Short Takes: Safe Retirement Income, Buying Less Stuff, and more

BMO has expanded its marketing to me.  It used to just alternate between low-interest credit card balance transfer offers and offers to give me a few thousand dollars if I deposit a few million dollars in my account.  They seemed to figure out that I’m between those two extremes.  Now they want me to come in for a personalized financial plan because “Research shows that advised households accumulate 2.31 times more assets after 15 years!”  Of course, this research is deeply flawed.  Further, I’m not interested in their ridiculously overpriced mutual funds.

I wrote one post in the past two weeks:

A Conversation about Wealth Inequality

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Morningstar Research says the 4% rule is now more like a 3.3% rule, but that we can spend more safely if we’re flexible about adapting to market returns.  One part of the report that I disagree with is too much reliance on spending less as you age.  It’s true that you’ll probably naturally want to spend less when you’re 85 than when you’re 65.  However, it doesn’t make sense to plan for reduced real spending at too young an age.

Andrew Hallam makes a strong case for becoming happier by buying less stuff.

Justin Bender explains some key concepts about asset location strategies in both text and video.

Doug Hoyes explains how debt settlement firms exploit people who need to file a consumer proposal.