SAVE 30% OF INCOME? No way.
That’s been my reaction whenever I’ve read about people saving 30% or more. I look back and think about making monthly mortgage payments, raising four children, paying for college and trying to save something to supplement my pension. For my wife and me, a 30% savings rate simply wasn’t possible. Nevertheless, people do it.
To find out more, I asked folks on a Facebook retirement planning group, “How do you save 30%?” The responses boiled down to nine key factors.

WITH STOCK PRICES so high and interest rates so low, many folks are thinking about buying gold. Tempted to take the plunge? Ponder these nine issues:
1. No income. Gold pays no interest or dividends. That means gold’s return hinges entirely on its price going up. Gold ownership also means you must forgo the interest and dividends you’d have otherwise earned on alternative investments. Still, with interest rates so low, the opportunity cost of owning gold—at least in terms of lost income—is very low right now.

THIS IS THE STORY of how I thought I’d successfully timed the market—but didn’t.
I started investing in 2007, when the stock market peaked, which wasn’t great. But then came 2009 to 2019. Stocks enjoyed the longest and one of the strongest bull markets in history, averaging some 15% a year. Thanks to that great bull market, my wife and I found ourselves with more in our taxable mutual funds than we owed on our home mortgage.

IN THE ONGOING battle between those who believe that the stock market is in a bubble and those who don’t, you may have heard mention of something called CAPE, short for cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio. Among market indicators, it has the strongest track record in predicting future market returns.
What does the CAPE ratio say about today’s market? It’s flashing red. According to CAPE, the U.S. stock market is more overpriced today than it has been at any time since the 2000 market peak.

ARE FINANCIAL MARKETS in a bubble? It’s a question I’ve never liked. I believe stocks and bonds are fairly valued most of the time, which means it’s extraordinarily difficult to beat the market averages and our best bet is to buy index funds.
But at the same time, during my adult life, there have been three key occasions when markets lost touch with reality: Japanese stocks and real estate in the late 1980s, technology stocks in the late 1990s and housing in the mid-2000s.