chuck D blog.... fight the power

my AA & draft IPS (investment policy statement) - comments welcome!

2007-09-13T20:48:00Z

too many changes to our AA in the past... gonna make up for it by having too few changes to it in the future... 2007 will be the first year ever that there hasn't been any tweaking of %s or adding new asset classes. and i'm not getting that burning feeling to add or change anything on 1/1/08, either... so, we'll see if it goes 3 years w/ no changes/additions.

rebalanced when any asset class hits rebalance targets (a combination of absolute dollars and % out of balance) and have done that a few times this year.

100% index funds and ETFs. no individual stocks. fill up pre-tax and tax deferred accounts to the max when possible. anything left over goes into only one thing: after tax TSM (VTI ETF). do not pay down or pay off 30 yr mortgage (rate is 5.25% fixed). pay cash for new cars ~5 yrs (10 yr cycle - 2 cars). no debt but mortgage. no shorting, no options, no investing on margin. don't bother w/ 529s for kids (roths will be pseudo college fund). married, late 30s, 2 kids. no emergency fund, no cash 'on sidelines'.

any and all suggestions, comments, tweaks are more than welcome.

the key to the colors are on the far right, so one has to scroll to see it... but here's a summary for current portfolio (80/20, w/ 45 US / 35 intl equity):

TSM	25%
SC	15%
reit	5%
TBM	12.5%
TIPS	7.5%
intl-SC	5%
intl-EM	10%
intl-dev	20%

wow, i can now actually blog on my blog

2007-09-13T20:50:29Z

i thought it odd that i didn't see how to write any new entries to this blog... then i thought the m* powers that be meant to just have end users add to their personal bio... seemed strange, but then we're in 24/7 halloween-land now, anyway.... so anything's possible... welcome to the other side of the looking glass

WWCD? (what would chuck do) if i were M_Chuck (open letter to M community)

2007-09-27T01:19:00Z

Dear M* Community:

Well, it's been a very busy, 'interesting' month for the team here at M*! We have been invigorated by you, the M* Community, due to your great, heartfelt feedback on the new Discuss area. Let me assure you that we have heard you!

(ok, ok, aside... i just can't do Proper Case, even in jest... so just pretend this it's all Proper Case and ellipse free...)

change is hard. it is hard to justify doing it. it is hard to convince the 'old guard' that the new solution is better. it is hard when the rollout has been bumpy. it is hard when it is done on the internet and people don't mind (very) freely expressing their (your) opinions and jumping on the 'winning side' of a debate. it's akin to david and goliath (or 1000 davids and one m* goliath). you view yourselves as the underdogs... the davids... fighting the good fight for a community you've come to enjoy like a good comfortable pair of shoes. and now the old worn out but comfortable shoes have been replaced by stiff, new, strange, bells and whistle laden $500 air jordans.

i get it. m* gets it. and we're going to do something about it. here's what we're doing:

fix all identified bugs asap
allow you to customize the colors (it's a small thing, but lots of people seem to hate the dreamsicle white/orange color scheme... so, fine, pick your own color palette, default startup view, etc)
the blog area will be totally rewritten, to actually behave and be viewed like other, workable blogs. we (of course) realize that needing 10 clicks to see content is ridiculous. what were we thinking?
ratings will stay, but will be minimized by shrinking them down, supplying total votes up and total down, in a much less (smaller, less bright, to the right side) prominent way.
several low traffic forums will be combined and/or removed.
"politics", which was created to be the quarantine of argumentative posters, will be dissolved and combined with OT. it didn't just isolate the flaming posters there as intended... it seemed to breed them and spread the negativity to other forums. m* is about finance and investing, not politics. let them move to any of the thousands of political blogs and websites out there. we have come to realize that we don't need that here. you have voted out that forum, and we have listened. that forum is the crazy, slightly drunk, distant uncle at the family reunion that you tried to avoid and was embarrassing to even be associated with. well, we're escorting him out of here. (they can blog here to their hearts content, as long as their blog profile and title warns readers what their blog is about)
read and prioritize all of the feedback from the threads. there's hundreds of great ideas that have been suggested. we're grouping them now using KJ analysis, affinity diagrams, etc. and will rank them via a C&E matrix and implement the higher scoring ideas
we will keep listening and responding to you w/ a very concerted, obvious way
for next major discuss area release, we are looking into adopting the very successful phpBB technology and adapting to m* needs. (phpBB forum can be viewed here, at www.diehards.org

but here's what we will NOT be doing:

we will NOT, cannot, go back to the old / classic format. our data has been ported over. that technology has been harvested, and even if we wanted to, can not go back to it. future releases may create a "classic" profile, but the underlying backbone of that forum system is no longer compatible w/ our new discuss technology
we will not keep abusing our most devoted users of the M* site by continuing to have so many ads (banner ads, skyscraper ads, cover ads, hover ads, ads in ads, etc. less will be more until we get back to our original traffic we had prior to the change
we will not tolerate vandals (those that abuse tags and tagging potential, those that violate our terms of use, etc).

we're sorry it's been such a rocky rollout. you deserved better. to the faithful that have hung on through this and tried to make it work, we appreciate it. and we're giving each of you $30 as a goodwill gesture. this will be only payable if you have a current credit card on your account and if you've posted here in the last 14 days (ending today). OR a $50 discount on your next year of premium service. it's the least we can do. nobody can claim this credit unless they have not posted at least one blog entry, or forum topic or reply from sep-13 thru sep-25.

Best, M*_Chuck

(ps... it's a shame that this is buried in the bowels of the blogs, never to be found or read by anyone... oh, well, one can hope that this sees the light of day somewhere... somehow... by someone... anyone. anyone? anyone?)

the making of a boglehead - 3 decades plus: my journey (thru 2000)

2007-09-15T01:45:00Z

so... a long time ago (7 years ago BC - before children) i actually had time to knock out short stories... about football, growing up, parties, etc. one lil ditty was about money. re-reading it now, it’s very disjointed, juvenile, and has very little redeeming value. but... those same complaints haven’t stopped me from posting here before... so why stop now? i was tempted to update it, but then thought... nah, what is written is written. maybe at some point i’ll write a more mature take on it. 7 years ago, i was just leaving behind a world of stock picking, active funds, sector bets, and using margin loans to invest... i’ve certainly matured (financially, at least) from the thoughts of below, but i find it a good time capsule... maybe you’ll find it a good time waster (or maybe not). but have no fear, i realize nobody reads anyone’s blogs these days... they’re just pretty much vanity pieces, posted for the benefit of the author, if nobody else. enjoy! or ignore! i’ll never know.

========================

2nd to last taboo... money side up

intro

money. death. taxes. money and sex. power. salary. money. cars. mortgages. money money money. why we work. why we save. why we invest. why we drive 5 yr old cars.... 10 yr old... maybe even 15 yr old. it makes the world go round. besides porn... it’s what drives the internet. and it’s why i’m writing this lil ditty.

very standard upbringing. lower middle class, baby of big family. dad a civil servant, plugging away at a non-descript white-collar desk job, w/ an annoying boss, incompetent coworkers, and a big ‘dead end’ sign in the break room, right next to the bad, weak tepid coffee pot. worked odd jobs weekends and nights to make ends meet for his progeny. 7 kids, mom, and w/ mom’s mom every winter. that’s lots o mouths to feed, clothe (guess you don’t need to clothe mouths... but you get the picture), drive around, insure, etc. he umpired. he was a night guard/watchman. he measured the bowling alley lanes for flatness and drag. he coordinated legionville trips (but pro bono, i believe?). he went to movies to count/record the beginning trailers and count the movie attendance (sounds like a great job, but seeing police academy IV for the 13^th time would drive a normal guy to insanity). he ran bowling tournaments. he would buy half a cow direct from a butcher to save money a few times a year (damn, did we go thru the red meat at our house... those ubiquitous red/white checkered packs of frozen hamburger tubes lining the downstairs deep freeze... a never ending stream of ‘not less than 50% lean’ supper entrees. he shopped at jupiter relentlessly (jupiter was a discount/clearance store w/ a revolving never-ending inventory of stale, broken, cheap, knock-off branded made-in-<insert-cheesy-poor-3^rd-world-small-county-w/-no-quality-products-here> stuff. i used to go there w/ him periodically, and besides the goofy ever-changing inventory, i remember the very flirty, gum-smacking, big red-haired, bigger red-nailed, bigger yet cleavage, vivacious extravert that always was workin the front antique register (that loud, huge register from 1937 that used to pop up the black number on the white ‘shield’ as she pounded them w/out looking w/ her lee press-ons... i was always amazed that she could be talking/flirting with dad, while making great eye contact, while she was ALSO chewing and smackin’ gum AND typing in all the prices of the chicken chili, the half of gallon of bad bulk ‘italian’ spices, the 6 pack of generic “Cola Pop”, etc. etc. either she had all items in that entire revolving store memorized, or she just typed in whatever she thought was ‘appropriate’, based on how much good flirting was going on. i never knew. dad (and every other discount shopping guy who had to wear wide, stained, too short plaid ties w/ the striped snug sportcoats) didn’t mind the chatter, banter, or flirting, either, i’m sure... almost as enjoyable as getting generic, stale mixed nuts 32 oz from ecuador for $0.48.

anyway, we were a ‘thrifty’ family, w/ mom sewing in “levi” tags into our jc penney plain pockets (trickery!), and the occasional homemade dress... (man, denny loved wearing those dresses). vacationing across the midwest every summer in chronological order of; a big army surplus tent, to a small canvas pop-up, to a hard-sided apache pop up, to a brougham motor home (towed behind the bitchin conversion van, complete w/ 8-track tape, icebox/sink, wall-to-wall carpet, swiveling captain’s chair, and a couch/fold out bed, CB “breaker 1-9, what’s your 20, come back”), and then... finally... the ultimate... the landslide? mini-home. but besides the actual used camper costs, the vacas were all pretty cheap. just a few bucks a night. some junk food and fruit (and hopefully the caught fish as the main meals) hot dogs... camp fires every night for entertainment, w/ s’mores and 400 degree cherry and blueberry filled bread pies cooked over campfires... red hot from fire to tongue). not a bad life. believe it or not, my 1^st plane ride was not until college... for an internship interview. as a family, we never took a plane ride to anywhere... for any reason (all close relatives lived in MN – so no funerals/weddings were out of driving range) except for steve/cindy’s wedding in TX, which of course we drove the conversion van too.. in midsummer.. w/ no ac... all 8 of us... thru belly o texas / okla... damn long hot trip, that was. and of course no vacas ever involved a plane. not that any of us ever felt like we missed out on anything. i’m not that old... but it was a different time when i grew up. nobody ever flew anywhere, at least that i knew. in my small world. except to mexico for spanish class by selling crap door to door to raise funds for the spanish club.

pre-teen years

i was always on ‘an allowance’. 5 bucks a week. then, in summer time it morphed into 10 bucks every time i mowed the lawn. now, lest anyone think i was overpaid... let me explain the yard i had to get thru. it took 4 hours, pushing an old rusty 18 inch push mower w/ a dull blade (no self propelled... it was iPropelled). around about 731 fruit trees that were planted in the backyard (dad always had illusions of harvesting pecans, peaches, apricots, kiwis, oranges in MN... ummm.. except for the 6 months of below freezing a year, it was a great plan). big hills / ditches in front. lots of lawn. obstacles everywhere (lawn spouts, swings, tetherball, bases, trees, cables, sewer caps, well heads, laundry lines, sheds, fire pits, etc). the money was always just enough. get out to magicland... the towns 1^st arcade. or, later, the uptown, or the 4^th st arcade, or the tempo arcade.

always had a savings account (called a passbook, or passport account?). dad used to make all of us balance it quarterly (and it stuck w/ me... but i’m getting way ahead of myself here...) would deposit $25 from mapper here (mary ada poirier... my dear old godmother, grhs), take $20 out there, deposit $35 here, $22 out there... add in the $0.18 interest. about 6 transactions a year. but i was never a needy kid... never felt the need to ‘save up’ for an atari or odyssey (precursors to nintendo and x-box). never felt like i had too much (or thankfully... not enough) money... always just about right. got a lil huffy dirt bike for my 8^th b-day. it lasted me up until i got a cheap cheesy 10-speed at ~ age 13, which then lasted me until the magical age of 16... when i finally received the water soaked bottom of the lake <thanks to tom thinking the “T” in the road was actually a lowercase “t”, that could be driven right thru... crossed that ‘T” w/ a lake on top, but that’s a different story, that’ll need a different author> 1974 nova (351 eight-cylinder... or was it a 350? i can’t believe i forgot the square inches already... after only 20 yrs). so, as a kid... transportation was about the only big-ticket items i ever needed.

mom/dad usually supplied all school clothes needed (except the occasional “OP” shirt, which i just HAD to have... ocean pacific shirts... the first shirt company that gave kids what they really wanted... prints of surfing, skateboarding, casual wear / draw strings, pouches in front. open necked. waves, beaches... man, were those OP shirts hot for a few years back in the early 80s... but mom drew a line in the sand... she’d just buy one or two... any more would come out of my allowance or savings.... so i made due w/ the one or two) the $20/yr for sports, the occasional baseball glove or new fork for the huffy, etc, either thru allowance or just flat out bought for me. but like i said.. i was no prima donna. i lived as frugal as everyone else in our house... no choice, really. we made due w/ lots of garage sales, hand-me-downs, and creativity.

teen years

got the requisite teenage jobs... first at snyder drug as a stock boy / cashier-when-it’s-really-busy, getting a few nickels above minimum wage. loved fillin up those pop machines and compacting/baling those cardboard boxes. my folks liked the qtrly employee discount nights, when everything was cost + 10%. (i remember that the cost code was right on the price tag... pry still is at all snyder/walgreen stores... MAX P SNYDER was 1,2, 3...0, e.g. “MAX” meant that it cost snyders $1.23 – the snyder family will now pry hunt me down for giving out their family secrets... they have a huge underground of secret price code enforcers... very black helicopter-ish)), pretty uneventful, except for the occasional disgruntled customer or kid puke in aisle 7. cary (another stocker) walked around the corner once and asked me w/ a quizzical look if we sold bikini shavers. i asked him in a mock ridicule ‘why would anyone want to shave a bikini?’... well, i didn’t know that the lady asking for it was right in the next aisle... man, did SHE storm off in a huff)

then my dream job as a cook at pizza factory... a little more money, but more important, just a better ‘scene’. damn... hands down, my best job ever, and that includes my dream job i’m currently doing. when working, policy was unlimited food and drink (but no beer, obviously... that would have to wait until the doors were locked, and the boss, dean, was long gone). so, that’s pry where my sick fascination w/ pizza started (and unfortunately for the ol gut and cholesterol... did not end). every now and then, when things were going good, dean would give me a ‘time-trial’. would get a quarter raise if i could shave 5 seconds off the time it took to make the ‘standard’... a large sausage pizza.

in 50 seconds... and later, 45 seconds... and then, even 40 seconds... i could: starting w/ nothing more than a big dough ball, start feeding it thru the flattener... again. turn it 90 degrees... thru again... 90 degrees. cranking down the size a little each time w/ my elbow, so that the rollers would get closer and closer... a dash of flour on it now and again to avert disaster – the crust ripping into parts. finally, the ball (now large frisbee) would be big enough to put the large (16”) circle template over the crust to stamp out the extra edges, leaving a perfect 16” crust on the large spatula-lookin wood pizza mover (not gaps allowed... must be perfect. next, a quick ladle of pizza sauce dumped into the middle... then, using the ladle bottom, quickly moving out in concentric circles, spreading the sauce evenly, so that at the edge of the crust, only a half inch or crust was still exposed, and the sauce had to be perfectly even, or dean would grunt a warning... he’d be ticking off the seconds by fives, trying to make me nervous... (he enjoyed these time trials, too, even tho he stood to lose a quarter an hour while i would be gaining it) next, the tough part... one hundred pieces of slimy sausage needed to be put on. grab a left-handful of the greasy stuff, and start squeezing it out like toothpaste between my thumb and index finger at a steady pace. my right fingers kept cutting off small pieces of sausage against my left thumb crotch as tube exited my left hand. both hands moving in unison across the pizza in parallel rows, back and forth, in the most frenetic part of the test. finally, 100 pieces... “35 seconds”... a quick handful of cheese thrown against the other hand which was cupping the pizza edge, mimicking the curvature. spin the pie around. getting hectic. another quick handful of cheese against the other side’s arch. spread em both towards the center, flattening the cheese piles into a perfect mound. spin the pie around to get the handle over the counter. scoop it up, spin around on the slippery/greasy floor, throw the top oven door open, launch the pie in the middle front position while the door is still opening, and then slam the oven door for emphasis. and then a quick look to dean w/ anticipation... and... and... “only saw 97 pieces of sausage... no good... no raise”... damn.

of course, he gave me a raise later that night... said he found the 3 missing pieces (he also liked to put the worker’s coats into the deep freeze whenever he left out the back door for the night... a cruel joke to have to put on -10 below coats to drive home in the cold winter nights... he was pretty fun. i used to always hide the cash register that had $100 in change in strange spots when i closed, so that he could never find it the next morning. we had no stinkin safe... but we had to hide it, because pizza factory was in the mall, and there was nothing between us and the mall hallways except a short wood thingy that could be climbed over. so, just creative hiding spots (in the cheese bin in the deep freeze. on a booth seat. bottom of a garbage can). a few times, he actually had to call me at school to find out where i had hidden the cash drawer. he couldn’t always decipher my cryptic notes/riddles. it was always great to stump him, and make him declare defeat by calling. not only was i working w/ my classmates (audra, connie, jeni...), but pizza factory was the place to be after b-ball games, or whatever. would fill up w/ folks i knew. pizza was on the house for me, as was chicken fillets, pizza, cheese curds, malts, pop, pizza, cheesebread, pizza... you get the picture.

college prep

up thru this time, i was ‘break-even’ all my life... spent all the money i had, no more, no less. like most kids (all kids?). but altho i loved that pizza place, it wouldn’t be payin the rent, so to speak, so i had to get serious about making some college money. got a job w/ mcquay, night shift, all summer long after sr. year of high school. a union job (was a card carrying member of local 0803 – sheetmetal workers and art teachers local, or something goofy like that... had no choice – it was a closed shop). great pay at the time, but long, hot dirty nights, slingin away on a line, making industrial HVAC units that were 8 ft by 12 ft by up to 50 ft. itchy insulation. dizzying solvent to apply the neoprene. air compression tools that could rivet your fingers together. hydraulic lifts that could move a ton of blower w/ a flick of the finger, but also crash it into copper cooling coils, too. nights went by pretty quick, w/ the few breaks, the lunch mom packed every day (big can o tuna and 10 pieces of bread, lil debbie ho-hos, pop, cookies, grapes, etc), getting into the rhythm of graveyard union shifts. bells, timeclocks, managers walking thru the lines like overseers, w/ clipboards instead of whips. about 60 seconds before final bell, the queue would form by the timeclock... grown men jostling for position, running to get in line, all to get out of that hot hellhole of a building as fast as humanly possible. it obviously was important to most of these guys to even save 30 seconds beating a path out of there. sometimes, i would hang out in the parking lot after payday friday, w/ all the lifers from the hvac lines, and drink from trunk coolers, leaning on cars and sitting on pickup flatbeds, until the sun started coming up (of course, that only took a few hours, after the ‘mandatory overtime’ on top of the night shift hours). talkin’ about the evils of The Man, girlfriends, the toys they were gonna buy when they got a raise... good times. pretty good (some even hard working) bunch of guys, who even tho looked pretty tough and gruff, had the requisite “cliched hearts of gold”. the most common (and heartfelt) advice given to me by them all repeatedly: stay in college so i wouldn’t end up back w/ them fulltime. can do, bubba (the union president and my line sup), todd, stinky, and wrench.

at mcquay, i remember slicing my elbow open right before end of my shift (wanted to get just one more strut put up, and did it too quick.. the freshly cut, bent metal door support crashed down on me, my only recourse was to use my arms as a shield to protect my head), and needed a few stitches (whenever i’d bend my elbow, a stream of blood would spurt out). had to go to emergency room (luckily, drew and xtine were waiting for me after my shift... as they were many nights. so we made the trek to the hospital together – we felt like we owned the night after the graveyard shift... driving around town at 2:00am, 3:00am... climbing a water tower, getting a malt at a&w (xtine’s family owned it, so we had keys), takin a dip, walking around abandoned main streets, band shells, etc. i remember that my neighbor lorain was the on-duty nurse. i came in, still wearing the ‘uniform’ of mcquay: a black, faded sleeveless concert shirt, ripped up/dirty jeans, big clogging steel-toed work boots, a bandana (do-rag) for the sweat, hair into a pony tail, looking like the union blue collar guy i was... she just asked me “so... when did you turn into a dirtball?!” pretty funny. i watched her kids from time to time (i hesitate to call it baby-sitting... they weren’t babies, and they never, ever sat. i would just watch tv, and they would be flying off the couch, all star wrestling, running around, running into walls, etc. wild, cool kids. one of them, mitch, ended up being mr. minnesota basketball player of the year, and played for the u of m gopher basketball team for a few years, until a DWI and some weed changed all that).

for the first time in my life, i actually started accumulating some excess money that wasn’t immediately spent on a better sound system for the jav (a 1974 amc purple javelin... i loved that car), or girbauld(sp) jeans, or zz top concert, or whatever. w/ the grants, loans, and scholarships i received, i still would need lots of money to get by at college, paying out state tuition and all. also worked at ryt-way in northfield, hoisting 50 lb bags of sugar and spice into huge vats that would turn into pop tart toppings, or something ridiculous like that, all day long. hot, sticky, sickly sweet, miserable work, but again... great pay.

my folks finally started getting ahead, too, after a lifetime of just keeping their financial heads above water. w/ only tom and myself still in the house, they could afford (for the first time ever) a brand new car... a 1985 cutlass sierra, two-tone blue. and no more half powdered milk – half real milk to help spread the rich/good stuff further. could start remodeling some rooms, put in a new addition to the back. even start traveling. in fact, at the end of summer (right before college), i had a little (big... actually HUGE) kegger party, cuz the folks were over in portugal, visiting some religious shrines (medigorde, i believe, or was it lourdes?... or maybe both), and it was the last big hurrah, before we all went separate ways to college. the highlite (at least for me), was throwing my cut up, calk filled, greasy work pants, do-rags and old, sleeveless black concert/work shirts into a big pile, and lighten’ em up in a big flaming exclamation point to my summer of sweat. the end to my union summer, and the start to college... just a pile of zippers and buttons remained. good riddance. made me realize (and appreciate) why i was goin to school.

college

at college, got a $5/hr work-study job in the dorm cafeteria... i was about the only naive guy to put down my accurate class schedule when they asked for it, and therefore, i ended up w/ 6:00 am breakfast duty about 4 days a week. it was amazing how everyone else, it seemed, had 7:00 classes, EVERY DAY of the week, and therefore, couldn’t work that early in the morning... oh, well, get it over w/. i remember some mornings, after playing broomball at 1:00am, and then having some beer, getting too little sleep, and having one of the old blue heads calling me, singing (yelling!) into the answering machine to get down to work... “you have 5 minutes or you’re getting a blue slip!”... 3 blue slips in one semester and you’re done. the job offset tuition, or at least lessened the pain of tuition, books, board, beer, etc. stumbling down the steps, into the stinky, hot dish room. sorting hot forks for 3 hrs. i worked w/ a guy who would periodically throw something up in the air, and yell a warning to me. catch it or sweep it up. of course, i threw a few coffee cups his way, too. one time, he threw 3 or 4 cups up to me at once and yelled “hey!”. and right then, a blue-head walked in. out of instinct, i just froze, pretending to not be doing anything wrong... of course, the cups had no such instincts, and they all crashed to the floor, right at her feet. that almost got us a blue slip, but she knew we usually were pretty good / pretty fast, so she just let it go w/. you get to know someone pretty good after chatting w/ them 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. i think we quizzed each other on every cool (and not so cool) movie line there ever was, a few times over, before the year was out.

back to mcquay after freshman year. same old same old. before that kicked off, tho, worked w/ bro steve on some lakes (one out in crystal lake, illinois). great work, planting macrophytes into feeder pond into the lake. outdoors, hip deep in water, while wading, an occasional drop into a beaver run, where my hip-wader-boots would fill up w/ water, and pull me down. w/out a quick exit, could be dangerous (had to wad up into a ball, go under water, release your leg from one boot, then other boot, then get to surface, w/out sucking in too much muddy water. but steve paid a ridiculously generous wage, which all helped. getting paid for getting a nice tan, out on the water. i put my hair ‘up’, to get that nice even tan, and steve got some pictures of me doing something for his lake book he was finishing up. my mullet phase / pony tail phase memorialized forever in that lake book.

more work study soph. year, but then, started interviewing for a co-op job. got a chemical engineering coop at clinton, iowa, at an ethylene/polyethylene plant. even better money than mcquay, and the work was a breeze. all white-collar engineering/computing. i was digging it, and sockin away good money (lived in a cheap furnished apartment, indian hills, in camanche, ia... town motto: “a place to live”.. no kidding – that’s their motto. not a ‘great place to live’, or even a ‘good place to live’... but just “a place to live”. it was there my love affair with spreadsheets started... cut my teeth on lotus 123, version 2.1 (when i go crazy and need to retire from the real world, i’m going to travel across america, taking pictures of every small town motto that they always post on peeling signs on their outskirts, right next to the lions, eagles, moose, legion, KC, vfw, elks, deer, dogs, shriners, grand poobahs, etc. signs and “1974 class “D” football champs” peeling signs). co-oped thru summer and fall, then back to school for spring semester. i only took 6 credits, so that i would be considered a ‘half-time’ student, and would have 12 months living in the state, so that i could finally claim in-state residency, and save all that money by paying in-state tuition for the final 2.5 yrs there (milestone: the first time i did something strictly for economic reasons... changed my life and lifestyle to save thousands of dollars... a definite economic milestone for me, one of about 5-6 milestones). went back to coop again that summer at quantum chemical, then back to isu. for a full year. but because i was off campus in a house, and because i was now paying in-state tuition, and because i was falling behind everyone w/ the 3 coop terms and the semester of only 2 classes (6 credits), i didn’t do any more work study. i took 21 credits of the hardest classes i ever had, to ‘catch up’: physical-chem II, organic chem II, thermo, physics II, physics lab, chemE lab, and mass transfer. it killed me. if the future-wyf-rebecca (but at the time, grrrl becky w/ college party hair who really frustrated me to no end) just started vet school, and didn’t live right across from me (by serendipity, she says, she moved into 307 stanton, while i had already signed up for 308) , and didn’t want to study w/ me most nights, i don’t know that i would’ve ever made it thru that welcoming back semester. for the first time ever, i needed to do some real homework. it never let up, all semester long. labs due, papers due. midterms. finals. but i did get through it (of course), and then i got an internship at koch refinery for sr. year summer. again, good money, and easy work (computers all day, all the time). final year of school, did plenty of interviewing, had plenty of job offers, and went back to koch full time. had better (meaning more money) offers elsewhere, but at koch, i knew exactly what i would be getting into (based on my internship there the earlier summer). however, i really had wanted a xyz internship (knowing internships many times lead to fulltime jobs), but koch gave me the internship offer before xyz did. i called xyz, begging them to be an intern, but they said the system is such that someone has to pick my name, and then offer me a job, and the selection wouldn’t happen for a few more weeks... meanwhile, koch was pressuring me to either accept or decline their offer. i accepted. then, (damn this timing), xyz called me w/ a sweet intership offer, too. but i had already committed to koch verbally, and so, my word is my word - i told my dream company, xyz, “no thanks”. really, one of the toughest decisions i’ve ever had to make in my very easy life. as it turned out, it all worked out great, and i ended up w/ my dream company, xyz, in the end anyway.

motivation

mr. ho (high school chemistry teacher extraordinaire) told me back in ’86 that i should be a chemical engineer, and work for xyz. fitz (hi school psych teacher extraordinaire, [extraordinary in totally/fundamentally different ways than ho]) told me i needed to go to her alma mater, iowa state. luckily, i took both their advice, and came away w/ a good degree from a good school. i had no idea (really, i didn’t) that chemEs were paid well. didn’t have a clue. salary/money didn’t motivate me. it wasn’t until getting into college that i even had an appreciation that chemEs were paid pretty well, for only needing a BS (one of the best, most meaningful/appropriate acronyms ever for the typical bachelor of science degree). i remember how i found out. dad would always send me a packet of bad/predicable ‘frank and earnest’ cartoons from the local daily news, along w/ high school sports news, wedding news, other interesting clippings... one week towards the end of freshman year (spring), he sent a “entry college salary survey” article, that detailed starting salaries of different majors. it wasn’t until seeing that article that i had the ‘eureka! i should do ok once i graduate’ idea... another milestone moment. how i could get thru high school (as valedictorian!), pick a major, and get almost thru my college freshman year and never have any clue about that, is still one of life’s mysteries... (but not really... money never motivated me (still doesn’t), but i was so money neutral at the time, i’m not surprised i had no clue. i wish i could be like that again) but man, was i shocked. i had stumbled/blundered into a nice paying profession totally by accident.

like i just said, and i meant it, money never really motivated me, didn’t have much impact. money issues, salary, taxes, let alone investing/saving, were just never brought up in my house growing up. a huge blind spot. it would have been ‘unseemly’ to discuss salary, cost of the house, salaries, taxes, savings, etc. we got by, spent exactly what we had coming in, and had no real long-term goals or visions. i wasn’t cheap (altho at college, even at $2 or $3 pitchers, i didn’t run to the font of the line to buy another round of pitchers, and i wouldn’t be surprised if some folks/roomates thought i was cheap... “roach” certainly accused (and still accuses) me of being a cheap college roommate). but i always had about $68 in my checking account, and that was IT. i had no backup, no ready reserve, no line of credit. just the cash in my wallet and a debit card w/ 2 figures in it). got by on $0.75 totino party pizzas and the occasional rocky rococco slice or two, and beer. (habits tend to stick i guess... i just realized i’ve had the same diet for 20 yrs now... and counting)

real world – out of college

so, started at koch for real on june 1^st, ’93. koch was a union shop, and had a very ornery union in place. OCAW (oil, chemical, atomic workers, i believe, or was it oil, chemical and windowwashers?) well, the union’s contract (thankfully, i was finally, firmly on the ‘other side’ of the union work... or so i thought) ran out on that jun-15. and, the *astard unionists decided to strike. so, forget about doing chemical engineering / computer projects... i was assigned to day shift pump mechanic on ‘E-crew” (engineering crew), as they/we called it. on the 14^th, i remember my manager of our dept, steve, got everyone together, and told us how it was going to be. we were all going to be on 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week. no sick days allowed, no vacation, no exceptions. we would also be in ‘lock down’, where once we were inside the refinery, there was no crossing picket lines for days (or weeks) until mgmt thought it could be done safely. if it got real ugly, they would use a helicopter to bring us in and out, like they had to 20 years prior. so, we had about 2 hours to go home, pack up a duffel bag full of clothes, collect toiletries, say goodbye to our families for who knows how long, and report back to the refinery.

wow. bought many pairs of thick socks for standing on feet 12 hrs a shift, said goodbye to the girlfriend becky, and went back to the refinery. flurry of activity. cots were being brought in. sleeping bags were being handed out. big, neckless thugs in uniforms were appearing everywhere (hired ex-military thugs by mgmt to watch / guard the picket lines and refinery fenceline, railroad switches, etc). when the union folks walked off the job at midnight, the refinery would be ‘ours’... ‘ours’ being the engineers, managers, and shift supervisors. 280,000 barrels of crude a day was streaming in (yup... per DAY, and 42 gals/bbl). had to make gas/fuel oil/pet coke out of it all. pretty intimidating for someone out of school for just 2 weeks. during the walkout/transition, i was assigned to watch a switching house (think big fuse box... industrial sized fuse box that you can walk thru), where, if someone knew what they were doing, could switch off some critical equipment (compressors and pumps) that could cause overpressures, explosions, flaring, calamity, chaos. locusts. pestilence. blood red skies. so, midnight came (and went) w/out too much excitement (whew). some valves were swung on their way out (even tho they were supposed to be shadowed by a non-union guy their entire shift), that could have led to some minor problems, but were found quickly and corrected. so, now what? sleep. in my office, on a bad cot. had to get up in a few hours for the start of my 6:00 am 12-hour shift. interesting perspective. learned the refinery inside and out (had to... was always getting called out to fix pumps... to pull pumps out to bring to the shop... to install fixed ones. some really big ones. learned how to direct a big ol crane that would drop a multi-ton pump down between gushing pipe racks by using only hand signals from me. pretty nerve wracking... couldn’t scratch any itch during the pump drop or who knows where the crane operator (who couldn’t see the pipe racks or clearances) would swing that pump, that was bigger than my car. unlimited, excellent food was brought in. (the food trucks would get by the strike line). steak, ribs, seafood, tables of deserts, ice cream sandwiches, just waiting for everyone. vending machines set to deliver candy bars and pop for only a nickel. the jack booted thugs (hired muscle) took over the training rooms, and set up bunk beds, free weights, and formed ‘regiments’ like they were back in boot camp. even us, the non-union folks, gave them a wide berth.

after many days (i really forget how many, they all just blurred together), we got permission to leave the refinery when we weren’t on shift. had to stop the car before the picketers. the thugs would make sure nobody could key any cars or stop walking in front of your car, and then you could get thru the picket line. salary was converted to an hourly wage, and then get time and a half for the four extra hours per day, and double time after 40 hrs per week, and the fourth of july was like quadruple pay for everyone, due to holiday pay, weekend pay, overtime pay all converging on that weekend. lots o money to swing wrenches poorly. we cleaned out the union folks’ lockers, redid all their (our) toolboxes to a standard tool set, tore down their benches by the time clocks and destroyed their cozy air-conditioned corners in the tool cribs. it was a pride thing for all the shift sups (who used to be union, and knew all the ins and outs of boiling oil) to crank up the thruput to bigger than the union guys were doing it right before the regular full time unioners struck (striked?). 282k bbls/day. then 285k... 290k, an all time refinery record... man were those old board guys good, and there was no friction... no competing interests, and no union mentality. makes one long for the end of unions forever, after seeing how a refinery can work when all incentives are aligned, and there’s not this socialistic “all the working brothers should get paid the same, no matter if you’re sweeping the floor, or controlling a $20M unit... everyone should be paid the same...” what BS, socialist, obsolete thinking.

anyway, enough tirading. finally, the strike ended. the union flunkies finally agreed to the same exact contract that they had rejected before they walked out – typical short-sighted union thinking. we all went back to our ‘day jobs’, and for the first time ever, i had what i thought at the time was a nice chuck o change in the bank, due to all that OT and never having any free time to spend any of it during the summer. so, what did i do? well, go buy an unreasonable car, of course. got a toyota supra. depleted the bonus that had built up, and put me back to even. (car aside: after the ’74 nova blew out its transmission – had to drive it backwards from high school to daily news to pick up some pictures from yearbook, and then to the shop, i got my purple jav... had that for a few years, but then that engine threw a rod. picked up a cheap yellow ford fiesta. sold it before going to college for book money. bought a pontiac 6000 (S.U.x) over easter break, and as fate would have it, a 3 yr old hit me w/ a pickup, and totaled the car i had just bought 3 days earlier. his old man was inside gettin some heaters, and left the car running... the kid thru it into neutral, and ran into me as i cruised by paul bunyan quickie-mart. $1500 check arrived, and the car still drove perfect.. just had a dent in the back... so that was great luck – no injuries and a free car). then, bought a newer pontiac 6000 SUx that got me thru school, until i got the supra... and then, the camry, then the highlander) never thought to ‘invest’ that lump of money. never even crossed my mind. then, after a year at koch, i got some retirement letter... something about a 401k or something... i threw it away unread, not being interested in anything w/ ‘retirement’ in the title. but money was starting to build in my checking account. i was living under my means for the first time consistently. i paid off the supra, started even paying extra to my student loans (even tho the rate was ridiculously low).

a diehard is born

<<NOTICE: (u should know this is important NOTE, cuz i’m even using CAPS, and punctuation) here would be a really good STOPPING POINT if the idea of reading about someone w/ positive cash flow, no bad debt, and a good economic outlook rubbing it in is not your idea of a good read... fair warning... no more stories left ... just preachin ‘bout index funds, simplicity, and advice on running your financial lives>>

so, then, one of those turning points happened. i bought a wall street journal, and w/out knowing what i was doing, i picked the mutual fund that had the best 3 yr rate of return, called their 800 number, and returned the fund application along w/ my check. my first investment - an emerging growth stock fund from PBHG. of course, as soon as i bought it right at its peak.. it bombed miserably, and i ended up selling it a few years later at a small loss. then, i picked up money magazine, and started reading some of the articles. learned the financial jargon. started getting a feel for how to manage a portfolio, how to determine an asset allocation, how to maximize returns, use retirement plans to reduce taxes, etc. the dirty lil financial planners’ secret, i found out, is that it’s like anything new... once you understand the jargon, the acronyms, the buzzwords, it all becomes a pretty easy concept to understand, but from the ‘outside’, it looks confusing and w/ mind-boggling choices.

i (finally) signed up for koch’s 401k plan. still didn’t have a clue, but had an interest. i asked the administrator what boxes i should be checking. she said she couldn’t give investment advice, and just kept repeating that whenever i asked her anything. pretty annoying, but it’s the law, and how she was trained. i decided to put in money ‘after-tax’, meaning it had no pre-tax savings or benefits, but i could get at it at any time w/out any penalties or delay. i had my wedding coming up, a house to buy, moving costs, etc. and also, what 24 yr old thinks about retirement, anyway? certainly, not this 24 yr old.... but that would change... quickly. i think reading the cheesy pamphlets that came w/ the 401k qtrly statement just clicked w/ me, and their bar charts told a remarkable story.

for some reason, i just got the money bug that year. all financial issues/topics piqued my interest. reading magazines. visiting financial websites and web calculators. and developing spreadsheets... all kinds of spreadsheets. i started using excel for tracking money w/ the same fervor that i had earlier applied to spreadsheeting chemical releases and mass balances at work. monthly ‘money balances’, qtrly investments, annual summaries, projections out 5 yrs, 10 yrs.. hell, even 30-40-50 years out. pretty easy to copy and paste rows downward, and look at the how charts change, always violently exploding geometrically up by the time you’re looking at the very right side (yrs always on the x-axis in ascending order). and that’s where i got hooked. little change now.. huge impact when i’m fifty. save an extra 10k this year, and it turns into 61k in 20 yrs, 175k in 30 yrs, or 1.2 million in 50 yrs (at 10% per year). the magic of compounding. at least according to the internet, einstein called compounding interest either “the eighth wonder of the world” or "... the greatest mathematical discovery of all time". pry just an urban legend, but who knows... that norman einstein was sure smart (w/ my apologies to joe theisman). i flipped my 401k to be pre-tax and maxed out as soon as it made sense. every dollar put into it, about $0.33 saved on taxes for the year. plus tax free compounding. magic. bought a house (drove an incredibly hard bargain to get the house... it was a FSBO, and the sellers were motivated to sell and break ground on their dream house... finally lowballed them w/ a ridiculous offer and they did it), and stopped paying extra payments on it as i had done for the first year or so of the mortgage (would rather invest that $ for 20 yrs and get ~10% out of it instead of ‘saving’ 6% (my mortgage rate). i never have carried a credit card balance, and never will. paid off all school/car loans quick, got the house, started roth iras.

dream company – dream job

about this time, koch was going thru a purge, and offered everyone at the plant a ‘voluntary severance package’. they gave everyone 2-3 months to decide if you were going to ‘take the package’ – a one-time limited-time offer (for me, would be about 18 weeks of pay for telling them i was leaving). thought it was a good time to investigate any leads back to xyz (always had xyz on the back of my mind, even tho i was always pretty happy at the competitive, hard-nosed, free-market-based, libertarian biased koch refinery / industries, and the raises were always more generous and more often than i had expected). the cities ehs community is actually pretty small, and i had some good contacts at xyz, so i interviewed... and they stalled. the window to take koch’s severance package came and went, w/out me getting an offer from xyz (18 weeks of ‘free’ pay... down the drain. damn). heartbreak 2 ways... no bonus to leave, plus no getting to xyz. psychologically, i was already wearing the xyz badge. but then, on new years eve day, 12/31/97, i ‘got the call’ from xyz... a job offer. but it sounded somewhat tenuous... better hurry up and accept the offer if i was going to, because rumors were that they were going to freeze all hiring after the first of the year, due to the asian currency crisis that was killing their topline. it was about 11:28 AM. i was out the door of koch at about 11:32, en route home, and then i personally went to xyz to get that offer letter hand delivered (i had nightmares of my offer letter getting yanked out of the mailroom “out” bag on jan-2, along w/ all other job offers.. i figured if i could just get my hands on that offer letter before the new year, i would be ‘safe’. of course it all worked out, i got that offer letter in my hot little hands, immediately bought some dom perignon for new years eve night celebrating (the one and only time it ever seemed appropriate to spend that much money on such bad, overpriced champagne) and i got a whopping 1% raise by jumping ship, and 0 severance (but did get 3 wks of paid vaca right off the bat, instead of the standard 2.. that’s the only thing i was tough about, and not really that tough... i told them “i’m coming over, at whatever salary you think makes sense, but let’s see if i can’t get 3 wks vaca instead of 2”). so, their raises are more systematic, more narrow of a band (even socialistic, in that the top salaried folks get beat down to the median, while low salaried folks get propped up towards the median. terrible system, ithinks, that’s about a circa 1950 incentive pay model. i was told, ‘you’ll never get rich here, but you’ll have security’, and that’s the truth (or at least a half-truth... there’s truly no security in today’s world, but that’s ok)

enough about jobs/salaries... besides salary, the house you live in and cars you drive really decide how much you have left over. all that other stuff is just an asterisk in the big picture. so, we refinanced, at a lower rate, right up to 80% of our equity, to pay for the new toyota highlander (b’s replacement for her ‘brown-streak’ (aptly named... trust me)... the corolla, and our one big splurge), and had some left over to invest. index funds. my thinking has evolved fairly quickly, from picking actively managed mutual funds by looking at past history, to becoming a whole-hearted believer in boring index funds (and now, in ETFs (exchange traded funds), which are very much like a traditional index mutual fund, but have better liquidity, rock bottom maintenance fees, and better trading ability in that you can place ‘limit’ orders to buy on a dip automatically or sell high ‘automatically’). a few years ago, when everything was bottoming out, i cashed in all after-tax vanguard mutual funds we had, and bought just one ETF... the VTI (tracks total stock market). then rebalanced both (vanguard) roth iras and both 401ks to ensure we have enough small cap, mid cap, and OUS exposure. unfortunately (or, fortunately), that trading ensured enough capital losses to offset many years of capital gains, plus 3k a year of other income. used to have 20% individual stocks, but have gotten away from individual stocks, and now have 100% index funds (and ETFs). 20% bonds, no cash, no balanced funds, no precious metals. no rainy day fund / cash reserve (except margin loan availability). used to have all equities... all the time (actually, about 105% equities, counting margin loan). but saw the light and ramped up to 80% equities / 20% bonds. opened a margin account, so we can flex/borrow/leverage against it if the markets ever look cheap again, and to be able to get a new roof, remodel, etc. w/out having to cash anything in... pay margin loan rates (which is also tax deductible against current dividends, and can carry that margin loan interest forward forever until it’s all offset), and pay off the margin debt at our leisure. during this period, i also opened an ‘option account’, but i (thankfully) haven’t ever bought any options. it’s a zero-sum game, and i don’t like being on the losing end, competing w/ full time professionals and computer algorithms. the wife is now at the u, and not only does she have a 457 plant that she can contribute to, but she can put into a 403b plan, and also a 401a plan. all that pretax savings... how can anyone resist it?

what’s my takeaway lesson in all of this? save till it hurts. always max out company plans that allow pretax contributions. then, contribute max to roth iras (depending on agi... there’s a phase out). never buy a managed mutual fund... always, always an index fund. why index? 1) lower maint. fees (why pay some wall street moron 1.5% of your money every year so s/he can throw darts and buy some random stocks?), 2) no money manager can beat the index fund approach year after year except thru dumb luck (even before their 1.5% cut), so don’t try to pick ‘this year’s winner’... impossible, 3) lower taxes due to less churn (less trading in and out of stocks -> less cap. gains), 4) takes less effort to just get a whole market US index fund, a whole OUS index fund (or at least regional ones... asia-pac, europe, americas, emerg. markets), and forget about it)

conclusion

i remember the first stock i ever bought... earthlink (ELNK)... mid-90s... pretty naive. was going to test the waters.. make sure it worked out. see how to pay it online, etc. during the online trade, it warned me that the stock i was buying had just changed its margin requirements, and that i should call them if i had any questions... well, hell ya, i had questions... this was the first stock i was ever attempting to buy, and they give me this ominous, confusing warning dialog box!... so, i called them (DLJdirect... that was 4 names ago now...dlj->csbf->harris->etrade), and said i “wanted to buy 8 earthlink”, (about 500 big dollars worth!)... them: “long or short?”. “ummm... long???”. then, a pause on the phone... sir, 8 ELNK... do you mean eight thousand? “no” is all i said, knowing where this conversation was heading. “sir: do you mean 800 shares?”. “No” is again all i said, but he had me... he was going to make me say it... “No, 8 shares. just 8 shares”. “Sir: i don’t think that’ll be a problem w/ any margin requirements <snicker, snicker>.. you can just place that order online like you were... have a nice day”. click. guess his definition of an even lot (vs. odd lot) were not what mine used to be... hmmm...long time ago... so confused. based on that 30 second phone call alone, i try to not buy odd lots anymore, and certainly never over the phone. since then, have bought some really bad stocks (but none (just got lucky) that went to zero, or even near zero. and some pretty good ones (orcl – the wife’s pick, went up 800% in about 2 years... an 8-bagger, and we actually sold at the near-top). oh, like everyone else.. dabbled in the tech boom, buying QQQ (nasdaq 100 ETF) on the way up, and bought at the very top, and watched as it cratered big time. but never bought those fly by night dot-commers, so i never had the privilege of that roller coaster ride, altho there was a mighty big temptation to do so (especially when <an unnamed friend i’ll call “eric” to protect the broke> on the west coast was always pumping up these micro-cap tech stocks and options that he was buying on margin, and urging me to do so, too... i kept all of his stock tips in a special ‘watch’ portfolio on MSN, so i could see how his picks were doing... vicariously living in his fast lane for free. nowadays, his best stock of the bunch... as i look at it right now, remember this is his BEST pick, is only down 90% from their nasdaq 5000 highs (all the rest bankrupt or 95-99% down)... not getting many stock tips from the west coast these days...) anyway, i did buy some tech stocks, but always pretty big, boring ones (earthlink, orcl, msft, intc, lu, cpq, but that’s about it for indiv. tech stocks)

so, that’s where we’re at. the days of active trading are over (altho they never really began in earnest for me anyway). i believe all i’ll (i’ve been using “i’ and “my” when i of course should have been saying “our” and “us”, or... her and her’s), but the wyf let’s me pretty much fend for myself here, except ripping me when any pick drops (even 1%!, but it really is a very good cooperative environment) ever own in after tax accounts is company stock (15% discount for buying it), and VTI. leave any trading to my ira account (which is my old koch 401k, which was rolled over to an ira, and then converted back in ’98 to a roth ira, and spread out the conversion taxes into 4 yrs). buy boring index funds for the other iras/401ks and just let em ride, and rebalance every year or so (of course, in my active ira account (which i can trade w/ no tax consequences), i now have orcl again (couldn’t resist buying it again after it fell 65% from its highs), a biotech etf, IBB, some japan (EWJ etf), some telecom (etf IXP) that i recently fished off the bottom, but that’s just my ‘mad money – highest risk stuff’ account... the rest is just boring index that is NEVER traded). plan on just letting excel do the rest. i actually kinda hope we just slowly drift in an environment of 0-5% stock market returns for the next 5 or so years... buy low... let the PEs settle back down, let earnings catch back up. we still have positive cash flow, and shouldn’t need the money (ever? we are a simple folk, w/ simple tastes). get the final dot-bombs thru bankruptcy and the accounting scandals worked out and sanitized. and then just coast into (early?) retirement. ‘retirement’ for my generation will not really exist... we’ll all just slowing fade away, become consultants, part-timers, independents, take long sabbaticals come back for a few years. no black -> white transition (working full time to working no time, like old generations did). anyway, life shouldn’t have to be as hard and complicated as the financial planners and stock brokers make it out to be. adopt a ‘couch potato’ investing strategy, and then forget about it. but don’t wait. never too soon to think about retirement. i’m glad it only took me till about 25 to realize the power of einstein’s quote. and forget about actively managed funds and individual stocks.

prologue

what audacity... talking about one of the two social taboos that are left in today’s world. what’s up w/ that?! oh, well, take solace in that there’s undoubtedly a very small audience still reading this. anyway, (yeah, whenever i say ‘anyway’, i know i should pry start a new paragraph instead of typing ‘anyway’, but i’m not gonna start using the king’s rules of grammar at this late point) i like spreadsheeting, but hate ‘busy work’. we keep it simple. one joint brokerage account, that everything is automatically connected to (all paychecks, travel reimbursement, and dividends go in, and xcel, phone(s), mortgage, water, cable, etc. go out... we could die, and our account would just keep tooling along for years...). we’ve never clipped coupons, don’t care about fashion or the upper echelon of home furnishings, hate accumulating ‘things’, track our expenses but have never lived by a ‘budget’. we track expenses not to budget, but just because those spreadsheets of year-to-year look great, and make interesting charts. i’m realistic about the risks of investing 80% in stocks. in 5 yrs, 10 yrs, i’d hope to be able to look back to now and realize things haven’t much changed w.r.t. our financial knowledge and risk tolerance, and that our strategy has stayed pretty much unchanged... but who knows. it’s always a brave new world out there... but i’m staying stay here, comfortably in the dark about so much, yet seeing some glimmers of light.

chuck D blog.... fight the power

my AA & draft IPS (investment policy statement) - comments welcome!

wow, i can now actually blog on my blog

WWCD? (what would chuck do) if i were M*_Chuck (open letter to M* community)

the making of a boglehead - 3 decades plus: my journey (thru 2000)

WWCD? (what would chuck do) if i were M_Chuck (open letter to M community)