Since the weather is dismal, I cannot enjoy my free time by walking and gardening (in March "gardening" in zone 5, U.S., means sprucing up and cleaning the yard). The garden is in fact covered by three feet of snow.
So, I have plenty of time to surf the net and I freshen up on my financial/investment/frugality knowledge by visiting my favorite blogs and discovering new ones.
I have previously written about a few financial independence blogs that I always read (here, here, and here), but since then I have discovered many others that I love reading.
Here are a few of these new (to me) blogs:
Wallet Hacks
The Green Swan
Tawcan
Slowly Sipping Coffee
Our Next Life
Retire Before Dad
Retire by 40
Freedom Is Groovy
This morning I was reading the latest post of Wallet Hacks on CAPE as a measure of whether the stock market is over-priced. (By the way, find more on CAPE and other neat info here).
I was happy to find out that the recent changes I made with my employer-sponsored retirement portfolio might make sense. I do not have a financial advisor, so validating my financial behavior is a bit difficult since I do not trust myself too much. Anyway, back in December 2016 I got way too stressed by the stock market going up and up, and decided that I need to switch most of my assets in my major pre-tax investment account to bonds. My asset allocation back then was 80% in equities, 10% in real estate, and 10% in bonds.
In the early days of January 2017 I did the reshuffling. Currently, my asset allocation reads:
Equities: 34.10%
Fixed income: 65.90%
Also, all my automatic contributions from my salary are set to buy only bonds, and in particular, VBTLX.
I also have a small after-tax investment account with a discount brokerage company. I did a tremendous overhaul of the account last year by selling some "mistakes" acquired more than eight years ago and also cashing on some lucky strikes. The sold stocks were all stocks in individual companies that paid no or low dividends. My current after-tax portfolio is oriented to dividend stocks only, and since I hate picking companies, in addition to 10 or more individual companies, I started buying ETFs for dividends (VNQ, VYM, VTI). I am not planning on buying more of these ETFs this year due to the current exorbitant prices.
Anyway, when I take all my investments into account, the allocation is close to 1:1 between equities and bonds. This brings me some peace of mind, since my job is highly unstable, I am old (not revealing yet how old...) and I need to protect my retirement assets in case I need them in 5 -10 years from now. None of this reasoning applies to younger than me people - if your horizon is more than 10 years of investing, go for equities.
A nifty tool that allows you to play different allocations for your retirement is the Vanguard retirement nest egg calculator.
Another switch in my financial plans is to pile up some cash this year. So, whatever is left after all my taxes and automatic deductions to the employer-sponsored retirement account (investing in VBTLX now), I will stash into an online savings account with 0.75% interest rate. I may need this cash, if my job suddenly disappears and I am still not qualified to access the pre-tax retirement money without penalty. In case of emergency, I also do not want to start selling my small after-tax portfolio. After I reach my desired number of $ in cash, if the CAPE is still below 30, I may go back to buying VYM.
Anyway, I digressed.
I was about to tell you what my favorite Internet sites on personal finances are.
In addition to the sites mentioned above, I am currently reading two Europe-based bloggers:
The Frugal Cottage
From cents to retirement
Finally, the sites I visit almost every week are:
Financial Samurai
Fifighter
Digital Nomad Quest
The authors of all these blogs are way much younger than me, but I guess by reading them I relive my life in a different way. Only if I could start my life again, but with the financial knowledge I have today!
I hope it is not too late for you.
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