danube steak wrote:
I don't need to live 130 years. I have made a killing since 2009 just buying and buying and buying.
Yep. I have made a killing since 1989 just buying and buying and buying. In the big crash that encompassed 2007, 2008, 2009, the only down year for me was 2008. I bought all the way down (so stocks for CHEAP), and by the end of 2011, I was back to where I had been before the crash. Big deal.
I decided then that I was NOT going to buy any bonds later on to make my portfolio more conservative. Instead, all of my investments would be in stocks, BUT when I retire (and I already have this), I would make sure to have 3 YEARS of expenses in a liquid account not attached to the stock market.
I do not need that money for anything else. I own my home outright. I have zero debt. The ONLY purpose of that money is to tide me over in retirement in case of a BIG market crash. With that plus any Social Security I will get (if the crash happens after I am taking Social Security), I could easily make it 5 years without much sacrifice, allowing my retirement money to come back. If that were to happen, depending on how old I was then, I might not need to replenish the 3 year emergency fund.
I did not plan to have this 3 year emergency fund in place so early. Really the plan was to have it in place when both my wife and I are retired, but she still wants to work for 6 more years at her college professor job, and I will be completely retired in about 9 more months. But, with no debt and already a ton of my money going each month to retirement accounts (which we don't even need to do anymore), this money just kind of grew on its own without much trying on my part. It is possible I will find a home project to spend it on and then just build it back up before my wife retires in 6 years, but right now I have no plans to do that.