How Old Are You And What Is Your Goal Using The PP?

[Reub]

I am 55 and use the PP for retaining wealth while keeping assets growing with stability above the rate of inflation.

How about you?

[Storm]

I'm 38 and using the PP along with saving 40% of my income to hopefully retire about 10-15 years early.

[moda0306]

27 and using the PP to save whatever I don't feel like spending... no long-term goals yet.

[Reido]

I'm 30 and using the permanent portfolio as a tool to safely invest money for a house, kids college, and retirement.

[Indices]

I am 32 and using it to fulfill my plans to conquer the world.

I'm surprised at moda's age. I thought he was much older.

[moda0306]

I'm surprised at moda's age. I thought he was much older.

How old is much older?  I should get an Avatar with some youthful image I guess.

Wait 'til you hear what Melveyr has to say a few times.  He's 21 and pretty dang smart.... runs some kind of PP-esque blog.

Should I feel bad that it pisses me off that someone 21 knows the intricacies of the PP, and therefore is extremely unlikely to make the money gaffes many of us have?  I realize 6 years isn't that much time, but in your 20's 6 years can be a lifetime of debt-repayment.

I wouldn't be surprised if MT was a 200 year old wizard.

[Indices]

I'm surprised at moda's age. I thought he was much older.

How old is much older?  I should get an Avatar with some youthful image I guess.

Wait 'til you hear what Melveyr has to say a few times.  He's 21 and pretty dang smart.... runs some kind of PP-esque blog.

Should I feel bad that it pisses me off that someone 21 knows the intricacies of the PP, and therefore is extremely unlikely to make the money gaffes many of us have?  I realize 6 years isn't that much time, but in your 20's 6 years can be a lifetime of debt-repayment.

I wouldn't be surprised if MT was a 200 year old wizard.

I know Melveyr is 21 which is even more shocking. I visualized that everyone on this board was a bunch of bearded bitter old men sitting around a campfire trading investing stories. I of course was the only somewhat young person.

[Reub]

I wish that I was as financially savvy when I was 21!

[moda0306]

I bought $8/case beer every other turn when I was 21... if you'd told me to buy a savings bond or LT treasuries over the S&P 500 or a rental property I would have laughed in your face.  The year was 2005.

I feel like an odd combination of reborn and a wise old man, now.

[MediumTex]

I'm 41 and my goal in using the PP is to find as many interesting people as possible to talk to about a wide range of subjects.

[l82start]

42 soon to be 43, and preserve the Small amount of wealth i have...
  started out with a field of dreams "if i build it they will come" idea about understanding investments and building a portfolio...  still looking at a mostly empty field, but i am not worried about loosing the few players that i do have...

[KevinW]

31.  PP is for early financial independence (retirement), putting an end to time spent researching alternatives, and feeling confident that my wife can manage the portfolio if she needs to.

[Reido]

This is really impressive, I definitely would have thought I was among the few young ones on this thread.

The intricate knowledge of finance and economics that many of you have is incredible.  If you go to other sites, like Bogleheads or Seekingalpha, the conversations seem to revolve around heresay and preconcieved notions, whereas posts to this site are much more objective and thought-out.

I do have to assume many of you have strong backgrounds in economics, accounting, or business though, correct?

[SteveGo]

64

Using the PP to for stability, income, and reasonable performance.

[HB Reader]

59, married and retired.

The PP (2/3 of our investments) is our long term "safety net" since we have no children and have not purchased long term care insurance.  We draw mostly on our VP for income over and above our pensions.  We don't plan to draw more than 2% a year, at most, from our PP unless we are forced to.

My background is in finance and law enforcement. 

[AdamA]

36.  I'm using it to save what I don't spend.

[hogtied]

60 and retired 2 years.  Using the PP to supplement my pension (which accounts for 63% of our monthly expenses).  So far we have not had to go into our PP principal.

[Gumby]

35. Using the PP for wealth preservation and just hope to match or beat inflation slightly.

Lost too much money with a risky stock portfolio (though Enron didn't seem risky at the time) and made it all back with a %2,500 gain from AAPL. I was lucky to make it all back, but it took a long time to go nowhere. I will never trade stocks again, since I'm clearly not very good at it.

In early 2008 I discovered the wonders of passive investing and averaged-in to an Aronson Lazy Portfolio, but was unimpressed with how poorly most passive portfolios performed in 2008. Wound up right where I started again after a year and a half. Stumbled upon the PP in early 2010, just before the Flash Crash — been happy every since.

[MarySB]

Well, they say it's not polite to ask a lady her age, especially an "old f---" like me! So far, I am the most ancient one of the group. Dare I say it? 65 and still going strong, like the Energizer bunny.

I am using the PP to supply the COLA's that my teacher retirement has decided not to fund. But, in the five years I have been retired---and DH four years retired---we have used very little of our savings. So, we can be around for awhile and not worry about eating cat food---at least, not yet!

[Tortoise]

I'm 32, and my main purpose in using the PP is simply peace of mind. I loathe stress.

No plans to retire early. I plan to eventually find something I enjoy doing so much that I'll want to do it for the rest of my life.

[foglifter]

47, using PP to save for retirement, I wish I knew about it at least 10 years ago.

[AdamA]

My background is in finance and law enforcement. 

Was that combined into one career?

[stone]

I'm 41, I'm not sure what my PP goal is. We had savings in a bank account and I thought it "irresponsible" to not "do something" with them. I came perilously close to buying into the whole "get a bunch of stock mutual funds" trap but couldn't make sense of the dissonance between the "more risk more reward" sales patter and my own impression of arithmetic that a 50% loss requires a 100% gain. I also found it dissonant that supposidly the FTSE100 had made a loss over ten years and yet the City of London had bankrolled a period of spectacular squander. The PP was the first thing I came across that made any sense to me about finance.
I found finding out about investing a very grim experience even though I didn't actually put any money down before starting a PP apart from buying a stock mutal fund and selling it a month later at a slight profit. It shook my world view and my outlook on human nature and on my own character.

HB reader has said he has a background in the US treasury and Moda says he's an accountant (sorry if I have got that wrong) but I've been struck at how this site seems to have very few people with a finance grounding (am I wrong about that?). From what I have gathered this site seems to have lawyers, software engineers, medics etc. I work with molecular biology. In that regard this site seems a stark contrast to say Billyblog (a MMT site) that seems to  have many economists and bankers posting. It seems as though the PP appeals to people who do NOT have a professional knowledge of money. That did actually spook me a bit.

[jackely]

62 and still working. No plans on retiring until I have to. Been gradually moving all my assets into the PP throughout the course of the year mostly to avoid a repeat of the 2008 debacle watching my T.Rowe Price "Target Date" fund lose 40% of its value. Very happy with performance so far (with HB PP that is, PRPFX not so much).

[MediumTex]

It seems as though the PP appeals to people who do NOT have a professional knowledge of money. That did actually spook me a bit.

I think part of the reason for this is that many of us have discovered that "a professional knowledge of money" doesn't really mean that much, considering how poorly professional money managers tend to do against their benchmarks over long periods of time.

It seems as if people arrive at the PP after exploring other more traditional approaches to investing and simply finding them unsatisfying.  I think it's sort of like a person showing up at a Buddhist monastery after spending years going to a psychiatrist and taking various psychoactive drugs.