How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

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sophie
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How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by sophie » Sun Dec 10, 2017 3:38 pm

I thought we could all use a nice, warm & fuzzy financial question to sink our collective teeth into...

Since the goal of the Permanent Portfolio is to protect the money you can't afford to lose, one might argue that once you're got that amount socked away, there's no longer a need for the "insurance" assets of gold, bonds, and cash. You could instead park any additional savings in a stock fund, enjoy the dividends, and just let the balance ride through whatever comes.

So the first two questions are:
1. What do y'all think of the idea of using the PP as a base portfolio, then switching to 100% stocks once the PP is big enough? And is anyone doing this already? Of note, I've been planning to do this, just haven't yet hit the "enough" spot.

2. How much is "enough"?

Question #2 of course has plenty of offshoots. My current definition is enough to meet expenses at a 4% withdrawal rate, taking into account known future income sources such as social security. I determined this based on current, actual expenses for the last 12 months plus anticipated extras (medical insurance, regular savings into a capital costs fund for dealing with rare, big expenses like replacing the fridge or fixing up the bathroom, etc). And SS was calculated as 80% of whatever it is the SSA tells me I should expect. So, three more questions:

3. How do you calculate projected future expenses?

4. How do you take Social Security income into account?

5. Is a 4% withdrawal rate safe? I'm comfortable with it given that the PP is much safer than a typical stock/bond portfolio at a 4% SWR.

3, 4, and 5 obviously depends on how close you are to official retirement age - if I were contemplating a true early retirement (< age 40), I'd probably ignore SS and go for a 3% SWR.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by Tyler » Sun Dec 10, 2017 4:40 pm

Good topic, Sophie.

1) What do y'all think of the idea of using the PP as a base portfolio, then switching to 100% stocks once the PP is big enough?

It's funny -- I have a completely different reaction to finally accumulating "enough". The idea of gambling more on stocks to maybe earn more money that I really don't need just doesn't click for me. The incentives just aren't there anymore. But I understand that others may think about this a lot differently than I do, and I have no problem with taking more risk with money you can afford to lose. And I also fully admit to having small caps in my VP (to make a Golden Butterfly overall), so maybe I just have mentally compartmentalized the same idea a little differently.

2) How much is "enough"?

Of course that's kindof subjective. You've got it right by thinking about it as a multiple of expenses. Rather than detailing out extensive non-recurring expenses (house repairs, medical expenses, etc), I simply bake in a bit of extra overhead. Toss an extra 25% spending buffer on top of your base expenses, and that could go to a roof one year, a vacation the next, or an unexpected health insurance deductible after that. I also personally found that the answer depends a lot on your own self-confidence, happiness with your career, and general place in life. It's not just a numbers question, as if you're determined enough I bet you can lower your expenses (and necessary stockpile to meet those expenses) quite a bit.

3) How do you calculate projected future expenses?

Rather than doing mental gymnastics over future expenses, I personally moved to my target retirement city about 2 years before I hit my number to prototype that lifestyle first-hand. My future expenses were simply my current expenses + health insurance.

4) How do you take Social Security income into account?

I personally don't count on SS. It's too unpredictable this far out so I consider it the icing on top of a good plan.

5) Is a 4% withdrawal rate safe?

With the PP in the US? Absolutely. In contrast to the typical 4% rule for a generic stock/bond split that never went bust over a 30 year retirement, 4% with the PP would have maintained inflation-adjusted principal! The PP is a very good retirement portfolio because its low volatility is especially helpful once you start accounting for annual drawdowns.

6) if I were contemplating a true early retirement (< age 40), I'd probably ignore SS and go for a 3% SWR

Because of that 4% Perpetual WR, IMHO there's no need to save for 3% even for a very early retirement provided you've allowed some buffer in there for any unexpected future expenses (see item 2).
Last edited by Tyler on Sun Dec 10, 2017 5:24 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by ochotona » Sun Dec 10, 2017 4:41 pm

sophie wrote:1. What do y'all think of the idea of using the PP as a base portfolio, then switching to 100% stocks once the PP is big enough? And is anyone doing this already? Of note, I've been planning to do this, just haven't yet hit the "enough" spot.
Core-Satellite, with PP being Core, is an excellent idea.

2. How much is "enough"?

Enough to cover on the one hand an extended period of unemployment, and if close to retirement, that the PP should cover bare essential living expenses.

3. How do you calculate projected future expenses?

To be safe, assume your current expenses will be your retirement expenses. Murphy's Law.

4. How do you take Social Security income into account?

Take the SSA estimate, multiple it by 0.50. Murphy's Law.

5. Is a 4% withdrawal rate safe? I'm comfortable with it given that the PP is much safer than a typical stock/bond portfolio at a 4% SWR.

Tyler shows the PP SWR at about 5.3% for a 30 year retirement
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Sun Dec 10, 2017 4:56 pm

sophie wrote:I thought we could all use a nice, warm & fuzzy financial question to sink our collective teeth into...

Since the goal of the Permanent Portfolio is to protect the money you can't afford to lose, one might argue that once you're got that amount socked away, there's no longer a need for the "insurance" assets of gold, bonds, and cash. You could instead park any additional savings in a stock fund, enjoy the dividends, and just let the balance ride through whatever comes.

So the first two questions are:
1. What do y'all think of the idea of using the PP as a base portfolio, then switching to 100% stocks once the PP is big enough? And is anyone doing this already? Of note, I've been planning to do this, just haven't yet hit the "enough" spot.
Yes! This is what I'm doing, mostly. I have some cash set aside to purchase real estate in the near future if I choose to do that (or else it's going back into stocks), the rest of my VP is in stocks. I think about it exactly like St. Harry said to: money you can afford to lose, money you can't.
2. How much is "enough"?

Question #2 of course has plenty of offshoots. My current definition is enough to meet expenses at a 4% withdrawal rate, taking into account known future income sources such as social security. I determined this based on current, actual expenses for the last 12 months plus anticipated extras (medical insurance, regular savings into a capital costs fund for dealing with rare, big expenses like replacing the fridge or fixing up the bathroom, etc). And SS was calculated as 80% of whatever it is the SSA tells me I should expect.
If you can have 2-5 years of living expenses available (liquid, non-tax deferred) in the cash section, and around 10-15 years expenses in the PP overall (mostly non-tax deferred) I think that's pretty good. You could put the rest in stocks and feel pretty comfortable, but I wouldn't go any lower than that. That would be enough to let you rebalance, pull money out of an existing Roth, and utilize the Roth conversion for any PP money in a 401k/traditional IRA. And you wouldn't freak out if the stock market crashed.
So, three more questions:

3. How do you calculate projected future expenses?
I kinda figure I'll keep my current lifestyle/spending, and add a skosh of medical expenses when I get older.
4. How do you take Social Security income into account?
I don't count on it.
5. Is a 4% withdrawal rate safe? I'm comfortable with it given that the PP is much safer than a typical stock/bond portfolio at a 4% SWR.
I'm not an expert but I figure it is. If I start drawing down too much I'll see it coming a ways off and change something up. I'm gonna get back into the workforce to drop my WR a little more anyways, but I'm a bet hedger.
3, 4, and 5 obviously depends on how close you are to official retirement age - if I were contemplating a true early retirement (< age 40), I'd probably ignore SS and go for a 3% SWR.
I agree.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by Libertarian666 » Sun Dec 10, 2017 10:30 pm

MangoMan wrote:All good answers so far. I think the wild card is health expenses, particularly as you get older. If you need an around the clock live-in caregiver or an extended stay in an assisted living facility, that can wipe you out really quick. Had several uncles deplete their healthy savings this way and leave an unexpectedly small inheritance to their heirs.
A number of life insurance policies now allow you to tap the face amount (at a discount, of course) for end-of-life expenses so you don't have to run down your savings as much.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by sophie » Mon Dec 11, 2017 7:35 am

Tyler wrote: 1) What do y'all think of the idea of using the PP as a base portfolio, then switching to 100% stocks once the PP is big enough?

It's funny -- I have a completely different reaction to finally accumulating "enough". The idea of gambling more on stocks to maybe earn more money that I really don't need just doesn't click for me. The incentives just aren't there anymore. But I understand that others may think about this a lot differently than I do, and I have no problem with taking more risk with money you can afford to lose. And I also fully admit to having small caps in my VP (to make a Golden Butterfly overall), so maybe I just have mentally compartmentalized the same idea a little differently.
Tyler I was hoping you'd chime in!

The 100% stock idea isn't for a variable portfolio, as it's still a form of passive investing. The purpose of the PP is to protect assets and partake of stock market gains safely - while sacrificing a bit of return over long time periods (> 15 years) in order to gain this protection. If you don't need the insurance, you don't have to buy it. Interestingly, I see the Golden Butterfly as a way to do something like this. Just a bit different approach.

Interestingly, the 25% extra expenses you're proposing to bake into the "enough" calculation is effectively the same as a 3% SWR applied to basic expenses. I like that approach - nice and simple. As far as the possibility of outsize medical expenses at the end of life, I figure my home equity and core investments provide the best insurance for that. Long term care insurance isn't helpful - the policies I looked at cap benefits at an amount that I can easily self-insure for. Life insurance that lets you use it in advance to cover medical expenses is probably a better solution.

About all you can do to protect money for your heirs is to start gifting it ahead of time, and make sure you have enough advance directives in place and known to your family that you don't end up as a 90 year old pretzel in a nursing home on full code/full care. I personally think that anyone requiring a high level of care in a nursing home should be on comfort care only by default. Medicine doesn't really accomplish much when things are too broken to fix. As a friend likes to say, people should come with the label "No user-serviceable parts inside."
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by gizmo_rat » Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:30 am

1. What do y'all think of the idea of using the PP as a base portfolio, then switching to 100% stocks once the PP is big enough?

Been mulling that one over since Tyler added UK data to his site. The ‘portfolio finder’ spits out a PP + 20% EM mix for a .6% CAGR lift thats quite tempting… but ya know EMs. At the moment I’m in a PP + 15% of Global STKS and BNDS (50/50). Where PP is core FI expenses and the VP was a bit of a rush job to diversify out of £ . I need a better plan but I'm in no rush.

2 How much is "enough"?

a) Best case, Where I am now, perhaps with a bit more travel when children are older.
b) Worst case, Enough for us both to live separately without working, assuming a 50/50 split in assets.

3 How do you calculate projected future expenses?

Spending has been the same for last 5 years and pretty consistent for the last 10 years (factoring out mortgage and work costs) seems like a reasonable guide to future spending. As a sanity check there's also a pretty thorough research project that calculates the cost of living a life that a social concensus regards as acceptable (it’s quite spendy, imo).

4 How do you take Social Security income into account?

I think the state pension is the UK equivalent but its lower at £8K pa and government is always fiddling around with it. I should get it in 17 years, it’ll be a nice top up I hope but I’m not counting on it atm.

5 Is a 4% withdrawal rate safe?

Historically it is :). I currently live at <2% with two children. The previously mentioned research projects says I should be living at 4% reducing to 2% when the children fly the nest.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by Xan » Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:13 am

I believe this has been discussed before (that's not a negative; many of these discussions come up with new wrinkles for new discussion), but so has its inverse. Yes, you can argue that you should put everything in stocks if even a huge drawdown leaves you with enough.

But if T-bills would kick off enough for you to live on, then why take any risks at all?

I don't see any particular reason for stocks to be the post-"enough" option rather than T-bills. And so I plan to split the difference and stick with the PP.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:25 am

Oh, I misunderstood that SWITCHING to 100% stocks part. I'm going to continue maintaining separate PP and VP areas, but the % split between them might get tilted more towards stocks as time goes on.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by jason » Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:42 am

I agree that based on the historical PP data, a 4% SWR is safe for retirement. But if it's in a taxable account, the taxes will come out of the 4%. For example, if someone has a PP with $6 million in it, they can safely take out $240,000 per year, but taxes will apply to that $240,000. So, how does one calculate a spending budget that takes the taxes into account? Seems like it would be hard to predict what the taxes will be and therefore difficult to set up an annual spending budget.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by sophie » Mon Dec 11, 2017 11:02 am

I add 15% to expenses to cover state/local/federal income taxes. Since those are nearly all incurred by withdrawing from tax-deferred accounts, I multiply this by the percentage of my portfolio that's in tax-deferred (70% currently). Note that my annual expenses alone would not take me above the 15% bracket.

I figure that if my taxes are higher than this, that means I'm getting enough income that the extra taxes aren't a concern.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by Cortopassi » Mon Dec 11, 2017 3:00 pm

1. What do y'all think of the idea of using the PP as a base portfolio, then switching to 100% stocks once the PP is big enough?

To me, the PP has solved my problem of being all over the map trying to get into the latest hot thing, selling too early or too late and generally effing up my investing. My entire net worth is in the PP, and I will tweak percentages as it makes sense, like I now have 35% stocks. Maybe when I retire, that will go back to 25%.

2. How much is "enough"?

I have most known expenses plugged into a spreadsheet and estimate my numbers from there. But I really don't know.

3. How do you calculate projected future expenses?

Budget estimates through Quicken (and now I also use Personal Capital which has some nice charting and retirement planners (free))

4. How do you take Social Security income into account?

I assume I am getting it, at 65 (50 now).

5. Is a 4% withdrawal rate safe?

Seems to be about right with my calcs.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by jason » Mon Dec 11, 2017 3:20 pm

MangoMan wrote:
jason wrote:I agree that based on the historical PP data, a 4% SWR is safe for retirement. But if it's in a taxable account, the taxes will come out of the 4%. For example, if someone has a PP with $6 million in it, they can safely take out $240,000 per year, but taxes will apply to that $240,000. So, how does one calculate a spending budget that takes the taxes into account? Seems like it would be hard to predict what the taxes will be and therefore difficult to set up an annual spending budget.
This really makes no sense. If the $ has to be taken from a 401k or IRA, you have to pay taxes on the withdrawal as ordinary income. If the $ is taken from a taxable account, you pay nothing on the withdrawal. Any taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains will be due regardless of whether you withdraw any $ from the taxable account or not.
The issue is that if you are taking 4% out of your PP each year, you are going to have to re-balance often due to cash steadily dropping. So having to re-balance often is going to have tax consequences. By the way, does a 4% SWR only work in a non-taxable account? A taxable account is going to have a lower CAGR than a non-taxable account due to taxes, right?
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by Libertarian666 » Mon Dec 11, 2017 5:39 pm

sophie wrote:I add 15% to expenses to cover state/local/federal income taxes. Since those are nearly all incurred by withdrawing from tax-deferred accounts, I multiply this by the percentage of my portfolio that's in tax-deferred (70% currently). Note that my annual expenses alone would not take me above the 15% bracket.

I figure that if my taxes are higher than this, that means I'm getting enough income that the extra taxes aren't a concern.
You are actually going to stay in New York when you retire? Good lord.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by ochotona » Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:45 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
sophie wrote:I add 15% to expenses to cover state/local/federal income taxes. Since those are nearly all incurred by withdrawing from tax-deferred accounts, I multiply this by the percentage of my portfolio that's in tax-deferred (70% currently). Note that my annual expenses alone would not take me above the 15% bracket.

I figure that if my taxes are higher than this, that means I'm getting enough income that the extra taxes aren't a concern.
You are actually going to stay in New York when you retire? Good lord.
The only place in the Northeast I'd bother with is New Hampshire.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by barrett » Mon Dec 11, 2017 7:21 pm

sophie wrote:What do y'all think of the idea of using the PP as a base portfolio, then switching to 100% stocks once the PP is big enough?
Sophie, just to be clear, you are not really asking about cashing in your PP and going 100% equities, right? You seem too sensible for that. Aren't you really asking about keeping a core PP up to the point where you feel you are FI, and then putting any NEW money into equities at that point?

That approach would be a sort of rising equity glide path that Michael Kitces and others have written about.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by sophie » Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:46 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
sophie wrote:I add 15% to expenses to cover state/local/federal income taxes. Since those are nearly all incurred by withdrawing from tax-deferred accounts, I multiply this by the percentage of my portfolio that's in tax-deferred (70% currently). Note that my annual expenses alone would not take me above the 15% bracket.

I figure that if my taxes are higher than this, that means I'm getting enough income that the extra taxes aren't a concern.
You are actually going to stay in New York when you retire? Good lord.
Depends on how crazy I am! I figure if I budget for New York, it'll cover me no matter what I decide to do. And, this is not actually a bad place to retire: no dependence on cars, easy to get help, wonderfully walkable neighborhood, lots to do, etc.

Barrett: yes, I'm talking about having two retirement portfolios. The PP is your cash management system and is enough to cover living expenses under a reasonable set of assumptions. This means 25x expenses, which will give you a minimum of 3.75 years expenses in cash. Additional savings goes into the second portfolio which is 100% stocks. Not actively managed, just something simple like an S&P 500 index fund. "Rising equity glide path" is a good description..the idea is that unlike most advice that says to increase risk when savings are low (a monumentally stupid idea IMHO), you increase risk only when you can afford to do so.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by ochotona » Tue Dec 12, 2017 5:29 am

sophie wrote:Barrett: yes, I'm talking about having two retirement portfolios...Additional savings goes into the second portfolio which is 100% stocks. Not actively managed, just something simple like an S&P 500 index fund.
Do look into "timing" (O the horror) the S&P500 sidecar portfolio using a simple monthly metric like momentum. I think in years to come you will appreciate it, especially if we're going to have an "event" at the end of this bull market. Security shown below was just the Schwab S&P500 mutual fund, SWPPX, subjected to 1-year time series momentum test. Only one look per month, about 2 trades per annum, on average.

Image
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by Ugly_Bird » Tue Dec 12, 2017 2:36 pm

sophie wrote: 2. How much is "enough"?
Question #2 of course has plenty of offshoots. My current definition is enough to meet expenses at a 4% withdrawal rate,
3
Assuming SS goes bust, and one has to rely only on PP savings, then 4% withdrawal rate would be a good reference for the guesstimate.
For $80k of yearly expenses (including medical), $2M should be "enough". ::)

Andrei
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by ochotona » Tue Dec 12, 2017 4:36 pm

MangoMan wrote:Ocho, Using a site like stockcharts.com, what signal would you use for momentum?
Replied over here:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8992&p=166369#p166369
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by barrett » Tue Dec 12, 2017 8:34 pm

Sophie,

Here is a link to a piece by Michael Kitces on a rising equity glide path:

https://www.kitces.com/blog/should-equi ... ly-better/

This was written back in 2013 and it looks like he's revisited the topic a few time since then.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by sophie » Wed Dec 13, 2017 7:38 am

Interesting article! This does have some similarity with my suggestion, but not quite. What I'm proposing is to use the Permanent Portfolio as a drop-in replacement for the cash & bond bucket, which is intended in the article to forestall having to sell equities when they're down. The core premise in the article is that bonds alone can't fund retirement expenses. The PP, of course, doesn't have that problem.

The rising glidepath in the article is about making up for a key weakness in stock/bond portfolios, which is inability to avoid selling stocks when they're down, which kills needed returns later on. The PP doesn't have that problem, either. I wasn't suggesting the 100% stock portion for safety, but rather to juice returns over the long haul (15+ years) and also to simplify management as it means you can cap the amount of gold you'll have to deal with, for example. Note that it helps with long stock bull markets, which are hell on the PP. So I guess it does provide a bit extra insurance and user-friendliness. Plus, the income from the stock funds can be collected in the PP's cash bucket, so it provides a bit of protection even if the market itself is doing poorly.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by blue_ruin17 » Wed Dec 13, 2017 7:55 pm

If I ever felt that I had "enough" in the PP (i.e. SWR achieved, plus a little cushion on top), my dream alternative asset would be local farmland which I would rent out to local farmers, with the objective being the creation of trust and partnership with said farmers, rather than focusing solely on cash-flow. As well, I would look into buying property in Singapore.

That's all dream level, though. For my foreseeable future, the PP is really the only rational investment vehicle out there.

I've often wondered how much I would put into the PP if I suddenly had a $100 million to invest. I actually would seriously consider just dumping the entire lump sum into the PP, minus a property or two, just for the peace-of-mind, even though it would be justified in mind to place a very large allocation into equities. Whenever I start to wander into any allocation that puts me sub-20% gold, though, that triggers anxiety for me. Even if I were a billionaire, I would keep at least 20% in gold, regardless of what the rest of the allocation looked like.
STAT PERPETUS PORTFOLIO DUM VOLVITUR ORBIS

Amazon: Investing Equanimity: The Logic & Wisdom of the Permanent Portfolio
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by tarentola » Sat Dec 16, 2017 8:11 am

Good questions, Sophie.

Q1 .The PP as a « base » portfolio could be complemented (or even replaced) by a stock portfolio. There are dividend share diehards on seekingalpha.com for example who seem to live exclusively off dividends and never sell a share unless forced to by a merger or similar event. I have a core PP (75%) and a satellite dividend share portfolio (25%), but I can think of other candidates for the satellite (see PS below).

2. and 3. How much is enough ? How do you calculate projected future expenses ?
I did the calculations when I retired a few years ago, but have found that a certain amount of trial and error was required. I set up a standing order from my investment account to my current account, but ended up with too much in the current account (a good problem) so had to put it back into the PP. Now I try to withdraw a smaller amount each month, and review the situation every few months.

4.How do you take Social Security income into account ?
In Europe I have a small state pension which I think is reliable, or as reliable as anything else!

5. Is a 4 % withdrawal rate safe ?
I think Tyler has satisfactorily shown that the answer is yes – in the USA. In Europe or at least Germany it is more like 3.5 % according to portfoliocharts.com. I am in Europe and withdraw 3 % from the PP. The yield on my share portfolio is about 3.5 %.

PS It seems to me that there are relatively few sane investing strategies that can be considered by a retired or retiring person - a non-gambler. The following come to mind:
  • The PP and variants - unbeatable in its historic low drawdown, and as good as many other portfolios in terms of return
  • Stocks and bonds 60/40 or similarly simple as championed by the Bogleheads
  • Stocks and bonds with other additions such as REITs (but little or no gold), such as Ivy, Larry and so on
  • Multiasset portfolios such as Merriman and 7-Twelve
  • Dividend stocks such as the Dividend Aristocrats, living off income from dividends, ignoring capital value, popular on Seeking Alpha.
The above could be managed actively or simply rebalanced.

I am considering multiassets for a complementary portfolio along with my dividend stocks. The other strategies in my view do not provide enough return or variation to make the increased drawdown risk worthwhile: they are not different enough from a PP. With dividend stocks, the drawdown is less important: dividend payouts hold up pretty well even during stock price crashes, and dividend-paying large-cap prices do recover eventually, as shown by the recovery since 2008-9.
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Re: How much is "enough" in the Permanent Portfolio?

Post by farjean2 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 2:26 pm

I retired last year (involuntarily) at the age of 67 and after I got my last paycheck I had almost exactly 1 million dollars in the PP. Fortunately I'm not having to draw from it yet because my wife is still working and also this year turned out to be a very nice start as far as sequence of returns goes. It is now 1.1 million already.

At this point in time I have to consider the entire nest egg as money I can't afford to lose and maybe not even "enough". If it grows to 1.5 million I figure that will give me close to a 6 figure pre-tax income when combined with my SS (which I'm delaying for the max). I might consider that "enough" if/when I get there.
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