What I Am Buying Today.

[ken-do-nim]

Great post Ray! Hats off to your $30k/year in dividends and I know that, like myself, you aren't chasing high yielders; it's more of a side effect of buying good companies.

I already had my experience last year in missing big market days; won't do that again.

I agree 2022 was the worst. I'm still looking up at some of my 2021 numbers with binoculars, mainly because my company stock was $140 then and now is $65. But I only overall passed my Sep 2021 net worth this month.

When I think of building wealth, I think of building a portfolio that will never diminish with age and I will be able to pass it on as an inheritance. Call it the portfolio tipping point. For many people, they compute what age they expect to live to, what kind of retired lifestyle they intend to lead, and determine how much they can safely draw down per year so that when they reach their expected death age, they zero out. For that reason, most people's net worth peaks when they are around age 60, and then goes slowly down as they hit the drawdown phase. But for everyone on this forum, I expect we can completely ignore the "how old do you think you will get" math, and build a portfolio that we can safely draw 4, 5, 6 or even 7% down a year, and it will still grow despite that. And a lot of that drawdown will be from dividends that are reliable, so we can avoid the trimming decisions. My mother, for instance, lives by trimming her retirement accounts. When the market is up, she sells. When the market is down, she reduces expenses. I don't want to live like that. Nice, reliable dividends with raises that keep up with inflation.