What percentage cash are you in?

[daverobev]

"Spare" cash? None (except slush in chequing). But a little bit here and there to pay property taxes on rentals, etc.

[mjs111]

About 14%.  Haven't done a lot of selling but haven't found any investment cheap enough to buy for almost a year now, so cash from dividends, interest, and paychecks has been piling up. I also closed out one decent-sized stock position after it was acquired by another company and had no good place to reinvest.  Usually I average something more around the 5-10% range.

Mike

[Will]

Looks like around 5%.  1.6% is cash that my various mutual funds haven't bought anything with yet, and about twice that much in my checking and savings accounts.

[WannabeDone]

Just over 22%.  It's earning a measely 2.2% interest.  Maybe I'm naive in counting it as my "bond" allocation.  The rest is in stocks.

[iris lily]

Too much.  Kept waiting for the market to drop.  Yea right.  That was like 18 months ago.  About  20% of assets.  Still waiting.  But I would keep about $50,000 cash around for emergency living expenses.  Don't judge.  We are super conservative.

I am just guessing here, but we have a high % of cash, I think 20% - 30%. That's ridiculous, I know, but I'm glad that others are conservative. DH is annoyed because we've got too much cash.

[DaveSch]

I have 16% of my investment portfolio in cash, and another 25% in bond funds, 2/3 of that in short term bonds. I'm 64 years old and currently living only off my investments.

[MooseOutFront]

7.8% of my Asset Allocation is in cash.  My plan calls for 5% in cash or bonds so I'm a little high right now, though I have no bonds.  One culprit is that our 2014 IRA contributions are building up in a checking account while I try to decide whether to go traditional or Roth this year.  A sudden market drop would certainly get me off the fence on when to deploy this cash.  The other issue is my HSA account.  The investment fees are kind of high so I've just left it in cash so far, but as it nears $10k, the fees drop below 1% which is sorta good enough (though if I had ignored this fee issue, I would have gained much over the past 2 years. doh). 

I'm willing to send all the cash in my AA to stocks in a market decline to go 100% stock, and the only reason I have the 5% designated as part of my AA is so that I can take advantage of rebalancing opportunities.

My EF is not considered in the above because it's not a rebalancing candidate, though I have reduced it and invested some of it in taxable since becoming a MMM reader.  It's now only about $10k.

[Money Stoic]

I keep one months expenses in cash and that is all. Any money earmarked for savings gets invested during my normal cycle. I have not spent nearly enough time researching to be able to time the market. Even if you dont call it timing the market but say you are just holding on to more cash so you can buy more when the market is down, you are timing the market.

Some people may be smart enough to time the market, but for me it would be a losers game.

I find that extreme.  How liquid are you investments if your income goes away?  Or, are you getting interest and dividends from these investments that you can siphon off if needed as income instead of re-investing?

[TomTX]

Back down to ~2%, as of June 30th when Vanguard got the transfer.

[mostlyeels]

I'm currently around 33% cash, mostly in a high interest savings account (gives 4.3% in Australia), and about 10% of total cash in a bond fund.  I'm starting to rebalance into cash/bonds with my monthly savings from my salary, as my asset allocation is 60% equities, 40% cash/bonds and it's drifted a little towards equities over the last year (before that I was 50%/50% as I was just feeling my way into things).

[RNwastash]

I'm at 1.5%. 

[Malaysia41]

~6% ~8% (including an account not linked to mint).

[mak1277]

Right now at about 33% in cash. Sadly just started thinking about investing beyond our 401k in the last 18 months. My wife is also very conservative, so I'm sort of easing her into a more favorable AA. My goal is to have 75-80% of that cash moved into index funds within the next year.

[Tyler]

I use the Permanent Portfolio, so I always keep about 25% cash.

I think the bigger question is not how much cash you have right now, but what's your investment strategy and how does cash fit into it. Shifting allocations based on emotions can get you into trouble.

[stevesteve]

I keep one months expenses in cash and that is all. Any money earmarked for savings gets invested during my normal cycle. I have not spent nearly enough time researching to be able to time the market. Even if you dont call it timing the market but say you are just holding on to more cash so you can buy more when the market is down, you are timing the market.

Some people may be smart enough to time the market, but for me it would be a losers game.

Well, if you keep X percent of cash in your portfolio and you rebalance regularly, I'm not sure how that's timing the market.

[Johna11]

Currently about 30% in bonds/fixed/cash, with about 10% in cash - I'm trying to get that down to 5% by regular bond purchases.

[hexdexorex]

I dont do it on a % basis. I just keep enough for 6 months - 1 year and invest the rest.

[Joel]

We keep about 20k in cash. It is enough to live on for several months if needed, while also being enough to make any large purchase as needed. The money is held in a high interest checking account earning 1.5%. On top of that we have two stable incomes and low expenses. (Saving 50% +)

Anything above that is invested. Bonds at half my age, and the rest stocks with a 30% international exposure.

[TomTX]

Joel - where are you getting 1.5%? Are you required to make a certain number of transactions or other crap every month?

[rhv70]

25% cash right now including the emergency fund.  It's not that I've liquidated anything, I just haven't been investing with new savings over the last 2-3 years.  I like to follow Ben Stein's excellent book: "Yes, you can time the market", which is really about dollar cost averaging with a twist.  You make a decision each month what to do with that month's investment money.  Either hold it or invest it.  If the market is overpriced, you hold it.  If it's under-priced, you put in double.  It's explained in detail in the book, and his website keeps current charts to help you judge whether the market is overpriced or under-priced.

[Joel]

Joel - where are you getting 1.5%? Are you required to make a certain number of transactions or other crap every month?

I have a local credit union (northern california). There are at least 3 of them in northern california / oregon / washington area that I know of. Umpqua Bank, Tri Counties Bank, and Sacramento Credit Union in which you can earn around 1.5% interest if you have direct deposit, automatic bill pay, and 12-15 point-of-sale transactions. Note: You can easily make the point-of-sale transactions if you take 5 minutes to make the required number of payments on one of your automatic bills.

[Will]

Joel - where are you getting 1.5%? Are you required to make a certain number of transactions or other crap every month?

I have a local credit union (northern california). There are at least 3 of them in northern california / oregon / washington area that I know of. Umpqua Bank, Tri Counties Bank, and Sacramento Credit Union in which you can earn around 1.5% interest if you have direct deposit, automatic bill pay, and 12-15 point-of-sale transactions. Note: You can easily make the point-of-sale transactions if you take 5 minutes to make the required number of payments on one of your automatic bills.

Yeah, I am getting 1.75% on mine too with my credit union (and 5% on the savings account).  To get my few transactions, since I work inside a Costco, I will buy some fresh produce or nuts or meat every few days (or whatever I need when I need it) and have them split it into a couple transactions and voila! All my transactions are done!  Certainly worth the "hassle" IMO.

[ProfWinkie]

22.5% as of last week waiting for the correction to buy back

[engineerjourney]

Looks like some are including their emergency fund cash and some aren't.  I am unsure whether to include my emergency fund in my AA, mostly because if I do it makes me a lot heavier in cash that I really want to be.  Also, are people including cash that is saved for a purpose (like property tax, or a furnace that has one year left, etc)?  I would like to exclude both of those things from my AA so my percentages won't have to change every year (since my set 20K emergency fund is a higher percentage now than it will be in a year, etc).  Thoughts? 

[rocksinmyhead]

Joel - where are you getting 1.5%? Are you required to make a certain number of transactions or other crap every month?

I have a local credit union (northern california). There are at least 3 of them in northern california / oregon / washington area that I know of. Umpqua Bank, Tri Counties Bank, and Sacramento Credit Union in which you can earn around 1.5% interest if you have direct deposit, automatic bill pay, and 12-15 point-of-sale transactions. Note: You can easily make the point-of-sale transactions if you take 5 minutes to make the required number of payments on one of your automatic bills.

Yeah, I am getting 1.75% on mine too with my credit union (and 5% on the savings account).  To get my few transactions, since I work inside a Costco, I will buy some fresh produce or nuts or meat every few days (or whatever I need when I need it) and have them split it into a couple transactions and voila! All my transactions are done!  Certainly worth the "hassle" IMO.

I get 2% at a regional bank (ONB). I don't even remember if I need to have a certain number of transactions or not, because I barely use my debit card (use a travel rewards CC instead) yet I keep getting the higher interest rate. It's pretty awesome.

EDIT: just checked, I guess to waive the monthly fee I just need a minimum balance of $1k OR average daily balance of $2k. It's even easier than I thought! LOL

[MooseOutFront]

Looks like some are including their emergency fund cash and some aren't.  I am unsure whether to include my emergency fund in my AA, mostly because if I do it makes me a lot heavier in cash that I really want to be.  Also, are people including cash that is saved for a purpose (like property tax, or a furnace that has one year left, etc)?  I would like to exclude both of those things from my AA so my percentages won't have to change every year (since my set 20K emergency fund is a higher percentage now than it will be in a year, etc).  Thoughts?

I exclude my checking account balances in my AA calculation.  Once I transfer to the brokerage account it's "invested" at that point even if still in cash.

[Mr Mark]

About 10%.

Partly capital in transit for allocation in real estate, partly bending the rules on my standard aa (ok by my rules if less than 5 % of stash) of minimal cash for transactional purposes only, plus a few k in safe deposit box.

Why am I about 5 % overweight in cash?  I'm also market timing. As I said, it may be a deal in real estate, or index, but playing with 5 % is ok I think. I feel a need for some liquidity. Given my low low debt, getting some fast leverage would be easy also.

[2Birds1Stone]

Reviving this thread from the dead.

17% of Invest-able assets, 13% of Net Worth.

This is mainly due to driving an older model car, as well as having a job that relies on commissions so paychecks can vary greatly. Definitely helps me sleep better. If I had a net worth like many here in the 100's of thousands it would be a much smaller %. Basically just 6 months living expenses.

[Emilyngh]

Currently just under 3%.   But, before the end of the tax year, we'll put some of this in IRAs and should be down to about 1%.   

[Less]

somewhere between 20-25%. basically it reflects one years expenses. I keep toying with locking more of it away into investments, but then I start thinking about property purchases and i appreciate the liquidity. I think the $ value will stay the same and the % will reduce over the next couple of years.

[PeteD01]

0.0032% - as of right now

I do not believe in idle cash or emergency funds. :)

[YoungInvestor]

1.25% or so. Basically the leftover from my previous stock purchase.


Oh, and however much is in my checking account right now, so maybe 2%.

[dragoncar]

Down to -46%

[webguy]

Currently at about 30% cash, mainly as I'm stockpiling for a large tax bill in Jan. $100k cash and $250k stocks.