An unconventional retirement portfolio which has a good long track record for retirement distributions

Retirement
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Harry Browne’s Permanent Portfolio is backtested to 1978, and you can reliable pull more distributions from that type of portfolio as compared to the standard 60% stock /40% bond portfolio.

It’s very simple… 25% each to US stocks, US long term Treasury bonds, Gold, and Cash. Rebalance once a year. That’s it. The symbols are VTI, GLDM, and TLT. And cash? I’d use an online bank that pays some interest, or better yet, US Savings Bonds Series I at TreasuryDirect.gov

Scroll down the PortfolioCharts page to the “Withdrawal Rates” chart for these two portfolios. You can also design your own portfolio. PortfolioCharts is a free website and you don’t have to make an account or subject yourself to being spied on. The guy who made it goes by the handle “Tyler”. He’s on Twitter at @portfoliocharts

This portfolio is super low cost because it uses low-cost index ETFs. It’s reasonably tax-efficient. Maybe rebalance it after a year and a day, so you get only long-term capital gains taxes.

Clark won’t like it because of the 25% gold. He thinks 10% gold is an upper limit. The portfolio will still “kinda” work with 10% gold, 30% each to stocks, bonds, and cash. Again, try your own mix out at with a portfoliocharts custom blend.

Disclosure - I don’t use this yet because I’m still in accumulation, but this is what I will use when I’m quite elderly and unable or unwilling to be an active investor as I have been for 36 years. I can hand over the reins to my kids and let them run my money for me with them going nuts trying to do something weird and complex for Dad. I would not advise my 25 and 30 year olds to use this, it’s too conservative for them… not enough stocks.

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I tell my kids the same thing…you have a solid pay check, so pedal to the metal with equities is best. Also, I like simplicity for if I’m too creaky in brain to do what I’m doing now (way more than 4 asset allocation buckets, lol!)

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I like 40% VWENX, 40% REAL Real Estate and 20% opportunity cash.

It doubles every 6 years since 2005. Going back to 1978, it does at least that good.

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Approaching retirement also, and I’m leery about inflation and possible market drops/stalls. For the latter, look at the S&P500 for the 25 years prior to 1978. In fact, the market has had remarkable upward climb since that year, and assuming that continues seems too risky to me.

So my plan will be to fund my minimum retirement needs in TIPS funds. Laddered, individual TIPS may be preferable, but it is possible to closely mimic those with a little math plus two funds (one long-term TIPS, the other short-term TIPS). That way I know those dollars will not lose much, if any purchasing power over time. This has the unfortunate requirement of putting a lot of my retirement savings into those vehicles, but as long as the government continues to pay its debts, I won’t be consuming my cats’ food.

The rest of my non-cash investments will be in a total stock market fund, which means I will be hoping that the 1960’s market lethargy doesn’t return.