In posts like The Best Way to Maximize Your Investment Return and How a Side Hustle Business Can Get You to Financial Independence in 10 Years I use 8% as a long-term return percentage when doing investment growth projections for stock index funds. Many sites will use 10% since it's around the historical long-term return of the stock market. And, of course, Dave Ramsey uses … [Read more...]
Pay Off Debt or Invest?
You probably noticed that I've only been posting twice a week since Memorial Day. I decided that I was going to take much of the summer off -- having a GREAT time BTW. I also thought you are probably doing the same and that two posts per week were more than enough for now. I'll go back to three a week after Labor Day. That said, sometimes an idea or situation pops up and … [Read more...]
Why I’m Done with Lending Club
As many of you know, I've been a P2P investor for almost two years. For those needing to catch up, here's my last P2P results update. I had weathered the Lending Club scandal of firing its CEO and thought all was well. I was pulling money out to get me down to the $50k mark or so, but I was planning in sticking with them after that. Then in late May I received an email … [Read more...]
My Current Money Management and Investment Plans
It's been some time since I shared my asset allocation. In fact, my last update was just after I retired. Now that I've been retired some time and am getting used to it, I'm looking at my assets with new purposes in mind. Given this plus the fact that one of my 2017 financial resolutions is to review my investments, I thought I could kill two birds with one post. … [Read more...]
My 2016 Peer-to-Peer Lending Results and Next Moves
This post is an update on my peer-to-peer (P2P) lending results through 2016. I use P2P investing as part of my retirement income strategy. For background on how we got to this point, see My Entry into Peer-to-Peer Lending and An Update on My Peer-to-Peer Lending Investments. In addition to results I'll cover my thoughts on the two platforms I use as well as give some … [Read more...]
Three Simple Money Resolutions to Help You Prosper in 2017 and Beyond
This is the time of year when people make New Year's resolutions, setting goals for what they want to accomplish over the next 365 days. I'm a big resolution-setter. Or more accurately a goal-setter. Every year I develop a list of goals I commit to over the next 12 months. Some are simple, daily habits and some are more complicated and will take the entire year. I do track … [Read more...]
Reader Question: How to Invest
I recently received an email from a reader asking for some thoughts from the ESI Money community. Here is her note: My husband and I are 32 years old, and currently both have employer and individual retirement accounts. I have based my asset allocation largely from this article back in 2008 (ancient history!). We currently have $130K in our combined Vanguard accounts … [Read more...]
Retirement Math
Summary: Retirement math is pretty simple. Get the formula right by using the ESI scale to hit financial independence. As I discussed in My Retirement Budget, Income Allocation, and How I Plan to Diversify, there's a basic retirement formula. We'll get into specifics in a minute, but first let's revisit what I've said. Here are the main parts of my … [Read more...]
My Properties Have Appreciated Over a Quarter of a Million Dollars (Over 45%)
A few weeks ago my property manager emailed me to ask if I'd be interested in selling any of my properties. I told him I wasn't but I would be interested in their estimated value. I had heard the market was "hot" for rental units and I assumed mine had gone up in value, but I wanted a better estimate than they had "gone up." He said he'd have his real estate department … [Read more...]
My Current Asset Allocation
Every once in a while I review my overall asset allocation to see if/where I need to make changes. I thought sharing it with you might prove interesting as well. So here's a list of my assets (by class) and what percentage each makes up of my total assets (in descending order): Retirement Brokerage Accounts - 42.9% Rental Properties - 17.7% Brokerage Account - … [Read more...]
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