Most consumer electronics these days are just cheap junk, not built to last more than a couple of years. Actually, expensive junk.  I work in product design and have direct experience designing consumer electronics for retail.  You'd be surprised how little effort is put into quality.  So many thin...

Frugal -- I recommend you read the book "Work Less, Live More" by Robert Clyatt.  It will give you a good place to start thinking about ER, along with helpful guidance on starting a few spreadsheets. 

If you retire early and live on a lean budget... what will you do with your parents if for some reason they can't afford to take care of themselves? Get a job.  ERE is more about flexibility than never working again, and working to support an ailing parent is a helluva lot easier when your own need...

I plugged Pointedstick's SCV data into my PP retirement spreadsheet, and this is what I found: http://i41.tinypic.com/2d162xl.jpg For reference, here's the same chart with a "standard" PP: http://i42.tinypic.com/b66eky.jpg And for a background on what this even means, read my post here: ht...

One word of caution -- remember that timing matters.  The early 70s was the best possible time to start a PP, with gold going absolutely bananas coming off the gold standard.  Baselining your SWR right before a run-up (in any portfolio) can make retirement results look quote rosy compared to, say, r...

BTW, most FIRE-calculators show clearly that >=80% equities was the way to go for retirement in the last 140 years, you just have to buy and hold no matter what happens. Well, most FIRE calculators only give stocks and bonds as an option. I have yet to find a single one that accounts for gold, RE, ...

Correlation isn't the whole story. Try this:

http://www.stableinvesting.com/2013/01/ ... t.html?m=1

MTex for President!

That's a very common sense and well-reasoned idea for meaningful healthcare reform that actually addresses some of the underlying problems with the system.  Which is why no politician has brought it up.

Back when I was discovering the PP mentality myself before I knew what the HBPP was, I owned a bit of HSTRX for the treasuries and gold.  I always enjoyed Hussman's letters -- they're well written and informative.  But as smart as he is, nobody's perfect.  Indexing FTW.

All those against developing renewables: Are you also skeptics about fossil fuels running out? I'm not at all against developing new energy technologies. I am, however, against overblown end of the earth arguments to push particular political agendas. I always find it curious that the typical envir...

Climate change aside, I find the article's argument that "good news is easier to sell" and that big corporations and politicians thus use good news to milk people for money and influence to be comically lame.  Classic case of projection.  Just turn on any news channel or listen to any poli...

Is there a reason 1972-1974 is included in simulations of portfolios that hold a significant amount of gold? If I understand correctly, it was illegal to own gold before January 1, 1975. Doesn't that fudge the numbers significantly in favor of the PP those first few years? The US came off the gold ...

Did you subtract the cash withdrawal before rebalancing, or take 1/4 from each asset?  If the former, that is a spectacular demonstration of the benefits of using rebalancing bands.  Note that with many Boglehead style "slice and dice" portfolios, annual rebalancing ends up being a necess...

If everything is so simple, what are we all doing here every day? Just because one does not believe in God does not mean one does not live on faith in other parts of their lives.  Sometimes checking in regularly isn't so much an act of continuous learning, but one of regular maintenance for a belie...

Is some of the effect actually due to the even draw down approach in general having more cash (back to 25% each year) whilst the kosher method hovers around 15% cash as the drawdowns from cash trigger rebalances? If so, it might actually bode well for a 3x33%PP (no cash) where draw downs came from ...

should we use a data set of real returns instead of nominal returns? i did an analysis a while back with r-returns for a CA PP and got about 3.5% r-swr the portfolio real value to to decrease. i guess you re at about the same with 5.5% nominal swr.  it did however made me realise that i would get l...

Tyler, how did you automate rebalancing??  Would love to learn a new Excel trick. 1) I created a new column that looked for portfolio percentages outside the bands: =IF(OR(R12>0.35, R12<0.15, S12>0.35, S12<0.15,T12>0.35,T12<0.15,U12>0.35,U12<0.15),1,0) This returns a 1 if true and a 0 if false 2) I...

So does the PP allow a surprisingly high SWR primarily because of (a) its 25% cash allocation or (b) the low volatility of the overall portfolio? It sounds like it's (a), but I'm just curious as to whether anyone here disagrees with that assessment. An SWR comparison analysis between a 3x33% PP (no...

Alright.  Now this is getting interesting.  I managed to automate the PP rebalancing in Excel, which allowed me to start doing some more significant number crunching.  Since retirement portfolio success is highly dependent on the year you retire (if the market crashes 50% in year 1, your WR just dou...

Nice graphs, Pointedstick.  Thanks.  Here's one cool observation from WiseOne's spreadsheet to help explain the smoothness of the PP in retirement: In 2008, stocks fell 37% and the PP fell 0.8% in real terms.  But that actually still wasn't enough to trigger a rebalance.  So unlike many retirees who...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgDuu6i8MtE I am aware from news of previous trials that the defendant in a trial does not need to testify.  I was not aware that the judge was allowed to do things like this.  I'd like the reaction of a lawyer, in case this is not what it looks like. Thanks. I'm no l...

One thing that gives me pause in comparing "end values" is the unusually high real return (15.2%) of the PP in 1972, the first year of the run.  One could argue it stacks the deck in the PP's favor by giving it a 15% head start over others.  Starting one year later, the end value is $9.3mm...

Thanks WiseOne.  Awesome work! Main conclusion:  nobody ever actually just invests money in a reasonable allocation and leaves it alone for 40 years, or there'd be a lot of exceedingly wealthy octogenarians out there. Very true.  So much retirement theory discussion consists of hand-waving.  Very fe...

Don't lose hope yet, Pointed!  You're forgetting something:  the cash allocation.  Great point!  SWR calculations also assume you always sell stocks/bonds even in down years to pay the bills.  With the heavy cash allocation in the PP, there will be many years where you don't need to sell a thing an...

dualstow wrote: {deleted. too difficult }

What is... my wife's response when asked about the PDF I saved for her on the importance of compromise?