Should I invest in International stocks? If so, what percentage of assets should be invested internationally?
These are important questions to answer when deciding on a target asset allocation.
This is how I thought about that decision.
Over the past several years, I’ve made minor annual adjustments to our investment portfolio – harvesting capital gains, rebalancing, and adding fresh capital.
This is what our portfolio looks like as of early 2019.
(GCC: A few years ago at FinCon, I had a chat with a fiery young woman whose dream was to save just enough $ to leave the corporate world. “I’m going to front load 100% of my retirement savings and then just let it percolate while I pursue other interests.” I loved the idea and the gumption. Fast forward to today: mission accomplished!)
My name is Gwen. I’m 27 years old, and even if I never save another penny I will enjoy a comfortable standard retirement. How did I manage that? I’m glad you asked!
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.
Balance
It’s been 3 years since I evaluated moving our portfolio to 100% equities, and 2 years since I last published an update on our overall asset allocation.
What’s changed since?
