Thread by @rsnbrgr

@johnmccumber @film_girl My wife cried & screamed to cut our losses when the market crashed in 1987. I wrote to our mutual fund: "give me some good news."

They wrote back: "We recently sold 90,000 $JNJ at $3/$2 per share and we just bought it all back!"

We saw a LOT of capital gains for it in 1991...

@johnmccumber @film_girl I don't recall the strike prices back then (and the stock has split a few times) but the crash made all blue chip stocks so cheap that the mutual fund saved milllllllions buying back $JNJ

So I *went* for it in the 2008 crash after Denise's death. Let's just say "I was free..."

@johnmccumber @film_girl I knew well enough to NEVER play with "margin calls" in a down market. I pulled everything together and went into a conglomerate that provides funding to blue chip stock when markets fall.

Blue chips want funding to build & tool up to get ahead of their competitors...

@johnmccumber @film_girl ...but it's stupid to sell their own stock in a crash. So they turn to loans.

"Sorry, builders: we're halting phase 2 of our plant construction *unless* we can work out a better deal..."

Each month I'd get a stack of paperwork showing massive swings in profit or losses.

@johnmccumber @film_girl I joined it in the fall of 2008 and I continued until December 2010 when I couldn't take it any more.

My financial advisor asked me to open a second checkbook to ease my move back into a "normal" financial profile.

That should've been a clue.

@johnmccumber @film_girl On 17 January 2011 I took a half-day off work to sign the papers.

Elizabeth, my advisor, had it strewn across an entire conference table -- with checks already made out -- all with colorful little arrow stickers saying "sign here" and "date here"

@johnmccumber @film_girl THE first thing of substance she said was [paraphrased] "we lost some clients who took a bloodbath when they pulled out of the market to convert it to gold & bonds. You did the opposite: you kept what you had and you reinvested all your liquid assets."

@johnmccumber @film_girl I repeated an apocryphal quote from JFK's dad Joe Kennedy: "the time to buy is when blood is running in the streets."

"Well, you soaked up a lot of people's blood. Let's get started!"

@johnmccumber @film_girl It took ~4hrs to go around the conference table. She explained by law what she had to; she gave me by law paperwork she had to.

I signed numerous checks to the IRS, each one already made out.

"WHY AM I SIGNING ANOTHER TAX CHECK?!?"

"Those were taxes on other packages, Rob..."

@johnmccumber @film_girl You can only place up to, I think, $400K in a checkbook so it's insured by the gov't. I had two checkbooks. And those were *just* for the cash disbursements.

We continued around the table: Elizabeth stating things by law and handing me papers I piled in a corner.

@johnmccumber @film_girl My ranting continued. "Why am I paying for a commission here?!? Why am I paying the IRS?!?"

BUT THEN CAME THE FINAL THIRD OF THE CONFERENCE TABLE...

Now I was shifting products & monies to my "normal" long-term retirement strategy that I'd worked on since age 21½.

@johnmccumber @film_girl I'd known my asset values since 1984 and I knew my long-range goals so I could retire comfortably.

These were values I'd never seen before. Stocks, bonds, and of course the checkbook money shifted around.

And it was blowing my mind.

@johnmccumber @film_girl "We can talk later about adjusting your financial profile & goals," Elizabeth assured, "but right now you're doing great as-is. Let's get it settled, wait a year or so for the markets to continue to recover, and then we'll judge where you might want to go next, long-term."

@johnmccumber @film_girl The last paperwork was for Elizabeth herself.

A check for $1,755.00.

I'll never forget it.

"WHY AM I WRITING A CHECK TO YOU?!? YOU ALREADY GET PAID!?!"

"Rob, it took a lot of time to assemble this room & table so you could spend four hours with me."

"Yeah, yeah..."

@johnmccumber @film_girl We sat back.

I'd burned out the temporary checkbook and I'd signed the paper to close it.

My own checkbook, once bulging with cash, was more or less back to normal.

Elizabeth said the MAGIC WORDS:

"You can retire now if you want, Rob."

@johnmccumber @film_girl I was 49yrs old. I was earning ~$65K on a DoD job in an economically depressed region of South Carolina.

And now I could walk away from it all--

--because so many *other* people "buy high, sell low" for their future.

I made a lot of money from people who panicked.

@johnmccumber @film_girl ...And that's why I'm jealous now of people like @film_girl.

I retired from my DoD career in 2018. I *do* still make some money from people who "buy high, sell low" but I've no more paychecks to invest.

She's got her whole life ahead of her!

And let me be clear:

@johnmccumber @film_girl Denise & I never "scrimped" to save for retirement.

We bought a home after getting married in 1986. I myself bought a Mazda RX-7 sports car. We flew to Las Vegas to renew our wedding vows at Graceland Chapel! We took road trips in the RX-7 to Miami and other cool places.

@johnmccumber @film_girl "Saving for retirement" is easy when you're 21½yrs old. It takes so little money out of your pocket that it's insane. It's all in the math when you look at the long-term.

Denise & I only had to do three things:

@johnmccumber @film_girl #1, we paid our retirement plan first. When one of us got a raise, we'd put roughly half of it toward our future.

#2, we lived WITHIN our means. Each of our cars had its own credit card for gas & repairs. I tracked our budget in a spreadsheet and made adjustments as needed.

@johnmccumber @film_girl And #3, we made wise financial decisions. First & foremost, I got with a financial advisor at age 21½.

When I wanted to buy a car or an RV I asked "how do I pay for this?"

My advisor(s) kept us moving across the decades toward THE goal to retire.

And I did. At age 55!

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