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Posted by on May 31, 2008, 10:01 pm
1st post with a wide question ;)
My situation
51 self employed carpenter
small old IRA say 15k
129k cash
What is my best options for a safe investment with a monthly pay out
in the near future.
Say 5-8 years from now?
Right now I have this cash in the bank & it is not needed for daily
living.
I have had stocks in the past but own none now & the market looks a
bit iffy at best
Thanks for any ideas
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Posted by John A. Weeks III on May 31, 2008, 10:45 pm
In article
reading333@gmail.com wrote:
> What is my best options for a safe investment with a monthly pay out
> in the near future.
> Say 5-8 years from now?
There is none. Safe means that you are not willing to risk loss
of principal. The only financial tools that do that have a very
low return right now. At the same time, the real rate of inflation
(ie, the rate that people see, not the CPI that the feds publish)
is much higher than the fixed rate of return. As a result, any
so called "safe" investment is sure to lose you buying power, which
actually makes it the most risky thing you can do.
> Right now I have this cash in the bank & it is not needed for daily
> living.
I'd split it 5 ways, with $25k in each bucket, and $4k left over
as a cash emergency fund. Pick a pair of index funds, a growth
fund, a dividend fund, and a global fund. Pick names you have
heard, and pick funds that own companies that you have heard of.
> I have had stocks in the past but own none now & the market looks a
> bit iffy at best
The market has had a remarkable run over the past few months. It
went from around 11,000 to over 12,500 in just a few weeks. That
is the whole problem with watching the market when you should be
investing for the future. All the short term noise hides the fact
that the market has an overall 11% return for about 100 years.
At any rate, don't buy individual stocks. You don't have enough
to efficiently buy a big enough basket to be well diversified.
Leave that for the billionaires, funds are fine for the rest of
us.
-john-
--
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John A. Weeks III 612-720-2854 john@johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
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Posted by Mark Bole on June 1, 2008, 11:40 am
John A. Weeks III wrote:
>> What is my best options for a safe investment with a monthly pay out
>> in the near future.
>> Say 5-8 years from now?
>
> There is none. Safe means that you are not willing to risk loss
> of principal. The only financial tools that do that have a very
> low return right now. At the same time, the real rate of inflation
> (ie, the rate that people see, not the CPI that the feds publish)
> is much higher than the fixed rate of return. As a result, any
> so called "safe" investment is sure to lose you buying power, which
> actually makes it the most risky thing you can do.
While I generally agree with the recommendation (see below), I don't
agree with this analysis. Losing a "safe" one or two percent in net
buying power to inflation (after getting a safe fixed rate of return on
a savings deposit) is far less risky than potentially losing 10% or more
in principal. Risk is not a measure of gain or loss, it's a measure of
volatility. A bank account (FDIC insured) is *always* less risky than
the stock market, no matter what the inflation rate is, since inflation
has a similar impact on both types of return.
>> Right now I have this cash in the bank & it is not needed for daily
>> living.
>
> I'd split it 5 ways, with $25k in each bucket, and $4k left over
> as a cash emergency fund. Pick a pair of index funds, a growth
> fund, a dividend fund, and a global fund. Pick names you have
> heard, and pick funds that own companies that you have heard of.
For a five year or longer time horizon, this makes sense. But, being
self-employed, I'd keep more like $20-30K in the emergency fund. This
assumes OP is single with no dependents, and a bunch of other
assumptions about the OP's situation that we'd all have to know more
about to make really precise suggestions. The biggest question I have
is, why look at a 5-8 year time frame? Is the OP planning to stop
working at that time?
If you are within the AGI limits, consider converting that trad. IRA to
a Roth, but only up to the point where it pushes you into the next
higher tax bracket. Paying the income taxes up front now on this money
is an "investment" with little downside, plus five years after the
conversion, you will have the option to withdraw the money without
penalty, instead of waiting until retirement age. Search the group
archives for more details on this.
In fact, being self-employed and over age 50, you could also look into
socking away a large annual amount into retirement (solo 401K or other
Keogh-type plan) and making up the difference with some of your savings
-- in other words, getting the money out of short-term savings and into
longer term, tax-deferred or tax-free retirement accounts. You can
still invest in the types of funds John suggests, but from within the
retirement account. On the other hand, you are close enough to
retirement age that the benefits of these types of accounts will be more
limited than if you had a 20-30 time horizon.
And don't forget Health Savings Account, if you don't already have one.
-Mark Bole
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Posted by on June 1, 2008, 12:34 pm
> John A. Weeks III wrote:
>
> >> What is my best options for a safe investment with a monthly pay out
> >> in the near future.
> >> [ 125k in cash right now]
> >> Say 5-8 years from now?
> > I'd split it 5 ways, with $25k in each bucket, and $4k left over
> > as a cash emergency fund. Pick a pair of index funds, a growth
> > fund, a dividend fund, and a global fund. Pick names you have
> > heard, and pick funds that own companies that you have heard of.
>
> For a five year or longer time horizon, this makes sense. But, being
> self-employed, I'd keep more like $20-30K in the emergency fund. This
After putting $25k into an emergency fund, leaving $100k to
invest, I'd be pretty wary of putting this guy's entire
remaining portfolio into equities. I suspect that he'd
be pretty uncomfortable with the volatility of a 100% equity
portfolio and would probably temper it down to more like
70% equity and 30% fixed income. Or, to make things a little
simpler, 75/25 - with that 25% in something like short term
investment grade corporates (if he's in a very low tax bracket)
or in a short-mid term muni bond fund (if he's in a higher
tax bracket). The remaining 75 could be split into 3 or 5
index or index-like funds pretty easily in a wide variety of
ways.
> is, why look at a 5-8 year time frame? Is the OP planning to stop
> working at that time?
Good question - if he's got a specific purchase in mind after
that (relatively) short period of time, then something even
more conservative might be in order. If it's long-term retirement
money, then I'd certainly go no less than 60% equities, starting
with as much as 70 or 75% and shifting towards 60/40 as he gets
closer to the ending date. If he's planning on making the
whole thing last for 30 years (which, if he's retiring at 60,
he needs to plan for), with a conservative payout, he still
probably shouldn't plan on going less than 50-60% equities by
the time he retires.
> If you are within the AGI limits, consider converting that trad. IRA
> to a Roth, but only up to the point where it pushes you into the next
> higher tax bracket. Paying the income taxes up front now on this
Very good call. And contributing more to it during the next
few working years, even if doing so means pulling money from
the taxable account along the way to do so.
> And don't forget Health Savings Account, if you don't already have one.
Depending, of course, on how his health insurance is already
covered.
--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting
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Posted by on June 1, 2008, 4:38 pm
On Jun 1, 6:34 am, BreadWithS...@fractious.net wrote:
> > is, why look at a 5-8 year time frame? Is the OP planning to stop
> > working at that time?
>
> Good question - if he's got a specific purchase in mind after
> that (relatively) short period of time, then something even
> more conservative might be in order. If it's long-term retirement
> money, then I'd certainly go no less than 60% equities, starting
> with as much as 70 or 75% and shifting towards 60/40 as he gets
> closer to the ending date. If he's planning on making the
> whole thing last for 30 years (which, if he's retiring at 60,
> he needs to plan for), with a conservative payout, he still
> probably shouldn't plan on going less than 50-60% equities by
> the time he retires.
Thank You all for the replies.
Yes I am wondering about early retirement to SE Asia from USA.
Initially I thought about putting this money into another home &
resell after 2 years.Which is what I do best
But the market here is also slow which is still not so bad for me as I
build for less than most can but..............
I was curious about other things like the Vanguard Wellington Fund
investor shares (VWELX) I had read a bit about.
Something with a small payout would be nice.
As for health insurance I have a private policy I pay for myself now.
I would also but insurance if I retired to SE Asia.
I guess I am pretty up in the air right now & have no clear direction
as I am not 100% sure I will retire at 59-60 or not.
Or that I can for that matter. Cost of living is much less there but
still.
I will read back in this group & see what I can learn about the
investments you all mention
Thank You
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to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting
guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to
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