Here’s a quick look at some of things that caught my eye over the past week…

JLP wants to know how much you spend on your household bills.
FMF has some tips for improving your home’s value with a steam cleaner.
But MBH disagrees&#82…

Conservative:

The fund does not buy securities directly; instead, it invests in six Savings
Plan Funds: the Stable Value Fund, the Inflation Protected Bond Fund, the
Total Bond Market Fund, the Real Estate Investment Trust Index Fund, the
Total Stock Market Index Fund, and the Total International Stock Market
Index Fund. This gives the fund exposure to a broadly diversified group of
U.S. and foreign stocks and various types of bonds. The fund’s target asset
allocation between stocks and bonds is 50% stocks, 50% bonds. The current
target allocation is 20% Stable Value Fund, 25% Inflation Protected Bond
Fund, 5% Total Bond Market Fund, 10% Real Estate Investment Trust Index
Fund, 30% Total Stock Market Index Fund, and 10% Total International
Stock Market Index Fund. State Street Global Advisors rebalances the fund
every month to the target allocations. For detailed information on the
underlying funds that comprise the Conservative Life Strategy Fund, please read the corresponding fund fliers.

Moderate:

The fund does not buy securities directly; instead, it invests in six Saving
Plan Funds: the Stable Value Fund, the Inflation Protected Bond Fund, the
Total Bond Market Fund, the Real Estate Investment Trust Index Fund, the
Total Stock Market Index Fund, and the Total International Stock Market
Index Fund. This gives the fund exposure to a broadly diversified group
of U.S. and foreign stocks and various types of bonds. The fund’s target
asset allocation between stocks and bonds is 65% stocks, 35% bonds.
The current target allocation is 10% Stable Value Fund, 15% Inflation
Protected Bond Fund, 10% Total Bond Market Fund, 5% Real Estate
Investment Trust Index Fund, 45% Total Stock Market Index Fund, and
15% Total International Stock Market Index Fund. State Street Global
Advisors rebalances the fund every month to the target allocations. For
detailed information on the underlying funds that comprise the Moderate
Life Strategy Fund, please read the corresponding fund fliers.

Aggressive:

The fund does not buy securities directly; instead, it invests in four Savings
Plan Funds: the Total Bond Market Fund, the Real Estate Investment Trust
Index Fund, the Total Stock Market Index Fund, and the Total International
Stock Market Index Fund. This gives the fund exposure to a broadly
diversified group of U.S. and foreign stocks and various types of bonds.
The fund’s target asset allocation between stocks and bonds is 85% stocks,
15% bonds. The current target allocation is 15% Total Bond Market Fund,
5% Real Estate Investment Trust Index Fund, 60% Total Stock Market Index
Fund, and 20% Total International Stock Market Index Fund. State Street
Global Advisors rebalances the fund every month to the target allocations.
For detailed information on the underlying funds that comprise the
Aggressive Life Strategy Fund, please read the corresponding fund fliers.

Not going to post the entire flier…

Empty Spaces, makes sense…but how much time do you give your investments to make it to 3x? The main gripe I have against all the advice about being aggressive is that the main premise is time. We have lots of time. But if the first ten years don’t work out, that’s lost time. Then suddenly the recommendation is to shift our investments to more moderate allocations? Then what happens if we wait 20 years for our aggressive funds to return?

Consider the following evidence…My 401k program has 3 tiers titled, “Conservative,” “Moderate,” and “Aggressive.” It has fund performance for the past 5 years.

Fund – 1 year 3 years 5 years
Conservative – 7.4% 11.3% 7.8%
Moderate – 7.9% 12.2% 7.1%
Aggressive – 9.1% 14.0% 6.9%

In the end, the conservative fund is up higher than moderate and aggressive funds. Is it worth it to be aggressive? I dunno…

If you’re taking any risk, you should expect atleast a 3 fold reward.

For example, if you invest $4k in a speculative stock and decide to bail if it drops 25%, your at risk capital is $1k. So you should expect a return of $3k to justify the risk.

If you risking $1k and your upside is $2k its not worth it!

Sorry for the rambling…this was kind of a rant…just because all the recommendations always say to be aggressive while you’re young.