Retirement

Asset allocation rules of thumb

“Asset allocation”, or the percentage of your assets (usually just financial ones) that you put into different types of things (stocks, bonds, cash, real estate), has been shown to determine a very large portion of a person’s return. It is also the key determinate in how much volatility your portfolio undergoes.

[UPDATE 12-21-2010: HERE is a very good, quick (5 minute or less), easy-to-use questionnaire from the good people at Vanguard that can be used to estimate your personal asset allocation. It might be a bit conservative for my taste (too heavily weighted towards bonds instead of stocks), but it’s an excellent starting point to get a ballpark stock-to-bond split.]

While there many ways to arrive at a recommended asset allocation, it often helps to have some simple rules of thumb. The general idea is that the older you are or the sooner you need the money, the safer your investments should be. So while a 100% stock retirement portfolio would be great (in my opinion) for a 30 year-old with 30+ years until retirement, it would generally NOT be advisable for a middle-income retiree.

The following rules of thumb that I will discuss assume that the asset allocation is for RETIREMENT, and that the average person won’t be tapping into it until they’re between 60 and 70 years old.

120 minus your age

To simplify between all the different types of assets, people often just make the distinction between stocks and bonds. For people that own homes and keep some petty cash in their savings or checking accounts, I think just talking about stocks and bonds works well for most people. One such stock-to-bond ratio rule of thumb is this: from 120, subtract your age. The remaining number should be in stocks. For example, if you’re 60, this rule would tell you to put 60% (= 120 – 60) of your assets into stocks, and the rest (40%) into bonds.

This rule is definitely simple, and reasonably useful. (It used to be 100 minus your age, but that was when people didn’t live as long.) My criticisms of it is that may tend to put too much of one’s assets into bonds, especially prior to age 60. Historically, stocks have out-performed bonds in almost every 30 year period. Of course, this is no guarantee that they will continue to do so, but it suggests a high probability.

In general, if you have more than 5 – 10 years to go before you need some money, it could be in the stock market. Thus, I tend to recommend that people who still have 10-20 years to go before retirement put all of their money into stocks. This assumes that most people will have some fixed income anyway (like social security.) It also assumes that the person will only be using a small portion of their retirement funds per year (like 4 – 5% of the total account balance.)

Some alternatives

Since I prefer a slightly more aggressive rule of thumb than the above, I came up with the following asset allocation formula: Put 2 times the difference between your age minus 50 into bonds. I.e.: % in bonds = 2*[Your age – 50]

So, if you’re 50 or under, you put nothing in bonds. At 60, you’ll have 20% in bonds (= 2*[60 – 50]), and 80% in stocks. At 70, you’ll have 40% in bonds, 60% in stocks, and so on. This has the virtue of keeping a 100% stock portfolio until you’re 10 – 20 years out from retirement. It also ‘catches up’ to the more conservative allocation by increasing the percentage of bonds in your portfolio by 2% per year after age 50.

Another option might be to just use a fixed allocation like 60-40 or 75-25 stocks to bonds. You might choose to gradually switch from 100% stocks to this fixed allocation over a period of, say, 10 years, like from 50 to 60, or starting 10 – 20 years prior to your target retirement date.

Lastly, you could adjust my 2*[age – 50] formula above to take your target retirement age into account: use % of bonds = 2*[ Age – (Target retirement age – 15) ]. If you’re going to retire at 65, this works out to just 2*[Age – 50] (since 65 – 15 = 50.) But, if you’re going to retire earlier or later, your recommended asset allocation will adjust accordingly.

Conclusion

Asset allocation is important. Within each asset class, always diversify as much as you can. Pick stock and bond index funds with low expense ratios that sample the entire market. (Large cap and small cap, domestic and international for stocks.)

In general, I like 100% stocks as an allocation for retirement portfolios that still have 10 – 20 years until you start tapping them. Then, gradually switch to something more conservation using one of the above rules of thumb, or something more exact like a financial advisor or William Bernstein’s “The Intelligent Asset Allocator”.

Reverse Mortgages: Tap your home as a last resort for retirement

Ideally, a person would finance their retirement through a combination of fixed income (social security or pensions), individual retirement accounts (401k, IRA) and, if necessary, supplementary income from working, or even family support. However, as many retirees saw in the recent stock market downturn of 2008 & 2009, things don’t always work out this way. Fortunately, other options exist that provide retirees with ways to close the income gap (other than ‘starving’, an unpopular method.)

Home, sweet home

Most Americans have at least 50% of their wealth in their primary residences. Wouldn’t it be nice if, after working hard to pay down that mortgage, there was a way to use the value of your home as income? The simplest way is to ‘down-size’ by selling your home and moving to a less-expensive one, investing the difference to pad your retirement funds. While this may be great for a purely financial point of view, the obvious downside is the hassle and the emotional or practical undesirability of moving.

Home equity lines of credit (HELOC) are a way to use your home equity without selling your home. A private bank will loan you the money as an interest-bearing loan taken from your home’s equity (the difference between the house’s worth and the mortgage principal you owe.) You can then use that money for pretty much whatever you want, paying back the loan according to its terms. One drawback is that you can unwittingly take out too much, then have to either pay it back at an inconvenient time, go without income, or lose your home if you default on the HELOC. Additionally, your lender could freeze or reduce your line of credit if your home value declines. For the financially savvy (you!) there’s another way to get at that home equity in a less-risky fashion.

Enter the reverse mortgage

If you’re at least 62 years old, reverse mortgages, called Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) when sponsored by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), allow you take either a lump sum, a line of credit, or fixed payments for a specified term or for as long as you live in your house. This last payment option, called ‘tenure’, seems the safest and most attractive from a retirement income perspective since your payments come monthly, keeping you from spending the lump sum too fast. However, all the HECM options keep you from losing your house as long as you stay in it. The loan is ‘non-recourse’ which means the bank can only collect what is received from the sale of the home, and not from any other parts of your estate, even if the loan balance is more than the value of the home when sold.

From the FHA HECM site:

“A borrower cannot be forced to sell the home to pay off the mortgage, even if the mortgage balance grows to exceed the value of the property. A HECM loan need not be repaid until the borrower moves, sells, or dies. When the loan must be paid, if it exceeds the value of the property, the borrower (or the heirs) will owe no more than the value of the property, if they sell the property to repay the loan.”

Wait as long as you can, and take note of high fees

The positive from the fixed payment reverse mortgage option is that you receive constant income for life that can supplement social security and your (cracked?) retirement nest egg. The more equity you have built up in your home, and the older you are, the higher this reverse mortgage income will be. This is one reason why you should wait as long as possible before taking out such a reverse mortgage. Another is that you want to be sure you actually need to take out the loan. Reverse mortgages come with very expensive upfront fees, about 6-12% of the value of the loan.

Also, the amount you’ll receive will be much less than the total equity you’ve built up. This amount is usually a little more than half of your home equity. (The limit for FHA reverse mortgage loans is $625,000, even if your home is appraised much higher.) Using this calculator, a 75-year-old Seattle couple who owns their $400,000 house free and clear (no mortgage debt), could take out a lump sum of $202,424, or receive a fixed payment of $1,467 per month. They would also pay over $16,000 in fees (not to mention the interest that’s factored into the loan amount.) Remember: a reverse mortgage should only be used after other retirement options fail.

Note that the above numbers are based on current interest rates, and will vary over time. But, when a person actually initiates the fixed payment option in a reverse mortgage, that monthly dollar amount IS fixed over time, just like the payments you make on a regular fixed mortgage. Keep in mind, though, that the payments are NOT adjusted for inflation, hence the real value of your received payments will likely decline by about 3% per year on average due to rising costs of living.

The FHA HECM site on fees:

“Two mortgage insurance premiums are collected to pay for HECM: an upfront premium (2 percent of the home’s value), and a monthly premium (which equals 0.5 percent per year of the mortgage balance).

A lender can charge an origination fee up to $2,500 if the home’s appraised value is less than $125,000. If the home is valued at more than $125,000, lenders can charge 2% of the first $200,000 of the home’s value plus 1% of the amount over $200,000. HECM origination fees are capped at $6,000.”

Another negative is that your heirs will receive less due to the decrease in your home equity. If your kids are already set up independently by the time of your death, this may not be a big concern.

A reverse mortgage can keep your retirement moving forwards

The bottom line is that if you end up struggling in retirement, a reverse mortgage might be the best unconventional alternative to meeting your income needs. Fixed ‘tenure’ payments (or any combination of the other payment options) can be made to you for life without risking foreclosure on your home. Wait until you really need the costly loan before taking it. That allows you to build up equity (pay off your mortgage before reversing it for best results) and get older, both of which increase your monthly payments.

Of course, the best retirement solution is to avoid taking out expensive loans for your retirement. Instead, invest as much as you can for retirement before you get to it, defer retirement a few years if needed, find other (or increase) income sources, and live beneath your means.

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In addition to the FHA site linked above, here’s another handy reverse mortgage FAQ if you want to learn more.

Do you know how much you need to save for retirement, college, or a home?

This handy savings calculator from Lifetuner.org helps you answer that question. Just plug in a yearly savings amount (like $200/month = $2400/year), the ages you start and stop investing, your desired retirement age, and an interest rate. For this last assumption, I would use 6.8% (or 7% if decimals are too much to handle) to match the historical, real (inflation-adjusted) stock market return. That way you won’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll have more purchasing power (which is what matters) than you really will have.

You can run up to three side-by-side simulations. Compare starting ages, amounts you save, or the difference due to small interest rate changes. This is a great calculator for estimating the return from regular investing, or the difference in gain from, say, a 0.5-1% increase in return due to switching to low-fee index funds, which beat the returns from (higher-fee) actively-managed mutual funds 70 – 80% of the time.

You can use this to calculate ANY regular investment, not just one for retirement. For example, if you want to have a house downpayment in 3 years, assume a bond fund return of 3-5% (rates are low today) and then see how much you’d need to invest yearly to achieve your goal. The longer you can wait, the more you’ll have.

Or, to calculate savings for your kid’s college (new parents, pay attention!), enter your kid’s current age as the ‘start saving’ age and 18 as the ‘stop saving’ & “retirement” ages. (“Retirement” in this calculator just means the date when you want to know how much you’re investment will be worth.) Use the historical, real, stock market return of 6.8% if you have a long time (>5 years) to invest, since that’s where your college savings should be.

Hack your Roth for tax-free short-term savings (Re-thinking the Roth IRA – Part 2)

You may remember my admonitions that ‘retirement savings are for retirement!’, but today I’m going to show you how to use your Roth as a sort of savings ‘hybrid’: you can use the Roth as short-term savings vehicle AND get the benefits of tax-free interest for retirement. Before we get any further into this, make sure you understand how the Roth IRA works.

You may have decided that investing in a Roth IRA isn’t the best move for your retirement (opting instead for a 401k perhaps.) Contributing to a Roth may still be a smart move, even if you want to use the money sooner rather than at retirement. (Anyone with earned income whose modified adjusted gross income is less than $105,000 can contribute to a Roth IRA, regardless of age or participation in other retirement plans, like a 401k.) Before we delve into the details, I want to let you know that this is an ADVANCED (though not hard) technique. Make sure you understand all the details before deciding to use it. (Post a comment with any questions you have.)

Recall that a Roth IRA lets you contribute after-tax dollars to a variety of investments including index funds, individual stocks and bonds. The benefit over a ‘normal’ taxable account is that the money then grows tax-deferred, meaning you don’t pay interest on reinvested dividends or interest. Plus, if you take out the gains AFTER age 59 1/2, you don’t pay any taxes on those either! The catch is that if you DO take out any gains before turning 59 1/2, you generally must pay a 10% penalty on top of regular income taxes. BUT, because you’re contributing after-tax money already, you can pull out amounts up to the value of your contributions with NO penalties/taxes at any time you want!

For example, say you contributed $2,000 to a Roth IRA in 2007, then another $4,000 in 2008. You can take out up to $6,000 with no penalties/taxes. IF however, your account increased to $7000 in value due to appreciation, you can still only take out up to the $6,000. The extra $1000 gain must remain in the account until you’re 59 1/2 to avoid penalties (with a few exceptions detailed here.)

Since your money accumulates tax-free, you earn a higher after-tax rate of return in a Roth than in a taxable account. If you’re earning say, 6% interest on $5000 and you’re in the 25% tax bracket, your after-tax return is only 4.5% ($225 per year) in a taxable account. If you had that money in a Roth IRA instead, you’d earn the full 6% ($300), which equals 33% more money per year. Over time, small differences in interest rates make a huge impact on your wealth due compounding interest as shown by the below graph.*

Roth IRA vs taxable account - real growth difference

After 5 years, your Roth IRA will have $400 (7.5%) more in it, in 10 years, about $900 (15%) more. When we combine the two facts above, being able to take out contributions at any time plus tax-free growth, we get a great way to use the Roth IRA as BOTH a short-term savings vehicle AND a way to earn higher returns on that money.

First, open a Roth IRA account that is completely SEPARATE from any Roth IRA account you might have designated for retirement. This is because you do NOT want you to think of any Roth money you set aside for short-term savings as retirement money. This makes it easier to keep track of your contributions that you plan to take out. I have two Roth IRA accounts at Vanguard, one for retirement (invested 100% in stock index funds) and one for short-term savings, like emergencies, invested 100% in a diversified bond index fund. Here’s how it looks:

Roth IRA - 1 is for retirement (hands off!) and Roth IRA - 2 is for short-term savings

Next, use an Excel spreadsheet, like the one I developed here, to track your Roth IRA contributions. Your spreadsheet should have at least two columns: one that shows the amount of money you either contributed or took out of ANY of your Roth IRA accounts and one that shows the date of the transaction. To find past contributions, the financial institution where you have your Roth IRA should keep records of these transactions for a few years (or check all Form 5498’s that you might have received from your financial institution(s) over the years.) Make sure you never take out more than you’ve contributed, or you’ll likely face taxes or penalties.

Next, fund your separate, non-retirement Roth IRA with money that you need in the short (or long) term. If you’re saving for the short-term, like an emergency fund, choose a relatively safe investment like a bond or money market fund. The beauty of using a Roth for an emergency fund is that you get the benefits of easily-accessible principle (your contributions) with the added bonus of tax-free growth that can be used for retirement.**

This is great because your emergency funds might be invested for a really long time, if you’re lucky enough to avoid costly emergencies. In light of this, you’d like to maximize your gains by avoiding taxes while the money sits there. You can use a similar strategy when saving for a down payment on your first home. If (and ONLY if) you’ve had a Roth account open for at least 5 years, you can use up to $10,000 of Roth IRA gains towards a first-time home purchase tax- and penalty-free. So in this special case, you can even use the earnings (plus all the contributions) from your Roth IRA.

(Remember, you must have opened a Roth IRA account and deposited money into it at least 5 years ago to use this exception. There is a similar exception for qualified education expenses, except the earnings withdrawals are NOT tax-free, only 10% penalty-free. However, there are better ways to save for education.)

As a final note, remember that the IRS doesn’t care which IRA accounts you deposit to or take money out of, all that matters is your total contributions & distributions from all your Roth IRA accounts combined. (Even so, I strongly recommend keeping Roth accounts you intend to use for short-term events separate from retirement-designated Roths.)

Start using this strategy today by opening a Roth IRA online at a reputable mutual fund house like Vanguard, Fidelity or T. Rowe Price. With minimum initial deposits as low as $50 for T. Rowe Price, there’s no excuse for not starting a Roth.

* The graph is inflation-adjusted because we always want to talk about ‘real dollars’, aka purchasing power. Another way of saying this is that we don’t really care about how many dollars we have, but how much stuff we can buy with them. If we didn’t factor in inflation, we would actually understate how valuable the tax-savings from a Roth are.

** If you really want to optimize your investment performance, you could periodically (perhaps annually) move the gains on your non-retirement Roth into a Roth you’ve designated for retirement. You would do this in order to move these gains (which shouldn’t be taken out until retirement) into a more volatile long-term investment, like a stock index fund, rather than having them sit in a stable, but lower expected return, short-term investment.