sschullo 0 Report post Posted October 3, 2020 Hi, I thought I would put my current portfolio to show newbies who want to get out of those costly annuities. This graph shows when my late spouse and I did after getting out of five horrible annuities in 1994 and learning about investing with mutual funds and stocks and bonds. Back in the 1990s, I did not know about diversification nor did I include enough of a bond allocation. The vertical line shows the evolution of my portfolio going from a 95% technology no-load mutual fund portfolio on the left side of the graph to the portfolio I have today with those modest returns and losses on the right. This AA on the right and my pie graph shows the same AA for 15 or 16 years, 30 to 35% stocks and 65 to 70% bonds. The stock bond split is of course a rule of thumb. My choice is what works for me as I am risk adverse, no descendants, I have won the game, and do not need to play any longer, and needed this money for retirement so I am in the preservation stage. If you have a lucrative pension benefit where you don't need to tap into your investments in retirement, HECK put 100% into stocks and let your descendants worry about it. If you are in your 20s and 30s you would have the opposite AA with 20% to 30% in bonds and the rest in stock index funds. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ScottO 0 Report post Posted October 4, 2020 Column D shows Growth of 10k Column F shows Growth of Annual 6k Contributions I think it boils down to ~5% avg rate of return. sschullo25.xlsx Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sschullo 0 Report post Posted October 4, 2020 Great, thanks for this! Since 2004 when I revamped my portfolio from the tech bubble disaster, I calculated a 5.9% return. Is that correct? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ScottO 0 Report post Posted October 5, 2020 You have more complete information than I do, so I'd trust your numbers. Typically I take calculation info from these sources: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Calculating_personal_returnshttps://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/irr.asphttps://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cagr.asp Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sschullo 0 Report post Posted October 5, 2020 There are a gazillion calculators at every internet street corner! Why didn't I look at what is in my backyard? Bogleheads and Investopedia. Thanks again. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites