClaraSurfer
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by SantaClaraSurfer »

hornet96 wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 9:52 am So as is the case for most things, with munis the answer to me seems to be "it depends." :sharebeer
I agree, and fully understand that Munis may seem to be a needless complication for someone without a tax reason to pursue them.

For us, Munis, along with our 5% account, are "last in / first out" components.

If we had a significant pre-retirement expense that we were short on meeting budget for, we would definitely look at munis, as they have a low tax consequence for selling.

If we were ever to stop renting and move to owning a home, we would not hesitate to liquidate munis for that purpose.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by hnd »

Dude2 wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 4:39 am As a fellow Gen-X'er don't you consider us to be sandwiched in between two great forces? On one end you have retiring Boomers who will be liquidating their portfolios as they age, therefore offering their shares for sale -- the danger here is that there is far more selling than there is buying which could cause prices to float downward. As they all retire, deflationary forces work on the economy as their labor is removed from the pool. Then, on the other end, you have young people that need to have faith that the stocks Boomers are selling are worth buying. If no faith, stock prices have nowhere to go but down. All of this discussion is predicated on the "greater fool theory" of stock valuations -- no other value method being accepted or proven.

Being of a generation that has little faith in institutions and very cynical, believing that markets only work from greed and that the primary force in play is about how to screw the other person, it is incumbent upon us to take care of ourselves, i.e. do not rely on social security, do not expect monotonically increasing stock market when you need it -- put the oxygen mask on yourself first and figure out a way to provide your family income in retirement without gambling: Total Market index funds only in proportion to what you could afford to lose, fixed income, real estate otherwise.
I think we are seeing it happen now. I know a handful of boomers who used covid to hang it up.

One of the things that i think about is not that there is liquidation but what is liquidated. There are tons of closed funds and GIANT funds that grew astronomically in the 90's and 00's that are still open but unable to recreate their successes largely because their AUM has caused them to not be able to take on riskier investments and are basically closeted large cap index funds. Will these funds open up and or get smaller and more nimble?

I think the new generation is now more responsible for their own investing directives than boomers were at their age. So i believe money will keep pouring into the markets.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by lazynovice »

hnd wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:56 am
Dude2 wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 4:39 am As a fellow Gen-X'er don't you consider us to be sandwiched in between two great forces? On one end you have retiring Boomers who will be liquidating their portfolios as they age, therefore offering their shares for sale -- the danger here is that there is far more selling than there is buying which could cause prices to float downward. As they all retire, deflationary forces work on the economy as their labor is removed from the pool. Then, on the other end, you have young people that need to have faith that the stocks Boomers are selling are worth buying. If no faith, stock prices have nowhere to go but down. All of this discussion is predicated on the "greater fool theory" of stock valuations -- no other value method being accepted or proven.

Being of a generation that has little faith in institutions and very cynical, believing that markets only work from greed and that the primary force in play is about how to screw the other person, it is incumbent upon us to take care of ourselves, i.e. do not rely on social security, do not expect monotonically increasing stock market when you need it -- put the oxygen mask on yourself first and figure out a way to provide your family income in retirement without gambling: Total Market index funds only in proportion to what you could afford to lose, fixed income, real estate otherwise.
I think we are seeing it happen now. I know a handful of boomers who used covid to hang it up.

One of the things that i think about is not that there is liquidation but what is liquidated. There are tons of closed funds and GIANT funds that grew astronomically in the 90's and 00's that are still open but unable to recreate their successes largely because their AUM has caused them to not be able to take on riskier investments and are basically closeted large cap index funds. Will these funds open up and or get smaller and more nimble?

I think the new generation is now more responsible for their own investing directives than boomers were at their age. So i believe money will keep pouring into the markets.
Good point. A lot of stocks that used to be owned by pension funds will be divested to pay those pensions and will need to be purchased by individual investors whether through retirement plans or taxable accounts.

Unlike the pre-2000s era, retirees no longer sit in 100% fixed income portfolios anyway.

And of course corporations have investment portfolios. It isn’t like baby boomers retiring means no one is buying stocks.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by sandan »

lazynovice wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:21 pm Good point. A lot of stocks that used to be owned by pension funds will be divested to pay those pensions and will need to be purchased by individual investors whether through retirement plans or taxable accounts.

Unlike the pre-2000s era, retirees no longer sit in 100% fixed income portfolios anyway.

And of course corporations have investment portfolios. It isn’t like baby boomers retiring means no one is buying stocks.
It's no longer just about the US population either.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/ ... -americans
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by lazynovice »

sandan wrote: Thu Jul 15, 2021 3:54 pm
lazynovice wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:21 pm Good point. A lot of stocks that used to be owned by pension funds will be divested to pay those pensions and will need to be purchased by individual investors whether through retirement plans or taxable accounts.

Unlike the pre-2000s era, retirees no longer sit in 100% fixed income portfolios anyway.

And of course corporations have investment portfolios. It isn’t like baby boomers retiring means no one is buying stocks.
It's no longer just about the US population either.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/ ... -americans
Geez! Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks!
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

sandan wrote: Thu Jul 15, 2021 3:54 pm
lazynovice wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:21 pm Good point. A lot of stocks that used to be owned by pension funds will be divested to pay those pensions and will need to be purchased by individual investors whether through retirement plans or taxable accounts.

Unlike the pre-2000s era, retirees no longer sit in 100% fixed income portfolios anyway.

And of course corporations have investment portfolios. It isn’t like baby boomers retiring means no one is buying stocks.
It's no longer just about the US population either.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/ ... -americans
Interesting chart:

Image

Looks like U.S. retirement vehicles peaked in collective share in the early 2000s , after the dot-com bust (good job buying the dip!). Retirement starts kicking off meaningfully around 55 or so, and the oldest Boomers hit 55 in 2000, so that may well be in part a cohort effect. And yet, it doesn't look like foreign and taxable investors are having a problem absorbing any supply of assets being spun out of retirement accounts--indeed, judging from valuations, I would continue to suggest a net undersupply of assets.

Equally interesting is the point made by their OTHER chart:

Image

Again any sell-off effect may be significantly mitigated if these wealthiest folks who actually own stocks don't end up selling off down to zero in retirement.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by Dude2 »

Interesting charts. Certainly valuations are affected by sell-offs and perceptions. This effect is regardless of how much various participants own. Otherwise, if these wealthiest x percent never sold (or if their perceptions mattered more), values would never move [stocks become bonds]. Despite this disparity in the population of ownership, crashes still manage to happen. Market forces still manage to value some things as more or less than other things.

The point may be that it doesn't matter that a large population is ready to retire and sell some portion of their stocks because even the sum total of that entire generation doesn't equate to what Mr. Moneybags owns who could drive the market one way or the other in the blink of an eye. I don't know. I'm out of my depth. What I'm left with is simply the intuition telling me to not put all my eggs into the asset class with the most risk and the most reward.
Then ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by drumboy256 »

NiceUnparticularMan wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 10:28 am
drumboy256 wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:20 am Not owning LTT as a core tenet of your portfolio seems wrong to me--- not like you're drinking the wrong koolaid wrong--- but still, a burger without cheese wrong.
Nominal LTT or long-term TIPS?

If you want a portfolio biased toward unexpected disinflation/deflation protection, nominal LTT might be a good idea.

If you want a portfolio biased toward unexpected inflation protection, the right answer may be zero nominal LTT, because LTT are just going to offset whatever else you are doing to create that unexpected inflation protection. But then you could do TIPS instead.

Either way, you are getting very low expected returns these days. So the price of that protection has gotten high. I don't think that means you definitely shouldn't buy some, but I do think it means you should be careful not to expend those costs in ways that are just going to offset anyway.
9.) [My personal addition to the conversation] - I think we (as a community) need a good push on actual "saving rate" conversation. Planning, purchasing, percentages etc. are all cool, but unless you're saving at least 10-15% of your paycheck with matches, you're going to miss out on compounding faster. My thinking of this is trying to figure out a glide path for saving of which I'll point the mirror at myself--- when I got my first job in my industry at about $14/hr that's around $27k a year (SO MUCH MONEY!!! :moneybag :moneybag :moneybag )

Roughly, if I had saved 50% of my paycheck towards a Roth or even 401k, I would suggest a glide path to myself as the following:
20-25 - Save 50%
25-30 - Save 30%
30-35 - Save 25%
40-45 - Save 20%
45-50 - Save 15%

Reason being--- life gets expense with kids between 25-40 of which if you've saved that money early on, it's compounding. Of course, this would just be a guideline since technically, if you followed this glide path and moved up jobs/promotions etc. you could in theory, max out any employer 401k + match and a Roth.
Yeah, I am skeptical this can really get mapped out because careers, families, and so on can develop in lots of unexpected ways, both good and bad (and what is good in some ways may be bad financially, and vice-versa). I also note that sometimes spending more young can be an investment in higher future earnings, whether that means education, maybe a relocation, or so on.

So I do think people should be trying to get started saving early, due to compounding, particularly in tax-advantaged accounts.

But exactly how much now versus later I think you just have to feel out over time.
I'm nominal LTT and don't really believe in TIPS short, medium or longer term to beat inflation as people expect. Not a judgement against those who use them but I'd rather be in equities. Having moved into 20% LTT as part of my portfolio, I do sleep better at night knowing that the ups and downs are paired down and the wild ride isn't as wild.

As for the savings rate--- it's a start somewhere model. It does depend on industry and pay, but good habits are hard to break. 8-)
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

drumboy256 wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 10:11 am I'm nominal LTT and don't really believe in TIPS short, medium or longer term to beat inflation as people expect.
I sure hope people don't expect TIPS to actually beat inflation at current rates! But are you suggesting an actual default on the promised inflation adjustments?
Not a judgement against those who use them but I'd rather be in equities. Having moved into 20% LTT as part of my portfolio, I do sleep better at night knowing that the ups and downs are paired down and the wild ride isn't as wild.
I'll just note that really depends on what happens. In a scenario where there is a combination of disappointing economic conditions for stocks and unexpectedly high inflation, what we might call a "stagflation" type of scenario, then long-term nominal bonds are going to potentially make a disappointing period for stocks even more disappointing.
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Re: Gen-X Boglehead Thoughts

Post by grogu »

hornet96 wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 9:52 am At some point, though, we expect (hope?) that the taxable account will dwarf our tax-sheltered accounts, and we would run out of room in the tax-sheltered accounts to add more bonds.
Curious why/how you expect your taxable account to dwarf the size of your tax-sheltered accounts. Assuming one maxes out 401k/IRA (and possibly mega-back door and HSA) limits each year throughout one's career, that's a sizeable amount of contributions. Barring a large one-time event like an inheritance or sale of a business, I'd think it would be tough for an after-tax account to exceed all of those contributions. Or are you only talking about the bond portion of your overall holdings?
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