Now and then I check in on a blog called "Don to Earth," which belongs to 94-year-old Donald Crowdis of Canada. In one post, he laments: "The truth is, I don't want to go ... For too long I have behaved as if I could postpone going indefinitely, and thus have so many things that I must do first. I don't want my successors to find out how much I could have done that isn't done, not by a long shot."
This made me think of all the things I'd like to do, but don't get around to. I may end up, at age 94, still wishing I'd done them, and that would be a shame. Don's other posts offer more lessons I'd like to share.
For starters, think about his age: 94. Many of us expect to live into our 80s, but don't think about our 90s and beyond. This can be dangerous, because if we don't plan to have sufficient financial resources throughout our entire life, we can end up running out of money before we run out of breath. And the truth is, some of us will live to 90, to 95, and some even beyond 100.
One way to guarantee income for life is via income annuities. These can make sense for some of us, since relying completely on stocks can be risky, at least in the short term. For example, consider the Oakmark Select I (FUND: OAKLX) fund. Despite the reverence many have for its managers, the fund has underperformed the market over the past five years, averaging 6% returns. (Its 10-year average of 9% blows away the overall market, though.) The fund's top holdings recently included H&R Block (NYSE: HRB), Home Depot (NYSE: HD), Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM), Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), and Xerox (NYSE: XRX). Part of the problem may be that the fund is invested in a bunch of turnaround stories that have yet to really turnaround.
Finally, Don offers this advice: "All through my growing up years, the benefits of being careful and waiting until I had some advantage were emphasized to me. And the flip side of being watchful in order to avoid trouble is that while observing developments, opportunities stare at you, first to make friends, and second to get in on good things early."
Thanks, Don!
