personal finance
Finance Friday Articles
Here are my favorites this week:
What’s The Worst Case Scenario for Diversified Portfolios?
Here are the rest of this week’s articles:
5 Examples of Bad Financial Advice from Dave Ramsey (for Doctors)
14 Reasons the White Coat Investor Doesn’t Want You to Retire Early
A $50,000 Real Estate Fund Investment, One Year Update
Acts of Congress: The Impact of Coronavirus on Your Finances
Aggressive Hours Reduction: Why Every Physician Should Chase ‘Virtual Retirement
Different Strategies For Putting Cash to Work During a Bear Market
Do We Need to Worry About Government Debt?
Financial Freedom Warriors Fired Up Over Economic Turmoil
How do we continue to diversify through this economic downturn?
How Early Retirement Prepared Us for the Pandemic
Investments in a Pandemic: The Lay of the Land
Stocks Just Took the Elevator Down & The Elevator Up
Tax Deductions for a Home Office
The Collapse of the Energy Sector
The Wild World of Yield Chasing
Which Retirement Accounts Should I Use? The Order of Investing
Thowback Thursday Classic Post – My White Coat Investor Guest Podcast
Here’s a link to my guest spot on the White Coat Investor site and podcast:
Finance Friday Articles
Here are my favorites this week:
3 Important Financial Lessons I’ve Learned From The Coronavirus Pandemic
Monitoring your risk level & rebalancing
The Stock Market is Not Your Benchmark
Here are the rest of the articles:
5 Ways to Find Work-Life Balance While at Home
Calculating the Value of Your Backdoor Roth Contributions
How to Get Wealthy Investing in a Bear Market
How to Manage Student Loans During the COVID-19 Crisis
Is It Better to Withdraw Only from Cash and Bonds in a Bear Market?
Making Money In Times Of Crisis – Lessons From Past Bear Markets
Managing the Transition to Attendinghood Properly
My New Theory About Future Stock Market Returns
Pandemics vs. Post-War Recoveries
Personal Finance During a Crisis
As COVID-19 Crisis Continues, Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Protects Military
Here’s a link to the article, which should be read by anyone dealing with issues related to rent, security deposits, evictions, credit cards, mortgage/foreclosure, automobile leases, etc….
As COVID-19 Crisis Continues, Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Protects Military
Guest Post – COVID-19 Impact on Life and Disability Insurance
First, we would like to thank every service person who reads this for their tireless work and dedication during this pandemic. It is because of people like you we have confidence that the United States will lead the world out of this current crisis.
The impact the virus has had on the insurance industry, which usually moves at a glacial pace has been astonishing and compassionate. Under normal circumstances, all life and disability policies have a 30- day grace period from when premiums are due to when they need to be paid. Currently, this has been extended by at least 60 days for a total of 90. The procedure to obtain the extension differs by company but is very easy and accessible. Please contact us should you need assistance with your company.
Regarding underwriting, the process by which insurance policies are approved, the benefit amounts available without a medical exam or lab work have been increased substantially for both disability and life insurance. For disability insurance you can now obtain as much as $6,000 per month of specialty specific disability insurance without an exam if you are under age 51. The situation is even better for life insurance, as you can now obtain up to $1M of level premium term life insurance without an exam and have the coverage in effect within a few days if you are under age 46 (unless you have medical issues). Premiums are extremely competitive. For a male age 35 a $400,000 policy with premiums guaranteed level for 20 years, the monthly premium is $20-$40 per month depending on your risk class. For comparison, SGLI is $24 per month for $400,000. Since most individuals with a family should maintain 7- 10 times their annual income in life insurance protection, SGLI is not adequate. Hopefully these changes will become permanent but as of now that is uncertain. Please contact us for any assistance:
- Andy G Borgia CLU
- D.K. Unger
- DI4MDS
- 888-934-4637
- www.di4mds.com
Finance Friday Articles
Here are my favorites this week:
Covid-19 Reminds Us of the Need for an Emergency Fund
No, You Didn’t Just Lose Half Of Your Retirement Savings
Here are the rest of the articles:
Actions to Take When Under Financial Pressure
Behavioral Finance Lessons from Bear Markets
Buying Foreign Stocks After a Fall
Does Experience Matter During a Bear Market?
Employee Versus Independent Contractor (people screw this up all the time when they start moonlighting)
Hard Times Teach Us About Money
Keeping My Balance During a Market Decline
Retirees and Pre-Retirees: You’ve Got This
Tax Loss Harvesting with Vanguard: A Step by Step Guide
The CARES Act – What Doctors Need to Know and Care About
The Danger of Not Checking Your Portfolio (I’ve Made a Huge Mistake)
The Relationship Between Earnings and Bear Markets
What Happened to Small Cap Value?
Would You Rather: Buy Too Early or Buy Too Late in a Bear Market?
Finance Friday Articles
I like these principles/quotes from the Vanguard article about dealing with market volatility:
Market volatility is normal and expected. History tells us this too shall pass. Consider this: To date, every significant market fall has been followed by a rebound. We anticipate downturns; we just can’t predict how low the market will go or when it will bounce back.
I trust my asset allocation because it’s based on my time horizon, risk tolerance, and goals.
I don’t know if market volatility will be the “new normal,” but I know it’s normal—so normal, in fact, we’ve posted several blog posts about it before.
Here are this week’s favorites:
Bear Market! What (If Anything) Should You Do?
Surviving Your Very First Market Crash
The Hardest Part of a Buy & Hold Strategy
Here are the rest of this week’s articles:
3 reasons not to move your portfolio to cash
10 Personal Finance YouTube Channels You Should Be Watching
Even Warren Buffett Can’t Nail the Bottom
FIRE Confessionals: How A Bear Market Has Impacted The Financial Independence Movement
Five Stock Market Alternative Investments 2020
Intra-Specialty Salary Differences on Merritt Hawkins
Recession, Coronavirus and the Future of FIRE
School’s in Session – 6 Takeaways from the Downturn
Social Security in a Down Market: Does it Make More Sense to File Early?
The Corona Crisis vs. The Great Depression
The Federal Reserve Doesn’t Control Mortgage Rates, The Market Does
The Simple Path to Wealth: Is It Really That Simple?
The Unpleasant Surprise of the Bond Market During COVID-19
What COVID Taught Me About Money
What Doctors Should Care About in the CARES Act (the Coronavirus Relief Package)
What Matters Most When Investing
What the $2 Trillion Stimulus Plan Means For Your Student Loans
Federal Tax Deadline Changed and Finance Friday Articles
Please note that tax day is now July 15th. This means you have until then to contribute to retirement accounts for 2019.
Here are my favorites this week:
How Are Diversified Portfolios Holding up During the Crash?
Should I Sell When the Market is Low? Dealing with the Bear Market
Here are the rest of this week’s articles:
6 Financial Takeaways From the Coronavirus Outbreak
9 Reasons NOT to Tax-Loss Harvest
A recession at hand—and a quick end
Bond ETF discounts during recent volatility
Diversification, Beating the Market, and Telling the Future
How Ben Carlson is Managing His Own Money Through the Crisis
How Does the Market Crash Impact Retirees?
How Much Time Does It Take To Manage Your Own Rental Properties?
How To Get Started in Telemedicine
Inject Discipline Into Your Investing Right Now
It’s Never Too Early to Start: The Rapid FIRE Approach of One Enterprising Medical Student
Random Thoughts on the Crash As We Catch Our Breath
The Impact of Coronavirus on Real Estate Markets
The Marginal Value of the Backdoor Roth. Is it Worth the Trouble?
The Market Is Rocky. Will Target-Date Funds Change Their Strategy?
What I’m Doing With My Portfolio During the COVID-19 Pandemic
What better to write about than this? Here is what I’m doing during the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated market volatility.
Sticking to My Investment Plan
Whether you are a do-it-yourself investor or use a financial advisor, everyone needs an investment plan. Otherwise you are just playing G&G, guessing and gambling.
The simple version of my investment plan was to invest aggressively, which meant 100% stocks, until I hit “my number.” That happened about 4 years ago, at which point I downshifted from an aggressive allocation to a more moderate one. Currently that is a 75/25 stock/bond asset allocation. I don’t invest in real estate (other than owning my house outright) and I don’t include the value of my pension or the equity in my house in my overall asset allocation.
At its most basic, this means that what I’m doing during the COVID-19 pandemic is sticking to my desired asset allocation of 75/25 stocks/bonds.
Rebalancing When My Asset Allocation is Off By > 5%
With all of this market volatility, similar to what happened in 2008-9, I see stock market declines as an opportunity to purchase more stocks when they are on sale. The market will eventually recover. It always has. And if it doesn’t, we have bigger problems and my portfolio probably won’t be the biggest thing I’m worried about.
When do I buy? I’m not a market timer. I just follow my plan, which says that I rebalance whenever my current asset allocation has deviated from my desired asset allocation by more than 5%. For example, a few days ago the declines in the stock market had moved me from 75/25 stock/bond to 68/32 stock/bond. I was > 5% off, so it was time to rebalance INTO the decline. This 5 minute video from Vanguard talks about rebalancing into a stock market decline, if you are interested in watching it. Was my timing perfect? Probably not, but that probably doesn’t matter very much in the long run.
How did I buy? I exchanged 7% of my bonds for 7% of stocks on the TSP and Vanguard websites. I did this all within my TSP and Vanguard IRAs so that none of the transactions would have any tax costs associated with them. You should always try to rebalance within retirement accounts unless you have taxable losses you can harvest. That said, I don’t tax loss harvest because now that I’ve hit my retirement number I just don’t care that much. I choose life over tax loss harvesting.
That’s It!
It is as simple as that. I stick to my plan and rebalance when I’m off by 5%. That’s what you should do. Stick to your plan.
If you don’t have a plan, you better get one. Here’s my stuff that might help or go to the White Coat Investor. He also offers a course to help you do it and recommended advisors if you want help. He also re-posted this article entitled, “How To Survive the Coming Bear Market.” Read it if you think my advice to rebalance into the decline is crazy.
Finance Friday Articles
Here are my favorites this week:
5 Ways To Make Lemonade Out Of A Lemon Market
Lock In Good CD Rates Before They Disappear
Here are the rest of the articles:
3 mistakes to avoid during a market downturn
Coronavirus Sell-Off Presents Tax-Loss Harvesting Opportunity
Different Ways to Make Five Million Dollars in Real Estate
Grab the Wheel to Deal With Market Volatility
Happiness Economics: What Actually Makes us Happy?
Harder Than It Looks – 3 Alternative Ways to Deal with the Stock Market Decline
How Real Estate Gets Impacted By A Decline In Stock Prices
How to Turn Your Financial Life Around
Lessons From Japan’s Lost Decade(s)
Perspective in a challenging time
Returns From the Bottom of Bear Markets
The Work From Home Survival Guide: Because Your Sanity Is Important
What’s Causing All the Panic Buying & Selling of Stocks?
What’s Different For Dual Income Couples?
Joel Schofer's Career Planning Blog 