I plan on a 2 bucket approach. A cash bucket and a balanced fund(stocks and bonds in same bucket). When the fund is doing well take from the fund. When the fund isn't doing well take from cash. No need to jump back and forth between stocks and bonds in order to maintain a desired allocation. The balanced fund will do that for me.
Thanks for your comments. I have been suffering information overload on how to manage consolidation of assets after losing my wife. Totally agree that simplicity and managability is huge. Will look into Vanguard balanced funds since I currently have split in separate bond and stock funds.
@brandonh Not if the bucket of money you’re getting sub-optimal returns on has $22M in it and you’re in your late 80’s. You most likely won’t run out of money in your lifetime. Keep in mind, everyone’s finances are different. Don’t assume every comment is coming from someone in your financial situation
What is the point of holding 2 years' worth of expenses in cash (or even one) if you are topping off quarterly regardless of market conditions? Are you really reducing your risk exposure?
Almost nobody is talking about the elephant, or should I say Bear, in the room… the proposition that the 60/40 equities/debt allocation was disastrous in recent history. How do you re-balance when both your stocks and your bonds are down? I believe THAT is the reason why we see recommendations for larger cash allocations… certainly more than 1 or 2 years worth of cash
Yes having 2 to 3 years in cash gives you a good chance of riding out times like the past 19 months without having to touch the stock/bond portion but there is no free lunch. In "normal" times 3 years cash will put a drag on the portfolio. A willingness to spend less by, at the very least, postponing major purchases during duel stock/bond downturns would help also.
According to Harold Evensky (who introduced the bucket approach), his recent research shows that more than 1 year worth of cash sacrifices too much opportunity cost. I think you rarely see both stocks and bonds are down for more than 1 year. Recently although the bonds market are down, the stock market are very high so you can withdraw from there and don't touch the bonds portfolio.
Thank you, thank you!!!! I'm sorry I missed the live presentation, but this really helped me clarify what I want to do. I've long felt that the bucket strategy was a fancy term for rebalancing, and your example proved that. I'm with you on having one year in cash. Love the idea of rebalancing and refilling the bucket quarterly. My husband is retiring next year, and I think we are closing in on a plan of spending because we've watched so many of your videos.
We are doing the same with multiple buckets and streams of income. 25% of income will come from dividend funds, almost 10% from high yield interest accounts. Then the rest from IRAs and after tax account. We are going into early retirement in a year. We have been building a 4 year cash bucket with most of it in high interest money market or savings accounts so it is relatively liquid should we need or want to invest some of it. That way we can ride out the longest historical downturn before things started coming back up. We plan to not pull regularly off the accounts ( like quarterly ) but instead on a yearly model. If there are gains at the beginning of any year, we take some cash to back fill as needed, or perhaps it's end of year things are up and if down, we stay away and just take the dividends and interest on savings along with cash to slow the burn and that would last 4 to 6 years before we had to sell and pull down replacement income. Stress testing this plan over the past 75+ years has shown we would never have had a problem during any of the volatile market crashes and recoveries. Brings peace of mind for sure.
Rob, your 3 Bucket Better Strategy is what I've been doing for years. Right now I use 1.5 yrs in cash because the rates are high. But may drop that to 1 year as the rates go down. ITs easy... but will get more complex with tax efficiency aspects and different types of taxable, tax free, tax deferred accounts are involved.
Rob, according to a good video you did previously referencing the Kitces study, is that a better approach than the typical bucket approach is to just use an allocation of stocks and bonds and it will outperform trying to guess how much to keep in the buckets. In addition, it's much simpler and all one needs to do is rebalance. By keeping lots of money in a cash bucket simply prevents earning potential and you are better off using an allocation approach even if there might be years where the funds are down. Cash might make people sleep better, but it's based on a false premise and not on historical data. After watching this video, essentially you are recommending the same thing. Thanks for the video!
All of these points were very beneficial. Thank you. As we start to refine our strategy, I think a large concern is how will that strategy impact a spouse if they become the "administrator" of the strategy. No matter the situation, in most cases (I believe) one partner has more involvement with the day-to-day tasks associated with whatever strategy is decided upon. I guess this sounds somewhat negative but we hear many family members and friends that find themselves (or their love ones) in turmoil when something happens and they have to "take over" - often with months of a "state of shock" taking precedent over everything else, in the case of loss... Thanks again! David
The three bucket strategy to me was always to do with tax buckets : tax-deferred, tax free and taxable (put into a brokerage and get taxed as long-term equities).
Same, I agree with the concepts of this video but calling both things the 3 bucket strategy is very confusing. 3 bucket to me was always about tax optimizing account withdraws with tax deferred>capital gains>tax advantaged. This video is about allocation and rebalancing. Rob should combine and do a video on both together!
Great discussion, I just keep a large cash pile or bucket (whatever you want to call it) well funded in multiple cash products, and the remainder $$ in a handful of stock funds and a small amount in bonds, I don’t rebalance just allow portfolio to grow and do it’s thing!
Hi, i notice people always talk about stock/bond allocations... implying they have a reverse correlation... but as we have seen recently both stocks and bonds have fallen. I personally think Bonds are overrated as they have burnt me in the past. Isn't there a better alternative to Bonds? Perhaps dividend stocks, gold?.... have you spoken about this subject?
Bond funds did poorly due to interest rate risk. A bond ladder where the bonds mature when you want to use the money is a better strategy. Check out Bullet shares ETFs
Ultimately everyone has total portfolio that has some asset allocation. I agree rebalancing makes a LOT more sense then using buckets for mental accounting purposes. Asset allocation and rebalancing takes the guess work out of it.
Why not combine stock bond into a balanced fund based on your risk profile. Say Lifestrategy 60/40 and 1 year cash. Have the fun do the rebalancing for you to keep your risk low. If the fund has a significantly down year, use cash for that year. Otherwise use 4% from the fund every year.
Emergency funds vs Bucket 1… perhaps I’m more conservative, but I consider Emergency funds and Living expenses to be two entirely different things. Even though they might be in Cash/Money Markets accounts. We know living expenses will happen. They are predictable like the sun rises. However, emergencies by definition are unpredictable. Another type of near term spending is predictable but not routine expenses. This might be replacing vehicles, buying a boat, or updating a kitchen. We treat Bucket 1, Emergency, and near term Non-Routine expenses the same way. They are in effect sub-buckets or folders within Bucket 1.
Thank you for the great video! What is the purpose of two years of expenses (2 bucket strategy) vs. 3 months of expenses? If rebalancing happens quarterly in both cases, the cash reserve is larger in the 2 bucket strategy, but we do the same rebalancing anyway?
Love the 3 bucket strategy , who is buying stocks in retirement? Those days are gone, if there is extra then you can buy low but otherwise it’s just living off what you saved for 40 plus years.
The historical bull run of the last 15 years coupled with the super low interest rates of the last 12 years has allowed many to retire with very low debit and inflated portfolios. Many are finding themselves not having to withdraw so much from the portfolio that they can afford to discount the safety of a well designed bucket strategy.and fall victims of fomo because they can afford to less conservative with there with strategy. This is the group that will retire and continue the game of investing.
Very good insights! Never a fan of bucket strategy. I believe the cash flow, asset allocation and diversification. In retirement, we should manage the money like an endowment for cash flow, wealth preservation and long term growth.
Your “better 3 bucket strategy” resembles very much the 2 bucket strategy. The big difference seems to be that in the former stocks and bonds are separated in to 2 buckets, interconnected to exchange funds for rebalancing; while the latter achieves the same thing within 1 bucket.
If you go with the non-bucket approach, under what situation do you NOT rebalance? You mention that you’ll effectively have several years worth of income in bonds at any one time, “unless the wheels fall off.” If there’s a 60-80% crash in stocks, would you still rebalance and hope for the best, or would you hold off on rebalancing and plan to live off the bonds?
Never underestimate the ability of people to over-complicate their finances. Find an AA that works for you and stay the course. My head is spinning after seeing the buckets.
Like a forest fire that wipes out the old trees to make room for new growth, bearish periods ultimately establish a new crop of stocks to buy and watch while setting the stage for a robust new uptrend.I have been reading articles of people that grossed profits up to $250k during this crash, what are the best stocks to buy now or put on a watchlist?
It’s precisely at times like these that investors need to be on guard against the next certainty. You don’t have to act on every forecast, hence i will suggest you get yourself a financial-advisor that can provide you with entry and exit points on the shares/ETF you focus on.
I agree, having a brokerage advisor for investing is genius! Not long ago amidst the pandemic crash in March 2020, I was really having investing nightmare prior touching base with an advisor. In a nutshell, i've accrued over $550k with the help of my advisor from an initial $120k investment thus far.
Rob, you asked what "Bob's your uncle" means. it means that everything will be all right, or that the job is done. It goes back to the late 19th century, when Arthur Balfour was appointed to the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland (a very important job in the UK government). He was appointed by the Prime Minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, who's name was Robert Cecil. So Londoners quickly started saying that Balfour did OK because Bob was his uncle!
my way (not what i do but might suggest it to parent) - portfolio: 60% stock, 30% bonds, 10% money market funds. take out the determined amount and rebalance yearly. levels of cash outside portfolio fluctuates with spending. if it gets way way too high maybe occasionally lump sum some back into the portfolio or give away to family or charity. added the money markets to account for recent times of bonds and stock going down.
I like 25% real estate, 25% cash, 25% stocks and 25% muni bonds. I'm 52 and this has worked very well for me. I can spend down the cash, bonds then stocks in retirement and sell my two houses as a last resort if I run out of money. Looking at retiring in the next couple of years...
Hey Rob, Here are some more details on Harold Evensky's bucket strategy from 2 of his books: 1. "The New Wealth Management" (2022), beginning on page 50, and 2. "Retirement Income Redesigned: Master Plans for Redistribution" (2006), beginning on page 185. Thanks for this video and the one with Harold a while back.
Why not just put your money in Wellington and take out what you. need? They allocate for you and with a near 100 year track record they seem to do pretty good.
So the question is a static allocation in retirement better than a dynamic allocations system. The static allocation is the easiet to implement but does that make sense for everyone. Say you want to retire at 62 but not start social security until age 70. Maybe you create a bucket of money to cover this timeframe that is low volatility and leave rest in a 70/30 stock allocation. This would be somewhat of a dynamic allocation model but is it wrong. I know this is not the traditional 3 bucket method but it is more the time segmentation approach I am looking at right now. I am 57 now so have a few years to figure out how to handle this period.
I would argue that if you have to live for ten years, rather than 2 years, on cash, it's probably more or less the end of the world as we know it. Guns and canned beans time. It's not rational IMO. I believe even during the Great Depression the absolute worse part of the Great Depression was from 1931-1933 or so, about two years. And that was the worse of the worst. That said, I do have a safe place outside the USA if things go south that much (and that would be due to nuclear war IMO) but am not planning to use it ever.
my own made up system was having about 2 years in cash (incl. high yield savings), 4 years in bonds and 25-30 years in stocks when i retire.. and then take about 20% of my monthly expenses from cash every month, 30% from bonds and 50% from stocks.. that way the cash and bonds get used up over the first 10-15 years and the stocks still keep growing in that time.. but im still a good couple years away from retirement so im still investing in almost 100% stocks (except for a big emergency fund) and i havent thought too much about this yet
I guess I missed the live stream but still interesting video. It strikes me that the main difference between bucket strategies is how much cash someone wants to hold. Or the time that cash is supposed to cover.
With today's rates on safe money you can easily set up a 3 bucket strategy. Example Using a 5% withdrawal rate with a 2% cola on a million dollar portfolio. Bucket #1 will consist of 350k in Laddered cds for years 1 through 8 Bucket #2 300k on an 8 year myga @5% This will compound to 445k(for the 8 year period while you live off bucket #1) and will support 60k of income for years 9 through 15 Bucket #3 350k equitys This can be left untouched for 15 years (while you spend down buckets 1 and two) and averaging 7% this will grow to over 950k and at 8% it will grow to over 1.1 mill. And to Rob's concern ,if we do have a market crash you can do some opportunistic buying with some of the cash in bucket 1 and take up to 10% off the myga .
I wonder if you look at the comments on these older ones Rob. I cannot be the only one that actually holds actual, physical rental real estate in my investments. I would love to hear your thoughts on how that fits in here. And I do know - absolutely - the more real estate you hold, the more cash you need as a back up for emergencies. It could be a separate cash bucket just for the real estate holdings honestly. I would love to see something on this.
Great video. I use a "Purpose" strategy, which in some ways may be similar to a bucket strategy. I have 4 "purposes": Income (45%), Growth (45%), Speculation (4%) and Spending (6%, Cash). Everything I hold must fit within one of these purposes. I also manage allocation (70-30, Stocks-Bonds), so some stocks are held primarily for income. As Growth gets bigger, Income also increases as I rebalance purpose. If Speculation (which satisfies my need to trade a bit) pays off, both growth and income get increase. Withdrawals are primarily (and hopefully at some point wholly) from distributions from income investments. I realize you don't worry about using distributions vs growth for income, but using your example of pretending I own the whole business: I would use distributions (salary or dividends) for income, not sell off small pieces of my company for income.
Ron I retired Feb. 2022 at the age of 51. Can you maybe do a future show on us early retired people to help us decide if we have to go back to work at a later time? Some of us have made some bad money investments, and are scared we might have retired to soon. Thank you Ron, and I enjoy your presentations.
While in retirement it is more about preservation than growth. I prefer the traditional 3 bucket approach. Yes you can buy when stocks are down, but they can stay down or flat for a long time. Limited time horizon in retirement.
I might have three buckets - cash is the first bucket, 60% high quality stocks and 40% short-duration bonds in the second bucket, and 80% growth stocks and 20% bonds in the third bucket. Rebalance within buckets 2 and 3 quarterly, and between buckets yearly. The goal being to keep some investments in high growth/high volatility without being too worried in bear markets.
Thanks for the video. I just retired @ 68 with 3-existed accounts as Brokerage, Traditional IRA and Roth IRA account. Just wondering which one will be in each bucket and percentage ? and second question as if I withdraw money out then which one will be first in the sequence of brokerage or Trad IRA or Roth IRA ? Thanks again !
What if you are retiring 65 collecting SS at 70. You need 5 years of big withdraws how do you protect the big withdraws till SS kicks in ladder t bonds, cds, MYGAs?
Really like your idea to view bonds as a way cover your mid term expense. I never beleived in the buckets strategy as i never understood when one refill the bucket, especially on a down market.
If we could implement Modern Portfolio Theory Strategy (MPTS) on our own, wouldn't that always beat the bucket strategy? The Robo advisors could do it for you but they have an expense. The buckets is the closest we can manage without knowing how to MPTS. And all this is really about managing risk.
If you have real estate, pension and social security, you can afford to have more money in less risky buckets, say laddered annuities that are replaced when they mature.
It’s a percentage so you just balance to that, if one is down more than the other then the percentage changes so you rebalance to meet the percentage you have chosen.
Rob, thanks for all the very helpful information. We have just under 1 million for retirement. But have pension, dual social security, and rental income. We don't need to draw down on our retirement accounts. We want the account to grow for legacy purposes. My questions is with such uncertainty today, why wouldn't we just put our funds into an annuity and forget all the worrying whether the market is up or down, buckets, rebalancing, etc?
Annuities fell out of favor due to low returns partly due to high fees. I have solid annuities (very low fee). My strategy is thus 100% stock allocation because I can take market downs. Buy 3-4 broad based ETF's [S&P500, World, Nasdaq100, whatever...] and forget about market swings. Will add up to a lot more money over time. Good luck.
I'm considering what you would probably call the, "Better Two Bucket Strategy". I would have everything allocated as equity or fixed income/cash. The fixed income portion would be tweaked to make sure that maturities and income happen when liquidity is needed. The first year would be covered by cash/money market. The next few years would be funded with individual securities or target maturity ETF's that pay out when liquidity is needed. I would not touch the fixed income assets covering upcoming cash needs when rebalancing. At rebalancing time, if stocks are up, I'd sell stocks and cover another year or two of liquidity. If stocks are down, I'd move money from bond funds into something to cover liquidity for another year or two. Viewing cash/near cash as separate from the portfolio seems to increase cash drag, ignore the stabilizing effect of cash on portfolio volatility and decrease total equity holdings unnecessarily.
Isnt the last 2 yrs stocks and bobds went down together? Bucket wise i see ver small differences between them. Why huy stocks if they diwn one yr? What if they keep going down the next yr or tge yr after? I know not easy answers
WAIT? did i miss something? Rob, you say that the problem with the 3 BUCKET STRAT is that you DON'T BUY more stocks when the are down. but isn't it just as valid to say YES BUT you also do NOT SELL stocks when they are up. so doesn't that kinda balance off the approach? that's how i like to use the BUCKETS. and THANK YOU for this video!!! it is great to see the thought process behind it all regardless.
Here in Canada I plan to live off the dividends alone in retirement and never touch the principle...so market fluctations are irrelevant,,still I keep will $70K "float" for living expenses, emergency, and travel which I plan to constantly replenish with dividends....it seems easy?!
Where “Bob’s your uncle” comes from: The origins are uncertain, but a common theory is that the expression arose after Conservative Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury ("Bob") appointed his nephew Arthur Balfour as Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887, an act of nepotism, which was apparently both surprising and unpopular. Whatever other qualifications Balfour might have had, "Bob's your uncle" was seen as the conclusive one.[1][2] The main weakness in this theory is that the first documented usage of "Bob’s Your Uncle" is in the title of a new song in an advertisement for Herman Darewski Music Publishing Co., published in The Stage (London) on 11 January 1923.[3] If Salisbury's notorious nepotism toward Balfour in the 1880s had been so widely spoken of to inspire a popular phrase, it is unlikely that it would have taken nearly forty years for it to appear in print for the first time.[4]
Great video sir as always . 😮 I prefer for myself as I’m living in the investments to go with the dollar rather than % . It gives me more clarity and easier to track how many years I have in a stable assets. That’s way If I need 50k per year to live on I rather have 150k In money market and the rest in different sectors with a dollar amount to track it..
feels like a the whole adding short term t-bills to the bond "bucket" is kind of just making another bucket that is cash like. seems just like you've made another bucket but just not labelled it as such. i think a lot of this stuff is just down to semantics. people who label their strategy differently to each other could well be doing the exact same thing or very close.
Well, the issue isn't whether we call an asset class a "bucket," as much as it is whether we use percentages or years of expenses to fill that bucket, IMO.
If you approach retirement with more than enough saved up during your working life, then the strategy doesn't really matter. And if you approach retirement without having enough saved up, then trying to pick the 'best' strategy is a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
the "better 3 bucket" seems exactly the same as the "2 bucket". 3 months cash and 60-40 portfolio that gets rebalanced. i feel like the cash thing is a bit oversimplified. this same thing applies for other things in life but as an example my car - i don't do finance or leases so i buy my 2nd had car maybe every 5-8 years. in year 5-8 of owning my car i need more cash to replace the car than in year 1 of car ownership. so my cash levels should have more to do with my spending timetable rather than a set 3 months worth at all times. otherwise an outsized withdrawal from the portfolio might be needed at possibly a wrong time.
Yes! It really is, but it's underscoring how long you can live on bonds alone, which may address the fear of stock market declines. All of this is about behavioral finance.
i think total portfoilio value is key if someone is managing a million dollars and needs 100,000 a year he may feel better with 2 years cover in expenses if some has 5 million and needs 100,000 a years well he may have more comfort with less in cash
Why do you like New Retirement more than Personal Capital (Empower)? I must ask, no disrespect intended but is New Retirement a sponsor of yours or do you derive any financial gain from them in anyway? Again, no disrespect, just doing due diligence before I check them out. Thanks Rob.
I plan on a 2 bucket approach. A cash bucket and a balanced fund(stocks and bonds in same bucket). When the fund is doing well take from the fund. When the fund isn't doing well take from cash. No need to jump back and forth between stocks and bonds in order to maintain a desired allocation. The balanced fund will do that for me.
That is what I do. Why mess with all this multiple bucket crap. One balance fund and a cash account is all you need for simplicity.
@@augustwest9339 Agreed. Why make it more complicated than it needs to be.
Thanks for your comments. I have been suffering information overload on how to manage consolidation of assets after losing my wife. Totally agree that simplicity and managability is huge. Will look into Vanguard balanced funds since I currently have split in separate bond and stock funds.
Isn't it a form of market timing, vs. rebalancing from stocks/bonds?
@@Jary3166 No because it's clear when the stock market experiences a downturn.
Retirement is not about optimizing returns.... it is about living comfortably with minimum worries.
Totally agree with you. Anyone planning their retirement based on optimisée return will be stressed to chase the return.
To me, accepting suboptimal returns for peace of mind is the contradictory. It is the suboptimal returns which should cause you worry…
What if my worry is that I am not optimizing returns
@brandonh
Not if the bucket of money you’re getting sub-optimal returns on has $22M in it and you’re in your late 80’s. You most likely won’t run out of money in your lifetime.
Keep in mind, everyone’s finances are different.
Don’t assume every comment is coming from someone in your financial situation
@@Codeman09876 I feel same way. My solution is not to retire yet.
What is the point of holding 2 years' worth of expenses in cash (or even one) if you are topping off quarterly regardless of market conditions? Are you really reducing your risk exposure?
Almost nobody is talking about the elephant, or should I say Bear, in the room… the proposition that the 60/40 equities/debt allocation was disastrous in recent history. How do you re-balance when both your stocks and your bonds are down? I believe THAT is the reason why we see recommendations for larger cash allocations… certainly more than 1 or 2 years worth of cash
I would certainly want more than 1 year in cash.
Yes having 2 to 3 years in cash gives you a good chance of riding out times like the past 19 months without having to touch the stock/bond portion but there is no free lunch. In "normal" times 3 years cash will put a drag on the portfolio. A willingness to spend less by, at the very least, postponing major purchases during duel stock/bond downturns would help also.
According to Harold Evensky (who introduced the bucket approach), his recent research shows that more than 1 year worth of cash sacrifices too much opportunity cost. I think you rarely see both stocks and bonds are down for more than 1 year. Recently although the bonds market are down, the stock market are very high so you can withdraw from there and don't touch the bonds portfolio.
Thank you, thank you!!!! I'm sorry I missed the live presentation, but this really helped me clarify what I want to do. I've long felt that the bucket strategy was a fancy term for rebalancing, and your example proved that. I'm with you on having one year in cash. Love the idea of rebalancing and refilling the bucket quarterly. My husband is retiring next year, and I think we are closing in on a plan of spending because we've watched so many of your videos.
We are doing the same with multiple buckets and streams of income. 25% of income will come from dividend funds, almost 10% from high yield interest accounts. Then the rest from IRAs and after tax account. We are going into early retirement in a year. We have been building a 4 year cash bucket with most of it in high interest money market or savings accounts so it is relatively liquid should we need or want to invest some of it. That way we can ride out the longest historical downturn before things started coming back up. We plan to not pull regularly off the accounts ( like quarterly ) but instead on a yearly model. If there are gains at the beginning of any year, we take some cash to back fill as needed, or perhaps it's end of year things are up and if down, we stay away and just take the dividends and interest on savings along with cash to slow the burn and that would last 4 to 6 years before we had to sell and pull down replacement income. Stress testing this plan over the past 75+ years has shown we would never have had a problem during any of the volatile market crashes and recoveries. Brings peace of mind for sure.
Rob, your 3 Bucket Better Strategy is what I've been doing for years. Right now I use 1.5 yrs in cash because the rates are high. But may drop that to 1 year as the rates go down. ITs easy... but will get more complex with tax efficiency aspects and different types of taxable, tax free, tax deferred accounts are involved.
Rob, according to a good video you did previously referencing the Kitces study, is that a better approach than the typical bucket approach is to just use an allocation of stocks and bonds and it will outperform trying to guess how much to keep in the buckets. In addition, it's much simpler and all one needs to do is rebalance. By keeping lots of money in a cash bucket simply prevents earning potential and you are better off using an allocation approach even if there might be years where the funds are down. Cash might make people sleep better, but it's based on a false premise and not on historical data. After watching this video, essentially you are recommending the same thing. Thanks for the video!
All of these points were very beneficial. Thank you.
As we start to refine our strategy, I think a large concern is how will that strategy impact a spouse if they become the "administrator" of the strategy. No matter the situation, in most cases (I believe) one partner has more involvement with the day-to-day tasks associated with whatever strategy is decided upon.
I guess this sounds somewhat negative but we hear many family members and friends that find themselves (or their love ones) in turmoil when something happens and they have to "take over" - often with months of a "state of shock" taking precedent over everything else, in the case of loss...
Thanks again! David
@RobBerger You said you have about 1yr in cash. Does that include your emergency fund or is that outside of your emergency fund? Thanks.
The three bucket strategy to me was always to do with tax buckets : tax-deferred, tax free and taxable (put into a brokerage and get taxed as long-term equities).
Sounds like diff way to say accounts.
Same, I agree with the concepts of this video but calling both things the 3 bucket strategy is very confusing. 3 bucket to me was always about tax optimizing account withdraws with tax deferred>capital gains>tax advantaged. This video is about allocation and rebalancing. Rob should combine and do a video on both together!
Great discussion, I just keep a large cash pile or bucket (whatever you want to call it) well funded in multiple cash products, and the remainder $$ in a handful of stock funds and a small amount in bonds, I don’t rebalance just allow portfolio to grow and do it’s thing!
I think that’s a good common sense plan my friend.
Hi, i notice people always talk about stock/bond allocations... implying they have a reverse correlation... but as we have seen recently both stocks and bonds have fallen. I personally think Bonds are overrated as they have burnt me in the past. Isn't there a better alternative to Bonds? Perhaps dividend stocks, gold?.... have you spoken about this subject?
Bond funds did poorly due to interest rate risk. A bond ladder where the bonds mature when you want to use the money is a better strategy. Check out Bullet shares ETFs
Ultimately everyone has total portfolio that has some asset allocation. I agree rebalancing makes a LOT more sense then using buckets for mental accounting purposes. Asset allocation and rebalancing takes the guess work out of it.
Why not combine stock bond into a balanced fund based on your risk profile. Say Lifestrategy 60/40 and 1 year cash. Have the fun do the rebalancing for you to keep your risk low. If the fund has a significantly down year, use cash for that year. Otherwise use 4% from the fund every year.
That's what I plan on doing. Let the single fund take care of the allocation for me.
Emergency funds vs Bucket 1… perhaps I’m more conservative, but I consider Emergency funds and Living expenses to be two entirely different things. Even though they might be in Cash/Money Markets accounts.
We know living expenses will happen. They are predictable like the sun rises.
However, emergencies by definition are unpredictable.
Another type of near term spending is predictable but not routine expenses. This might be replacing vehicles, buying a boat, or updating a kitchen.
We treat Bucket 1, Emergency, and near term Non-Routine expenses the same way. They are in effect sub-buckets or folders within Bucket 1.
Plus in “your” three bucket strategy, using 1 Million and 40% in BND, that get you about $1,100 a month in dividends also.
Thank you for the great video! What is the purpose of two years of expenses (2 bucket strategy) vs. 3 months of expenses? If rebalancing happens quarterly in both cases, the cash reserve is larger in the 2 bucket strategy, but we do the same rebalancing anyway?
Love the 3 bucket strategy , who is buying stocks in retirement? Those days are gone, if there is extra then you can buy low but otherwise it’s just living off what you saved for 40 plus years.
The historical bull run of the last 15 years coupled with the super low interest rates of the last 12 years has allowed many to retire with very low debit and inflated portfolios.
Many are finding themselves not having to withdraw so much from the portfolio that they can afford to discount the safety of a well designed bucket strategy.and fall victims of fomo because they can afford to less conservative with there with strategy.
This is the group that will retire and continue the game of investing.
I think of the bucket strategy as Deferred, Roth and Brokerage/After tax. I am structuring our investments as such.
Very good insights! Never a fan of bucket strategy. I believe the cash flow, asset allocation and diversification. In retirement, we should manage the money like an endowment for cash flow, wealth preservation and long term growth.
Your “better 3 bucket strategy” resembles very much the 2 bucket strategy. The big difference seems to be that in the former stocks and bonds are separated in to 2 buckets, interconnected to exchange funds for rebalancing; while the latter achieves the same thing within 1 bucket.
If you go with the non-bucket approach, under what situation do you NOT rebalance? You mention that you’ll effectively have several years worth of income in bonds at any one time, “unless the wheels fall off.” If there’s a 60-80% crash in stocks, would you still rebalance and hope for the best, or would you hold off on rebalancing and plan to live off the bonds?
Never underestimate the ability of people to over-complicate their finances. Find an AA that works for you and stay the course. My head is spinning after seeing the buckets.
Totally agree. Saving sure was a lot easier than preserving and withdrawing appears to be 😄
Robb - great video! Thoughts on how to set allocation % in retirement? 60/40, 65/35, 70/30…I like to rebalance once a year.
Like a forest fire that wipes out the old trees to make room for new growth, bearish periods ultimately establish a new crop of stocks to buy and watch while setting the stage for a robust new uptrend.I have been reading articles of people that grossed profits up to $250k during this crash, what are the best stocks to buy now or put on a watchlist?
It’s precisely at times like these that investors need to be on guard against the next certainty. You don’t have to act on every forecast, hence i will suggest you get yourself a financial-advisor that can provide you with entry and exit points on the shares/ETF you focus on.
I agree, having a brokerage advisor for investing is genius! Not long ago amidst the pandemic crash in March 2020, I was really having investing nightmare prior touching base with an advisor. In a nutshell, i've accrued over $550k with the help of my advisor from an initial $120k investment thus far.
impressive gains! how can I get your advisor please, if you dont mind me asking? I could really use a help as of now
My advisor is Christine Jane Mclean. You can easily look her up, she has years of financial market experience.
Thank you for this Pointer. It was easy to find your handler, She seems very proficient and flexible. I booked a call session with her.
Rob, you asked what "Bob's your uncle" means. it means that everything will be all right, or that the job is done.
It goes back to the late 19th century, when Arthur Balfour was appointed to the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland (a very important job in the UK government).
He was appointed by the Prime Minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, who's name was Robert Cecil.
So Londoners quickly started saying that Balfour did OK because Bob was his uncle!
my way (not what i do but might suggest it to parent) - portfolio: 60% stock, 30% bonds, 10% money market funds. take out the determined amount and rebalance yearly. levels of cash outside portfolio fluctuates with spending. if it gets way way too high maybe occasionally lump sum some back into the portfolio or give away to family or charity. added the money markets to account for recent times of bonds and stock going down.
Great video Rob. The bucket strategy IMO can get unnecessarily complex. Your approach makes tons of sense.
I like 25% real estate, 25% cash, 25% stocks and 25% muni bonds. I'm 52 and this has worked very well for me. I can spend down the cash, bonds then stocks in retirement and sell my two houses as a last resort if I run out of money. Looking at retiring in the next couple of years...
Hey Rob, Here are some more details on Harold Evensky's bucket strategy from 2 of his books: 1. "The New Wealth Management" (2022), beginning on page 50, and 2. "Retirement Income Redesigned: Master Plans for Redistribution" (2006), beginning on page 185. Thanks for this video and the one with Harold a while back.
Why not just put your money in Wellington and take out what you. need? They allocate for you and with a near 100 year track record they seem to do pretty good.
That's my approach. Put stocks and bonds in the same bucket and let the fund do the allocation for you.
So the question is a static allocation in retirement better than a dynamic allocations system. The static allocation is the easiet to implement but does that make sense for everyone. Say you want to retire at 62 but not start social security until age 70. Maybe you create a bucket of money to cover this timeframe that is low volatility and leave rest in a 70/30 stock allocation. This would be somewhat of a dynamic allocation model but is it wrong. I know this is not the traditional 3 bucket method but it is more the time segmentation approach I am looking at right now. I am 57 now so have a few years to figure out how to handle this period.
On my bucket list is to get rich, or at least preserve my wealth, using a better 3 bucket strategy. This video was very timely.
I would argue that if you have to live for ten years, rather than 2 years, on cash, it's probably more or less the end of the world as we know it. Guns and canned beans time. It's not rational IMO. I believe even during the Great Depression the absolute worse part of the Great Depression was from 1931-1933 or so, about two years. And that was the worse of the worst. That said, I do have a safe place outside the USA if things go south that much (and that would be due to nuclear war IMO) but am not planning to use it ever.
my own made up system was having about 2 years in cash (incl. high yield savings), 4 years in bonds and 25-30 years in stocks when i retire.. and then take about 20% of my monthly expenses from cash every month, 30% from bonds and 50% from stocks.. that way the cash and bonds get used up over the first 10-15 years and the stocks still keep growing in that time..
but im still a good couple years away from retirement so im still investing in almost 100% stocks (except for a big emergency fund) and i havent thought too much about this yet
Nice Doors reference!😊
I guess I missed the live stream but still interesting video. It strikes me that the main difference between bucket strategies is how much cash someone wants to hold. Or the time that cash is supposed to cover.
The TSP is good for investing your money for retirement. It is less flexible to manage your investment in retirement.
I love the 3 bucket strategy, and will be USING once I retire in January
With today's rates on safe money you can easily set up a 3 bucket strategy.
Example
Using a 5% withdrawal rate with a 2% cola on a million dollar portfolio.
Bucket #1 will consist of 350k in
Laddered cds for years 1 through 8
Bucket #2 300k on an 8 year myga @5%
This will compound to 445k(for the 8 year period while you live off bucket #1) and will support 60k of income for years 9 through 15
Bucket #3 350k equitys
This can be left untouched for 15 years (while you spend down buckets 1 and two) and averaging 7% this will grow to over 950k and at 8% it will grow to over 1.1 mill.
And to Rob's concern ,if we do have a market crash you can do some opportunistic buying with some of the cash in bucket 1 and take up to 10% off the myga .
I wonder if you look at the comments on these older ones Rob. I cannot be the only one that actually holds actual, physical rental real estate in my investments. I would love to hear your thoughts on how that fits in here. And I do know - absolutely - the more real estate you hold, the more cash you need as a back up for emergencies. It could be a separate cash bucket just for the real estate holdings honestly. I would love to see something on this.
What bonds are people placing in their portfolios? I started investing six years ago using etfs and individual stocks. Bond etfs have only lost money.
Great video. I use a "Purpose" strategy, which in some ways may be similar to a bucket strategy. I have 4 "purposes": Income (45%), Growth (45%), Speculation (4%) and Spending (6%, Cash). Everything I hold must fit within one of these purposes. I also manage allocation (70-30, Stocks-Bonds), so some stocks are held primarily for income. As Growth gets bigger, Income also increases as I rebalance purpose. If Speculation (which satisfies my need to trade a bit) pays off, both growth and income get increase. Withdrawals are primarily (and hopefully at some point wholly) from distributions from income investments. I realize you don't worry about using distributions vs growth for income, but using your example of pretending I own the whole business: I would use distributions (salary or dividends) for income, not sell off small pieces of my company for income.
Ron I retired Feb. 2022 at the age of 51. Can you maybe do a future show on us early retired people to help us decide if we have to go back to work at a later time? Some of us have made some bad money investments, and are scared we might have retired to soon. Thank you Ron, and I enjoy your presentations.
Merci Rob pour vos vidéos vous avez de précieux conseils !
Merci beaucoup !
While in retirement it is more about preservation than growth. I prefer the traditional 3 bucket approach. Yes you can buy when stocks are down, but they can stay down or flat for a long time. Limited time horizon in retirement.
Agree. Retirement is for fun. Keep it simple.
I have a highly tuned 47 bucket strategy that works flawlessly.
Hey Rob you are providing some very valuable knowledge!! Hope your subscription count exceeds 500k soon 👍👍.
I might have three buckets - cash is the first bucket, 60% high quality stocks and 40% short-duration bonds in the second bucket, and 80% growth stocks and 20% bonds in the third bucket. Rebalance within buckets 2 and 3 quarterly, and between buckets yearly. The goal being to keep some investments in high growth/high volatility without being too worried in bear markets.
Thanks for the video. I just retired @ 68 with 3-existed accounts as Brokerage, Traditional IRA and Roth IRA account. Just wondering which one will be in each bucket and percentage ? and second question as if I withdraw money out then which one will be first in the sequence of brokerage or Trad IRA or Roth IRA ? Thanks again !
Rob We ( VIda, Sherwin and I) love all your podcasts.
Who would you recommend for fee based advice?
Just buy the index's. Nobody hardly ever beats the index's.
What if you are retiring 65 collecting SS at 70. You need 5 years of big withdraws how do you protect the big withdraws till SS kicks in ladder t bonds, cds, MYGAs?
You’re a smart guy Rob.
Thank you…
Love the content. Hate the ads. Wow are there a lot of ads, sheesh!
When it comes to bonds, are you buying actual bonds or bond funds... taxes and reliability count.. any help would be appreciated
If one's pensions and social security are enough to cover all living expenses, would he/she need a Bucket 1, and if so, how much?
You have to use IV as the guide of when to buy. Any iv over 25 is a buy.
What is IV?
@@timedwards752 Implied Volatility Look it up and understand what it means. Your portfolio will thank you.
One year cash makes sense since you can re-evaluate the market and which bucket to draw from for the upcoming year.
Really like your idea to view bonds as a way cover your mid term expense. I never beleived in the buckets strategy as i never understood when one refill the bucket, especially on a down market.
What would happen when both stocks and bonds are down, such as 2022?
If we could implement Modern Portfolio Theory Strategy (MPTS) on our own, wouldn't that always beat the bucket strategy? The Robo advisors could do it for you but they have an expense. The buckets is the closest we can manage without knowing how to MPTS. And all this is really about managing risk.
Always worth listening!
Question: I wanna dive deep into this kind of investment. Is there any good book about this subject? Thanks
Anything by Ray Lucia
Do you do this upon retiring?
If you have real estate, pension and social security, you can afford to have more money in less risky buckets, say laddered annuities that are replaced when they mature.
Very good presentation. Too bad for some that buckets have become an emotional topic.
How do you rebalance in years when bonds and stocks are down?
It’s a percentage so you just balance to that, if one is down more than the other then the percentage changes so you rebalance to meet the percentage you have chosen.
What percentage is too much cash?
What about at 32percent tax bracket. Should more bonds be in etf municipalities short term and intermediate?
Rob, thanks for all the very helpful information. We have just under 1 million for retirement. But have pension, dual social security, and rental income. We don't need to draw down on our retirement accounts. We want the account to grow for legacy purposes. My questions is with such uncertainty today, why wouldn't we just put our funds into an annuity and forget all the worrying whether the market is up or down, buckets, rebalancing, etc?
Annuities fell out of favor due to low returns partly due to high fees. I have solid annuities (very low fee). My strategy is thus 100% stock allocation because I can take market downs. Buy 3-4 broad based ETF's [S&P500, World, Nasdaq100, whatever...] and forget about market swings. Will add up to a lot more money over time. Good luck.
Would an HSA count as a bucket that would be separate from everything else? Basically a healthcare bucket designated for specific expenses.
part of your cash bucket
I'm considering what you would probably call the, "Better Two Bucket Strategy". I would have everything allocated as equity or fixed income/cash. The fixed income portion would be tweaked to make sure that maturities and income happen when liquidity is needed. The first year would be covered by cash/money market. The next few years would be funded with individual securities or target maturity ETF's that pay out when liquidity is needed. I would not touch the fixed income assets covering upcoming cash needs when rebalancing. At rebalancing time, if stocks are up, I'd sell stocks and cover another year or two of liquidity. If stocks are down, I'd move money from bond funds into something to cover liquidity for another year or two. Viewing cash/near cash as separate from the portfolio seems to increase cash drag, ignore the stabilizing effect of cash on portfolio volatility and decrease total equity holdings unnecessarily.
The recommended book "bucket strategy" by Ray Lucia is from 2004.... the examples are outdated, returns out of date.
Ray Lucia is the man . I love how he redeemed himself by taking the SEC All the way up to the supreme court where they voted in his favor .
Isnt the last 2 yrs stocks and bobds went down together? Bucket wise i see ver small differences between them. Why huy stocks if they diwn one yr? What if they keep going down the next yr or tge yr after? I know not easy answers
Rob what brand of shirts do you wear? They always look sharp!
Untuckit
Why the hell are people still using bonds
I like that the live show generates more content with the Q&A haha
The better 3 bucket looks the same as the original 2 bucket
Equities and bonds both still going down together, so this comfort strategy won't work for years?
WAIT? did i miss something? Rob, you say that the problem with the 3 BUCKET STRAT is that you DON'T BUY more stocks when the are down. but isn't it just as valid to say YES BUT you also do NOT SELL stocks when they are up. so doesn't that kinda balance off the approach? that's how i like to use the BUCKETS. and THANK YOU for this video!!! it is great to see the thought process behind it all regardless.
Here in Canada I plan to live off the dividends alone in retirement and never touch the principle...so market fluctations are irrelevant,,still I keep will $70K "float" for living expenses, emergency, and travel which I plan to constantly replenish with dividends....it seems easy?!
Where “Bob’s your uncle” comes from:
The origins are uncertain, but a common theory is that the expression arose after Conservative Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury ("Bob") appointed his nephew Arthur Balfour as Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887, an act of nepotism, which was apparently both surprising and unpopular. Whatever other qualifications Balfour might have had, "Bob's your uncle" was seen as the conclusive one.[1][2]
The main weakness in this theory is that the first documented usage of "Bob’s Your Uncle" is in the title of a new song in an advertisement for Herman Darewski Music Publishing Co., published in The Stage (London) on 11 January 1923.[3] If Salisbury's notorious nepotism toward Balfour in the 1880s had been so widely spoken of to inspire a popular phrase, it is unlikely that it would have taken nearly forty years for it to appear in print for the first time.[4]
Thank you
Someone else may have already doted this: RMDs for traditional IRAs generally begin the year you turn 72.
Will be 75 years old in 2033 👍👍
Actually, it's now 73 if you weren't 72 by the end of 2022.
Great video. Interesting take
Great video sir as always . 😮 I prefer for myself as I’m living in the investments to go with the dollar rather than % . It gives me more clarity and easier to track how many years I have in a stable assets. That’s way If I need 50k per year to live on I rather have 150k In money market and the rest in different sectors with a dollar amount to track it..
My three bucket strategy is 50% VOO, 25% JEPI, 25% JEPQ.
Do you have any companies or person you can recommend for by fee one time finance advisor in northern va.
feels like a the whole adding short term t-bills to the bond "bucket" is kind of just making another bucket that is cash like. seems just like you've made another bucket but just not labelled it as such. i think a lot of this stuff is just down to semantics. people who label their strategy differently to each other could well be doing the exact same thing or very close.
Well, the issue isn't whether we call an asset class a "bucket," as much as it is whether we use percentages or years of expenses to fill that bucket, IMO.
I want a plastic bucket AND a metal bucket a scooper would be nice.
Ok this is better. Similar to my plan.
I wonder if he is mixing up perspectives; saving vs. spending.
You’re a ROM the Space Knight fan? Awesome.
I thought the buckets are about risk relate to time horizon, short, medium and long; NOT expenses!
If you approach retirement with more than enough saved up during your working life, then the strategy doesn't really matter.
And if you approach retirement without having enough saved up, then trying to pick the 'best' strategy is a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Retirement is not the accumulation stage, it is decumulation.
the "better 3 bucket" seems exactly the same as the "2 bucket". 3 months cash and 60-40 portfolio that gets rebalanced. i feel like the cash thing is a bit oversimplified. this same thing applies for other things in life but as an example my car - i don't do finance or leases so i buy my 2nd had car maybe every 5-8 years. in year 5-8 of owning my car i need more cash to replace the car than in year 1 of car ownership. so my cash levels should have more to do with my spending timetable rather than a set 3 months worth at all times. otherwise an outsized withdrawal from the portfolio might be needed at possibly a wrong time.
Yes! It really is, but it's underscoring how long you can live on bonds alone, which may address the fear of stock market declines. All of this is about behavioral finance.
i think total portfoilio value is key if someone is managing a million dollars and needs 100,000 a year he may feel better with 2 years cover in expenses if some has 5 million and needs 100,000 a years well he may have more comfort with less in cash
Why do you like New Retirement more than Personal Capital (Empower)? I must ask, no disrespect intended but is New Retirement a sponsor of yours or do you derive any financial gain from them in anyway? Again, no disrespect, just doing due diligence before I check them out. Thanks Rob.