Category: Invest Effectively

Invest Effectively

What’s The Impact Of Inflation On Your Retirement?

Prices are going up. Consumer price inflation ballooned to 6.8% in November as massive increases in government debt and supply-chain issues over the last year were reflected. The Fed & Biden believe they can get back to a 2% annual average target, but clearly that’s going to take some doing. Retirement plans are especially susceptible to rising prices as fixed investments, pensions, bonds, and social … Continue reading What’s The Impact Of Inflation On Your Retirement?

Unknown's avatarMrFireStation28 Comments
Invest Effectively

The “Biden Bump”

President Trump once said, “the stock market does whatever the stock market wants to do.” Still, that didn’t stop him from claiming that his policies resulted in the ~75% growth in the S&P 500, following his election. The ‘Trump Bump’ got a lot of attention, but it’s worth noting that we’ve seen a nice ‘Biden Bump’ in the year following his election, too. The S&P … Continue reading The “Biden Bump”

Unknown's avatarMrFireStation18 Comments
Invest Effectively

Benchmarking: Cash / CD Buffer

Someone recently asked online how much cash or other ‘safe/liquid’ investments did people carry into early retirement as a buffer against a market downturn. It’s an important decision to make heading into retirement and it was the final financial preparation we put into place ourselves. About 3 years before I left MegaCorp, we started accumulating a pile of cash equal to 3 years of spending. … Continue reading Benchmarking: Cash / CD Buffer

Unknown's avatarMrFireStation15 Comments
Invest Effectively

How Much Are People Betting On Cryptos?

Our FIRE friend, PhysiciansOnFire.com, hosts a Facebook group called ‘FatFIRE’. It’s a place for folks living comfortably, financially independent & retired early (or aspiring to be) can discuss different personal finance topics. It’s a remarkable group with over 18K subscribers. A few days ago, someone posted an interesting question: “What % of your assets are in cryptocurrencies?” (Excluding real estate). I’ve had a long-running interest … Continue reading How Much Are People Betting On Cryptos?

Unknown's avatarMrFireStation5 Comments
Invest Effectively

Great Returns & Market Observations

We had a nice sit down with our financial planner last week for our ‘annual check-up’.  As you can imagine, the update was very good given how well the markets have been doing, despite the pandemic.   I honestly believe that I couldn’t have been luckier to pull the trigger on retirement 5 years ago. Since then, the stock market has been on a tear, … Continue reading Great Returns & Market Observations

Unknown's avatarMrFireStation3 Comments
Invest Effectively, Know You Number

Annual Portfolio Check Up

I spent yesterday – Memorial Day – getting ready for an upcoming meeting with our Financial Advisor. We’re sitting down Friday for the first time in more than a year. We usually meet and do a ‘check up’ one time a year, but last year we skipped it due to the CV19 pandemic. Before our annual meeting, I give him a summary document of all … Continue reading Annual Portfolio Check Up

Unknown's avatarMrFireStation5 Comments
Invest Effectively

Added Real Estate Investment Risk?

Someone posted a curious question about real estate investments in an online forum this week. They wondered if anyone had ever reached a financially comfortable early retirement “without investing in real estate”? They held the hypothesis that real estate is one of the primary routes to FIRE (financial independence & retired early). I thought the question was a bit odd. While I always surmised that … Continue reading Added Real Estate Investment Risk?

Unknown's avatarMrFireStation12 Comments