Author Topic: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...  (Read 340048 times)

CowboyAndIndian

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #150 on: July 13, 2017, 10:13:12 AM »
When RyanRyan asks about holding cash until the bottom of the recession, SmokyStache hits this one out of the ball park!

RyanRyan,
It is a very compelling goal - I too would love to be able to save myself some money and maximize returns. I believe that looking back (below is a 20 year S&P returns example), that it seems so obvious that we could sell "somewhere" the top and buy "somewhere" near the bottom (it doesn't have to be perfect, after all, look how much difference is between the highs and the lows!!!). After all, I realize that I can't pick the exact high and the exact low, but even getting close looks like it would be a huge advantage. Right!?!



Unfortunately that's wrong. One reason is the power of just a handful days. One of the most compelling realizations for me to avoid trying to buy/sell into highs/lows is when I learned about the power of missing out on the X (5, 20, etc.) best days in the market over a period of time and how that would affect my long term returns. For example, the graph below shows that if you miss out on just the 10 best days over 20 years and your return would drop 3.75% (From almost ~10% return to ~6%). Ouch.

Miss out on the next best 10 days and your returns drop even further to 3.6% (Obviously, this is just one example).

So among other factors, the question is NOT "Can I see when the market is kinda close to the top and kinda close to the bottom" - the real question is: "Can I predict the 1 day every two years when I will get huge returns?" And then during the next bull/bear cycle, can you do it again, and again....  Because if you don't, you'll lose out on huge gains.



arebelspy

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #151 on: July 16, 2017, 08:41:42 AM »
Talking to someone who is considering OMY:

I was very much where you are, until an irresistable redundancy offer pushed me over the cliff.

My friend, you are institutionalised.  You have been in a prison called "working at X500 Corp" for the last 15 years.  That is a life sentence.  Now you have all the problems that anyone coming out of prison has: resetting your life, and doing it without that externally imposed timetable that says that every Monday at 9am you have to be in the prison laundry and every Tuesday at 10.30 am you have to be in the prison exercise yard.

It's great that you have a project to move on to.  But my recommendation would be to spend at least a month after you retire doing exactly nothing (possibly doing nothing in a favourite place in the world), just to let the reality of your life reset sink into your pores while the prison stink leaches out.

You are young (relatively), educated, healthy and wealthy.  You can press the button on your retirement now and be fine.  You can always earn more money, you can never earn more years.

Good luck.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
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Double Yu

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #152 on: July 16, 2017, 06:36:34 PM »
following

thanks for starting this - lots of great linked-to reading here and much food for thought!

arebelspy

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #153 on: July 18, 2017, 09:57:40 PM »
Written in regards to worrying about eking out a slightly lower WR for fear of running out of money, and working extra years to do so, to help "ensure" you don't fail at FIRE:



What I am saying is having the money you planned to spend each year in FIRE is only one element to being successful at retiring. There are lots of ways you can fail at FIRE that don't involve running out of money.

- poor health [physical and/or mental]
- dying early
- damaging important relationships
- not developing any other interests outside of work to transition to in retirement
- etc...

Not only are these ^^^ types of issues not mitigated by a low WR, but if you work extra years you are likely to exacerbate them. People focus on money because it's easy to calculate, spreadsheet and there is a lot of fear in our society around money, but it's far from the most important risk FIRE success. I'd put your health and time ahead of money if I was prioritizing FIRE risks, but that's not what I read about on MMM much.

Awesome chart thanks to Maizeman. It always helps me put things in perspective.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

nereo

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #154 on: July 19, 2017, 05:52:13 AM »
can anyone tell me what graphing program Maizeman used?  I love the look

Vindicated

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #155 on: July 19, 2017, 06:28:50 AM »
can anyone tell me what graphing program Maizeman used?  I love the look

He has mentioned it before in his journal, but I don't recall off-hand.  Most of his data work is over my head :)

arebelspy

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #156 on: July 19, 2017, 07:56:43 AM »
can anyone tell me what graphing program Maizeman used?  I love the look

He has mentioned it before in his journal, but I don't recall off-hand.  Most of his data work is over my head :)

Yep, check his journal. It's only 3 or 4 pages, pretty short, and worth reading anyways.

IIRC it's matlab with an xkcd plugin (which you can google and I think it's on github, or the journal has the exact link if you can't find it there).  :)
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

oneday

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #157 on: August 02, 2017, 10:00:07 PM »
This one hits too close to home...

Welcome!   You've gotten a ton of great advice from the previous posters, so I'll refrain from specific spending advice.

In good news, if you do find the motivation to make cuts you are going to be able to make SO much progress so quickly.  The spending you posted for the end of July is very promising indeed.   You have a great income and the childcare expenses won't last forever.

I would highly recommend reading Your Money or Your Life by Joseph Dominguez and Vicki Robin.  This was very helpful for me in figuring out what is important to me and understanding how little I was living in accordance with those purported values.  For me --- I said I valued time with my family, travel, theater, and supporting local businesses.  But my spending said that I valued chain restaurants, alcohol, boxed food from the giant grocery store, and mindless spending.   It was eye opening seeing the disconnect.   

Your spending in your original post says your highest priorities are eating pricey meals away from home and buying random shit from Target/Amazon.  Is that who you want to be?

mustachepungoeshere

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #158 on: August 03, 2017, 12:08:57 AM »
PTF

deborah

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #159 on: August 03, 2017, 02:11:30 AM »
I'm advocating that we not pretend that the market, at high as it is right now, will actually realize the historical market returns that the 4% rule blindly assumes.

I'm advocating that the market WILL.  I will literally wager a million dollars that a 4% SWR will survive for 30 years, on the exact day I retire.  I have no hesitation about this bet.

But you're not an aspiring early retiree, and you don't believe in (or even understand, apparently) the historical analysis this decision is based on.  In fact, I'm not even sure why you're here.

Please go away.  Work just as long as you like.  Bet against the stock market all you like.  Wallow in pessimism and doom as much as you like.  Just stop doing it here.

Because frankly I'm sick and tired of all these folks showing up in carefully researched and referenced threads they have not read and loudly shouting the opposite conclusion without any evidence, forethought, or credibility.  You degrade the quality of this conversation and you look like an ignorant rube.  Just read the thread already, and you'll see that all of your questions and naive criticisms have already been answered thoughtfully by caring people with professional expertise.

But we all know I'm fooling myself.  You won't read it.  You don't want real answers because you're not asking real questions.  You're regurgitating cable show talking points without any understanding of context or motivation.  You've been duped, and it shows.  Your consistent and total refusal to accept the education offered to you here is, I suppose, a clear explanation as to why you were so easily duped in the first place, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

So to reiterate: please go somewhere else.  The internet is full of forums targeted at people just like you, places where you will be welcomed with open arms.  Here, you do not fit in.  Here, you are obviously out of place, a single black rose in a field of yellow daylilies.  Go away, and leave us in peace to spread our message of hope and optimism to others eager to escape their 9-5 treadmill of oppression and despair.  You are clearly happy with that life, but it has no place here and neither do you.

talltexan

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #160 on: August 04, 2017, 08:00:41 AM »
Deborah and Sol-
was there context that made Runewell's inquiry particularly frustrating?

Turkey Leg

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #161 on: August 04, 2017, 08:09:46 AM »
Deborah and Sol-
was there context that made Runewell's inquiry particularly frustrating?

Click the link at the top of Deborah's post (the text that reads "Quote from: sol on August 02, 2017, 10:48:27 AM") and you'll be taken to the thread to get the context.

sw1tch

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #162 on: August 04, 2017, 09:08:10 AM »
PTF...

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #163 on: August 04, 2017, 04:38:11 PM »
Wow what great posts !!

mustachepungoeshere

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #164 on: August 07, 2017, 11:44:46 PM »
... Question:  is your drive to FIRE in 7 years driven by your past experience of losing the job/house with an infant?  If so, that would be completely understandable -- we've lost the primary job with a newborn as well, and had to sell my dream house and move to another state for DH to be able to find a new job.  It was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through, and it left me for years afterwards feeling like the Sword of Damocles was dangling over my head.  So it is completely logical and natural that you would come out of that wanting to FIRE ASAP, so that if the shit hits the fan, you can just say "fuck this" and walk.  The problem is it takes years to get there -- even on an extremely tight budget.  So how do you feel secure in the interim?  FWIW -- and this is just from my own experience, so YMMV -- to me, the best way I found was to keep all of our necessary expenses to what we could afford on the lowest earner's income.  That way, I knew that I wouldn't ever have to leave my dream house and uproot my life again if we didn't want to.

Snow

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #165 on: August 08, 2017, 03:35:24 AM »
Posting to follow. This thread is great!

brooklynguy

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #166 on: August 09, 2017, 05:09:37 PM »
Maizeman on acceptance of risk as "the price of being alive":

runewell, what is your suggestion and why?
No particular suggestion, just saying that if we can't predict the future, why do we have any reason to believe the 4% rule will work at all.

You are right. The future is unknowable, all we can do is make our best efforts to forecast which futures are more likely than others.

Your chance (or mine) of dying in an asteroid impact is somewhere between 1:75,000 and 1:700,000. More personally, sudden cardiac arrest is a threat we all live with every day of our lives. Basically every time you or I go to sleep, there is a chance we're never going to wake up for one reason or another. So we triage what we're going to worry about every day based both on (1) our estimates of how likely a particular issue is to occur, and (2) our ability to do anything to effectively avoid it or prepare for it. I may very well die from cancer, but there's not much I can do to mitigate that so I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it. I'm about equally likely to die from heart disease, but there I can reduce the risk somewhat through diet and exercise, so I spend a bit more time thinking about that one. I could also do things to reduce my risk of death by mountain lion (avoid their habitat, carry a weapon when hiking), but I've chosen not to because my estimate of the overall risk is so low to begin with.

Now if I die in a mountain lion attack, or FIRE on 4% of my stash and run out of money, I'll feel a bit foolish (though obviously not for very long in the case of the mountain lion). But that's the price of being alive. We spend our lives making the best choices we can with the data we have at the time and we don't really know if they were the right choices or not until our lives are over.

Edited to fix typo (in my lead-in, not in maizeman's quoted post).
« Last Edit: August 09, 2017, 05:40:59 PM by brooklynguy »

Padonak

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #167 on: August 09, 2017, 09:53:18 PM »
Following

nereo

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #168 on: August 17, 2017, 06:03:22 AM »
The thread itself was pushed by anti-vax trolling, but Tass had a response that knocked it out of the park:
(link to the full thread is here)
Hi iceberg. As far as I can tell both your duplicate threads have requests to delete them, so I'm just picking one and running with it.

I'm a PhD student in biology, and I wanted to let you know that medcraveonline is an incredibly sketchy source of information. Their "about us" page reads like it was written by a thesaurus algorithm:

Quote from: Medcrave
We are amazed by science and its wonderful forms and we now bring this beauty to you too. MedCrave is a collection of many perspectives, essays, research content and other works of pure significance. The topics covered are relevant to science and are open for all interested members around the globe. They range from the traditional divisions to contemporary works.

Compare that to the mission statement of Nature (one of the most respected bio journals in the world):

Quote from: Nature
First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science. Second, to ensure that the results of science are rapidly disseminated to the public throughout the world, in a fashion that conveys their significance for knowledge, culture and daily life.

I think it's clear they aren't participating in the same scientific ecosystem.

Medcrave's peer review system provides very little space for a paper to be rejected, implying very low standards of credibility - they'll publish whatever they can get their hands on, essentially. A journalist at The Scientist magazine demonstrated this handily when he submitted a completely made-up prank manuscript that was published in a Medcrave journal, for a requested "nominal fee" of only $800! He refused to pay the fee, and Medcrave published his completely fake work anyway. He said: "My short-term goal is to expose MedCrave as a publisher that will print fiction, for a price. My long-term goal—an ambitious one, I know—is to stop the production of predatory journals altogether." http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49071/title/Opinion--Why-I-Published-in-a-Predatory-Journal/

Medcrave also has deployed what I can only assume is an army of bots across the internet to counter the perception that they are a predatory journal; blogs like this (1) and this (2) have no content except repetitive posts insisting that Medcrave is reliable. The bots also flood the comments on sites like this (3), pretending to be multiple people and again insisting that Medcrave is great. Their identical stunted English gives them away.
(1) http://medcravenotpredatorypublisher.podbean.com/
(2) http://medcrave-is-not-predatory-publisher.blogspot.com/
(3) https://www.quora.com/What-is-Medcrave-predatory-publisher

In summary, nothing published by this company - and they own several "journals" - can be assumed to be reliable or even real.

I have seen the specific articles you cite, though, so I'll address them in brief. First, if we google the author of "Micro- and nanocontamination," Antonietta Gatti, her CV shows up here: http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/scmp/documents/cv_gatti_en.pdf

You'll note it contains alarming formatting and grammar mistakes, including claiming she is a "Doctor in Experimental Phisics". This should be a *bit* of a red flag. She also doesn't have a faculty webpage, and neither does her co-author (and apparent husband) Stefano Montanari, though he has a blog. Most legitimate researchers working for scientific institutes and universities have home pages with those organizations that list their qualifications, their research interests, and their accomplishments; for example, here is the page of one of 2016's Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry: http://stoddart.northwestern.edu/Index.php?View=Fraser_Stoddart/General.php

Googling the authors also led me to this blogger's deconstruction of the flaws of the paper, which is going to save me a lot of time. (They're a bit scornful of antivaxxers, so I apologize if you find them disrespectful, but I request that you keep a level head and read their points fairly, if only so that I don't have to restate them all more nicely.)
https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/another-anti-vaccine-article-bad-journal-bad-data/

Here's the basic takeaway:
Quote from: SkepticalRaptor
The numbers are well below the level of biological activity, if these various chemicals even have biological activity (most don’t). For example, the authors found 1569 particles or precipitates in one drop of Cervarix (an anti-HPV vaccine). Sounds horrific right? Except that one drop of vaccine contains around 1.39 X 10^21 individual molecules. This so called contamination approximately 0.0000000000000000000719% of these so called contaminants.

For the second paper, I had even more trouble connecting the authors to legitimate scientific institutions. The first author only turns up soccer results (which is fine; he seems to be an undergraduate). The last author (typically where you put the name of the supervising scientist) doesn't have any affiliation to an institution, which means there's no way for me to be sure which Klaus Weber to look for. Is it this guy (4) at Northwestern's school of management, and if so, what does he know about vaccines? Is it this guy (5) who made legitimate scientific contributions to biochemistry, and if so, how is it that this paper was published after he was already dead? The whole thing is pretty shifty.
(4) http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/directory/weber_klaus.aspx
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Weber

I apologize if there's a more elegant way to format those links, I'm still learning my way around this forum.

Unfortunately my computer is dying and I don't want to lose this work, so I won't be looking at the rest of that paper in any detail. If you had any specific points about it I'd be happy to look at it again later when I have a charging cable.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2017, 07:35:27 AM by nereo »

Kl285528

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #169 on: August 17, 2017, 06:43:51 AM »
PTF

Zoot

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #170 on: August 17, 2017, 05:12:38 PM »
Posting to follow.

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #171 on: August 17, 2017, 05:48:16 PM »
I really liked this response in the WhiteTrashCash journal about the role education played in lifting oneself out of a cycle of an impoverished upbringing. It seems as if poverty is equal parts economic as well as educational/intellectual deprivation. 
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/whitetrashcash's-journey-from-the-trailer-park-to-wealth-and-happiness/msg1663919/#msg1663919

I just found your journal and I'm posting to follow.  I read the first page and I can't even begin to explain to you how much it resonates with me.  Between my two divorced parents I lived in 4 different trailers growing up.  Every single thing you have said so far about hillbilly/white trash ideology is completely true.  I was lucky that I read like no other growing up and I put myself through school to escape from that lifestyle.  Unfortunately no one else in my family, not even my younger siblings have figured it out yet. 

I'm an economist now and my graduate thesis was about income inequality and education's impact on it.  You mention early on in your journal that you graduated with $75k in student loans but without them you wouldn't have gotten a job that allowed you to enter the middle class.  This is completely true and we have hard statistical evidence to back it up!  I've tried to get others on this forum (and in real life) to understand this but they just don't get it.  It is "fashionable" right now to argue that school is a waste of time/money or that if you cannot pay for it outright without loans you shouldn't go.  A direct quote out of my thesis said "Higher education is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for making it from the lowest income quintile to middle class."  This is essentially saying that for a child born into poverty, they cannot make it to middle class without higher education (which could be a trade school or normal college); however, higher education isn't enough and not everyone who receives this education will make it to the middle class.  In contrast, children born into middle class or higher families may not need higher education to live middle class lifestyles, but children born into poverty do.  You've figured that out for yourself!

Kudos to you for realizing your potential, from another whitetrash graduate trying to live a mustachian lifestyle!  I really look forward to catching up on your journal and reading along!

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solon

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #173 on: August 25, 2017, 09:13:58 AM »
dpc on giving money to charity and perspective:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/disgusting-question-donation-to-charities/msg1671495/#msg1671495

I agree, that is the best thing I saw (or will see) on the forums today.

talltexan

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #174 on: August 28, 2017, 07:12:09 AM »
Pretty much this whole thread on the use of gold in your asset allocation:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/gold-price-and-the-hazards-of-backtesting/


DavidAnnArbor

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #175 on: September 03, 2017, 08:44:07 PM »
I really liked this post by Chasefish today, because it was such an honest appraisal of the futility of dividend chasing/stock picking. The post reinforces the virtues of passive stock index investing.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/what-do-you-think-of-dividend-growth-income/?topicseen

I accumulated a DGI portfolio from 2010 to 2013, now I'm struggling with it.  Here's the downside to doing it:

I've invested mostly in a taxable account because I've maxed out my deferred options.  I have some nice holdings that were awesome companies 4-5 years ago, but are now struggling this year.  One company can come in and displace the other, and you still win by owning the index because you get the net effect of economic growth.

One of my holdings is Genuine Parts Company - It is (was) the conservatively run parent company of NAPA with all these other parts divisions.  NAPA was built on having a great logistics network and servicing the auto professional market (your corner mechanic), they got paid a premium price because of their ability to deliver on time.  I have some shares in the 40s for its cost basis and its a nice dividend aristocrat.

CEO/CFO retire and new folks are promoted.  They spent a bunch of money on acquisitions instead of internal infrastructure and are now getting taken to the woodshed by Amazon and Starboard Value has taken a big stake in their rival Advance Auto Parts.   Its performance is now dreadful relative to the market, but I'm sitting on individual shares I have to pay pretty hefty capital gains on.   Will they survive?  Probably. 

Banks were also on the aristocrat list until 2008.  It was disproportionately full of banks and banks should be a reflection of the US Economy, with them going a little more up when times are good and a little more down when times are bad during leverage.   BBT was a dividend aristocrat.  "Paid a dividend through the great depression", 30x straight years of dividend increases, mainly located in the Southeast where economic growth is great.  So in September of 2003, you pay $38/share for BB&T stock and get a $0.32/share dividend.   14 years later, FOURTEEN YEARS, it now trades around $46/share and your dividend is $0.33.  It was trading below $40 a share before the start of this year!   In the same time period, VTI went from $49/share to $127/share and paid similar dividends for the second half of the comparison period.   The regulatory environment changed, scale began to matter more, acquisitions stopped being net positive. 

There's also the investment theory that a company only generates a dividend when they can no longer meet an acceptable rate of return by expanding their own company.  This would imply you're already buying "Yesterday's news" by going after the typical dividend aristocrats.   Look at the components of the 1970's Dow Jones Industrial Average.  How many of them are still in there today?  The top 30 companies in the DJIA look a lot like the dividend aristocrat list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_components_of_the_Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average

Take it from me, I've been there, I've worked my rear end off analyzing, analyzing, analyzing, and my returns are within 1% of the index.  It would have been a better use of all that time going on Rover and walking people's dogs and indexing the extra money. 

Good luck in your journey, I wish I could get the last 10-15 years of time back I spent analyzing all this crap.

talltexan

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #176 on: September 07, 2017, 07:05:51 AM »
I've toyed with DGI. I'm grateful to this community for helping me to see that healthy dividends are the BI-Products, not the causes, of strong returns.

However, if you're determined to stock-pick (and it seems like a lot of people go through a phase when they are), is it the best risk/return way to do it?

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #177 on: September 14, 2017, 02:16:49 PM »
This was just the funniest response from Roe.

I think I understand the frustration here. If you're a dual, high income couple like Pete and his wife, or a lot of people on this forum, a large part of the blog is a success story that is realistic and repeatable. Even if you're not high income, there are great lessons to be learned.

But the economy can only support a relatively small number of celebrity bloggers who make money writing native advertising or passing out referral links. Chances are, you will not be one of them.

As such, Pete's more recent blog posts can seem alienating. And many readers find themselves at a crossroads. It was great in the beginning, watching the dramatic impact on your FIRE date that could be had by cutting out expensive things that, as it turns out, you don't actually value that highly. But eventually, you get to a point at which cutting expenses becomes undesirable. It becomes a bad trade-off. Living a shittier working life so that you can live a shittier retirement a few months sooner.

The MMM blog can't help you here. People write what they know, and what Pete knows, is retiring early by living simply, with a high savings rate (helpful, repeatable), and running a popular blog that brings in income and allows the expensing of an exciting and adventurous lifestyle (less helpful, not repeatable).

If you're saving 50%+ of your income and you're still not on the path that you want to be on, you probably need to make more money. Spending time reading about how to advance your career or start a business is probably more helpful to you than reading MMM at this point. You're just going to find yourself annoyed by naval gazing at MMM's hypothetical expenses and frittering over what should or shouldn't be listed.

This place is (jokingly) referred to as a cult for a reason. I think we could all stand to cool it on worrying about what is or isn't, "Mustachian". You have to set your own metrics for happiness and success. Getting input from the blog, or from others on this forum can be a huge help, but ultimately, you're the only one who matters.

Well put.

I also think part of the reason the forum tends to dwell on definitions of "Mustachianism", and part of the reason for the culty vibes, is that we are an analytical group. Lots of lawyers and engineers. Can't just throw out a statement about what something is, without properly defining it, assigning it a value.

Still, MMM changed my life. I don't care if Pete decides to rent a yatch and lounge around the tropics while a servant handfeds kobe beef to an army of chihuahua to make them wag their tails enough to create a gentle breeze. My life is still changed, no matter where he budgets the chihuahuas.

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #178 on: September 17, 2017, 08:46:30 AM »
Rdaneel0 on how to make sure you pick a good FIRE location to move to.

I have some insight on this because I grew up in a very rural LCOL area and now live in a super urban HCOL area. I've also lived in affluent suburbs, blue collar towns, and small cities.

There are people in all types of locations who are provincial and close minded, that's for sure, but in low population areas that aren't diverse (or are diverse but are highly segregated by both class and neighborhood), people are different. I am definitely going to leave our HCOL area for a cheaper place, but not a place that's so low cost that I can't enjoy my life. I'd rather work an extra 5-10 years and live in a place I like than retire earlier and live in a place I hate.

My husband and I have been researching areas to move to that are smaller and cheaper than where we live now, but still a good fit for us. Here are a few questions I ask myself when considering a city, maybe this will be helpful for others:

1. What is the population, is it growing or shrinking? I only consider cities that are over 200k and growing, I don't look at "metropolitan area" as this can be very misleading in urban sprawl areas. I avoid cities with declining populations.

2. What are the major employers in the city and who are the newcomers? When the major employers are government, schools, and healthcare, and there's little else, that's usually a sign of a pretty sleepy town with lots of likeminded people. I like small cities that have a few different areas of industry, and I really like small cities that have new companies moving there with some frequency.

3. Are there industries or organizations (or other factors) that might draw transplants? In my opinion, a bigger factor than population in terms of the culture of a place is the percentage of transplants. I have lived in cities that were a decent size but where almost everyone was born and raised there (or close to there), and those places feel like really small towns and outsiders often have a hard time.

4. Which businesses are thriving? I like to go on yelp and check out restaurants, grocery stores, boutiques, gyms, and other services/entertainment in the area. If a town is on the small side but has an Asian market, a Middle Eastern market, a fish shop, pubs, cafes, venues, an orchestra, and a college...odds are you'll find a fairly interesting population. If the only businesses are chain restaurants, big box stores, nail salons, malls, and things like that, you're in for a more homogeneous population.

5. What are the annual town/city events? Most local papers will have a section for annual events. Towns, even small towns, that have a diverse offering of well-attended events are usually a good choice. When you see arts festivals, beer festivals, music festivals, sporting events, cultural events, food events, and the like, it means people in the town care about and enjoy that stuff and have the money to spend at events like that. It also means there's a sense of community and public involvement.

6. What do the local newspapers report on? Local newspapers will teach you a lot about a place. If most of the paper is dedicated to reporting on crime, city/town hall, traffic, national events, and high school sports, that's a decent indication that you're looking at a fairly rural place without much happening. When a small newspaper reports on crime, city/town hall, traffic, national events, sports, AND upcoming public events, opening of new businesses, op-eds, features, reviews, profiles, things that show town pride, that's a nice sign that the town has a lot going on.

7. What's the demographic breakdown? I always check what the latest census says about the breakdown of race, age, income, and education in a city. I like a nice mix of people from different places, a good distribution of income, and a highly educated population.

8. How are the libraries, parks, and schools? I like to look at how much the city spends on things like public spaces and education as well as how locals feel about those areas. Reading reviews of parks and libraries is a great way to get a sense of how places are perceived/valued by the population. Also, when you see that a city is pouring money into urban development, small businesses, education, libraries, free entertainment, after school programs, and things like that, I think it's a really good sign of a place on the rise.

It's not a perfect system, but I think it's pretty good in terms of discerning between sleepy areas where people used to urban areas would struggle and LCOL areas that might be smaller but still enjoyable for people used to urban areas.

Eric222

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #179 on: September 17, 2017, 09:48:06 AM »
PTF

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #180 on: September 18, 2017, 04:40:14 AM »
Someone asked me the other day how I like not working, I told them I finally found my calling :)

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #181 on: September 22, 2017, 05:52:45 PM »
Lhamo on Mr. Orange's FIRE Journal. (I've edited out some stuff specific to his own situation since it was posted on journals -- not indexed by search engines -- and this thread is.)

...
A question I often ask myself when I am caught up in something emotionally and finding it hard to move forward is:

Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?

It often helps me move forward in a more positive direction.

Simple words, but an incredibly important concept.

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #182 on: September 24, 2017, 06:12:10 AM »
WhiteTrashCash's brilliant analysis of "Why the white trash are in an uproar about football players not standing during the national anthem". Since it is in journals, I am posting a link

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/whitetrashcash's-journey-from-the-trailer-park-to-wealth-and-happiness/msg1707338/#msg1707338

arebelspy

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #183 on: September 25, 2017, 11:35:00 AM »
Context: We were talking about a YubeTube channel where the guy switched from an RV to backpack around the world to a van to a house over the space of a few months.

I found this reply insightful for more than that one person's situation.

Yeah, his behavior does seem to indicate a certain level of desperation. I think people who are "living the dream" (and I certainly am among those people) can get a bit despondent when it doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would. I can understand his urge to make rapid-fire, half-hearted attempts to try new things when he got sick of #vanlife or whatever.

It can be hard sometimes when you live a life that everyone constantly tells you is amazing, but you're sick of it.

I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

lexde

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #184 on: September 26, 2017, 03:17:42 PM »
Context: We were talking about a YubeTube channel where the guy switched from an RV to backpack around the world to a van to a house over the space of a few months.

I found this reply insightful for more than that one person's situation.

Yeah, his behavior does seem to indicate a certain level of desperation. I think people who are "living the dream" (and I certainly am among those people) can get a bit despondent when it doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would. I can understand his urge to make rapid-fire, half-hearted attempts to try new things when he got sick of #vanlife or whatever.

It can be hard sometimes when you live a life that everyone constantly tells you is amazing, but you're sick of it.
I remember this response catching my eye, too. Honestly this is one of my biggest fears: being unhappily FIREd. It's like grinding away at an RPG which sucks but you keep looking at the big picture, then you finally get all the good gear, and boss battles (bills) are no longer difficult, and the mini games and side quests (vacations/trips) get boring after a while now that you can beat them without grinding more. Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

Playing with Fire UK

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #185 on: September 27, 2017, 01:24:45 AM »
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.

marty998

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #186 on: September 27, 2017, 01:54:57 AM »
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.

Yeah I agree, the whole point of FIRE is so that you can live that new life (play that new game).

lexde

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #187 on: September 27, 2017, 05:38:36 AM »
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.

Yeah I agree, the whole point of FIRE is so that you can live that new life (play that new game).
That's my hope! But that little bit of fear is still there for me (as with anything unknown!) and this guys experience shows that it sometimes feels like you're stuck in the old game. I hope FIRE opens new doors for me rather than feeling like I'm stuck in an after-credits game. But it's a long way off, anyway!

Linea_Norway

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #188 on: September 27, 2017, 06:25:16 AM »
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.

Yeah I agree, the whole point of FIRE is so that you can live that new life (play that new game).
That's my hope! But that little bit of fear is still there for me (as with anything unknown!) and this guys experience shows that it sometimes feels like you're stuck in the old game. I hope FIRE opens new doors for me rather than feeling like I'm stuck in an after-credits game. But it's a long way off, anyway!

In that case, instead of FIREing, just take a sabattical. You can always make that last longer or eternal. But at least it keeps the door open to go back to the working world. And there is no shame in deciding that the RE is not your thing and that you continue working in a nice job, under your conditions.

lexde

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #189 on: September 27, 2017, 06:54:10 AM »
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.

Yeah I agree, the whole point of FIRE is so that you can live that new life (play that new game).
That's my hope! But that little bit of fear is still there for me (as with anything unknown!) and this guys experience shows that it sometimes feels like you're stuck in the old game. I hope FIRE opens new doors for me rather than feeling like I'm stuck in an after-credits game. But it's a long way off, anyway!

In that case, instead of FIREing, just take a sabattical. You can always make that last longer or eternal. But at least it keeps the door open to go back to the working world. And there is no shame in deciding that the RE is not your thing and that you continue working in a nice job, under your conditions.
That's so true. I definitely feel like I want to RE but my "retirement" may be running a small business or doing a side hustle just to stay busy. Who knows! And I like the idea of a sabbatical. Either way, FI will give me options which is something I don't really have right now.

nereo

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #190 on: September 27, 2017, 08:38:54 AM »

That's so true. I definitely feel like I want to RE but my "retirement" may be running a small business or doing a side hustle just to stay busy. Who knows! And I like the idea of a sabbatical. Either way, FI will give me options which is something I don't really have right now.
Sounds like you may be a prime candidate SWAMI (Satisfied Working Advanced Mustachian Individual). As a SWAMI, once you've reached FI-hood you can work however you like, choosing the jobs and hours that interest you independently of the salary and benefits. We intend to be SWARMIs for the next few decades as we slowly 'glide' into full FI/RE.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/30/weekend-edition-retire-in-your-mind-even-if-you-love-your-job/

ETA:  oops, fixed the acronym...
« Last Edit: September 27, 2017, 02:20:27 PM by nereo »

lexde

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #191 on: September 27, 2017, 11:55:14 AM »

That's so true. I definitely feel like I want to RE but my "retirement" may be running a small business or doing a side hustle just to stay busy. Who knows! And I like the idea of a sabbatical. Either way, FI will give me options which is something I don't really have right now.
Sounds like you may be a prime candidate SWARMI (Satisfied Working Advanced Mustachian Individual). As a SWARMI, once you've reached FI-hood you can work however you like, choosing the jobs and hours that interest you independently of the salary and benefits. We intend to be SWARMIs for the next few decades as we slowly 'glide' into full FI/RE.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/30/weekend-edition-retire-in-your-mind-even-if-you-love-your-job/
This, exactly! I had a feeling I'd read something like that before (because that's what MMM and the Mrs. do) but this re-read was great. Thank you! I needed that. Seems like that's my plan for now.

Adventine

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #192 on: September 27, 2017, 08:25:03 PM »
Wait, is it SWAMI or SWARMI?

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #193 on: September 27, 2017, 08:33:26 PM »
No 'r'.  Also this thread got really off topic the last half dozen posts. Someone find us a good post to get us back on track. :)
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

gatortator

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #194 on: September 28, 2017, 10:13:58 AM »
I have thought back on this quote often since I first read it.  The original thread is discussing "Camper trailors, boats, side by sides, and other expensive toys".

The question is never whether or not someone else's choices are inline with your priorities, but whether or not their actions are inline with their own priorities.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2017, 10:22:10 AM by gatortator »

gatortator

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #195 on: September 28, 2017, 10:51:34 AM »
This was originally discussed on the thread "FIL addicted to bullets - what to do..."

This won't change your FIL, but it might help you and your wife cope a bit. I recently learned about what seems to me to be a constructive way to handle someone who constantly complains to you about the same thing. It's sort of a three strikes thing:

Next time they bring it up: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What do you think you're going to do about it?"

Next time after that: "Yes, I remember you mentioning this before. What did you do about it?"

Third time: "We're talked about this before. If it's not important enough to you to do anything about it, then it's not important enough for us to waste our time talking about it. Until you start taking action to change what you're complaining about it, I don't think you and I should talk about it. <change subject>"

Le Barbu

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #196 on: September 28, 2017, 03:06:56 PM »
This was originally discussed on the thread "FIL addicted to bullets - what to do..."

This won't change your FIL, but it might help you and your wife cope a bit. I recently learned about what seems to me to be a constructive way to handle someone who constantly complains to you about the same thing. It's sort of a three strikes thing:

Next time they bring it up: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What do you think you're going to do about it?"

Next time after that: "Yes, I remember you mentioning this before. What did you do about it?"

Third time: "We're talked about this before. If it's not important enough to you to do anything about it, then it's not important enough for us to waste our time talking about it. Until you start taking action to change what you're complaining about it, I don't think you and I should talk about it. <change subject>"

So usefull in so many situations! Thank you and the author!

Dicey

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #197 on: October 03, 2017, 10:03:48 AM »
In response to the question "Do you ever go a day without spending money?"

I’m not sure exactly what my point is. I’m just wondering if anyone else struggles with this. I’ve also had some random expenses come up. I’ve been the middleman between friends who’ve been trying to sell/buy things so I’m having random fluff expenses (that zero out) in my transactions. Oil change. My tires have 54k miles on them so it’s due time to buy some new ones, albeit my Ford Focus is part of the lemon law lawsuit (and after 3 fixes  I’m on the verge of taking it in again because it still shudders/shakes when I accelerate from a stop randomly).

Other random stuff has just come up that I normally wouldn’t budget for, so it sort of feels like this universe is just trying to slow down my FI progress (albeit each month I still invest at least 50% of my income.) part of my sort of feels like saying screw it and just splurging for a while until things settle back down again.

Yeah, ok, so there's your problem.  All of the stuff I mentioned above is in my budget;* when I actually hand over cash or write a check is 100% irrelevant.  Oil changes and new tires are entirely predictable, known aspects of car ownership; you may not know exactly when it will happen but there's no doubt that it will happen.  So you'd better budget for it.  If your friends are selling stuff, and you want to buy, you need to plan for that, too.  Etc.

In short, you don't feel like you are treading water because of the number of days in which you have some sort of financial transaction.  You feel like you are treading water because you haven't planned for all your known expenses.  Your budget is a fiction, a pretty picture that you can never live up to. 

Look, my commute to work takes 16-23 minutes, depending on traffic variability.  I can plan on 16 minutes if I want to - and I might even hit that a few times a month.  But the other 20 of 22 days I will be annoyed because I failed to hit every single light perfectly, and it took 18 minutes, or 22, or whatever, and now I'm late, and dammit why can't the city just get its fucking lights timed correctly?  Or, you know, I can plan for it to take 23 minutes and generally arrive on time or even with time to spare.  Sure, once a year or so there'll be a huge fubar and it takes 45 minutes, and I growl and complain.  But then the next day it's back to 19 minutes and I'm back on track.

Tl;dr:  Set yourself up for success, not failure.  Figure out what your life actually costs, in the real world that you actually live in, and budget around that.

*Except for the damn cats.  But I have a big enough cash stash that that's not a problem.
As usual, Laura33 nails it.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/do-you-ever-go-a-day-without-spending-money/msg1717981/#msg1717981
« Last Edit: October 03, 2017, 10:06:34 AM by Dicey »

shuagster

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #198 on: October 03, 2017, 03:33:12 PM »
PTF

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Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
« Reply #199 on: October 04, 2017, 07:48:00 AM »
Love this:

I also retired at 47 after losing passion for my career. It's been great, I definitely don't regret the decision. Like others, there was some trepidation about giving up the high pay and benefits and going from accumulation to withdrawals. But when you're done, you're done. Plus I was starting to dislike the marginal employee I was becoming. When you no longer like the work you're doing, it's inevitable you're going to become less effective, and I didn't feel it was fair to my coworkers or employers that I wasn't living up to my potential because my heart just wasn't in it any longer.