I didn't add in the COLAs.
I retired at 52. I also started work at age 15. For a lot of people, 35-40 years of work is enough. If you have saved all your life it is time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Dex, everyone here enjoys your retirement articles including your personal journey. Did I miss it or have you written why you retired at such a young age? I took early SS at 62 (4/09) and have not regretted it in the least. That was money I didn't have to take from my trading accounts. I was *lucky* the markets were so vigorous after that time.

I did not write about it. I had a very easy office job, watched TV and read the internet, people worked for me and made good money. I worked since I was 15 and it just felt like the right time. I have a travel trailer and like to travel. Right now I'm at home getting dental work, check ups and soon a colonoscopy. I'm 60 now and might like to find some work during the winter months Nov - Jan. Other then that life is good.

Dex, everyone here enjoys your retirement articles including your personal journey. Did I miss it or have you written why you retired at such a young age? I took early SS at 62 (4/09) and have not regretted it in the least. That was money I didn't have to take from my trading accounts. I was *lucky* the markets were so vigorous after that time.
Edit: Wait till you get to 65 and Medicare. In my opinion the greatest thing since sliced bread. But you have to get the supplemental policy that covers 100% of what Medicare doesn't pay.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/3-out-of-4-retirees-receiving-reduced-social-security-benefits-2015-05-05
"Of course, the best way to maximize Social Security is to delay claiming benefits until “full retirement age,” which is climbing gradually to 67, or beyond. A person due to receive a benefit of $1,000 at a full retirement age of 66 would receive only $750 at age 62 (the earliest age at which most people can claim benefits) – and $1,320 at age 70."
Note that underlined part. People will still need to take it earlier but (I'm guessing) when they do take it earlier and the full amount is 67 or later they will receive even less at 62.
This adds to my "give up hope of retiring early" thread.
From what I not see about my finances (having been retired for 9 years, starting at 51) I am feeling less flush. A the major change in that feeling is Obamacare. I was paying $3,000/year before OC. I will be paying $7,200 under OC. If, OC was the law before my retiring I may have had second thoughts.

FYI: Warren Buffett and Bill Gross signaled the end is at hand for Treasury market bulls as 30-year bond yields rose to a four-month high.
Longer-maturity Treasuries led losses after Buffett, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said long-term bonds are overvalued. Touting bearish bets after yields climbed last week by the most in almost two months, Gross said the bull market “supercycle” for both bonds and stocks is ending.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-04/buffett-and-gross-agree-slump-in-30-year-bonds-makes-good-sense

with my Dr.: its overweight @190# under 180#...for me..
investing: it means nothing....to me

Hi Guys,
Thank you Ted for this walk down memory lane. It is a worthwhile trip.
For a long time I believed that Marty Zweig and Jason Zweig were related. I was wrong.
I suppose I made that false connection because of the rather conservative investment style that both gentlemen advocated and practiced. As a panel member on Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street Week TV show, the Marty version seemed the most conservative member of that gang; he seemed to be at least a semi-permabear with his constant worrisome outlooks. The Jason version shares in many of those conservative and worrisome attributes.
Marty Zweig liked to talk about the difference between the “rifle” and the “shotgun” approaches to investing. Here is a Link to a single page from his “Winning on Wall Street” book that nicely summarizes the distinctions:
http://theguruinvestor.com/2014/09/11/great-pages-zweigs-shotgun-approach/#more-13429
He firmly believed that most investors do not have the time or the skill set to be effective “rifle”-like investors. Note his stock selection criteria at the bottom of the same page. I suspect most MFOers would deploy similar criteria if we were choosing individual equity holdings.
In Jason Zweig’s “The Little Book of Safe Money” and his “Your Money and Your Brain”, he emphasizes the battle for risk control. Jason identifies 3 Commandments that are likely guiding principles for conservative, risk control investors.
He states that: (1) Don’t take risk you don’t need to take, (2) Don’t put money at risk that you can’t afford to completely lose, and (3) Don’t accept any risk if you don’t anticipate a payday that rewards that risk. For seasoned MFOers, this is all basic don’t do stuff.
In Appendix 2 of Jason Zweig’s “Your Money and Your Brain” book, he advises on the do-side of the ledger. Not many surprises here either. He endorses Expense Ratio cost management, low trading frequency, again a cost control measure, and smaller fund sizes to better exploit a shrinking excess returns target map.
He too prefers a shotgun to a rifle, and, at bottom, recommends a heavy weighting of Index fund products. Jason also favors having a female on the investment decision team to achieve a more balanced assessment of investing opportunities.
Indeed, Marty and Jason Zweig were not related. However, to a large extent, they shared many investment rules and principles. That’s a little surprising bottom-line judgment given that Marty truly admired famed trader Jesse Livermore. Upon reflection, maybe that’s not so shocking since Livermore practiced patience and money management in his storied stock dealings career.
Best Regards.

FYI: (The king is dead, long live the king ! Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund )
The Pimco Total Return Fund, launched by Bill Gross, has lost its title as the world's biggest bond mutual fund, following two years of withdrawals.
On Monday, Pimco said investors yanked another $5.6 billion from the Pimco Total Return Fund last month, bringing its assets to $110.4 billion at end of April.
By comparison, the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund had $117.3 billion as of April 30, according to a Vanguard spokesman
Regards,
Ted
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/04/us-investing-pimco-flows-idUSKBN0NP1W820150504

Hi, Alex.
In general, we describe our coverage universe as "all those funds that are off Morningstar's radar." In general, we're willing to initiate coverage of a way cool fund if it is: (1) less than three years old or (2) has less than $150 million AUM. That covers roughly half of all of the funds in existence (about 1300 meet the first criterion, 3100 meet the second, some meet both). Once we've started tracking a fund, we'll stick with it even as it becomes older and larger so long as it continues to do stuff that we think you need to know about.
We will make exception and write about larger funds from time to time. Two categories come to mind: (1) there's been a change so substantial that it has de facto become a new fund. An example would be when FPA Paramount went from a quality-growth domestic smid cap under one team to a mid-cap absolute value global fund under a new team. And (2) if a newly reopened fund has been closed so long that it's dropped off the radar. Matthews Asia Growth & Income is an example of that.
Could we cover larger funds? Sure. Two things constrain us: (1) I do 99% of the fund profiles personally and it's hard to track more than 3000 funds while also having a full-time job and being dad and (2) the value-added isn't necessarily as great because other folks are likely to write about such funds.
Hope that helps,
David

I think it's hopeless. ... You're willing to assume some extra credit or duration risk to pick-up what? An extra 1 or 2%? Face the truth.
DODIX has done surprisingly well the past few years. Surprised me - and I own it, but am cutting back. They've kept maturities on the shorter end in recent years, but are still out there a bit. Will take a modest hit if rates rise sharply. Their most recent fund report alluded to concerns over heavy inflows and hinted they might have to close the fund at some point.
There's one problem with heavy inflows. That $$ can reverse and flow back out even faster than it flowed in - and they know it.
Everybody's chasing yield.

There are some funds that M* gets enthralled with, data aside. WPVLX is one of them. Like David, I took a flier on this fund in the late 90s and got burned. I looked through the M* analyst report archive to find the following headlines:
3/2000: WPVLX's bet on financial may be worth the short-term pain it is causing.
6&7/2001: We think that this is the kind of fund to buy and put away for years.
11/2001: This could be a buying opportunity.
2/2002: This fund's strict attention to value has paid off over the long haul.
4,6,&10/2002: Despite its struggles, WPVLX is worth keeping.
1&2/2003: Better than it looks right now.
7/2003: Investors in this offering have long been rewarded for patience.
12/2003: This fund is worth waiting for.
3/2005: Is this glass half full, or half empty? -and- Not for everyone.
9/2005: We still think there's good reason to like this mutual fund.
5/2006: Despite a very tough year and a half, we thing this mutual fund still has the goods.
12/2007 & 1/2008: This fund fund is down but definitely not out.
6/2008: Be patient with this fund.
11/2008: Recent performance woes don't dim our support for this mutual fund.
4/2009: Investors should stick with this fine mutual fund.
9/2013: Take a bow, Wally Weitz et al. -
the analysis says: "this fund has never been better than duringthe past 4.5 years." After which it wound up in the 63rd percentile for all of 2013 (meaning it had a dreadful latter part of the year) and 82nd percentile for 2014.
Briefly on costs. The M* article concedes that ARTKX's cost is not above average, but they wish it were lower given the large size of the fund. But the article wasn't about sizes of funds, it was about costs, and ARTKX isn't challenged by a high cost.

In reading this months newsletter, you make mention of ETAGX as "being beyond our coverage" at $1.6 billion. Can you clarify that please.? Is $1.6 billion too big? or what? Thanks

FPNIX is IMHO a unique fund, one managed for preservation (using a wide variety of strategies and derivatives defensively), as contrasted with a fairly vanilla (albeit well managed) short term bond fund.
Different paths to the same end. As you note, performance is very similar after expenses. Which suggests that the modest incremental cost of the more wide ranging fund has been paying for itself, even in a pretty constant low interest environment. When the markets shift sooner or later, I expect its defensive strategies to show their mettle.
If one just looks at average figures (which, especially in the case of FPNIX I feel do not tell the whole story), one is getting double the SEC yield and duration that's only 3/4 as long (1/2 year shorter) in exchange for diving into some junk. (Though nearly 70% of the fund's bonds are AAA rated - more than BSBIX's AAA, AA, and A combined.)
I'm a fan of Baird funds, so I'm not knocking BSBIX. Rather, I'm addressing what is different about FPNIX.

I'm another fan of the Baird Funds, but I'd say the main difference between BSBIX and FPNIX is that the disastrous year of 2008 saw BSBIX lose 1.79% while FPNIX managed a gain of 4.31%. That would probably be something of a worst case scenario for BSBIX in a comparison with FPNIX. Otherwise, BSBIX seems to pretty consistently outperform FPNIX by a small margin.
I should think if the original poster is willing to wait 3-5 years that pretty much any solid short term bond fund will provide a small gain (maybe 2% or so). I wouldn't argue against either BSBIX or FPNIX, or even ZEOIX or RSIVX (which are quite different but still pretty safe over 3-5 years, I think).

FPNIX is IMHO a unique fund, one managed for preservation (using a wide variety of strategies and derivatives defensively), as contrasted with a fairly vanilla (albeit well managed) short term bond fund.
Different paths to the same end. As you note, performance is very similar after expenses. Which suggests that the modest incremental cost of the more wide ranging fund has been paying for itself, even in a pretty constant low interest environment. When the markets shift sooner or later, I expect its defensive strategies to show their mettle.
If one just looks at average figures (which, especially in the case of FPNIX I feel do not tell the whole story), one is getting double the SEC yield and duration that's only 3/4 as long (1/2 year shorter) in exchange for diving into some junk. (Though nearly 70% of the fund's bonds are AAA rated - more than BSBIX's AAA, AA, and A combined.)
I'm a fan of Baird funds, so I'm not knocking BSBIX. Rather, I'm addressing what is different about FPNIX.

Gosh, Solarcity 5y bonds, if you can go 5y, and perhaps others similar.
This is assuming BERIX and VWINX are too risky for your taste.

I own BERIX and VWENX in the moderate portion of my portfolio (10-15 years away).

I wonder about recency problems in such articles, how old Carlson is and what he himself has invested in or followed historically. Weitz had spectacular results in the later 1990s, I know firsthand, and made his name bigtime. So I was curious to see how this vaunted fund here had done against other known-good but overpriced vehicles like YAFFX and GABEX. Sure enough, if you go back to summer '97, WPVLX is awesome. But guess what happens if your start point is summer '99?
Moreover his 08-09 performance was famously worse than others, causing large abandonment.

My interpretation of not taking "a big risk with principal", and of "near cash", and of "3-5 years" is that one is willing to live with short term fluctuations and minor dips in principal, but expects to come out positive at the end of 3-5 years.
That puts pretty tight limits on what one can do with the money. Otherwise, I wouldn't consider it part of a "cash" allocation. In other words, I tend to be a bit more cautious with cash. YMMV.
So I like the NTAUX suggestion (I wasn't familiar with this fund). Unfortunately, while it beats your current 0.50% taxable yield (since it's a muni fund), its 0.50% tax-free yield still doesn't beat FDIC-insured internet banks (yielding around 1% taxable now).
I also like FPNIX (and have suggested it before myself). I'm comfortable with its junk bond (BB) rating, but only because I've followed this fund for years (never invested). Otherwise, I'd be leery of delving into junk now, especially with my cash allocation.
Another thought is to use defined maturity bond funds. Here's an AAII paper explaining them, discussing the pros and cons, and listing (most of) the current options. (It omits the older American Century Zero Coupon series, which will be more volatile because with zeros, duration = maturity).
If you're fairly sure you won't need the cash for 4-5 years, you might use an "immunization strategy". You can buy a fund like FMCFX (maturity 2019, muni bond fund, SEC yield 1.13%; it beats iShare's 2019 IBMH's 1.07% SEC yield w/o bid/ask spread); or Guggenheim's BSCJ (2019, corporate inv. grade, SEC yield 1.83%).

FYI: Fees are no friend to fund investors.
Over the long term, fees are among the best predictors performance, according to Morningstar. That means paying up for a stock picker is going to leave you fighting uphill from the get go.
Greg Carlson, Morningstar’s senior analyst covering equity strategies on the manager research team, finds just four — count ‘em — funds that charge above-average fees but still attain the research firm’s highest rating.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2015/05/04/4-pricier-funds-that-are-worth-their-salt/tab/print/

If Mr Gross was of his stature in years past, this article would be generating a lot of buzz on this board. But now he's just another prophet of pessimism, the likes of many we have seen since 1982 (not sure where it gets 1981) Still, an interesting missive by Mr Gross and let's face it, at some point these talking heads will get it right about the End of the end. On a personal note, albeit still 2 years away from the dreaded 70 of Mr. Gross, I can certainly empathize with his phobia of being 70. Even though I am as active and healthy as I was 50 years ago, unlike turning 40, 50, or 60, I simply am unable to put a positive spin on turning the big 70. Yuck!
Edit: where does he get that " fully invested investors wound up with 20 times as much money as when they began" (since 1981 and the Dow at 900) It's much more than that when you factor in the compounding of reinvested dividends.

"I put 10% of a price target fund (an appropriate year) as a control on how I was doing.While probably not as capable as some on this site I suspect I am at least average. Some years I outperformed, other years I didn't My underperformance in recent years occurred for two major reasons. Too much in emerging markets in recent years and using more stable income than a bond fund. Both strategies were wrong in recent years/I think you have to be very capable to have a diversified portfolio that will outperform a decent target fund over a longish period of time."
---
Jerry: I assume your reference is to T. Rowe Price. Yep - they do a great job overall. I like not only their retirement funds, consisting largely of holdings in other Price funds, but also most of their "fund-of-funds." During healthy markets it's difficult for an individual to outperform these. What you give up is the ability to overweight sectors (be it cash, currencies, gold or whatever) that you think are undervalued. I'm not sure that's a great idea anyway.
Currently hold TRRIX and RPSIX. I read somewhere once that they give investors a slight break when they determine fees for these funds, figuring it's cheaper for them to administer a single fund for someone rather than having the person own, say, a half dozen different funds. I haven't been able to re-confirm that however. That would mean you can own several funds under the umbrella of one of these at a lower ER than if you owned each fund individually.
The strong performance of their fund-of-funds, including the target date series, is likely related to three factors: (1) a strong underlying fund line-up, (2) attractive fees on these funds, (3) excellent calls when it comes to underweighting or overweighting specific areas inside their fund-of-funds. In addition, I think you'll also find Price generally takes a somewhat more aggressive position on the amount of equity exposure an individual should undertake at various stages of their life.
My one concern about all target date funds is the glide path that moves to increasingly higher bond allocations over time. This near 0% interest rate environment is unprecedented as far as I know. And where I think JohnC and others have a valid point is that one can own the same types of investments these target date funds hold at a substantially lower cost. In theory, anyway, that should translate into better long-term performance.
Regards