Gyroscopic Investing

Greetings

I am very interested in the PP and have been working my way through the long BH thread. I am curious about using PP in the retirement - distribution phase. Most of what I have read seems to deal with the accumulation phase. I would love to hear comments from those of us who are retired. Are you happy with the PP, did you make any tweaks to the 4x25 allocation due to retirement, are you using the 4%SWR concept? 

Thanks for any comments or suggestions. Also thanks to Craig for this great web site, forum and podcasts - these have really helped me feel more comfortable with Harry Browne and the PP.

Bob

I use my portfolio for living expenses. It has been able to grow my money and prevent large drawdowns which dramatically impacts distributions and portfolio survivability long term. IMO. I generally use the cash allocation during the year for expenses and replenish it during my rebalancing. I try to keep portfolio withdrawals in the 3-4% range. Better to be more conservative because you can always spend more later if needed.

The other thing about the portfolio is I sleep better with the wider diversification. If I take a big loss in one sector the damage is contained. A 50% market decline in stocks for instance could be very bad with other allocations but would be relatively minor thing in the Permanent Portfolio (-12.5% decline). If a large loss in a sector should happen, you have the ability to assess the situation less emotionally than someone that takes a big gamble in stocks, gold, bonds, etc. and is staring at very large losses. There is a big difference between a -12.5% loss for instance and the -30%+ losses some people took in 2008 with stock heavy allocations.

Craig and Clive

Thanks for the comments, suggestions and the thread link. I started my DCA into the PP this morning and should be in place at the end of 12 months. I understand the research indicates a lump sum approach is probably more successful than DCA - but I think DCA will let me sleep better.

Bob