personal portfolio Archives - DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning

DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning

Do-It-Yourself financial and investment planning Excel spreadsheet software

Diversify fully within asset classes – Step 4 of 10 Financial Planning Steps in the Right Direction

CLICK HERE TO READ THE SKILLED INVESTOR’s OTHER ARTICLES ABOUT THESE “10 FINANCIAL PLANNING STEPS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.” Diversification is genuinely an investment â€œfree lunch,â€ and it is a key contributor to improved investment risk management. Family Financial Planning Software for Consumers Diversification has become an axiom of personal investing, because the specific risks […]

Do Not Get Fooled by Superior Historical Investment Performance

Evaluate the historical investment performance of mutual funds and ETFs, BUT ONLY AFTER using other screening criteria Choosing only from among mutual funds and ETFs that have performed very well in the past can lead to significant selection mistakes and inferior personal portfolio returns Previous superior or average fund performance simply does not predict similar […]

"I do most of my own financial modeling, and I like the way VeriPlan generates “what if” scenarios that I like to compare, such as possibly buying a rental property, selling my house and renting, moving social security retirement age payment timing, and pulling out IRA money after taxes. Plus, I like VeriPlan for its automated projection of detailed investment costs. Thanks for making a great product. It has been a pleasure hearing from you and I read the article you suggested. All the best!"K. W. in Naperville, IL

"Larry, Thanks for the response. I watched the videos you’ve made so far on YouTube. Very good. In fact one of them addressed a situation that applies to me. I first learned about the zero federal taxes on long term capital gains when under the 25% marginal income tax rate from working with Veriplan a number of years ago. I’m no longer working but not yet receiving RMD’s or social security so my ordinary income is relatively low. So I’ve been taking full advantage of zero federal capital gains taxes by selling off my high expense ratio mutual funds which have a lot of capital gains built in since I’ve held them a long time and then I reinvest them in index mutual funds which don’t generate as much capital gains distributions. So the education that you and Veriplan provide has saved me thousands in taxes, not to mention the expenses on high cost mutual funds. Thanks again."M. D. in El Paso, TX

"I thought I would let you know that VeriPlan was the primary decision support tool in my decision to retire early, which was about 4 years ago now. And it has worked out really well. Since then I got married, and we have traveled to 10 countries -- some on mission trips. I had used the lifetime planners in Microsoft Money and Quicken but they were not robust enough to make a major decision with. In retrospect they are toys compared to VeriPlan. So VeriPlan has been a very big help to me. Also, I recently read your Lowest Cost Mutual Funds book, which was great. It brought a few things to my attention that I need to work on."Email update from T. H. in Silicon Valley