View your 401k as insurance!

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Adrian

I agree with Financial Samurai’s basic sentiment, which is to effectively ‘write off’ your 401k and Social Security:

Every month I contribute $1,375 to my 401K so that by the end of the year, the 401K is maxed out at $16,500. Unfortunately, $16,500 a year is a ridiculously low amount of money to save for retirement if you really do the math. After 10 years, you might have $200,000, and after 30 years you might have $600,000 to $1 million depending on the markets and your employer’s match. Whatever the case may be, the 401K is simply not enough money to retire on, especially since you need to pay tax upon distribution.

CNN Money and other advisers showcased super savers who to my surprise include 401K and IRA contributions as part of their percentage savings calculations. In other words, if you make $100,000 a year, save $4,000 a year in cash, and contribute $16,000 in your 401K, you are considered by financial advisers as saving 20% of your gross income. Your $20,000 in “savings” is woefully light because in reality, you are only saving $4,000 a year. With the stock market implosion of 2008, your 401K has proven itself to be totally unreliable. Like Social Security, contribute to it like any good citizen should, but in no way depend on Social Security or your 401K to retire a comfortable life. I

Depending on Social Security is depending on the government doing the right thing. There’s no way that’s going to happen. Depending on your 401K is depending on people choosing the right stocks consistently over the long run, which isn’t going to happen either.

Because Social Security is a burden on governments and society, it’s always at risk of being watered down or eliminated … this is less of a risk the older your are (hence closer to receiving the payments).

But, not so your 401k: while governments can (and, probably will) water down – instead of increase – the contributions and benefits of your retirement program, the money that you contribute (and, your employer match) is still yours!

I don’t think you’ll ever lose what you contribute + whatever gains the flawed investment choices available may bring.

I look at my retirement plan (which I haven’t contributed to in years!) as insurance: if all else fails, when I reach whatever age the government of the time lets me access MY money, I’ll have something to keep me one step away from homeless … just.

So, I agree with Financial Samurai’s closing advice:

The only person you can depend on is yourself. This is why you must save that minimum 20% of your gross income every year on top of contributing to your 401K and IRA if you can.

You’ve heard of Paying Yourself Once? Well, I think you need to Pay Yourself Twice™ … once inside your 401k (there’s your ‘insurance policy premium’), and once outside of your 401k.

It’s the money that you can put aside OUTSIDE of your 401k that will drive your wealth, because you can put it to MUCH BETTER USE (e.g. investing in business, real-estate, value stocks, etc.) than that money locked away inside your 401k and in the hands of grossly under-performing, fee-driven mutual fund managers 🙂

A new kind of Bucket List …

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Adrian

This guy makes a big deal of this ‘new approach’ to investing.

Recognizing that people are scared of the market right now [AJC: before they become irrationally exuberant, again, in the next upswing] instead of giving this guy 100% of your money to invest in crappy mutual funds …

… you only give him 80% 😉

You put ‘the other 20%’ into The Bank, so that you have 2 years of cash to live off, and essentially ride the downswings.

I think that they’re hoping that by focusing on that yummy cash, you’ll forget to check what the market is doing, until you next go to top up your 2 year bucket.

OK, pre-retirement, 2 years living expenses is way too much to have aside. $0 is a better number.

Post retirement, I agree on the 2 year number (in fact, I recommend it); but, I don’t agree with his recommendations for the 80% bucket 🙂

How to save $1 million by 65? Who cares?!

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Adrian

The current state of American financial thinking is terrible, if this is the best advice that “a senior editor with Money Magazine” can come up with:

Question: I’m 28 and would like to have $1 million by the time I retire at 65. What are some of the investing options I should consider? –Joshua Sin, Fresno, Calif.

Answer: I’m all for savvy investing, and I’ll get to what I think you should do on that front in a minute. But let’s not forget that when it comes to building wealth, investing alone won’t do it. –Walter Updegrave, Senior Editor, Money Magazine.

Walter Updegrave, the author, then goes on to provide a very interesting analysis of how to come up with the $1 mill by 65 – basically saying that it can’t be done:

If you begin putting away $100 a month starting now and continue doing so until 2047, the year you’ll turn 65, you would need an annual return of roughly 13.5% a year to turn that monthly hundred dollars into a million bucks.

What investment options can deliver a 13.5% annual return for almost 40 years? None that I know of.

True. Correct. Perhaps, Insightful.

But, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: who in their right mind cares?

Hasn’t Walt forgotten to ask the key question … why???!!!

Joshua is to be commended for thinking so far ahead, at the age of 28, towards retirement. But, shouldn’t our financial expert’s first step be to examine if the objective is reasonable?

Let’s give it a shot:

Choosing a much more reasonable go-forward inflation rate of 3.5% …

[AJC: The author assumed “a modest 2.5% inflation rate”; that’s just UNDER the current outlook for the next 5 years, pulling out of a major global recession … but, I wouldn’t bet FOR a 40 year recession, if I were planning my own retirement!]

… by the time Joshua turns 65 that $1 million will only be worth $268k.

What does that mean?

It depends on what Joshua does with the money; however, given that his 37 year financial strategy has been simply to ‘save’ (presumably via CD’s, Bonds, Mutual Funds, and the like), I guess we need to assume that he will continue that strategy in retirement.

Therefore, Joshua will have little choice but to abide by the ‘advice’ of the financial planning community, which will be centered around finding a ‘safe withdrawal rate’; a great way to find out what that might be for Joshua, is to plug his $268,000 nest-egg into the T. Rowe Price Retirement Calculator:

Now, what annual income would be reasonable for somebody like Josh to aim for in retirement? $150k a year? $75k a year?

Let’s just say that he aims for $30,000 a year or $2,500 (before tax!) per month in today’s dollars; how well does he do with his $1,000,000?

Not very:

[AJC: PLUS whatever social security there may happen to be in 37 years time … how optimistic are you?!]

Do you think that Josh would have been more surprised to learn that:

a) he would need to average 13% p.a. on his savings to reach $1 mill, or

b) even if he made it all the way to his $1 mill. target, he would only have $871 per month to spend?!

Our readers represent a small but keen-to-learn cross-section of people interested in the subject of personal finance; let’s tell the financial services, advice, and publishing industries:

What sort of financial advice are you looking for?

Go ahead, leave a comment – especially if you’ve never done so before – and, we’ll challenge them to respond!

Suffer any bad beats lately?

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Adrian

I have to admit that it’s very exciting seeing my two real-estate development projects coming to fruition [AJC: this is the architect’s rendition of just one of my two condo projects … click on the image to enlarge it … go ahead … do it … I’ll love you for it].

I’ll get back to that in a sec’ …

… first, let me tell you about a conversation that I just had with a friend, while we were playing poker today:

FRIEND: Do you find any parallels between business and poker?

AJC: It’s uncanny, but yes I do … and, it’s caused me to totally rethink the way that I think about money

Well, not so much ‘totally rethink’ as remind me about some important Making Money 301 lessons that I seem to have forgotten …

…. but, I keep getting side-tracked; back to the poker:

Case in point: I had quickly tripled my starting stack in a cash game but, just as quickly lost it on a series of bad beats; bad calls (by them, not me); and bad luck.

When you’re running hot, you feel invincible.

When you’re running cold, nothing that you do turns out right.

… and, your poker bankroll quickly slips away.

Well, it’s pretty much the same thing in business and personal finance:

Your investments and/or businesses are ‘on fire’ … the market’s running hot, and – if you’re smart – you cash out at the peak, building up quite a bankroll.

Maybe you even reach your Number.

What should you do then? STOP and smell the roses!

But, the trouble is, greed and the adrenalin kicks in … you believe that you’ve got the Midas Touch. And, you push for the next project.

… and, that’s the one that gets you.

You know, market downturn, bad luck, bad advisers, etc., etc. sob, sob, sob.

Which is, perhaps, why Ill Liquidity asked me:

I don’t get it. You make a tidy sum and retire from the rat race, paying yourself a salary… why go forth and try new money making ventures?

Given my own ‘stop and smell the roses’ advice in that regard, I agree, it’s hard to understand. Sometimes, it’s even hard for me to understand 😉

So, let me take a stab at explaining it; the story so far:

I made my $7 million in 7 years (mainly through reinvesting the profits of my businesses into buy/hold real-estate), and then made a heap more (by selling those businesses just before the 2008 crash), but ….

… then the crash hit, and here’s where my money went:

1. $1.5 million cash into my house in the US (you know I can’t sell that, right?)

2. $5 million cash into my house in Australia

3. 25% of what I sold the businesses for in taxes [AJC: sheesh!]

4. Lost 100% of my $3 million bonus on company stock price crash + taxes paid on the full $3 million [AJC: double sheesh! … but, it’s nice to know that I have a heap of capital gains tax credits to use for the rest of my life]

5. Gave my accountant $1 million to invest in the Aussie stock market for me … he promptly lost 75% in about 6 weeks. My fault for trying to time the market, not his 🙁

Don’t feel too sorry for me: when others try to get to sleep by counting sheep, I count millions!

My problem is this:

All of this bad luck and bad management has left me with assets – not including my $5 million primary residence – that I consider just enough to live my Life’s Purpose.

But, I am an über-pessimist and I really want a large margin for error.

Now, in my rational moments, I realize that my house provides me that i.e. as soon as the kids move out, in approx. 10 to 15 years, we will sell down into a, say, $2 million apartment, which would free up another $3 million (all in today’s dollars, but the price differential should still hold true).

But, even that’s not good enough for me.

So the question that I am wresting with – and, have decided to put off answering until I have building permits for both projects in my hands:

Will I take my own advice and sell both development sites (with permits) for a tidy profit (if all goes well), or will I pull the trigger and dump most of my net worth into these developments to get the Really Big Bucks?

Only time will tell … but, you will be amongst the first to know 🙂

In the meantime, have you suffered any ‘bad beats’ lately?

The Myth Of Saving Your Way To Retirement …

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Adrian

Quite a while ago, I published a post that took a look at the supposed ‘power’ of saving …

… if you didn’t read it then, now would be a good time to ask yourself if you really care that weekly contributions of $34 could potentially grow to over $76,000 in 20 years, as proudly proclaimed by Fidelity?

One reader, Concojones, thinks that I have underestimated the ‘power of savings’:

Let’s not dismiss too quickly the good old save-your-way-to-retirement advice. Saving $15k/year for 40 years yields an expected $2.5M in today’s dollars (for what it’s worth: $10+M in retirement dollars), assuming your investments go up 5-6% per year after inflation.

Let’s not dismiss it too quickly, indeed. Retiring with $10 million in your pocket (albeit, ‘only’ worth $2.5 million in today’s purchasing power) is none too shabby.

The only problem that I can see – actually, the only FOUR problems that I can see are:

1. You have to be happy (well, ‘happy’ is a relative term) to work for 40 years,

2. You have to save $15k per year – easy at the end of 40 years, very hard at the beginning … and, even harder in the middle when you might be earning ‘only’ $50k (before tax) and have to put away 15% to 30% of your salary “with four hungry children and a crop in the field” [AJC: if you’re old enough to remember that Kenny Rogers song]

3. You have to average 8% to 10% return on your type of investment – but it has to be one that lets you add $15k annual increments for 40 years (which ties you to ‘standard’ products like, CD’s, bonds, stocks, and mutual funds).

4. You MUST be disciplined enough to stick to this simple strategy for the entire 40 years WITHOUT WAVERING in up/down markets: the Dalbar Study [ http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/investors-behaving-badly/ ] says a firm NO to being able to achieve anything like this rate of return.

So, great on a spreadsheet, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it 😉

What price security?

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Adrian

How do you put a price on security?

Well, in this post I’m going to try and do exactly that but, first MoneyMonk asks the question that all people have at the back of their minds:

As a woman, I just want to say that “to each it’s own” Women love security.

If you are not a person that love investing, and you have the cash to pay off your mortgage (considering that you plan to live their forever)

Adrian- not everyone is business oriented. Some just don’t have the business acumen to run a business. Therefore, that group SHOULD pay off the mortgage

This is the dream of home ownership: own your home outright and you have nothing to worry about.

But, do you?

Let’s say that you own a $150,000 home today … what will it be worth in 30 year’s time?

About the same as a $150,000 home today, but in future dollars!

So, let me ask you; when your kids grow up, move out, and you retire, what are you going to move into?

Probably the same, or another $150,000 home … a smaller condo or newer townhouse that will probably not give you too much change, if any, from $150,000, a retirement home that (with fees) will cost you far more than $150,000.

Your home is not your financial security; your realizable net worth is. Put it another way: you can’t live off your home, but you can live off your cash and investments.

True security comes from knowing that you can pay your monthly bills for the rest of your life, without needing to work or get handouts from friends, relatives, or the government, through up markets and down (war, pestilence, and other Acts of God aside).

I hope that you see my point …

So, let’s look at two scenarios for a $150,000 house that you just bought and locked in a 30 year fixed rate loan at 6% (a bit higher than today’s actual rates, which are still between 5% and 5.5%):

1. You pay off your mortgage early

Note: We will assume that you are allowed to pay off as little / much as you like on your loan (not the case with some fixed rate loans in the USA, and certainly not the case with most fixed rate loans in most other countries!) because it makes the math simpler.

This is great, because you ‘earn’ 6% on your money [AJC: remember, a dollar saved – in interest – is the same as a dollar earned], better yet:

– The amount you ‘earn’ is guaranteed; every year that you are no longer paying that 6% loan, you are in effect earning 6% … simple and guaranteed!

– Unlike an investment that pays you 6%, there is no tax to be paid on the 6% mortgage that you save (although, there can be a negative benefit of losing the tax deduction on your home loan interest … but, I’m trying to keep this simple), so it’s more like earning 7.5% – 8.5% (depending on your tax rate) in any other investment.

– Let’s say that you plonk the entire $150k down in one hit, you save the entire $175k INTEREST (yes, a house that you buy for $150k in 2010 will have cost you $325k, just in principal and interest, by the time you have paid off the 30 year loan in 2040).

2. You do not pay off your mortgage early

Note: Paying the loan off slower will, naturally, save you something greater than $0 and less than $175,000 … but, is too hard to calculate, here, so we will continue to use the assumption that somehow, you were able to pay that entire $150k loan off in one hit.

Well, it’s a fairly simple calculation then, isn’t it: what can you invest $150,000 in that will return more than $175,000? Let’s run some numbers and see:

Business: If Michael Masterson is right, and we gain 50% (or more) from our own business, then after 30 years you would have earned $29 Billion on your $150k ‘seed capital’.

But, MoneyMonk is right: there is extreme risk and skill involved in being successful in business … just a shame the potential reward is so low 😉

[AJC: just a tad more than the $175k interest that you would have saved if you used the money to pay off your mortgage instead of starting a business]

Real-Estate and Stocks: Again, if Michael Masterson is right, and we gain 30% by investing in a mixture of buy/hold real-estate and stocks (naturally, continually reinvesting the rents and dividends), then after 30 years you would have $392 million …

… if that sounds a lot, remember that Warren Buffett built up a $40 Billion+ fortune over 40 years at not much more than 21% compounded.

Stocks: I agree with Michael Masterson, that if you buy stock in just a few good businesses when they are are going cheap (as the market does from time to time) and wait 30 years, you should have no trouble getting a 15% compounded (pre-tax) return so, after 30 years you would have nearly 10 million.

But, all of this has some risk / skill associated with it … so, maybe paying off the mortgage and snaffling that $175k is still the way to go for all of those risk averse people [AJC: Like me. True!] out there?

But, wait, what if we just do the ‘no brainer’ thing and plonk that entire $150k in a set-and-forget-low-cost-Index-Fund?

Here’s the good news: paying off your mortgage is a 30 year investment (you have forgone 30 years of being locked in to a loan and paying 6% interest year in, year out), so it’s only fair that we buy $150k of Index Fund units and don’t even look at our portfolio for 30 years, right?

Well, that’s an ideal strategy – THE ideal strategy – for Boglehead set-and-forget investors! So …

Index Funds: Over 30 years, the markets (hence the lowest cost Index Funds) have averaged something more than 12% – set and forget (!) – so, after 30 years you would still gain close to $3.5 million!

But, wait … we’re all about security here: you can’t live off averages, right? What happens if there’s another crash like 1929 and 2008 the day after I plonk my entire $150k into an Index Fund?

Well, you lose half your money immediately 🙁

But, we don’t care what happens immediately, this is a 30 year set-and-forget plan … and, there has been NO 30 year period where the stock market hasn’t returned AT LEAST 8%.

Now, isn’t 8% (since we have to pay tax on it) exactly the same as the equivalent after-tax 6% mortgage (give or take 0.5%)?

Yes!

The lowest possible return that we can get with any reasonable investment strategy that we can come up with is exactly the same as the best possible return that we can get by paying off our mortgage early.

Now, isn’t that interesting?

Punch Buggy Blue!

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Adrian

Let’s say that you do agree that real-estate is one of the best MM301 (wealth preservation) strategies … although, many of my readers would disagree …

[AJC: I’m happy to meet all the dissenters in, say, 50 years – at a very cheap restaurant, as they won’t be able to afford much more – to discuss how they went with their TIPS, bonds, cash and stocks-based retirement strategies. Then I’ll meet Scott, Ryan and all the other RE and business-based retirees on their private golf-course in Palm Beach for a second debrief 😉 ]

… but, what type of RE would fit the bill?

After all, many of my readers, Evan included, have had mixed experiences with RE:

I have watched my dad deal with C R A P for years. He owns 2 properties:
1) CASH COW – 2 family residential unit income exceeds mortgage payments. They always pay on time and there mostly are no problems

2) 2 family unit with a bar attached. I have listened to him say for YEARS, that if the bar paid its rent things would be different. I feel like the stress associated with this property is going to kill him eventually, and that is the commercial part.

In NY it takes 9 to 18 months to get someone out, so even if you try to evict you are looking at legal and time costs that could literally eat 6 months profit.

As I said to Evan:

That’s why we keep TWO YEARS’ buffer 😉

But, we all have a Reticular Activating System (RAS) that attracts us to whatever it is that has caught our attention … for example, have you ever played the Punch Buggy / Slug Bug game with your friends and / or kids?

If not, it’s a bundle of fun – and, pain. Actually, mainly pain 🙁

It works like this: who ever sees a VW ‘bug’ first calls out “Punch Buggy [insert color of choice: yellow, green, red, etc.] !!” and gets to whack the other person on the arm … as hard as they like [AJC: usually me. ouch!] …

It’s amazing how many VW Beetles there are on the roads, these days!

We used to play a similar game – many, many years ago – when I was on the school bus: we used to look for Chrysler Chargers, and whomever saw one first would yell out “Hey, Charger!” and hold up their hand with a Richard Nixonesque V-For-Victory sign.

The winner for the day was the one who scored the most ‘victories’ …

It’s amazing how many Chrysler Chargers there were on the roads, in those days 🙂

Of course, what’s happening is that our RAS is simply filtering IN Chargers (or VW Beeltes) and filtering OUT other types of vehicles, making it SEEM as though Chargers / Beetles are everywhere … of course, there are no more / less than there were before we started looking out for them.

Similarly, with RE – or other – investments:

Our view tends towards our first direct – or, even indirect – experiences; which helps to explain why my generation is more conservative (we went through some down cycles in the late 80’s and early 90’s) and younger folk were more bullish, having had 15 to 20 good years … until resetting their RAS’ in the current cycle.

Similarly, Evan’s views may be colored by his Dad’s experiences albeit mixed.

But, Evan’s Dad could have avoided many of his RE problems by buying well … now, for MM301, buying well is NOT the same as buying well for MM201:

While we are still building towards our Number, we need to buy RE that will appreciate strongly, with rents just covering cashflow (of course, we wouldn’t say “no” to more!) …

… but, when we have reached our Number, we need to generate INCOME, so buying well really means that we need to:

Buy to protect our future income / rental stream

As I have shown you, it’s easy to get a positive cashflow from RE; just pay cash!

And, live happily from 75% of the rents (less taxes), knowing that the other 25% will cover all of your ‘normal’ costs (management fees, vacancies, repairs and maintenance, etc.), and will keep up with inflation.

It’s the last part that is key: since we are never selling these properties [AJC: lucky kids!], we don’t really care how much/little the RE itself appreciates, we just care how much the rents appreciate, and our benchmark for this is:

The rents must appreciate at least as much as inflation

That is through both UP and DOWN markets …

… so, I would keep away from bars and other retail EXCEPT for counter-cycle retailers such as dollar stores, groceries / food stores (food staples only), and – of course – Walmart and Walgreens [AJC: if I could get my hands on the freehold!].

Remember, we’re not looking for extraordinary capital growth (any more), but protection in down-cycles.

[AJC: oh, and if you were going to buy stocks (again, for retirement capital protection and dividends); these types of retailers and food businesses would be great ‘protection stocks’ to own, as well]

And, moving away from retail, I would also happily buy small offices, say, housing a number of separate professionals (e.g. doctors, attorneys, etc.), as these professions are required in all markets and my risks are well spread.

But, I would avoid large offices – or industrial showrooms and warehouses – housing SME’s, as these are prime candidates for simply shutting shop in a down cycle, and I may only have one tenant per property (even though buying 6 or 7 of these would certainly help to insulate the ‘shock’)

And, you might be surprised to find that I am not all that excited about residential (even multi-family) for MM301, simply because the rental returns are usually not that great (but, they can make a fantastic MM201 strategy).

Remember, RE isn’t the only MM301 Wealth Protection strategy that you can base your retirement (or, life after work) around, it’s just that I am struggling to find another one that has both income and capital that can keep up with inflation, fairly consistently, through at least the 30 to 50 years that I still plan to be around …

… can you?

The Golden Faucet

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Adrian

Ordinary folk don’t plan their finances during their working life, so what chance do they have in retirement?

None.

But, that doesn’t apply to us smart folk who read personal finance blogs …

… WE plan our retirement according to either Poor Man methods, or Rich Man methods known only to a few i.e. The Rich!

By the end of this post, you will know the difference; whether you choose to believe me and what you choose to do with this information is entirely up to you 😉

So, here goes:

Conventional Personal Finance wisdom – clearly ascribed to by the majority of my readers – says that you pick a so-called ‘Safe Withdrawal Rate’ …

…. that is, the percentage of your retirement Nest Egg that you can withdraw to live off each year that you feel will be small enough that your money will last as long as you do.

A sensible objective, wouldn’t you think?

You can pick any % between 2% and 7% (even up to 10%, if you believe all of those Get Rich Quick books) and find some expert or study that supports your choice.

You then have a choice to

a) make that % a fixed amount of your initial retirement portfolio (e.g. let’s say that you retire with $1,000,000 and choose 4%, giving you an initial retirement salary of $40k p.a.), then increase that salary by c.p.i each year regardless of how your portfolio rises or falls [AJC: it’s called the “close your eyes and hang on tight” approach to retirement living], or

b) choose your preferred ‘safe’ withdrawal % and let that rise and fall according to the rise and fall of your your portfolio’s value … so, if you happen to retire a year before the next stock market crash, you could be withdrawing 4% of $1 mill. in one year, then 4% of $500k the next year [AJC: no problem, as long as you can stifle the urge to jump off a ledge when your income halves, as well]

Optimists will choose a withdrawal rate in the 5% to 7% range and pessimists will choose a withdrawal rate in the 3% to 5% range …

… Rich people will do neither!

Why?

Well, before you retire (i.e. now, while you are still working) you could draw a curve of your likely salary moves between now and retirement and you could pick a living standard that corresponds to that curve, using actuarial tables to basically create an inflation indexed annuity for yourself throughout your working life.

But you don’t.

Instead, you live according to your means – and, adjust as necessary – and, build up various safety nets (via cash reserves and insurances) as you deem prudent and necessary.

Why would you do any different after you retire?

Poor people who retire put their money in a bucket and a little trickles in (interest, dividends, capital appreciation) and a lot gushes out (inflation, taxes, expenses, disasters).

You have a bad year or three, overspend a little, a couple of health issues, and you’re screwed [AJC: it even happens to retired sports stars, movie stars, and musicians. Ever heard of MC Hammer?].

But it doesn’t happen to smart Rich people, because they don’t drink from a bucket … they drink from a golden faucet:

They create – then live from – an income, both before retirement and after!

Think about our energy crisis past, present and future … all resolvable (we hope!) by switching to an abundant source of clean, green, renewable energy.

Now, think about all of your spending crisis past, present and future … all resolvable (you hope!) by living within your means a.k.a. creating an abundant source of renewable income!

That income can come from a family business that you retire from but retain “passive” part-ownership of; from venture capital activities; from real-estate investments; and, so on … in fact, from any investment that produces a reliable income stream that tends to grow at least in line with inflation.

Here is how I planned it:

1. I used the Rule of 20 strictly for planning purposes [AJC: this sounds like a 5% withdrawal rate, but who said that I’m actually going to withdraw the 5% each year?!]

2. I started creating a Perpetual Money Machine: something that will produce income that I can live off; in my case, it was RE bought with (or, for which I already have built up) plenty of equity or cash to ensure a healthy positive cash flow.

3. To cover ‘bad years’ and other contingencies, I retain at least 25% of the income stream until I have built up enough for TWO YEARS of living expenses and then I reinvest whatever is left over (i.e. buy another property every few years).

So, what if something goes wrong as it did for me when the GFC hit leaving me with too much house, another house I can’t get rid of, and $2.5 million of unavoidable stock losses [AJC: part payment for my business came in UK stock … yuk!], resulting in not enough income?

You go back to MM201 and start again (hence, my commercial property development activities) …

… after all, history has shown that your first fortune is by far the hardest 🙂

The Ultimate Gift – Part II

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Adrian

If Monday’s post didn’t spur you to start early, this one sure should!

First, here is something that will upset you if you are already 55 and figure that you need another 10 years to retirement:

Not bothered?

Well, let’s see if we make the same comparison, starting with a much earlier retirement age:

If you used to think that a lifetime of work was good for you, think again – this chart [AJC: the blue line is the important one] shows:

The longer you work, the shorter you live!

From another article:

Generally, it is found that people retiring early live more, but how long do they live? Or what is the average number of years they live after retirement? Well, now 49-50 is usually not considered to be a retirement age in most countries. However, if a person plans everything well and retires at the age of 50, he is expected to live for at least another 35-36 years, which increases the life span to almost 85-86 years! People retiring in their early 50s, normally live up to their late 70s or early 80s and people retiring at their early 60s, live till their early or mid 70s.

We had a pretty important reason to aim to Get Rich(er) Quick(er) i.e. so that we could have the time and money to finally live our Life’s Purpose …

…. but, if you don’t have a clearly defined purpose, then let me give you just one real clear, real simple reason to get Rich(er) Quick(er):

If you retire before 50, you will live 20 years longer than if you wait for normal retirement age.

No longer is the idea that “business/investing is too stressful … I’ll just wait it out in my nice stress-free post office job” valid …

…. I don’t care whether you intend to retire with $1 million or $10 million, as long as you reach your Number much sooner than you otherwise would.

By reaching my Number at age 49, I not only gave myself the gift of finally having the means to truly live my Life’s Purpose, but I also gave myself the gift of 20 years extra in which to live it …

… this, too, is my gift to you.

Don’t waste it!

The Ultimate Gift – Part I

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Adrian

There are lots of reasons to read this blog but, in this special two part post, I am going to give you the ultimate gift …

… I’m going to add 20 years to your life!

After all, what good is life after work (a.k.a. retirement) if you die soon after?

[AJC: we can thank TraineeInvestor for this link – the inspiration for these posts; yet another reason to keep a close eye on the comments to my posts 😉 ]

7million7years

How to make 7 million in 7 years …

Tag Archives: retirement