Appreciate you stopping by Integrator!

Best of luck with your investment diversification! Real estate, P2P lending, and DGI sound like great options to me, and a solid foundation for anyone looking to maximize their passive income. Continue working on the blog and focusing in your goals and I have no doubt in my mind you’ll nail them!

Greatly appreciate your support and thanks for reading Huw!

I couldn’t agree more, nice post!

I’m primarily a DGI, but I have dabbled in Peer-to-Peer lending, and I’m interested in eventually buying a property to let out. I think it’s important to be open in most things in life and investing is no different for me. We can all limit the risk of an investment by educating ourselves, researching the area, and communicating to people that are successful in that field.
You’re so right, it really doesn’t mater how we get there, just as long as we’re heading in the right direction. We all share the same destination – Freedom, but there are many routes to achieving it.
On a side note, the comments to this post are so encouraging. I’m new to investing and blogging, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with just how supportive, positive and motivating everyone is!

Good luck on your goals this year, I look forward to seeing how you progress.

Huw

The DG/Financial Independence community is an awesome community, and the support shown to one another is fantastic.

Thanks for your support and stopping by Ryan.

I’m excited to see what you do with your freedom once you earn it! I vote for more time writing Being financially independent is such a great idea and I could work if I wanted or not. To have that choice would be so amazing! It’s really far off for me, but this community has helped teach me many different ways how it can be possible. It’s awesome that everyone interacts and is so supportive of each other.

Thank you W2R!

I agree, the 4% rule is more than likely plenty for the vast majority of folks as they will likely have other income sources in their life. My thoughts on it are less about the pure math, but the psychology that goes behind selling assets to live in retirement, early or not.

Ultimately, I see you as someone who doesn’t want to sell unless compelled to (putting assets into other revenue streams). Makes selling some TSLA just to pay the bills a bit more of a complicated decision for an investor. I’m the same way. That is why I am planning on avoiding selling any of my assets down the road through developing enough income streams to support my lifestyle.

Appreciate your support, readership, and comments Mr!

The other thing about the 4% rule is that I believe it assumes no other income. Even if/when I quit my main job, I enjoy programming, so I may do some freelance stuff. Also, the wife just got her real estate license. If she just helped buy or sell a couple houses per year, that is 5 to 10K in additional income. Then there is social security.

Yep, selling is the hard part. I always like Warren Buffett’s quote that the ‘ideal holding time to buy a stock is forever.’ However, you better be sure that company is going to be around forever.

Speaking of Buffet, I sold about 25% of my Apple a month ago and bought Berkshire Hathaway with the proceeds. Even without Munger and Buffett around, I believe that Berkshire will be healthy for a long, long time. I also like that it tends to outperform the market in downturns (I expect one soon).

I think Google is the strongest company of that bunch. I’m holding on to that one with no sell date in sight.

I’m also not worried about facebook. The biggest threat to them is some other social network catching on and going the way of MySpace. I think Zuck is a pretty smart dude though. Also, they have barely started to turn the monetization screws.

I also think Tesla has some strong, competitive advantages. There are other electric cars out there, but none have the free charging network. Also, Musk’s planned battery production facility should bring down costs. The battery is the single most expensive part. Also, Tesla has Musk at the helm. Love that guy!

As you can see, I cling to my investments tightly! However, I’d sell a portion of each to get into rentals.

As for the 4% rule, I think it has some merit, but like with peer to peer lending filters, you are examining things historically. It is easy to find a great filter, but you always must be aware that you are backing into the information. I can find commonality and a general standard for most anything if I start at the results and work backwards. That is the essence of the 4% rule. As you’ve alluded to, diversification is key, and should insulate you beyond what the 4% rule dictates. A couple of rental properties kicking off income will be a huge boon to your portfolio and will help serve as a hedge to your equity holdings. Overall, diversification and a solid margin of safety will be your best friend, regardless of what you point you throw in the towel and call it a career.

I’ve asked before when you plan on selling your FB, TSLA, GOOG, and APPL holdings, and there is some uncertainty there as you respond about when to pull the trigger. Projecting further, are you comfortable selling $40, $50, or $60,000 of your holdings if life mandated it? Selling is always the hard part as emotionally we feel timing is everything. That is very much something I think about when I plan on developing a significant passive income stream. Sure, I have a healthy amount of index funds in retirement accounts, but ultimately why worry about selling my assets, stocks or otherwise, if they produce enough income to live off of indefinitely. For me, this means a few rentals, dividend growth stocks, and P2P lending. Those by themselves will probably far exceed any 4% rule requirement, but that is neither her nor there.

Man… I should probably write a post about this! Haha thanks for stopping by Mr!

I’d like to hear your thoughts on the 4% rule sometime. I like it, but there is the possibility for terrible events that now that were far more remote 25 years ago. One example is a nuke attack on a major US city,

This is also why I need to be more diversified. I’d love a couple rentals.