As I have written before: Avoiding Hedge Fund Investments is One of the Benefits of Being in the 99%.

This is pretty well understood by most knowledgeable investors, financial planners and investing experts. But funds that charge huge fees continue to get away with it. If you are smart you will avoid them. A few simple investing rules get you well into the top 10% of investors

• seek low fees
• diversify – pay attention to risk of portfolio overall
• limit trading (low turnover)
• use tax advantage accounts wisely (in the USA 401(k)s and IRAs)

From a personal finance perspective, saving money is a key. Most people fail at being decent investors before they even get a chance to invest by spending more than they can afford and failing to save, and even worse going into debt (other than to some extent for college education and house). Consistently putting aside 10-20% of your income and investing wisely will put you in good shape over the long term.

Warren Buffett put his money (a tiny bit for him, just $1 million) on the idea that hedge funds can’t outperform the market given the huge fees they charge. After 6 years he is well up on his bet with his pick (Vanguard S&P 500 index soundly beating a portfolio of hedge funds selected by the opponent in the bet).

I do wonder at what point the huge amount of index investing creates opportunities that can be exploited profitably. I actually think that point has been passed. The question now is can you profitably and reliably find active investing managers that are wise and charge relatively low fees? Passive investing may now account for over 60% of investments in the market.

Also in certain market environments where the market is likely to ignore useful data (bubbles or fads) or where data is questionable and smart digging can provide useful and profitable insight (China may fit this idea now – I pay for actively managed Templeton developing market funds and have for 20 years, I also have Vanguard developing market index type fund – VWO). I think most investors should primarily use index funds (REITs, etc.) but I think the prospects for investors picking their own stocks may be better as more investing is based solely on index funds mass buying and selling.

I am worried about the price level of the overall market now. I am less worried about some stocks; this means I am more comfortable holding Apple, Google, Toyota, Abbie etc. (not so much – Amazon) than I am the S&P 500 right now.

Related: Trying to Beat the Stock Market – Lazy Golfer Portfolio Allocation

The correct decision depends on your personal financial situation and your life expectancy. The social security payment increases are based on life expectancy for the entire population but if your life expectancy is significantly different that can change what option makes sense for you. If you live a short time you won’t make up for missing payments (the time while you delayed taking payments) with the increased monthly payment amount.

The “normal social security retirement age” is set in law and depends on when you were born. If you were born prior to 1938 it is 65 and if you are born after 1959 it is 67 (in between those dates it slowly increases. Those born in 1959 will reach the normal social security retirement age of 67 in 2026.

The social security retirement age has fallen far behind demographic trends – which is why social security deductions are so large today (it used to be social security payments for the vast majority of people did not last long at all – they died fairly quickly, that is no longer the case). The way to cope with this is either delay the retirement ago or increase the deductions. The USA has primarily increased the deductions, with a tiny adjustment of the retirement age (increasing it only 2 years over several decades). We would be better off if they moved back the normal retirement age at least another 3 to 5 years (for the payment portion – given the broken health care system in the USA retaining medicare ages as they are is wise).

In the case of early retirement, a benefit is reduced 5/9 of one percent for each month (6.7% annually) before normal retirement age, up to 36 months. If the number of months exceeds 36, then the benefit is further reduced 5/12 of one percent per month (5% annually).

For delaying your payments after you have reached normal social security retirement age increases payments by 8% annually (there were lower amounts earlier but for people deciding today that is the figure to use).

Lets take a quick look at a simple example:

Social security increases the monthly payment each year by the calculated inflation rate – I am going to ignore that in the example (to make my life easier).

Lets say your normal retirement age is 65 and your calculated monthly payment was $1,000. If you start collecting at age 65, after 13 years you have received $156,000. If you delayed for 2 years and started collecting when you were 67 after 11 years of payments (so to the same age of 78) you have received $153,965 (and your monthly payment each month is 16% higher than under the original scenario – so the longer you live the more you make).

So in this example it takes a bit over 13 years to break even for delaying by 2 years (while in reality thing are a bit more complicated this is a decent estimate). The life expectancy of for a man in the USA at age 65 is 19 years and for a woman is 21 years. So on average people will make a great deal more by delaying the start of social security payments, given the current rules (Congress can change the rules so this may change in the future). If someone is sickly and unlikely to live to the standard life expectancy that may mean delaying the start of payments is not a wise move.

One of the great benefits of delaying the payments is that the higher payments until death addresses a big risk in retirement planning – outliving your savings. Since you may have hundreds of more dollars every month for decades that decreases the amount you have to dip into your retirement principle. Since we don’t know how long we will live, a higher monthly annuity payment will provide the most benefit at the time when you face the largest risk for retirement planning, that of outliving your savings. It provides a bit of insurance against outliving your savings – or at least pushes the date at which that happens further into the future.

Can you pass a Social Security test?

Related: How Much of Current Income to Save for Retirement – Top Nations for Retirement Security of Their Citizens (USA is 19th) – Save What You Can, Increase Savings as You Can Do So – 401(k)s are a Great Way to Save for Retirement – Social Security (USA) Disability Insurance – Our Only Hope: Retiring Later

Take this 8 question social security quiz to test out your knowledge.

I don’t really agree with this but I think it is an interesting read. And I do agree the standard stock/bond/cash portfolio model is not good enough.

I would rather own real estate than gold. I doubt I would ever have more than 5% gold and only would suggest that if someone was really rich (so had money to put everywhere). Even then I imagine I would balance it with investments in other commodities.

One of the many problems with “stock” allocations is that doesn’t tell you enough. I think global exposure is wise (to some extent S&P 500 does this as many of those companies have huge international exposure – still I would go beyond that). Also I would be willing to take some stock in commodities type companies (oil and gas, mining, real estate, forests…) as a different bucket than “stocks” even though they are stocks.

And given the super low interest rates I see dividend paying stocks as an alternative to bonds.

The Cockroach Portfolio does suggest only government bonds (and is meant for the USA where those bonds are fairly sensible I think) but in the age of the internet many of my readers are global. It may well not make sense to have a huge portion of your portfolio in many countries bonds. And outside the USA I wouldn’t have such a large portion in USA bonds. And they don’t address the average maturity (at least in this article) – I would avoid longer maturities given the super low rates now. If rates were higher I would get some long term bonds.

View of Glacier National Park, from Bears Hump Trail in Waterton International Peace Park in Canada, by John Hunter

These adjustments mean I don’t have as simple a suggestion as the cockroach portfolio. But I think that is sensible. There is no one portfolio that makes sense. What portfolio is wise depends on many things.

I think something along the lines of this would make sense today for someone living in the USA (but I would vary it a fair bit depending on the person’s situation and it would change in different market conditions)

• 35% Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX)
• 15% Total International Stock Index Fund (VGTSX)
• 10% Vanguard emerging markets fund (VWO), or something similar
• 20% high quality “dividend aristocrat” type stocks
• 10% REIT Index Fund (VGSIX) or direct real estate ownership
• 5% bonds
• 5% cash

I would likely go a bit higher for real estate with direct ownership. As the portfolio was approaching the time withdrawals would be made (retirement) I would want real estate investments to be substantially cash flow positive (and leverage to be limited – hopefully under 50%). I would like primary residence to be without a mortgage or with a very small mortgage.

If I was drawing substantial income from the portfolio I would likely increase cash to at least 3 years of projected need (though even this gets a bit fuzzy as adjusting for expected interest and dividends makes sense to me).

I’m willing to include dividend stocks that don’t meet the dividend aristocrat rules but are similar: (ABBV, INTC even AAPL). I would consider including a bit in pipeline MLPs such as OKS (higher current yields but likely less growth).

Related: Lazy Golfer Portfolio Allocation – Sleep Well Fund Results – Retirement Savings Allocation for 2010 – How to Protect Your Financial Health

I ran across this suggested allocation in Eyewitness to a Wall Street mugging which I think has several good values.

• It focuses on low fee, market index funds. Fees are incredibly important in determining long term investment success
• It has lower bond allocation than normal
• It has more international exposure than many – which I think is wise (this suggested portfolio is for those in the USA, USA portion should be lowered for others)
• It includes real estate (some suggested allocations miss this entirely)

In my opinion this allocation should be adjusted as you get closer to retirement (put a bit more into more stable, income producing investments).

My personal preference is to use high quality dividend stocks in the current interest rate environment. I would buy them myself which does require a bit more work than once a year rebalancing that the lazy golfer portfolio allows.

I would also include 10% for Vanguard emerging markets fund (VWO) (for sake of a rule of thumb reduce Inflation Protected Securities Fund to 10% if you are more than 10 years from retirement, when between 10 and 1 year from retirement put Inflation Protected Securities Fund at 15% and Total Stock Market Index Fund at 35%, when 1 year from retirement or retired lower emerging market to 5% and put 5% in money market.

Depending on your other assets this portfolio should be adjusted (large real estate holdings [large net value on personal home, investment real estate...] can mean less real estate in this portfolio, 401k holdings may mean you want to tweak this [TIAA CREF has a very good real estate fund, if you have access to it you might make real estate a high value in your 401k and then adjust your lazy portfolio], large pension means you can lower income producing assets, how close you are to retirement, etc.).

The Lazy Golfer Portfolio (Annually rebalance the fund on your birthday and ignore Wall Street for the remaining 364 days of the year) contains 5 Vanguard index funds

• 40% Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX)
• 20% Total International Stock Index Fund (VGTSX)
• 20% Inflation Protected Securities Fund (VIPSX)
• 10% Total Bond Market Index Fund (VBMFX)
• 10% REIT Index Fund (VGSIX)

Related: Retirement Planning, Looking at Asset Allocation – Lazy Portfolio Results – Investment Risk Matters Most as Part of a Portfolio, Rather than in Isolation – Starting Retirement Account Allocations for Someone Under 40 – Taking a Look at Some Dividend Aristocrats

How Much to Save for Retirement is a very good report by the Boston College center for retirement research. They look at the percent of income replacement social security (for those in the USA) provides. This amount varies greatly depending on your income and retirement (date you start drawing social security payments).

Low earners ($20,000) that retire at 65 have 49% of income replaced by social security. Waiting only 2 years, to 67, the replacement amount increases to 55%. For medium earners ($50,000) 36% and 41% of income is replaced. And for high earners ($90,000) 30% an 34%.

Starting savings early make a huge difference. Starting retirement savings at age 25 requires about 1/3 the percentage of income be saved as starting at 45. So you can save for example 7% from age 25 to 70 or 18% from age 45 to 70. Retiring at 62 versus 70 also carries a cost of about 3 times as great savings required each year. So retiring at 62 would require an impossible 65% if you didn’t start saving until 45. But these numbers are affected by many things (the higher your income the less social security helps so the higher percentages you need to save and many other factors play a role).

Starting to save early is a huge key. Delaying retirement makes a big difference but it is not nearly as much in your control. You can plan on doing that but need to understand that you cannot assume you will get to set the date (either because finding a job you can do and pays what you wish is not easy or you are not healthy enough to work full time).

If you don’t have social security (those outside the USA – some countries have their versions but some don’t offer anything) you need to save more. A good strategy is to start saving for retirement in your twenties. As you get raises increase your percentage. So if you started at 6% (maybe 4% from you and a 2% match, but in any event 6% total) each time you get a raise increase your percentage 100 basis points (1 percentage point).

If you started at 27 at 6% and got a raise each year for 9 years you would then be at 15% by age 36. Then you could start looking at how you were going and make some guesstimates about the future. Maybe you could stabilize at 15% or maybe you could keep increasing the amount. If you can save more early (start at 8% or increase by 150 or 200% basis points a year) that is even better. Building up savings early provides a cushion for coping with negative shocks (being unemployed for a year, losing your job and having to take a new job earning 25% less, very bad decade of investing returns, etc.).

Investing wisely makes a big difference also. The key for retirement savings is safety first, especially as you move closer to retirement. But you need to think of investment safety as an overall portfolio. The safest portfolio is well balanced not a portfolio consisting of just an investment people think of as safe by itself.

Related: Retirement Planning, Investing Asset Considerations – Saving for Retirement Must Be a Personal Finance Priority – Investment Risk Matters Most as Part of a Portfolio, Rather than in Isolation

Big monthly expenses:

• Rent: $900
• Car payment + insurance: $300
• Cash (miscellaneous spending food, gas, cloths, books…): $450
• Utilities+ (heat, electricity, phone, internet…): $250

Take home pay: $2,800.

That leaves $900/month ($2,800 – $1,900). Decide how to allocate that – toward your IRA, saving to buy a house or take a vacation, eating out (above what was allocated above for cash), pay off debt (if you have it…), build up an emergency fund, save to buy a new MacBook Pro with Retina display…

If I decided to allocate $300 to my IRA (or increase my 401k) I would just set that up automatically each month. Then say I decided to put $400 toward other savings I would have that go to my savings account each month. And I decided I could use the $200 to pamper myself I just leave that in my checking account and what is in checking is what I have to spend.

I just don’t spend more than that. Just like when I was in college I had little spending money. I could spend that. I couldn’t spend any more, I didn’t have it. If I were to go over (I never did), but if I were to have (say my credit card bill exceeded my checking account balance), I would have had to reduce my cash the next month. I reality I would have something like $2,000 extra in the checking account so no bills would be a problem (and just view $2,000 as 0).

In 6 months see where things stand. Is it really working? Did you mess up and forget some expenses… If you need to adjust, do so. Re-examine every 6 months (or every year, if you are doing pretty well).

Take a portion of each raise (50% maybe) and devote it to personal finance goals (paying off debt, retirement savings, building up emergency fund, saving for big purcahse, investing, give more to charity…); don’t just use it to increase spending. Use no more than half (or whatever level you set) of the raise to increase your current spending.

Related: Personal Finance Basics: Avoid Debt – Investing in Stocks That Have Raised Dividends Consistently

In trying to figure out a good way to create another income stream I thought of the idea of consulting over the internet in very small chunks of time. I explored the options to be a consultant that way and they were not good. But the idea seemed excellent to me and I worked with a friend to develop the idea of us creating such a online service. The potential was great I think. The end service would provide value to those seeking answers and those providing consultation (and to us).

We did get a domain and plan out the service and begin coding the application but didn’t progress very far. It was still a great idea and something I planned to consider if I had a bit more time. Well there is now an offering that appears to actually be fairly decent (on first glance): Minute Box.

Minute Box allows you several of the things we planned on offering (but not all of them – at least not yet). You can register as an expert and then be available for those wanting advice. You sign in when you are available to answer questions (and people can send you a note while you are offline). You set your rate. Essentially IM is used for consultation and the billing is taken care of by Minute Box.

One of the keys is matching people to experts well. Minute Box does one thing we planned on doing, which is to emphasize the experts tapping those that already value their advice. This would work very well for bloggers and those with an online presence and reputation.

I signed up and created my expert account, so if you want to get some advice from me you can get consulting by the minute from John Hunter.

I think this consulting by the minute model is a great way to create a secondary income stream for those that have a positive online reputation. You can adjust your pay to manage demand. If you have a free week and want to make some extra income you can reduce your rate and offer your readers a special discount. This is potentially a great way to capitalize on your expertise. I haven’t had much experience with Minute Box yet so it isn’t certain they are the answer (but I haven’t seen any other solution that is very good). And no matter the service provider used, I believe the internet enabled micro consulting is a great way to provide some extra income and make your personal finances more robust.

The range of advice you can offer is huge. For nearly anything there are people that need advice: how to cook thanksgiving dinner, helping a child with math homework, fashion advice, editing a resume, which mortgage offer is better in a specific situation, fixing a bug in a WordPress blog, what are good plants for a shady area… The list is nearly endless.

I wish I had been able to create a web site to facilitate this process. I believe the potential is huge. That is why I was so interested in making this idea work. It is the only web business I have seriously considered (and even started). I have numerous web sites but they involve providing content online not any software as service businesses.

Related: Earning More Money – Save Some of Each Raise – If you can’t pay cash, earn more money or save until you have the cash

Those benefits are greatest for several majors including science, math and engineering. The problem I see is not so much that significant benefits are lacking for college degrees but the huge increases in costs of getting a degree are so large that for some majors the cost is just so large that even with the benefits it is arguable whether it is worth the cost (while a few decades ago the benefits were universal and so large the economic benefit was not debatable).

The authors of the report found that all undergraduate majors are worthwhile, even taking into account the cost of college and lost earnings. However, the lifetime advantage ranges from $1,090,000 for Engineering majors to $241,000 for Education majors. As I have written frequently on the Curious Cat Science and Engineering blog, engineering degrees are very financially rewarding.

The top 10 majors with the highest median earnings for new graduates are:

• Petroleum Engineer ($120,000)
• Pharmacy/pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration ($105,000)
• Mathematics and Computer Sciences ($98,000)
• Aerospace Engineering ($87,000)
• Chemical Engineering ($86,000)
• Electrical Engineering ($85,000)
• Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering ($82,000)
• Mechanical Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering and Mining and Mineral Engineering (each with median earnings of $80,000)

Chart of salaries (25th and 75th percentile) by major in the USA based on data from 2009

Related: 10 Jobs That Provide a Great Return on Investment – Mathematicians Top List of Best Occupations – New Graduates Should Live Frugally

Even with the extremely high current unemployment rate, some fields have virtually no unemployment: geological and geophysical engineering; military technologies; pharmacology, and school student counseling. Engineering overall has very low unemployment rates (under 4% today, I believe). While majors with the highest unemployment rates are in the fields of: Social Psychology (16%); Nuclear Engineering (11%) [a high rate, but it is also wise to remember the total number of these is a very small portion of engineers overall]; and Educational Administration and Supervision (11%).

Nuclear engineering is a gamble now I think (potentially highly rewarding, but I would gamble on it myself). If 10 years from now countries have decided nuclear is safe enough it may well pay extremely well as countries look to avoid more negative impacts from climate change. The current lowered number of graduates is similar to what happened to petroleum engineering). People often forget oil prices crashed, and exploration crashed, and demand for petroleum engineers crashed, and salaries decreased, and students didn’t choose that major. Then when exploration boomed there was also very few available engineers and over a decade later the supply of petroleum engineers is still not meeting demand – thus the continued very high salaries.

Graduate degrees were also found to provide economic benefits. The highest increases in earnings are in the areas related to healthcare and biology: Health and Medical Preparatory Programs (190%); Miscellaneous Social Sciences (134%); and Zoology (123%). Meanwhile, the majors in which students have shown the lowest earnings boost from advanced degrees are: Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology (1%); Studio Arts (3%); and Petroleum Engineering (7%). Biology and Life Science majors, make $35,000 more at the median with a graduate degree. Engineers with a bachelors degree have a median salary of $75,000 and with a graduate degree have a median salary of $99,000.

My guess is that the small benefit of petroleum engineering graduate is due to the extremely high wages for those with any degree. There was a paucity of graduates that left the market willing to pay even for bachelors degrees. And it is hard to make up for the lost of very high wages while studying for the graduate degree. I expect wages to decline a bit going forward for bachelor degrees which then may well make the graduate degrees pay off in the future at a better (though still somewhat lower rate).

The analyses contained in this report are based on newly released data from the 2009 American Community
Survey (ACS) by the USA census bureau.

That is actually the perfect situation for insurance. Insurance should be cheap when the risk is small. You want insurance for unlikely but very costly events. You don’t want insurance for likely and inexpensive events (paying the middle man just adds to the cost).

I believe, other than health insurance it is the most important insurance. For someone with dependents life insurance can be important too. And auto and homeowners insurance are also important. Insurance if an important part of a smart personal finance. It is wise to chose high deductibles (to reduce cost).

In many things I believe you can chose what you want to do and just deal with the results. Forgoing health or disability insurance I think don’t fall into that category. Just always have those coverages. I think doing without is just a bad idea.

When I would have had gaps in coverage from work, I have purchased disability insurance myself.

I am all in favor of saving money. About the only 2 things I don’t believe in saving money being very important are health and disability insurance. Get high deductible insurance in general (you should insure against small loses). And with disability insurance you can reduce the cost by having the insurance only start after 6 or 12 months (I chose 12). As you get close to retirement (say 5 years) the risk is much less, you only have so many earning years left. If you wanted to save some money at that point it might be ok if you have saved well for retirement and have a cushion (in case you have to retire 3 year early). Long term care insurance may well be wise to get (if you didn’t when it was cheaper and you were younger. Long term care insurance is really tricky and very tied to whatever our politicians decide not to do (or do) about the broken health care system we have in the USA. The cost also becomes higher as it is moving toward a likely event, instead of a unlikely event (as you age you are more frail).

Related: How to Protect Your Financial Health – Personal Finance Basics: Avoid Debt

Secondly, you should have long ago severed any ties with the large banks (that not surprisingly are the ones announcing the huge fees, so far). They provide lousy service and extract exorbitant fees whenever they can sneak them by you. Choosing to do business with companies that you must remain hyper vigilante to abuse from is just not sensible. Small banks unfortunately get bought out by the large banks to prevent competition. So while using small banks is ok, you keep having to go to a new one as the large ones buy out your bank to prevent the competition.

So it is more sensible to just pick a credit union. Credit unions are decent overall. Some can still be bad choices but it is almost impossible to do worse than any of the large banks. If you use ATMs a good deal make sure you minimize ATM fees when selecting a credit union (their policies in that area – waived fees, network ATM access… are significantly different between your options).

The free checking we have grown accustom to may well be on the way out. That seems fine to me. Essentially the government’s subsidy to the large banks and financial institutions in repressing short term interest rates (at the expense of course of savers and retirees) has greatly reduced the value of checking and savings balances at banks. I am sure the large banks will be the most customer unfriendly as fees are added to accounts, based on their track record.

Obviously you should not carry credit card balances, with high interest rates.

There really is almost no excuse for dealing with the large banks (other than a mortgage that was sold to them without your permission where you have no option but to put up with their behavior as their customer). Many of the other extremely bad customer service industries (cable TV, internet access providers, airlines) have monopolistic powers than often make it extremely difficult to avoid dealing with them. Of course the large banks make huge anti-competitive moves that shouldn’t allowed in any capitalistic system. But then our system is more about what you can buy with your cash payments to congress than capitalism. And you can’t accept the proponents claims of capitalism as a reason to do what they ask; more often then not those playing the capitalism over government argument are asking for anti-capitalist measures (allowing anti-competitive practices etc.) in support of special interest at the expense of society (markets require regulation to have the benefits of competition provide a dividend to society).

Related: Credit Card Regulation Has Reduced Abuse By Banks – Credit Card Issuers Still Seeking to Take Your Money – More Outrageous Credit Card Fees