You still are mistakenly stuck on some idea that my portfolio was static all those years. That would be INCORRECT! Moved stuff around, added new funds, kept others but cut contributions down, etc. You know, I haven't claimed to have made 20% a year or something like that. My average annual return is just SLIGHLTY better than what the Dow has done since 1989. If I were going to lie, I'd lie BIG (I don't lie...not one time in my adult life).
You people are beyond silly. Seattle, YOU say you have done better than I have. No one is questioning you on that claim, and I couldn't care less if you have. What you have or haven't made doesn't affect my retirement. Anyway, just in case you all thought differently, I find this HILARIOUS that you are so concerned about my portfolio. I am not bothered in the slightest about it, and I hope you all continue to doubt, because I'll just look at my spreadsheet and know that my stuff has done what it has done.
The problem you people have is that you think investing in the stock market is a "who has a bigger d!ck" contest because you assign machismo and intellect to it where none is required. I got very lucky with a few moves, and lucky that the two stocks I was forced to own (well, I could have decided not to accept a match) did well during the time I owned them (and they were then both a decent portion of my portfolio, so they affected the overall performance a decent amount. The ONLY thing I do better than probably more than 99% of investors is that I ALWAYS invest like clockwork and ALWAYS just about as much as I can handle while still having a life...we still invest today because The Lovely Mrs. Flagpole still works. We don't need to invest, but it's just automatically set up and we don't need the extra income, so we continue to invest.
AND, just to recap the last 3 calendar years...I LOST to the Dow by a LOT in 2022. I beat the Dow handily in 2023. I am currently LOSING to the Dow in 2024, but just by a little. Today my stuff is more static than ever before, and because of that, I expect to lose to the Dow much more frequently than before...kind of ironic since I'm a much more educated investor today, but that's how luck works.