Ask HN: What is your personal retirement strategy? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is your personal retirement strategy?

2 pointsrtp4me6 comments

After reading the recent HN article about why buying the dip may not work [0], I started reviewing my personal retirement strategy and began wondering how other HN readers approach the subject. As for me, I plan on using a modified bucket strategy [1] using 2 buckets instead of three (since the savings rates are too low). My plan is to keep 2-3 years of living expenses in a high-interest savings account with the the second bucket in various S&P500 index funds (VOO, VOOG, etc). Every few years, I plan on pulling out some cash to refill the bucket (assuming market conditions are positive). Even with the recent market dip, I am confident this is still the best strategy for me.

Curious as to what other HN readers are using for their retirement strategy...

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31287464 [1] https://smartasset.com/retirement/retirement-bucket-strategy#:~:text=The%20retirement%20bucket%20strategy%20is%20an%20investment%20approach%20that%20segregates,%2C%20intermediate%20and%20long-term.

Financial-wise, stocks probably, but that isn't really the most important thing in retirement. More important is likely having a good social life because no point in having money if lonely and also important to have a good job or hobby to enjoy free-time and of course good health which affects quality of life a lot.

My retirement strategy is to find a part time job that I enjoy doing and never stop working.

I believe that besides providing an influx of funds (in addition to savings and investments), staying socially engaged and mentally active by continuing to work is good for health. The security of knowing that there will be enough money to pay property taxes and basic needs, i.e. food, preventive healthcare, etc. is also a benefit.

Save as much as you can, and (somehow) manage to at least keep up with inflation. Ideally, do a little better. Guess where you'd like to end up and start paying off a living space. Starting at, say, 50-55, make a real effort to pay off all debts so as to have full freedom of action. Savings accounts, anymore, seem to be high-interest if they actually pay interest. I never had the time or interest to day trade, time the market or bet against trends - YMMV. I was doing real well maintaining a bet against the USD until the last 4 months. It's remained strong and tech has collapsed rather than the reverse.

The other option, of course, is to be an owner of a unicorn that hits and buy Twitter.

It might work, but please keep in mind markets can and will stay down for 10+ years, so the cash bucket might be under funded.

I am planning to do a similar approach, but with 10y expenses cash bucket and the rest in VTI/VXUS.

I save monthly into index funds and have 1 year of living expenses in an emergency bucket (my target is to grow this to be 3 years of living expenses). But I'm not actually sure how I will transition from this accumulation/investing phase into a drawing-out phase when the time comes, nor do I have any concrete rebalancing plans all worked out. I think I might need to talk to a financial advisor at some point to just go over the general strategy and come up with something concrete for that later stage.

I'm doing nothing because I have no confidence in the system.

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