DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning
Do-It-Yourself financial and investment planning Excel spreadsheet software
The Solution – ONLY follow financial strategies that are scientific, passive, diversified, savings focused, risk controlled, low cost, and tax efficient A previous article, “The Problem – Straight answers about personal financial and investment planning are difficult to find,” summarized important reasons why individuals may experience difficulties, even if they are intent upon doing better […]
Fund Authority Scores range from -10 to +10 and measure five factors for diversified stock or equity investment funds: 1) annualized management and sales expenses, 2) trading costs, 3) historical performance, 4) fund maturity, and 5) operating efficiency. Go to Part 2 –>> This article explains how Fund Authority Scores rate stock or equity mutual […]
Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within investment […]
The Standard & Poors 500 stock index is the most common equity index fund benchmark in the U.S. The S and P 500 tracks about 75% of publicly traded U.S. equity market asset value. The dominant issue in choosing among passively managed index mutual funds and ETF funds benchmarked against the S & P 500 […]
The diversified investment fund strategy of American Funds’ EuroPacific Growth Fund According to American Funds’ Annual Report for the EuroPacific Growth Fund, the fund “seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in the securities of companies based in Europe and the Pacific Basin.” American Fund’s 497 filing on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR […]
The Standard & Poors 500 stock index is the most common equity index fund benchmark in the U.S. The S and P 500 tracks about 75% of publicly traded U.S. equity market asset value. The dominant issue in choosing among passively managed index mutual funds and ETF funds benchmarked against the S & P 500 […]
The Vanguard Total International Stock Index mutual fund is a low cost alternative for broad, passive index investing internationally. This fund is a composite of three other Vanguard international funds: the Vanguard European Stock Index Fund (55.7%), the Vanguard Pacific Stock Index Fund (24.1%), and the Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund (20.2%). The percentages […]
The diversified investment fund strategy of the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund According to the Vanguard website, the investment strategy of the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index mutual fund is to use a “passive management—or indexing—investment approach designed to track the performance of the MSCI® US Broad Market Index, which represents 99.5% or more […]
The Standard & Poors 500 stock index is the most common equity index fund benchmark in the U.S. The S and P 500 tracks about 75% of publicly traded U.S. equity market asset value. The dominant issue in choosing among passively managed index mutual funds and ETF funds benchmarked against the S & P 500 […]
During the last twenty-five years of the 20th century, mutual fund and exchange traded fund portfolio assembly costs declined dramatically. Brokerage commissions were deregulated in 1975, and transaction costs have fallen very dramatically since then. Furthermore, well-diversified, low-cost index mutual funds have now become commonplace, while none existed in 1968. The mutual fund industry was […]
Another kind of investment diversification that individual investors should consider important relates to the failure or corruption of the financial industry intermediaries and fiduciaries that hold individual investors’ securities. This meaning of diversification has nothing to do with scientific investment principles related to optimal portfolio diversification. However, it is still very important. Prudent investment practices […]
Do-It-Yourself Financial Planning – Understand your projected expenses over your lifetime Increased savings through conscious expenditure reduction is the largest and most controllable factor in long-term personal finance success. Anyone interested in improving personal financial planning must understand that tracking expenses accurately and comprehensively is very important. Exactly how your expenses are tracked is not […]
< <– Go to Part 4 The Biggest Personal Finance Story of the Past 30 Years – Conclusion Family Financial Planning Software for Home Use This article concludes our series on the greatest personal finance story of the past thirty years. In this article, we discuss whether the dramatic growth in equity value of the […]
< <– Go to Part 3 The Biggest Personal Finance Story of the Past 30 Years – Part 4 Family Financial Planning Software for Home Use What does it mean to individual investors that the financial services industry is now about 21% of S&P 500 market capitalization? (For a graph of the relative percentage shares […]
< — Go to Part 1 The Biggest Personal Finance Story of the Past 30 Years – Part 2 Find Family Financial Planning Software To understand what has happened to the market valuation of the financial services sector, particularly over the last 30 years, you should view Figure 4 on page 16 of the financial […]
Pre-retirement savings rates for renters – with and without investment cost improvements Improving on Fran and Fred’s lifetime financial plan through lower investment costs Fran and Fred Frugal, both age 30, are a married working couple with $100,000 in combined annual earned income. They want to understand how valuable different personal finance strategies could be […]
Lifetime investment assets of renters through investment cost improvements Improving on Fran and Fred’s lifetime financial plan through lower investment costs Fran and Fred Frugal, both age 30, are a married working couple with $100,000 in combined annual earned income. They want to understand how valuable different personal finance strategies could be to their lifetime […]
How to lie with statistics: Investment performance charts – A Tip from The Skilled Investor Darrell Huff wrote a short and very informative book, “How to Lie with Statistics,” which was first published in 1954 and was amusingly illustrated by Irving Geis. This book is still in print and remains very popular (Amazon book rank […]
The heavy burden of recurring investment fees (Part 1 of 2) Recurring investment costs can significantly impact the long-term value of your retained investment portfolio assets. Recurring fees, such as asset management fees, 12b-1 marketing fees, and advisory/asset custody fees are charged periodically, as a percent of your investment assets. The relative cost-efficiency of your […]
Excessive investment expenses take 2% of individual investor’s assets every year Year after year, millions of people lose large amounts of money on unnecessary and unproductive investment costs and investment expenses. The typical investor loses about 2% of portfolio assets every year by paying too much and getting too little in return. Personal Financial Planning […]