This isn't the 2010s era with ultra low fixed income yields. If you intend to retire early, please educate yourself on the state of the market
Buying a 4.625% yielding bond does not require selling principal at all.
But you're taking my point too literally. You can easily buy a 6 or 7% yielding bond that is lower risk than equities, but still paying far more in a more certain fashion
You can buy REITs today paying 6% that will grow rents around the rate of inflation (O is one example).
You can far surpass a 4% yield on cost in year 1, while also locking in inflation adjusted income growth today, very trivially, without selling one dollar of principal.
Unfortunately any thread on this is drowned out by uninformed people, or people who don't understand retirement is first and foremost about securing a stable (and non anxiety inducing) cash flow. Not growing wealth maximally.
There have been many times in history where the broad index has been flat for years. 2000 to 2010 is a famous more recent period. Would you be comfortable selling 4% a year into year 9, having watched your wealth decline materially over the last decade?
I guarantee you the retiree in bonds getting 5% and maintaining 100% of their principal is experiencing much less anxiety. And bonds give you the optionality to swap to equities in a down market like 2000 or 2008
[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi
That's a fairly aggressive statement for someone that doesn't know what the 4% rule is. It's definitely not this
> The 4% rule suggests selling 4% of your principal per year.
No, it doesn't. You misunderstand the 4% rule. The 4% rule states you sell 4% of your principal in the first year, then inflation-adjust the 4% value every year. If the stock market rockets and your portfolio jumps 30%, you still only sell/spend 4%+inflation. If your portfolio drops 20%, you still sell/spend 4% of first year + inflation.
> There have been many times in history where the broad index has been flat for years. 2000 to 2010 is a famous more recent period. Would you be comfortable selling 4% a year into year 9, having watched your wealth decline materially over the last decade?
This is exactly why the 4% rule has the allocation be 60% equities, 40% bonds, rebalancing every year. Bonds have their place for reducing volatility.
> I guarantee you the retiree in bonds getting 5% and maintaining 100% of their principal is experiencing much less anxiety. And bonds give you the optionality to swap to equities in a down market like 2000 or 2008
If you're 100% bonds, what criteria would you ever use to get back into equities?
30 years? The author of the article is 47 years old, and his wife is 43. What happens if they live to be 80?
You can lock in today's treasury rates for 30 years by buying a 30Y treasury bond.
So, yes, they will last if you understand where to put your money. The options are extremely numerous and plentiful now in cash flowing assets, and you don't have to deal with the uncertainty of selling off principal in down markets to finance your retirement
[0] https://www.treasurydirect.gov/marketable-securities/treasur...
The easiest way is probably being in a country that requires part time to be offered.
Before you start working somewhere you can ask for all sorts of nonstandard things.
Not sure about bigger tech, but I did a 4 day week for a bit and I'd shift the weekends, so I'd have a 4 day weekend then a day weekend then a 4, with 4 days of work between.
They scrub the toilets, serve the food, mow the campus lawns and classify pictures for the ai.
