Revisiting the 4% Rule
In the last couple years, I have been pondering this question, whether the 4% rule was still valid in the new investment environment going forward in the 2020s. I first wrote about the 4% rule in one of my first posts on this site in 2011 (you can read that post here). If you do […]
Answers to Some Early Retirement Questions, Part II
A couple other questions I received about early retirement were: How much does one need to save each year to retire early? How did my wife and I know we could live on what we had saved?
Increasing the Safe Withdrawal Rate, Part III
The third general approach to increasing your Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) above the recommended 4% is pretty straight forward. It requires that you be flexible in your spending from year to year. In this approach you increase your withdrawal rate when the financial markets are doing well and you reduce your withdrawal rate when the […]
Can I Violate the 4% Rule?
In many of my past posts I have mentioned “the 4% rule.” The 4% rule is a reference to the recommended Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) for withdrawing retirement income from one’s financial portfolio. If you are not familiar with the 4% rule, you should read my previous post where I explain the concept. In this […]
Renting Versus Owning Your Home
In my last post, “How Much is Your Home Really Costing You,” I suggested that, for some people, owning a home may cost so much that they should consider selling it to either buy a less costly home or rent a home. I got a question about what factors should be considered when evaluating whether […]
How Much is Your Home Really Costing You?
I discussed in my last post, “The First Rule of Real Estate Investing,” that your personal residence is not an investment. Your home should be considered a consumer item just like your car, your washer & dryer, or anything else you buy for personal use. The reason I state this is because of all the […]
The 4 Percent Rule
Before discussing real estate investments or retirement portfolio income withdrawal strategies, I need to go over the 4% rule. I have briefly mentioned the 4% rule in previous posts, but in future posts this rule will be central to many topics. It is very important to understand this simple concept.
