Your doing great but could probably double or triple your food cost to get what you are spending.

I’m getting a little concerned that my landscaper hasn’t raised his monthly landscape fees.

I don’t think there is any “wanting” people to invest in crypto but I do think people should be able to if they so desire. I don’t think the government or any other entity should prevent people from doing what they want with regard to investing. If you lose money, thats on you. I don’t expect guardrails in my financial life.

The investment industry wants people to invest in things they can make management fees, commissions, transaction fees, etc… on. The government wants people to invest in things they can regulate, monitor, and tax.

People can get into a lot of trouble in their retirement accounts. That’s what I was using (403(b) to buy dot-com funds in the 1990s. I have written about that fiasco before. I did not invest everything in dot-com, but when that bubble popped, it hurt, not only my balance, but my ego. It was all my fault. And that is how it should be. Lesson learned.

While individual choice in investing is one thing, the investing done at the state level, with money being paid into pension funds, etc., should be completely transparent. I also think that type of state-level investing should have parameters………

Those who manage public pension funds should be under a microscope. There are problems in several states now. Other People’s Money in the hands of high risk takers does not bode well. Also, there are high commissions being paid out of OPM. In the case of state pension funds, people pay in and hope for the best. Some states are letting the wolves guard the sheep.

It happens with other public funds, too. Ohio about 20 years ago, had “Coingate” with the workers’ comp fund.

Anyway, state retirement funds need guardrails. Some of them have been known to do stupid, lazy, high risk, or shady things with Other People’s Money.

Boomer

You got it. The current inflation is very much about the money supply. M2 is way out of control and directly related to the inflation we're experiencing. Inflation is well over 8% and the value of the US dollar is eroding - losing value every day. It may not end that well for some, and it will hurt our kids. We all know the government can't just spend $ and print $ forever - it will retard and then collapse the economy at some point.

Typed like a portfolio manager who is paid to manage money with portfolio limitations of minimum required investment amounts.

Being in cash avoiding a 10% drawdown offsets the loss in cash purchasing by maintaining total portfolio value versus losing portfolio value. you can lose portfolio value in more than one way.

maybe, but that statement is the most widely used self justification for managing other people's money and discouraging customer withdrawing assets upon which a pm gets paid.

If you moved to cash for excessive valuation, high risk in future returns, i suspect that one can use the same methods for getting back into the market with undervaluation and low risk in future returns.

the last 40 years of markets were great, but also not the entire history of capitalism, wealth inequality, and speculation -> all of which have been seen before and will be seen again.

finance guy

i am adding that with all the investment literature, software, data, etc, retail investors can educate themselves much more than at anytime in the past, and as such raise their investment acumen enough to make positive expectational investments, which portfolio managers want to continue to maintain as the dumb investment crowd, and want to keep you as a retail investor convinced you are dumb and the PM is the smart money. the inequality divide in this case is shrinking rapidly if you want to do the work.

Interesting comment by Coach about portfolio managers' compensation.

Ten or fifteen years ago long time professional musician friends of mine sold a huge home on acreage in Mesa, AZ to downsize. They had (and still have) a financial advisor who they trust and like. She was upset they wanted to use part of the proceeds to buy a Bosendorfer grand piano for $80,000. The piano was in terrific shape, had been played in The Blue Note, autographed by Herbie Hancock and was worth the price. The lady of the house teaches piano and violin and plays both in gigs all over the PHX area so I am sure the piano could be depreciated to offset their income taxes. The advisor seemed to protesteth too much. It felt to me like the advisor was in part compensated by the size of their portfolio and did not want to see it reduced in any way, even for a good purpose.

In another thread I posted I had recently sold a real estate property and put the proceeds into a brokerage account. For years it had been a relatively small account and what I added was sizable by most people's standards. The very next business day a financial advisor at the firm both phoned and emailed and wanted to meet with me. I have to chuckle as no one from the firm had ever previously contacted me for any reason over the many years my account was small. lol. He offered to be my "contact", help me use the website, answer any questions I had and so on. I said OK, he could be my contact. He then went on and started to ask the usual qualifying questions about my investment experience and whether I wanted growth, value, blah, blah, blah. I told him I was 80 years old, had invested in the stock market on my own since I was in high school and was doing just fine, that I was mostly a real estate guy but planned on selling a couple more properties to simplify my life. When I casually mentioned I had bought a few shares of BRK back in the '80s he thought that was the price I paid! I said, no, I had bought some during the 1980s. I told him I had a couple other brokerage accounts which held most of my stock. He then repeatedly asked me to consolidate and it put it all into his firm. I declined and told him I had seen banks and brokerage houses go under and would never put all my eggs in one basket. What astonished me was the pressuring to put it all with his firm. Bingo, more bucks for him.

We're fine so far. :pray:

I like the Fisher Investments commercials where they say "we do better when you do better". True, but they still get the same percentage of your portfolio even when you lose money. I have never paid anyone for financial advice, except for the built in management fees in a no load mutual fund, called the expense ratio. Vanguard Investments has the lowest expense ratios for almost all mutual fund companies. By the way, when you read the prospectus for a fund, the expense ratio must be listed on the first page or two of the document. Also, look for 12b1 fees, which are fees charged to the fund to advertise the fund. I prefer funds that do not have any 12b1 fees, and also don't have a load fee, which is a fee to buy shares in the fund. I don't see any reason to pay these fees.

So called financial advisor like dumb investors otherwise how would they sell them annuities.

Can make a case for fee only advisors who should not have a reason to steer you in a way that makes them extra money.

I am trying to figure out how to convince my wife that a diet of just rice & beans is truly meant for us.

Any financial advisor get an immediate hang up

I once got a call from a local financial advisor with a large investment company. I asked him if he knew that he was violating Federal law by calling a number on the the do-not-call list. He was shocked. He didn't even realize that the local calls he was making were illegal.

It's the after effects of that diet that give me pause....