thanks, and yes, a pittance of a pension and regular checkups keep us on budget and head off any problems — best decision i ever made (financial or otherwise) was serving our country doing search - and - rescue, oil and chemical spill remediation, etc. (you can guess the branch of service)-- along the way, frugal living, along with dollar - cost averaging, asset allocation, and
diversification allowed us to retire early — Vanguard has been very good over the years, despite the Dot Bomb, 2002, and the recession (where we actually came out better with a modest but bargain retirement home purchase)... it's not
easy building additional «legs» on a retirement platform, but now that we're here, cash, real estate, investments and insurance products, along with a small pension all help to avoid any real dependence on social security (we won't even need it
at full retirement age)-- however, like nearly everybody, we're headed for Medicare in several years, albeit with a nice supplemental and pharmacy benefits — but our main concern is staying fit, active, and healthy!
I don't hold much in the way of developed Euro / Asian markets, as the returns haven't been compensating for the
diversification when I looked back, but VT would make rebalancing
easier / cheaper as it will rebalance globally
at it's 0.3 % MER.
Low investment minimums and an automated
diversification option make it incredibly
easy to invest in hundreds of different peer to peer loans in no time
at all.
COST AND
DIVERSIFICATION If you're a committed index fund investor, seeking to own every stock or bond (or every sustainable one) in a particular market segment (say, small European companies), it may not be
easy to do so cheaply if you can
at all.