Pearl Harbor

0755AM, December 7, 1941

And more memories fade away

Assessment

I'm using sharebuilder for my IRA and my test of a ETF version of one of the coffeehouse invester set ups.

I heard of sharebuilder from my wife about the time I needed to roll my old 401K into something. Poking around a bit and I decided to give it a try. I used its PortfolioBuilder.

It suggested the following for me:

WD RUSSELL 1000 VALUE 45%
IWF RUSSELL 1000 GROWTH 30%
EFA EURO-ASIA INDX 15%
AGG LEHMAN AGG BOND FUND 5%
TIP LEH US TREAS INF FD 5%

My return for the past year is a wee bit over 10%

The ETF version of the coffeehouse invester set up didn't do so well in my taxable account.

AGG LEHMAN AGG BOND FUND 40%
VNQ VANGUARD REIT ETF 10%
VTV VANGUARD VALUE ETF 10%
EFA EURO-ASIA INDX 10%
RSP S&P EQUAL WEIGHT INDEX 10%
VBR VANGUARD SMALL-CAP VALUE ETF 10%
VB VANGUARD SMALL-CAP ETF 10%

Return on that was a little over 6%.

Looking at things a bit more I thought to repoint my taxable account and get rid of the overlap with the IRA and focus on sectors. Specifically, equal ratio of the following: financial services, natural resources, utilities, real estate, and telecom.

ICF COHEN & STEERS REALTY
IDU UTILITIES INDX
IXG S&P GLBL FINL SECTOR
IXP ISHARES S&P GLBL TELECOMM SE
IYE ENERGY INDX
VAW VANGUARD MATERIALS ETF

Past data indicates this will return over 10%. If so, I will pursue it aggressively.


Future project --- some form of trading (stocks, commodities, forex, something) where fees and taxes don't eat up the majority of a given 3, 6, 9, or 12 months profit.

ETFs don't appear to lend themselves to short term trading and only forex (at this time) looks to allow investors to live test on the cheap.

Veterans Day

Been slacking as usual.

In observation of Veterans Day 2006:

Happy Veterans Day

Veteran's Day: "In the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month"

Yea Me Day!

Veteran's Day, 2006

Warfare Class

I'm Sitting Here on Veteran's Day

Veterans Day - Generations of Valor

Proud

Hangin’ Out With the Boys


Project Valour-IT

How To Support The Troops

RIP

Col. Jeff Cooper, RIP

On D-Day

D-Day Remembered

Memorial Day

On Memorial Day, remember the families of our fallen heroes

Gates of Fire

"I am going to die well"

Major Mathew Schram's Memorial Day

TSgt John A. Chapman

Video Tributes

We all lost a Brother Today

Letter From Canada

Chai Tea, Mud Huts, Villages With No Names and Heroes

Rafael Peralta - Home of the Brave

BAGHDAD ER

The Notification

Godspeed Kyle Jackson and Mitch Carver

Final Salute


I often think to myself, how is it that I can enjoy a life here in the US where I don't have to bribe officials to get ahead? Where any US citizen can get ahead in life if they are determined and apply themselves. Where any US citizen is free to move to a different town or state in order to find a favorable spot to put down roots. And how is it that the US doesn't turn into another Zimbabwe?

How To Support The Troops
Some Ways To Support Servicemembers

HA!

HAHA!!!

The internet is such a wonderful thing

Running through my links and found these two at the instapundit:

Carnival of Personal Finance

Carnival of the Capitalists

Which led to finding this list of "carnivals": Carnivals for week of 1/9/06

A retirement link

Found this on a quick google search:

retireearlyhomepage.com

Gonna poke around in it over the next few days to assess worth.


UPDATE: Strange cold is leaving me real tired all the time, so I haven't gone over the link in detail.

From what I see, there is an emphasis on saving. I see this in many books and links I've skimmed over. I've been discounting them as common sense items. But then I remembered that people don't save and routinly live outside of their means. So, I guess it is good.

Noticing an alignment with the ideas at the coffeehouse investor. Buy and hold methods. Starting to get interested in that method. Like the idea of not spending forever studying companies.

Observation: why is it that most investment methods today sound like cults? "A coffeehouse invester does this... A coffeehouse invester thinks that".

bah

A potential theme

or, "a new shiny thing has been found"

Something I've been working on for past few years has been how to retire early.

This idea started for me around 1995 or so when I decided that I just had no tolerance for debt. It just bugged me. I was unable to take my mind off of it.

So, I promptly bought a video game that I became enthralled in for a month or so. When the nagging worry came back I would buy another one. After a while the games didn't work anymore and I had to deal with the issue.

At the time I was renting an apartment with my wife and had some credit card debt and minor loans. Looking through the personal finance offerings at the bookstore indicated that CC debt had to go followed by loans. Many books and such indicated that I shouldn't worry about low interest loans and such, but I could not tolerate any debt.

It was also about this time when I began to lose any and all patience with the keeping up with the jones' people. You know the ones... The folks that go out to lunch at the $20+ spots everyday and $10 a beer bars every night. The folks that have the newest gadgets and a new car every 3 years.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't care how they spend *their* money. I just couldn't deal with them telling me how I should spend *my* money. And, should I take the time to explaine that I'm paying off my debt and building my equity, they would look at me like I'm some kind of leper. Or come right out and say I'm acting like a Jew.

I never understood that association. Nevermind that I have nothing against Jews, but, tending to the financial health of one's household means that I'm acting like a Jew? Really? I've known a few Asians and they seem to hold to the same idea as me. But they aren't said to be acting like Jews. I just don't get people.

Anyways...

It was at this time that I learned another lesson. Your employer is not your friend. And if you could make more money by job hopping, then do it. Shortly after I learned this I found out that if your ego allowed you to take a job that was junior to what you had been doing but paid more, you should take it. Granted, this opened the door to having to deal with both management and peers that always took a condescending tone with me. But, I had already grown used to this because I never pursued my degree. I did this anywhere from every 2 months to a year.

So, as my income grew, I paid off all my debts. I learned that vehicles bought a few years old were several thousand dollars cheaper and if I tended to the 3K mile maintenance they would last and last (my last vehicle was a 1995 Ford Explorer with 240K miles on it and the only reason I got rid of it was that I couldn't justify the 13mpg).

In 1999, I bought my first house. I purposely bought a house out in the sticks off of a dirt road on top of a mountain. My objective was not to make money, but to have something cheap that I could pay off fast and use as a down payment for someplace that I would live in for a few decades. 1999 was the start of insane pay rates in northern VA. Unlike my peers who bought $500+K houses and fancy cars, I paid off my mortgage.

When the dot com bust came, a few of my peers had to file for bankruptcy after being unable to find work for over a year. And just because of those fancy trophy houses, cars, and toys.

Again, I don't really care how people spend their money, but I will comment on what I consider stupidity.

Now this brings us to 2005...

The housing market had grown so expensive in the DC metro area that increasing amounts of people started to move out my way. This meant that my previously 1.25 hour one-way commute grew to 2.5-3.5 one-way commutes.

I was unable to deal with that.

Then an idea that had been brewing for a while came a little closer to the top. What if I move to a low cost of living state (like NC)? With the insane VA housing market, I could buy a NC house outright with the proceeds of selling my VA house.

And so I did...

Now I'm at another crossroads: I find that the more independant I am, the less tolerant I'm of the sociopathic folks that populate the tech sector. Yes, Dilbert does reflect reality... only through rose tinted glasses. It is much worse.

So, do I try to retire now and live under the poverty line? (which in the US really isn't as bad as it sounds) Or, to try to suck it up for a few more years in order to sock more away into my investments?

I'm starting to do some research into a safe early retirement and I'll be posting a few links that I find along the way.

Let's see where this takes me....