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Thanks! You may be over-estimating how much money I have as a techie, I work in non-profit/academic sector. My retirement funds are relatively paltry compared

Thanks! You may be over-estimating how much money I have as a techie, I work in non-profit/academic sector. My retirement funds are relatively paltry compared to what you may assume about techies with so much money (but perhaps still more than US median for my age; googling says median US retirement savings across all working-age households is $95,776), and mostly in managed 401k/403b where I have previously just chosen "lifecycle funds". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ People make a lot of assumptions about how much wealth random HN commenters or the HN audience in general have, and sometimes I start feeling like I'm really poor compared to all you techie multi-millionaires... but when I actually pay attention to comments, I realize, nope, a lot of HN is more like me (although probably often ashamed to say so).

dehrmann 4y ago
If by "lifecycle funds" you mean target date funds, setting your allocation to 100% for your retirement year is the most reasonable strategy you can do.
- havermeyer 4y ago
  FYI you may be better off using an index fund and then rebalancing into bonds or other fixed income options closer to retirement. See this article, for example. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/one-of-the-biggest-retirement-mistakes-investors-are-making-today.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/one-of-the-biggest-retiremen...
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    But isn't that what the "lifecycle" target date funds do? The argument is that you will know the schedule you want to rebalance on for your custom personal needs, better than the generic target-date "lifecycle" fund will?
    - havermeyer 4y ago
      Sorry, I didn't check comments for a while. The target date funds tend to have higher management fees and yes, worse composition of stocks versus bonds compared to holding a mix yourself, IMO, based on your goals.
- foobiekr 4y ago
  But never, ever in a taxable account.
ForHackernews 4y ago
You're welcome! Sorry if that came across as aggressive. I get tired of seeing people on HN posting like, "How do I live on my paltry $500k/year income? Should I gamble it all on dogecoin?" (this is an exaggeration, but only slightly)

dehrmann 4y ago

If by "lifecycle funds" you mean target date funds, setting your allocation to 100% for your retirement year is the most reasonable strategy you can do.

havermeyer 4y ago
FYI you may be better off using an index fund and then rebalancing into bonds or other fixed income options closer to retirement. See this article, for example. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/one-of-the-biggest-retirement-mistakes-investors-are-making-today.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/one-of-the-biggest-retiremen...
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  But isn't that what the "lifecycle" target date funds do? The argument is that you will know the schedule you want to rebalance on for your custom personal needs, better than the generic target-date "lifecycle" fund will?
  - havermeyer 4y ago
    Sorry, I didn't check comments for a while. The target date funds tend to have higher management fees and yes, worse composition of stocks versus bonds compared to holding a mix yourself, IMO, based on your goals.
foobiekr 4y ago
But never, ever in a taxable account.

ForHackernews 4y ago

You're welcome! Sorry if that came across as aggressive. I get tired of seeing people on HN posting like, "How do I live on my paltry $500k/year income? Should I gamble it all on dogecoin?" (this is an exaggeration, but only slightly)