On Sun, 18 Apr 2021 23:18:03 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...
All of that is a very good approach. About the only thing we do differently
at my house is that we invest about 95% in stocks, mostly US stocks but a
bit of international stuff sneaks in now and then, and about 3-4% in bonds
with the rest in a money market account so that we have a pool from which
to buy more stocks. Mutual funds aren't a bad choice, but the low risk and
low returns didn't do it for us. Lastly, CDs were decent back in the first
half of the 1980s, but they'd be a foolish choice in the last 20 years or
so.



For those that want to take time to follow the stocks I agree that the
mutual funds do not pay as well, but they do pay very good compaired to
other things and I do not have to spend time trying to pick the stocks.

I fully understand and agree. My wife enjoys doing stock research more than
I do, and she has the time to do it. My son takes an easier route and
subscribes to a stock picking newsletter from Motley Fool. On an annual
basis he sees about 17-28% return in the last decade, but it's not for
everyone. He's in his 30s, so he can tolerate a lot of risk. My wife and I
are a bit more conservative in our stock picks, but we still do OK at
around 20-25% annual return, although recent years have far outpaced those
numbers.

I do try to pick the funds that have a low overhead cost. I still
average around 10 % on the stocks on the long run and lately about
double that or so. One only did about 8 % while the others were over
double that, so that fund got swapped for another.

Excellent approach. When dealing with mutual funds, it always pays to be
aware of the fees. In the last year or two the big brokerage houses have
eliminated the fees related to buying and selling stocks, so that
simplifies things a bit. Fidelity, and possibly others, also do 'by the
slice' now so that small investors can buy partial shares of stocks. If a
particular stock is valued at $600 a share and you only want to invest $50,
you can do that now. That doesn't benefit us, but it's good for the little
guys.

I don't do the bonds mainly because I do not want to try and understand
them. So know nothing about them. From what I understand, they are
about as bad as the CDs over the last number of years for the most part.

Bond strategies tend to be focused on 'preservation of principal' rather
than 'growth', although there are certain tax strategies that can come into
play. Tax-free dividends, for example, can sometimes be used to your
advantage. In the big picture, bonds can sometimes be used as a hedge
against stock market declines. Just as with stocks, the safer approach with
bonds is probably to just buy into a bond fund that agrees with your goals,
rather than picking specific bonds to hold.