Retirement spending = peanuts (compared to what I used to spend) Income becomes a non-issue

http://www.cheatsheet.com/personal-finance/retirement-reality-5-charts-you-need-to-see.html/?a=viewall
I've always been intrigued how much annually we spend in retirement. Obviously where we live and if married or single among other factors has an impact. The above link has some interesting retirements facts. For instance, $44897 is the average household spending for those 65-74. I would assume that is a married household. In my local community and surrounding areas I know more than a few single retirees who are doing just fine on $35,000 to $40,000 a year. That includes discretionary expenses ala trips and cruises. Then again, I live in Mayberry and about 30 years behind the times where expenses are very low.

@Kaspa: In a way, I have a momentum portfolio, but I've never called it that. It's that portion of my non-retirement savings that I trade pretty actively, using MFs, ETFs, CEFs, or stocks. I agree with you that Emerging Markets have lacked momentum for some time now. Just read annual report of MFMIX. The decline in oil prices has severely affected FM stocks and the manager thinks a recovery is not imminent. Lots of EM and FM countries rely on the sale of "stuff," and stuff isn't fetching much these days.

>> The ability of actively managed funds to outperform during bear markets is overrated. In some bear markets they do and in others they don't. More important perhaps, the Vanguard study found that in the years following bear markets, index funds usually do much better.

Link? I would like to read. I give lip service (and more than that) to these very notions in my winnowing down to PRBLX and the Yackts, but I regularly distrust my conclusions and seek contrary longterm evidence. Also at 68 I am in the retirement problem of having short and shorter longterm horizons, but unwilling to abandon equity funds and also unwilling (mostly) to index.
Hank and MJG, thanks much.

Junkster recently mused in a post about striking a balance between reaping now and sowing for the future as we manage our individual portfolios during our "retirement" years. The article in this link suggests it may be appropriate to plan on living to 100 as we consider this question. It also suggests we manage our individual portfolios like endowments, seeking to balance annual withdrawals and portfolio growth to avoid eroding the principal.
The idea of looking at our individual situations and then deciding on an amount to set aside for the future -- be it the nominal or inflation adjusted principal or some other amount -- makes sense to me. (It is the basic approach I use to manage my portfolio.) The decided upon amount can be set aside for use if a dramatic future increase in medical and related care expenses requires it. And, it can include additional funds to be left to our heirs and/or to do good things in the world after we are gone. The remainder of the ongoing total returns in our individual portfolios can be reaped now.
The success of this approach assumes we will avoid doing too much reaping after one or two good years. So, "Reaping Now" needs to be averaged over some number of years. But, the idea that we each need to have a conversation with ourselves and make peace with much we want to be setting aside "indefinitely" for the future makes sense to me.
http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/mutual-funds/articles/2015/03/12/the-100-year-old-portfolio-investments-for-a-long-life

I have figured out for sure that I'll never have the comfortable amounts that get referenced in investing articles from newspapers and magazines. Half a million? Not gonna happen. I have to take satisfaction that between wifey and myself, our "heirs" are recipients from time to time already, in no small way. Life's not fair. But it's LOTS more unfair to some others. And so, we do our part to even the score. "It's a good thing." (---uncle Martha Stewart.)

@varmint: I love my monthly dividend-payers: PREMX, PRSNX and DLFNX. My MAPOX pays quarterly. "Break a leg," and best wishes for your retirement.

I am transitioning into retirement and looking for mutual funds that pay interest and \ or dividends on a monthly basis. ETFs fitting that category would also be useful. Any information shared is appreciated. patrick

Junkster recently mused in a post about striking a balance between reaping now and sowing for the future as we manage our individual portfolios during our "retirement" years. The article in this link suggests it may be appropriate to plan on living to 100 as we consider this question. It also suggests we manage our individual portfolios like endowments, seeking to balance annual withdrawals and portfolio growth to avoid eroding the principal.
The idea of looking at our individual situations and then deciding on an amount to set aside for the future -- be it the nominal or inflation adjusted principal or some other amount -- makes sense to me. (It is the basic approach I use to manage my portfolio.) The decided upon amount can be set aside for use if a dramatic future increase in medical and related care expenses requires it. And, it can include additional funds to be left to our heirs and/or to do good things in the world after we are gone. The remainder of the ongoing total returns in our individual portfolios can be reaped now.
The success of this approach assumes we will avoid doing too much reaping after one or two good years. So, "Reaping Now" needs to be averaged over some number of years. But, the idea that we each need to have a conversation with ourselves and make peace with much we want to be setting aside "indefinitely" for the future makes sense to me.
http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/mutual-funds/articles/2015/03/12/the-100-year-old-portfolio-investments-for-a-long-life

For a young person, forget it for 30/40 years and you are Rich in retirement
Remember to buy high profit US companies paying good dividends and go to sleep in your regular job....your made...

Hi Matt,
If you like Doug Rao, then you may want to take a look at the fund he has been managing since 6/2013 -- JCAPX -- which has started to perform well over the past 6 months. We have a foothold in this fund which we were able to purchase for a low minimum in our Wellstrade retirement account.
Kevin

FYI: A new and innovate product from Reality Shares can help bring the retirement fantasy above one step closer to reality. The Reality Shares DIVS ETF (DIVY) provides “pure play” exposure to growth rate of dividend increases, without the volatility of the underlying stock’s price movements. While this is an approach already used by institutional investors, its the first product of its kind to package the strategy and make it available to retail investor more broadly.
Regards,
Ted
http://dailyalts.com/new-etf-provides-pure-play-exposure-growth-dividends/

@MJG
You noted: "Well, humans get tired and focus drifts. We are subject to household and health problems. We are influenced by current events and the medias selective hype on these events. We are also guilty of overconfidence in our own skills. We trade too often. Several studies have shown that equity accounts that are more or less dormant for years outdistance others that are frequently traded.
>>> Yes.
Investors also abandon our well crafted rules and policies when the going gets tough. That’s true of both individual investors and professional money managers. Our market timing decisions are often a catastrophe. We are inconsistent in choosing and navigating our selected stars.
>>> Yes.
John Hussman is a prime recent example of a mostly successful wizard who failed to continue his planned march without introducing a disastrous route change. He added historical data sets to make his model forcibly agree with his predetermined decision; the facts be damned in this instance. That’s a classic, first-order sin when doing forecasting work.
>>> Yes.
What to do? John Bogle has it right: just stay the course. Don’t junk your rules and process just because an outcome has been a disappointment. Nobody is ever 100% correct with the possible exception of MFO’s Ted (am I having fun at Ted’s expense?).
>>> Yes.
When change is justified as the investment world constantly evolves, change slowly and incrementally. That’s applying Kahneman’s System Two deliberate slow thinking advantage. When investing, our System One fast response heritage gets us into deep water far too often.
>>> Yes.
It requires near perfect timing to be either all In or all Out of the marketplace for periods, and still recover long term market returns. Not many of us are successful at this process. We vacillate. This is not the coward’s approach, but it is the prudent approach."
>>> Yes.
If a person chooses to be their own investment adviser (an investor); they must know who they are, to the fullest extent; and to maintain the conviction that they must and will maintain a standard of introspection to continue to be fully flexible and adaptable to learning and required changes. Understanding that as the world and their world continues to change, that they too are likely changing, and thus the need for ongoing self assessment.
Two of the most honest investors (although I don't know about their successful profits) I have known for 40 years both wanted to save for retirement, did save and admitted that they had no desire to learn about investing. But, they did hire an advisor. Others I have known for many years had the same desire to save for retirement, but were not willing to learn and also not willing to hire someone to help with direction. I consider these folks as not really being honest with themselves about investing and probably other aspects of their lives.
As to other comments, I don't know what "trade to often means". Relative to what? Yes, we all are bombed with outside forces that may affect our health physically and mentally which can add to problems with mental focus and drift problems.
Perfect timing is not required to have a decent percentage return on a portfolio. Keeping the other football team from scoring more points is all that is needed, if one's team can only score field goals. A lot of investing profits may be obtained without scoring touchdowns with every investment play. One is not likely to buy at a bottom and sell at a top; but there is much to gather to the favorable side of monies in between these two areas.
As to what you noted above: If an investor can be aware of and understand some of the traits listed; they must continue to monitor who they are or are becoming, relative to investing skills and knowledge.
Lastly, the percentage of very profitable investors; based upon their measure of risk and reward is likely also a small percentage of the available population.
Regards,
Catch

That article reeks of performance-chasing to me. Yes, smallcaps outperformed, but they're also more volatile and not many people would willingly ride their dramatic ups and downs.
If you want a SWAN (sleep well at night) portfolio I don't think you'll find it by holding the majority of it in smallcaps. For me, smallcaps represent about maybe 15% of my holdings and I'm fine with that. I'm not out to hit home runs every year when it comes to much of my long-term retirement investments ... regular base hits and occasional doubles are enough.

@MJG
Sorry the illustrations I put up from an online article did not meet your test for accuracy. The point I hoped to make was that statistics, generally speaking, can be misleading. However, I'm still puzzled about who these average investors are and how Dalbar reached their statistical conclusion.
To be clear, here's the quote I referenced from Ted's linked article: "The average investor in stock mutual funds made 3.8% a year over the past 30 years, according to Boston research firm Dalbar Inc".
MJG, with your expertise in statistical analysis perhaps you would clarify the following.
1. Was the study dollar weighted? In other words, if I had invested $100,000 in funds over that period and you had invested $10,000, was my degree of success (or lack thereof) weighted 10 times more than yours in the study results?
2. What percentage of "stocks" held constitutes a "stock mutual fund" by Dalbar's definition? I own a fund that by design holds about 40% equities and 60% fixed income. Would Dalbar consider that a "stock mutual fund"? If not, than what was their cut-off point for inclusion of a fund in this category?
3. Does the study group investors according to goal or purpose for investing? Were all those studied investing for retirement? Or were a significant number short term "speculators" throwing money at an already "hot" equity market? If the second group was included in the study, than it would tend to greatly exacerbate the degree to which investor returns lagged fund returns.
For the record MJG, I do believe a great many individual investors harm themselves by moving in and out of funds in an attempt to time markets - and that this tendancy contributes to a large percentage of them badly lagging their funds over time. I've mentioned this before in some of my own posts. What I try not to do is throw out terms like "average investor in stock funds" unless I can somehow quantify that term for my reader.
Regards

@JohnChisum: This is what the article is about. "Here are five funds you should consider as part of a retirement portfolio. You may not want to invest in all of them, or any of them. But each could form a component of your retirement portfolio."
Regards,
Ted

This article should be dedicated to MJG. In the article " The average investor in stock mutual funds made 3.8% a year over the past 30 years..." I am skeptical on the methodology used to determine that tidbit.
And why some aging investor with a large nest egg should embrace a 20% and more decline in his portfolio is beyond me. My poor old Dad never recovered from the bear of 73/74 because of the timing of his retirement. Albeit, I would love a bear market about now.

Thanks Junkster. I'm more than skeptical of these "averages" that get thrown around. Twain said "Between Kipling and myself we corner all knowledge." He didn't mean to say both were equally brilliant. So WTF is the average investor? Does that have to be U.S. currency - or does it include the stash of "foreign" currency we keep on hand for our visits to Ontario? How about the wife's gold and jewelry collection? She considers it an investment. Does that count? The widow across the street puts her retirement money 100% in insured bank accounts. Is somebody like that included in that "average investor" statistic? Are FDIC insured deposits even counted?
If you include all the people "defaulted" into workplace retirement accounts - and a great many of them contribute very little and care even less about investing - I'd imagine you could skew those averages about as dramatically as the Twain quote does.
Three Ways To Lie With Statistics
http://m.wikihow.com/Lie-with-Statistics
Illustration: "For example, imagine you survey 50 households in a neighborhood for their income. Most households make between $40,000 and $60,000 a year, but one household makes $5 million a year. When you compute the mean average, the number will be significantly higher than the “real” average income in that area, because the $5 million number is so much bigger than the others.
"In a similar way, if you had data showing that 9 people each had $1,000 in their bank accounts, but a tenth person only has $1, the median average would work out to $900.10 – almost 10% less than the most common amount."
I really think step #1 in any article like this should be (meaning "ought to be and not necessarily will be") to DEFINE THE TERMS.

FYI: You look at things differently when you're about to retire. You're far less likely to buy a trampoline, for example. And you're probably far more risk-adverse in your investments, too.
regards,
Ted
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/03/09/five-funds-for-retirement/24407777/

It does depend on timing. All this buy and hold advice that constantly floods our media really does not apply to retirees or those close to retiring. The risk tolerance changes for some and with that so does their asset allocation.
It is a fine balance between capital preservation and having enough growth so your portfolio will last as long as you need.
Good point @ Junkster.

True that!
I really don't see how most of those under 50 or 55 will be able to retire with any sense of security. Only welfare will save them.
The vast majority of them don't have savings, pensions, large 401k savings and SS dates are pushed out further. Then they get fired/buy outs as they approach 60.

The vast majority of folks do not appear to be that concerned with retirement. And as you've eluded, for some it's already too late. And unfortunately, Welfare nor Social Security can save them. Our American culture is in serious need of a reality check.

This article should be dedicated to MJG. In the article " The average investor in stock mutual funds made 3.8% a year over the past 30 years..." I am skeptical on the methodology used to determine that tidbit.
And why some aging investor with a large nest egg should embrace a 20% and more decline in his portfolio is beyond me. My poor old Dad never recovered from the bear of 73/74 because of the timing of his retirement. Albeit, I would love a bear market about now.

Terrible name. When these (target date) funds were originally conceived, interest rates were still in the near double-diget range - so the concept of increasing bond allocations over time made some sense according to the than conventional wisdom. Unfortunately, that may no longer be the case with the historically low rates of recent years. The "news" is nothing new, Experts have been sounding the alarm about this for some time.
I don't understand why any savy investor would choose these over, say, a good conservative allocation fund, and perhaps allocate his own desired amount into cash or bonds. However, as a default option for those who either don't know very much about money or don't care, I guess they still make sense. They're far better than not saving at all or letting the money collect moss in a 0 interest account.
I use Price's TRRIX (Retirement Balanced) as part of my overall allocation. It's part of their retirement fund lineup. But, unlike the others, it doesn't increase its allocation to fixed income over time. Essentially, it remains around 50-60% in fixed income indefinitely. Has low fees and gives you a nice slice of many of their other funds.