Smoke and Mirrors with a $1 Million Portfolio
Mark Crothers | Sep 11, 2025
Everyone wants more security for their retirement savings, and outside of Social Security, the most reliable way to achieve this is often the much-maligned annuity. The main issue for many people is losing control of a large chunk of their retirement pot—they simply don't like the idea. But what if you could get some of the security an annuity provides without giving up control of your cash? No solution is perfect, but this idea might be of interest. I recently read about the perpetual withdrawal rate, a strategy that back-testing has shown will never run out of money. You could mentally set aside a portion of your portfolio and use the 2.5% perpetual withdrawal rate to act as a substitute for an annuity, possibly to fund your essential expenses. You would still have full control and full market upside, but with much more confidence in the money's ability to last your lifetime. You could then use a guardrail strategy for the balance of your portfolio to fund your wants. Research has shown this flexible approach can support a higher withdrawal rate than the original 4% rule. The result would be a portion of near-guaranteed income combined with a higher, more flexible withdrawal rate for your discretionary spending. How would this work with the commonly used million-dollar portfolio example? Imagine you needed an extra $10,000 of essential income beyond your Social Security payments. You could apply the Perpetual Withdrawal Rate (PWR) to $400,000 of your portfolio to generate this secure income stream. Then, with the remaining $600,000, you could apply a dynamic withdrawal strategy, starting with a 4.5% withdrawal rate. This would provide you with a discretionary income of $27,000. Combining these two amounts gives you a total of $37,000, or 3.7% of your original portfolio. While this is a small…
Read more » What If You Don’t Want to See the World?
Mark Crothers | Aug 28, 2025
From my readings on this site, I seem to be in the minority on a particularly popular and expensive retirement pastime: foreign travel. Over the years, I've traveled a fair part of the world, from wide-ranging business travel throughout Europe and extensive global leisure travel on every continent other than, strangely enough, the Americas (except for the Caribbean). I still travel. For instance, I was in the Canary Islands just off the coast of North Africa for a 60th birthday celebration in February, and I'm meeting a friend from London in Spain for a week in late September. Suzie and I are currently organizing a trip for next August to see a total solar eclipse. But my enthusiasm for foreign travel has waned these last few years. Part of it, I think, is a subtle shift from the thrill of novelty to a deeper appreciation for more settled pursuits. After years of navigating airports, packing suitcases, and adjusting to new time zones, the sheer hassle of foreign travel has started to feel less like an adventure and more like a task. With so many popular destinations becoming increasingly crowded, the quiet, more peaceful moments seem harder to find. It strikes me that most would think this is a most inconvenient time to be losing interest in travel. After all, I'm only 58 and just recently retired. This is supposed to be the time! Get to it! Travel through the go-go years, the world's your oyster! But my travel now seems to have evolved alongside myself, tied to more purposeful and personal reasons. I have no real enthusiasm for destination travel. It has to have a meaningful reason now. Another example to illustrate my point, I'm thinking of visiting my cousin in Australia who recently lost her husband. I think it's…
Read more » Hitting the Pause Button
Mark Crothers | Dec 31, 2025
New Year’s Eve is the ultimate reminder that the clock never stops. As we prepare to flip the calendar, it’s natural to look back at the year, and the decades, gone by. We often focus on what we want to change in the future, but rarely do we consider which part of the journey we’d actually like to keep. Youth has many advantages—health, strength, vigor, and vitality. Everything feels possible, and you're certain you know what's right and wrong in the world. Sure, there are downsides: the struggle to forge a career, juggling money problems, and the exasperation with managers who don't see what you see. But overall, being young is intoxicating. Being older has its own rewards. You're typically settled into a career, equipped with the life experience to weather the setbacks that come with being human. Money causes less anxiety, and somewhere along the way, you've figured out what actually makes you happy. Here's a thought experiment for the final hours of the year. If you could look back through your lifetime and hit pause at any age, freezing yourself there indefinitely—what age would you choose? Why that particular moment? For me, it would be right now at 58. I have financial stability, a mediocre sprinkling of wisdom, and a high dose of contentment, all while my health still holds up. It took decades of work to reach this equilibrium, and I’m in no rush to move past it. So, as we head into 2026, what about you? When would you hit pause?
Read more » Wealth: A Short List on How to Recognize It
Mark Crothers | Nov 10, 2025
The old adage "money can't buy you happiness" is a concise articulation of a simple truth: there are much more important things in life than the accumulation of riches. A reminder of the shortcomings of wealth can be a positive step toward embracing other, more meaningful uses of our time rather than focusing on the value of one's portfolio and constant low-level worry about the markets. And, after all, we all love a little list. So what are these intrinsic values, and what do they really look like in real life? Meaningful Relationships: The People Who Still Answer Your Calls: They know your terrible singing voice, they saw you cry over a burnt pizza, and they still haven't filed a restraining order. That's true, priceless commitment. Health: The Ability to Get Up Without Grunting: A morning where your knees don't sound like a popcorn machine and you can touch your toes (even briefly) is a monumental health victory. Purpose and Meaning: Finding the Right Netflix Series: You've committed. You're invested. You know the characters better than your actual neighbors. It may not save the world, but it gets you through Tuesday. Autonomy and Mastery: Opening a Jar on the First Try: The fleeting, glorious moment where you conquer a piece of factory-sealed glass. You are a titan. You are the master of friction. You earned that pickle. Gratitude and Presence: The Uninterrupted Hot Shower: The simple, exquisite joy of not running out of hot water, not being interrupted by a doorbell, and finding the perfect water pressure. You are here, and the steam is glorious. So there we go. If you can tick all the boxes on the intrinsic value list, you've totally got your life together. Personally, I'm still working on the Netflix series—I'm rubbish at long-term commitments.
Read more » Taste Bud Training
Mark Crothers | May 22, 2026
I confess. Sometimes I push the envelope of frugality so far it crosses into tightwad territory. I've recently taken a detour down that particular avenue with outcomes that, as I explained to my wife Suzie, were "not uniformly aligned with projected benchmarks." I've taken to calling it taste bud training. I'm a creature of grocery habit, same brands, same shelf, barely a second thought. So when my usual spaghetti was out of stock, I found myself actually browsing the pasta aisle for once. That's when I spotted the own-brand equivalent sitting there at 39 cents, next to the $2 packet I'd been buying without question for years. I took the plunge, and my spaghetti Bolognese tasted exactly the same. That small victory got me hooked on intentional own-brand switching. Own-brand butter, cornflakes, slightly wonky-looking fruit and vegetables all tasted fine, and the savings started rolling in. Dollars cheaper per shop. I may have mentioned it to Suzie on more than one occasion, the smugness was considerable. Naturally, I decided to step it up a notch. On my next visit I went out on a limb: own-brand porridge, balsamic vinegar, olive oil that came in $70 cheaper than my usual bottle, an XL bag of dry roasted peanuts, and a bottle of merlot from the basics wine range. Over $90 saved on a single basket of goods. Wonderful. Then the taste bud training kicked in, hard. The porridge was “different”, and I'm being charitable with that word. The olive oil didn't make the grade. The balsamic vinegar was sharp and deeply unpleasant. I consoled myself with a handful of dry roasted peanuts and a glass of wine. The nuts were small, oddly flavoured, and missing the satisfying crunch of my usual brand. As for the wine, it was a revelation. Not…
Read more » The Illusion of Wealth
Mark Crothers | Jun 27, 2025
I was sitting on the deck of my holiday home, enjoying the morning sunshine and breakfast, when a deep rumble announced the arrival of an expensive, sporty car. It was my neighbour. He's a very nice man in his 40s who always dresses impeccably, with two well-turned-out kids and an immaculate wife – to all intents and purposes, a family living the dream. Contrast that with me: I drive a seven-year-old SUV with 70,000 miles on the clock, habitually run around in shorts and T-shirts, own three pairs of trainers, one pair of dress shoes, and exactly one suit. It's obvious there's no comparison in who's "winning the game of life"... or is there? About 18 months ago, a conversation started when I mentioned I'd just paid off the mortgage because my wife was retiring. My neighbour then spoke with pride about his ability to juggle credit cards, expertly transferring balances with 0% transfer rates. However, he also revealed a concern about his own mortgage. As is common in the UK, his rate was fixed for five years, and with two years left on his 1.25% rate, he couldn't see how he'd afford the jump to around 5%. That nice car, the designer clothes, the immaculate facade – they all come with a hefty, often hidden, price tag. While my neighbour projected an image of success, his confession about juggling credit cards and his anxiety over the impending mortgage hike painted a different picture. This isn't just about the obvious payments for the car or the latest fashion; it's the relentless pressure to maintain a certain lifestyle. The "keeping up with the Joneses" trap is real, amplified by social media. People feel immense pressure to project prosperity, even if it means accumulating significant debt. This pursuit often takes a quiet…
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