Hey hey, everyone. Today is Thursday, I’m J.D. Roth, and this is Apex Money. I’ve gathered some great stories about money (and more) to share with you. Let’s dive in.
What do retirees do all day? [A Purple Life] — “I find recording what I do in a day takes very little time and the benefits far exceed the time spent, so I think I’ll keep doing it until that balance shifts. This type of recording also allows me to do something fun: compare my second year of retirement to my third! I have actual data to show what I did more of, less of and generally what changed in how I spent my time.”
Why really rich people worry about money. [RadReads] — “Let’s look at some core human fears. There’s the fear of irrelevance. Of insignificance. Of being forgotten. The fear of unworthiness. Of being unloveable. Of being alone. The fear of being a bad person. Many driven professionals use ambition and money to paper over these fears. It’s why you strive up the curve of prestige and prominence. Only to discover that this core fear persists.” Be sure to watch the first embedded video. It’s interesting. (Also, holy shit the formatting on this article sucks. It’s mind-numbingly bad. One sentence per line? Come on. So difficult to read.)
Margin of safety. [ESI Money] — “I am NOT saying that how I did it is how anyone else should set up their specific margins of safety. As you’ll see, mine are a bit overboard and frankly are too much. If I had backed off a bit I could have had lower but still solid levels of safety and have retired earlier.”
The good news on safe-withdrawal rates. [Morningstar] — “Retirees who are willing to employ more-flexible strategies or make other modifications to a basic approach of using 4% as a starting point for withdrawals and then adjusting that dollar amount each year for inflation can enjoy even higher starting withdrawals, assuming they’re willing to accept other trade-offs, such as fluctuating year-to-year real cash flows and the possibility of fewer leftover assets at the end of a 30-year period.”
Some good stuff there. And I’ll be back tomorrow with more good stuff to see you into the weekend. Join me, won’t you?