Daily Money - The Investor’s Survival Guide

What are your retirement plans?
I’m expecting (or hoping) to retire by age 60, if not sooner, so I’m fine tuning my investments and trying to travel more and pick up some new hobbies to help me transition into retirement. COVID has obviously impacted the travel, but my wife and I still make it a point to take a decent (four or five night) road trip every couple of months.

Nice! What kind of portfolio moves are you making?
My first was about eight years ago, when I moved my 401(k) allocation to about 70% bonds and 30% stocks. At the time, the 401(k) was about 95% invested in stocks, and at about 40% of my total portfolio, it made my overall allocation too stock heavy for a guy looking to retire in 10 years. I figured I could afford to limit the risk and suffer a smaller return for more steady (but slow) growth while upping my bond weighting. That worked like a charm and my 401 (k) is now about 50-50 stock bonds and is stable. And at still about 30% of my total portfolio, that amount works pretty well, and will continue to grow in the bond area for the foreseeable (still working) future.

What are you most looking forward to about retirement?
I play jazz piano in my spare time [but] I find at the end of a long day, it’s difficult to sit at the piano and be creative. Once I retire, I’ll be able to use all my energy on my own endeavors, travel and music, and that should make them both more meaningful and productive. I may even find some time to revive my jazz blog.