Just thought I'd express a little about how I have felt the last two days while I worked to get my Vanguard account linked to my Capitol One account. That allows me to direct $$ to or from, but this time I set up a $2,000/month automatic withdrawal to be placed in my VG account (asset allocated comfortably for me) and a lump sum of $25,000.
I was nervous about hitting the send button yesterday once I had it all set up and ready to go. It is funny how so much flashes before your eyes (at least mine) when you put so much money away like that. I spent the evening watching videos of John Bogle and listening to him talk about the long-haul for investing, how the market has always come out ahead, and the benefit of index investing (with low fees). My initial thoughts are that I'm retiring later this year and it is too risky to place so much into the market (60 stocks/40 bonds actually), but then I hear another voice say that just because I am retiring doesn't mean that I should stop investing. In fact, I must keep investing if I want to use the 4% SWR. Not sure where I picked up that first notion, but it is hard to shake that knee-jerk reaction. I got what I think is good advice here a year or so ago that was about the latter (i.e., that you don't stop investing when you RE).
I also feel that it was a little bit market timing on my part, as I may not have sent so much in right away had we not had the recent drop in values over the past month. I know that is somewhat irrational as well, but anyway I am glad we were down a bit. Odd though that I was happy we were down a bit, but that means that my already invested money was down too! I guess it is just emotion huh?