People add gold to their investment portfolio for all kinds of reasons… it’s pretty, they accidentally read Zero Hedge, their Mom suggested it, or they plan on trading it for food after the apocalypse.
Those are all obviously terrible reasons.
This is true in part because there is really only one good reason to own any gold at all. Dentistry.
This week I’m going into the GCC Inbox to answer a question I’ve received several times over the years.
GCC
Thanks to your blog my wife and I will be retiring early next year. We are Americans and want to move abroad for a few years, in part for the adventure but also to minimize our taxes in the early years. This should help with sequence of return risk. Most of our retirement income will come from qualified dividends and long term capital gains, same as you.
We like the idea of being in one place most of the time. Are there any countries you think would be good to use as a base?
Thank you.
Avid Reader
Let’s do this again! Welcome to the 2nd irregularly scheduled Go Curry Cracker Giveaway, where fabulous prizes are waiting to be won!
Today’s prize is another $100 Airbnb Gift Card.
Thank you for reading, for your support, and for being a positive member of the Go Curry Cracker Community!
To live an unconventional life you have to do unconventional things, which leads to unconventional conversations.
Which is why I enjoy meeting fellow early retirees and aspirees so much. There is so much more to build on than with more traditional thinkers: “Early retirement? Oh my…. I just don’t know what I would do with myself all day.”
So recently I had coffee with a reader who was passing through Taipei while doing nontraditional things, and we had a traditional conversation. This included riffing on that stereotypical question: “What would you do if you had $10 million?”
So boring…
In our recent interview with ABC World News Tonight we covered a lot of topics that didn’t make it to the final cut. We spent a lot of time talking about investing… how we invest, how much time it takes, my level of investing expertise compared to a layman, and recommendations for the average individual.
The reporter I spoke with was really interested in our lifestyle, and the whole conversation felt very natural and genuine. After I answered all of her questions about safe withdrawal rates, cap gain harvesting, cash flow management, portfolio rebalancing, asset allocation, and all of that other mumbo jumbo buzzwordy stuff, she asked a really powerful question that really struck me…
“What about me? How would I ever be able to do all of that?”
Everything about that question…. intonation, tone of voice…. made me feel as though I had completely failed as a messenger. Sure, I answered the questions she asked… but I didn’t address the heart of the matter. It’s probably the same on this blog. (I’m an engineer, not a politician.)
This is how I (tried to) remedy that.
