Opening Quotes And Housekeeping

Voices [0:00]

A foolish consistency is the hub goblin of little mind, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divine. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. A different drummer.

Mostly Queen Mary [0:18]

And now, coming to you from Dead Center on your dial, welcome to Risk Parity Radio, where we explore alternatives and asset allocations for the do-it-yourself investor. Broadcasting to you now from the comfort of his easy chair, here is your host, Frank Vasquez.

Mostly Uncle Frank [0:36]

Thank you, Mary, and welcome to Risk Parity Radio. If you are new here and wonder what we are talking about, you may wish to go back and listen to some of the foundational episodes for this program. And the basic foundational episodes are episodes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. Yes, it is still in my memory banks. We have also created an additional resource, a collection of additional foundational episodes and other popular episodes.

Voices [1:07]

We have top men working on it right now. Ooh.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:14]

Top men. And you can find those on the episode guide page at www.riskparty radio.com. Inconceivable. All thanks to our friend Luke, our volunteer in Quebec. We'd be helpless without him.

Voices [1:35]

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:41]

Because other than him, it's just me and Marion here. I'll give you the moon, alright?

Voices [1:46]

I'll take it.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:48]

We have no sponsors, we have no guests, and we have no expansion plans.

Voices [1:52]

I don't think I'd like another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:55]

Over the years, our podcast has become very audienced focused, and I must say we do have the finest podcast audience available.

Voices [2:04]

Really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:07]

Along with a host named after a hot dog.

Voices [2:10]

Light in the Francis.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:13]

But now onward, episode 544. Today on Risk Parity Radio. We're back. Inconceivable. Back in Groovin again.

Voices [2:52]

I could have told you that.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:54]

With a little bit of commentary about where we've been recently.

Voices [2:58]

Oh no!

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:00]

And so without further ado.

Voices [3:02]

Here I go once again with the email.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:06]

And first off. First off, we have two emails that are kind of more lifestyle and commentary about where we've been emails.

Voices [3:18]

I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:22]

We have one from Geraldo and one from Robin.

Voices [3:26]

Holy schizophrenia.

Camino Trip Lessons And Marriage Boost

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:28]

And Geraldo writes.

Mostly Queen Mary [3:30]

Enjoy your time in Spain and the Camino. We will miss you and Mary for sure during this hiatus. I look forward to the new episode each week. You both deserve this break. We had the pleasure of doing the Camino from Porto, Portugal to Santiago. It was an amazing 13 days where we met new friends and saw amazing views.

Voices [3:50]

The best, Jerry. The best.

Mostly Queen Mary [3:52]

I hope your experience is as much fun as ours. Geraldo.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:57]

Well, Geraldo, we did indeed have a wonderful time in Spain and Portugal, and did a Camino in the middle in the last two weeks. A smaller one than you did, but it did qualify for the certificates. So we flew into Porto and were there for a couple of days. And then we took a car up to the town of Oya, which is in Spain, and did our Camino from there to Santiago over the next six days. And then we spent about three days in Santiago.

Voices [4:29]

Groovy baby!

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:31]

And went out to Fistera, which is the end of the earth in tradition, at least from the European perspective, looking west, and to the town of Acarunia, where we saw the Tower of Hercules, which is a Roman-built lighthouse, believe it or not. So this had been something we'd been talking about doing for the past seven or eight years, and we finally did it. So it was very satisfying and gratifying from that perspective. And we took a lot of pictures and got a few blisters and only got caught in the rain really once on day four. It rained most of the afternoon. And we discovered our gear was not as waterproof as it used to be.

Voices [5:17]

Could be worse. How? Could be raining.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:34]

If you're wondering about some more of the particulars, because some people have asked, we use the service called Follow the Camino, which you can find online and will organize your treks for you. And we used their luggage transport service, so we only had to carry our day packs day to day. Because at our age, we do not need to be carrying all our gear or staying in hostels or any of that sort of stuff that we might have done 20, 30, or 40 years ago. I have to tell you that because I traveled so much for work over the past few decades, that travel itself does not have a lot of interest for me. Because going to the airport feels like going to the office for me, honestly.

Voices [6:15]

I don't think I'd like another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:18]

So I really only want to travel if it's going to enhance relationships or have some other positive effect on my well-being. And a trip like this is very enhancing for your marriage. Let me tell you that.

Voices [6:32]

Marriage. Marriage is what brings us together today.

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:40]

One of the things we learned is that it's best not to carry your own water. It's best to carry the water of the person you are with because then it's easier to reach.

Voices [6:53]

Marriage, that blistering arrangement, that dream within a dream.

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:24]

And I only got one, but Mary got some very strange ones on her little toes in other places.

Voices [7:30]

That's not an improvement.

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:32]

But I think it was very good for our marriage and very satisfying overall. So if you've ever thought about doing it, I would go ahead and get out there and do it. I just turned 62 a couple days ago, so there's no time like the present if you're over fifty. Anyway, thank you for asking. Thank you for being a donor to the Father McKenna Center, and having visited the Father McKenna Center and volunteered there yourself. And thank you for your email.

Voices [7:59]

Holy ball and chain.

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:01]

And Robin writes.

Mostly Queen Mary [8:03]

Hi Frank, it was great meeting you at the Walk for McKenna Center and at the Gonzaga McKenna Center meeting. I'm excited to learn about how much was raised. Please let me know if there's anything the center needs. I hope to see you at church and at the fish fry. Best regards, Robin.

Voices [8:19]

Holy red herring.

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:21]

Well, Robin, it was very nice to see you at the Walk for McKenna as well. That was what we did the Saturday before we left for our trip for the Camino. I must say it was very well attended. We had over 400 walkers. We raised over $200,000 for the Father McKenna Center. And about $70,000 of that came from the listeners of Risk Parity Radio.

Voices [8:46]

That's what I'm talking about.

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:48]

And so I'm very grateful for all you've done. Both you, Robin, individually, and the rest of the listeners of Risk Parity Radio. Because as most of you know here, we do not have any sponsors on this program. We do have two charities we support. One is the Father McKenna Center, which is mine, and one is Fairfax Corniporting Special Advocates, which is Mary's. But if you give to either one of the charities, you get to go to the front of our email line. As all of our emailers today have done. There are a couple ways to do that, but you can find out all about it at the support page at www.riskprediware.com and donate directly or through being a patron on Patreon. Either way, you get to go to the front of the email line, but please make sure you do mention that in your email or in the subject line, so we can duly move you to the front of the line. And I hope to see more of you, Robin, at church and at the Father McKenna Center, and at Gonzaga. So thank you for coming out. Thank you for your support. And thank you for your email.

Voices [9:53]

Holy Hallelujah! Holy conflagration! Holy helmets, holy happenstance, holy ricochet!

Charity Walk Results And How To Give

Mostly Uncle Frank [10:00]

And now turning back to more of our financial topics.

Voices [10:04]

Second off.

Mostly Uncle Frank [10:05]

Second off, we have an email from Roy.

Voices [10:09]

The Roy Rogers Show, starring Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys.

Mostly Uncle Frank [10:15]

And Roy Wrights?

Mostly Queen Mary [10:17]

Hi Frank. I'm a longtime listener and appreciate the work you and Mary do on the show and with your personal charities. My donations are attached. I couldn't choose one charity, so I split my donation between you and Mary. I hope you don't mind.

Voices [10:32]

I guess I sort of like them all.

Mostly Queen Mary [10:34]

So Ryan of the exact same way. I have two questions. One, donor advice fund for my wife's 501c3. My wife runs a 501c3 charity focused on animal welfare, and I think it would make sense to support it through a donor advice fund, DAF. Two parts to my question. Is a DAF a sensible way to fund the charity she runs? Or are there complications we should consider? On timing, we give roughly 10% of our annual spending to the charity. Would you suggest making that contribution to the DAF every year? Or would you set aside a larger amount once, such as a multi-year bunched gift and draw it down over time? I'd like to understand how you'd weigh the tax side, the portfolio side, and the simplicity side. For context, we're using our current risk parity style allocation and just want the charitable piece to fit cleanly alongside it. 2. A shiny object. I came across this post and thought of your shiny object label. 14% guaranteed return sounds too good to be true. I'm staying away from it, but I'm sure plenty of other listeners have seen it. I'd be curious what you think of it. Thanks for your time and for the show. Best Roy.

Voices [11:51]

Well, riders, trigger here is raring to go, so let's get started with today's story.

Donor-Advised Funds For A Spouse’s Charity

Mostly Uncle Frank [11:58]

Well now, donor advised funds and shiny objects. We got a twofer going on here. So your first question is a donor advised fund a sensible way to fund a charity? And the answer to that is Yes! Because generally, as long as it's a 501c3 charity, you can direct your donor advised fund to donate to that. What you should make sure before you do this, though, is that whatever donor advised fund you are using will send donations to the charity in question.

Voices [12:36]

It means trust but verify.

Mostly Uncle Frank [12:40]

But my experience has been that when something is registered as a 501c3 charity, donor advised funds will be able to direct funds to that charity. Where you get into problems is where something does not qualify as a 501c3 charity, and then there is very little way to go about doing that. So I wasn't sure which one you were using. I think Daffy is probably the leader in the space these days. I will link to a catching up to Fi podcast interview of the founder and CEO of Daffy, but the ones at Vanguard and Fidelity are also serviceable. So you should definitely look into the one that you are planning on using. Make sure that you can do what you want to do through that before you set it up and put a whole bunch of money in there. But I think as long as you're a 501c3, this should work out fairly well. Now, the other way to do this is to just donate appreciated shares directly to the charity. And I do a lot of that with the Father McKenna Center, frankly, because we have a large taxable account and there's a lot of appreciated shares in there to be donated, and then we don't have to pay taxes on them. Now, the limitation on that is the charity has to be set up to deal with donated shares, and that usually means having an account that will handle that. Unfortunately, typically if you go to a place like Vanguard or something, they're not set up to handle donations of shares to a charity. So my experience is that we've had to use more full service banks and things like that. We use RBC at the Father McKenna Center, which works just fine, but it is not your regular Vanguard or Fidelity or Schwab setup. And I don't know whether the charity you're talking about wants to expend the resources to set that up or not. It's much easier for a charity just to receive donations in cash, which can come out of a donor-advised fund. But those are the basic considerations here. Now, in terms of timing your donations, that depends largely on your tax situation year to year. Typically, the main strategy people have employed is to make one large donation periodically, not every year, but maybe every other year, every few years, when they know that their income is going to be particularly high in that year, because the timing of it matters for the purpose of what the deduction is going against in terms of the income that it's going against. So if you thought your income was just going to be basically steady for the next decade or so, yeah, just putting an amount there every year would be fine. If you thought it was going to be variable, or there were going to be years where it's going to be much larger than other years, then I would try to bunch or group those donations to the donor advised fund in the year where your income is likely to be higher. So that's the tax side, and that's the major consideration here. On the portfolio side, I don't think it matters, assuming you can set up the portfolio the way you want in the donor advised fund. That is another thing to check with the provider of the donor advised fund as to what they allow you to invest in. Most of them are pretty flexible these days and would allow you to put it in all kinds of different ETFs, but I have not investigated this and you should look into that as well. I don't think simplicity is much of a factor here because whether you do it in one year or do it in a series of years, you're only talking about really one transaction a year, so it's not that big of a deal. And once you've done it once, I don't think it's going to be a big deal for you to do this every year if it makes more sense to do it that way. So I would not use simplicity as a major priority here, since it's going to be simple enough either way. Now I know at least our friend Optimus Bill has set up a risk parity style portfolio inside their donor-advised fund for this purpose because then it makes it pretty easy to just clip out, say, 5% a year like it's an endowment, and send that off to the charity. Hopefully, you can just take part of your portfolio that's in your taxable account and actually just donate those shares to the donor-advised fund and not have to sell anything because you don't want to incur any unnecessary taxes that way as well. But in any event, once you get the funds in there, there's no reason you can't buy and sell whatever you need to do within the parameters of the donor advised fund itself. That's usually not that difficult. So I would say you've got a little homework to do here. I did not do your homework for you. You do actually have to go look at these donor advice funds, make sure that they have the features that you want them to have for what you're trying to do, and you can compare them. I have also found AI is pretty good at doing this for you, so feel free to ask your favorite AI to compare Daffy and Vanguard and Fidelity and whomever else you're looking at, because that is all information that can easily be gathered by your favorite chatbot and put in a nice little chart. And I have done that for other listeners. Just so you know who we're looking into, which way they wanted to do this. I think the conclusion there in that situation was that if you were making donations of more than, say, about $25,000, that Vanguard was fine for that. But if you were making smaller donations, you'd probably be better off with something like Daffy. But again, this is very specific to your own situation. So something you'll need to look at.

Voices [18:18]

You'll have to decide. You'll have to decide. You'll have to decide.

Auto-Callable ETFs And The Forced Income Trap

Mostly Uncle Frank [18:26]

Now, your next question as to this shiny object. Now I will link to this in the show notes, but what Roy has linked to here is a new fund from Calamos. It is called Calamos Auto Callable Income ETF. And it goes with two other ETFs in their kind of sweet. One of them is called Cage, which is designed for growth, C-A-G-E. This one is C A I E. And then they have another one tied to the Nasdaq called C-A-I-Q. So the first question is what is an auto-callable ETF? I will just read you their definition from the website because it's not obvious. And it says an auto-callable is a market-linked instrument that pays regular coupons and returns principal at maturity, or if called early, as long as the reference index, like the SP 500, doesn't fall below specific thresholds, e.g. minus 40%. Think of it like a bond whose income and principal depend on the stock market not falling too far. So, like a lot of these things, it is essentially like an index product with an options overlay. And these come in infinite varieties now. This one seems to be a little bit more sophisticated than a lot of them, and it tries to be more tax efficient than other ones. So, yes, it is a very shiny object because a lot of the income that is thrown off by these things is actually essentially just kind of cannibalizing the product, and it is not making the total returns any better unless there's leverage involved. So for most people, having forced income is not desirable. It may be desirable psychologically, and that's really how these things are sold. That's really a lot of how the financial services industry works these days. Playing on people's psychology that, oh, I want to have this retirement income paycheck, and I need to know that this income is going to come, and I want this income and this income and this income.

Voices [20:39]

Ha ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders.

Mostly Uncle Frank [20:43]

What people don't realize is that while that may feel comfortable psychologically, that is a bad strategy financially.

Voices [20:52]

Forget about it.

Mostly Uncle Frank [20:53]

You do not want forced income in retirement. All that does is create tax inflexibility because you're forced to take it in whatever year or period that the ETF or whatever you're using chooses to pay it. You don't have the choice. You would rather be able to manage these things as capital gains and not have your ETFs paying out forced income of any kind. So while these things may be appealing psychologically and which makes them easier to sell, which is what is going on with all these shiny objects these days, particularly the structured products and the options overlay products. The real question comes down to does this actually change the return profile of the underlying index? And if it does, how so? And the easiest way to just look at this is to just put this up on test folio, which I I did comparing an SP five hundred index fund to Cage C A G E the growth oriented one and this new one CAIE, the income oriented one. And I'll link to this in the show notes so you can check it out. But a couple things you'll notice immediately if you're looking for them. The first one is that both of these things are highly correlated with the S P 500, with the stock market itself. So there's no diversification benefit going on here. There's no reason you would hold this to diversify a portfolio. You would be holding this or one of these things instead of an SP 500 fund or a large cap growth fund or something like that. Because there'd be no reason to add this to a portfolio for any diversification purposes if you already had a fund like that, which just about everybody does. The second thing you notice is that, as you might expect, the cage fund is more growth-oriented and effectively has leverage built into it through the way its options work. So that has been outperforming the S P 500 over the past six months, which is just how long these things have been around. Whereas the income-related fund, the new one, CAIE, tends to underperform the S P 500 on a total return basis, which makes a whole lot of sense as well, because basically it's cannibalizing the index with the option strategy to generate this income. And so to me, CAIE looks a lot like these other kinds of option overlays or covered call funds, which essentially cannibalize the index to create an income, but underperform the index overall over time. So you could recreate the same thing by holding, say, the index and T bills in a small portfolio, and you'd get the same results over time as you would with one of these funds, which means they really don't have much purpose at all unless you're addicted to this psychology of income.

Voices [24:10]

Are you stupid or something?

Mostly Uncle Frank [24:13]

Whereas if you wanted to duplicate something like Cage C-A-G-E, which you might hold is a small allocation to a levered version of the index, and you're probably going to get the same kind of outcomes. Because again, once you look at the total returns, which is what you always should be looking at, never looking at the income.

Voices [24:34]

That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.

Mostly Uncle Frank [24:38]

You realize that there's not a whole lot of value in these products in terms of portfolio construction. There just isn't.

Voices [24:47]

Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture.

Mostly Uncle Frank [24:50]

And as a side note, I just heard a rational reminder podcast that I found was very interesting, and it was about a re-review of these leverage kind of ETFs, and basically looking at whether there is a volatility drag on them. And Ben Felix has actually reversed himself and changed his mind that what he thought was a bigger problem turns out to be not as big a problem using these levered ETFs. But I'm not going to get into that now. I will link to that podcast in the show notes because he cites a bunch of papers and other information. But those who are interested in leverage and levered ETFs in particular, I would definitely go listen to that podcast. So is this a shiny object? Well, yes it is.

Voices [25:33]

Boy, you read my thoughts. You've got the shinin'. You mean shining? Shhh. You want to get sued?

Mostly Uncle Frank [25:40]

Should anybody be using it? Probably not, unless they have this psychological bent about receiving forced income, which doesn't make any financial sense for most people. Are they better than other kinds of funds that also produce forced income, but maybe worse in a taxable manner? Probably, but again, what's the point?

Voices [26:08]

No more flying solo. You need somebody watching your back at all times.

Mostly Uncle Frank [26:14]

Because we'd rather not have any forced income at all. Or if we do, we want to put that in a traditional IRA and not have to pay taxes on it until we actually take the money out. So I would tend to put this in the category of what Ben Felix calls ETF slop. And I'll like another one of those videos in the show notes, but there is a lot of this stuff floating around these days. It's very popular, it's very easy to market. It is a quintessential shiny object that level two investors are very attracted to, particularly on the psychology of income. But is really probably not financially useful for most retirees. And I would question any advisor who is putting their clients into these sorts of things.

Voices [27:15]

Always be closing. Always be closing.

Mostly Uncle Frank [27:21]

Because it may actually be bad for their tax situation. Anyway, hopefully that all helps. Thank you for being a donor of the Father McKenna Center. And thank you for your email.

Bond Funds Versus Individual Treasuries

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:07]

Last off, we have an email from Daniel.

Voices [28:11]

The most important decision you can make right now is what do you stand for, Danny? Goodness or madness.

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:22]

And Daniel, right?

Mostly Queen Mary [28:25]

Hello, Mary and Frank. I love the podcast. I appreciate your time, knowledge, and willingness to share for all to learn, thus enabling a better future for me and my loved ones. Retiring in December 2026 and will be 65 in January. I have made a donation to the Father McKenna Center with my company Match. I am inspired by both of you and your care for others. My overall allocation is 55% stocks split across LCV, LCG, and SCV. I am a bit more on the value side than growth. 20% VGLT, 15% GLDM, and 10% DBMF. Currently thinking to maximize my life opportunities with a variable SWR withdrawal rate between 5 to 6%. My expected retirement spend will be covered by the SSA/slash pension at 50%. Then the second 50% will be optimized with our portfolio management. I have been wondering about a potential optimization/slash risk reduction step. If assuming a life expectancy of 30 years or less, does it make sense to consider converting from VGLT ETF to a 30-year treasury when the coupon rates are within my 5-6% or maybe higher? Yes, I must use my crystal ball as we are at a relatively high value and able to meet my target. The crystal ball can help you. This would lock in a slice of my investment income while still having the flexibility to rebalance in the future as the value of the treasury and yields will still fluctuate. I know there is no free lunch, and I need to continue to learn. Please share your thoughts and comments on this tactic and my strategy to optimize the next stage of life. Thank you for your wisdom and sage advice. Regards, Daniel.

Voices [30:39]

Are you my pal? Mr. Scholarship Winner. Yes, sir. I'm your pal. How about a fresca?

Mostly Uncle Frank [30:53]

Well, first off, thank you for being a donor to the Father McKenna Center and getting your company match. I'm glad you're enjoying the podcast and been able to make use of it in constructing your retirement portfolio. You've got 55% in stocks, which is right in the middle of the sweet spot for higher safe withdrawal rates. You've got 20% in long-term treasury bonds, which is also right in the middle of the 15 to 30% band where you want those, and then you've got 25% in alternatives. And so all that looks pretty good. And it's all in a flexible sort of thing. I think you need to make sure you've tax-located that to optimize for that, which means putting the bonds and the managed futures into the traditional retirement accounts to the extent you can because they throw off that ordinary income that we don't like to see in taxable accounts, and we only want to take out when we want to take it out. I think the fact that Social Security is in a pension is covering half of your expenses really does make this robust and flexible. I would go back and sort of look at your expenses to see what part of them are mandatory and what part of them are discretionary. Usually most well-prepared retirees have 60% or less in mandatory expenses and the remaining 40% in discretionary, which gives them a lot of flexibility. And if your fixed income in Social Security and pension is covering already half of your expenses, and I assume that's all or most of your mandatory expenses, you're in really good shape here and will have a lot of flexibility in retirement since the portfolio is really mostly discretionary expenses. Now, your question about whether you would convert the bond fund to an actual 30-year treasury at a certain point of time, I would not do that with a portfolio like this. And the reason is due to flexibility and rebalancing. That if you convert to a 30-year treasury, you are essentially putting your asset from a liquid fund to an illiquid or relatively illiquid treasury, because you would have to sell pieces of that. It'd be very cumbersome if you ever wanted to sell pieces of that. And the real reason that we have treasury bonds in this kind of portfolio is not for their income at all. We don't expect them to be yielding more than about five or six percent over time. But what we do expect them to do is go up in capital value during a recession. They make good recession insurance because I know we haven't had a recession for a while. We had a little one in 2020, and before that, the last big one was actually back in 2008. But historically, you do see recessions about 15% of the time, and I would expect we're going to have a few in the next 20 or 30 years. And when that happens, as has happened in about 100% of recessions since the 1950s, your stocks will go down in value while your treasury bonds in that fund, VGLT, will go up in capital value. They will increase in value. At that point in time, you will want to be able to do a rebalancing where you are selling the bonds high and then buying more stocks low. Buy low, sell high. Fear, that's the other guy's problem. And if your system is set up to do automatic rebalancings every year or so, you'll automatically capture that. If you have moved your bonds, your bond fund to an illiquid setup or something that is difficult to unwind or sell, you will not be able to do that during a recession. You will not be able to sell high and buy low with that bond fund.

Voices [35:08]

One minute you're up half a million in soybeans, and the next boom, your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your bentry.

Mostly Uncle Frank [35:13]

Are you with me? And since that is the primary purpose of holding bonds in one of these portfolios, not income, we do not need to prioritize income as an outcome. So I would just stick with the bond fund because it is more flexible, serves a purpose you want to have, and is actually simpler to implement and deal with. While all of that may satisfy some psychological need for many people, as I said with respect to the fun before, that is not really serving a good financial purpose in most circumstances. I was listening to an interview of another one of these financial guru types, Peter Lazarov, recently. And he is also of the mind that what most people need in terms of a bond allocation is handled best by simply holding a bond fund. And one of the things that he observed that I knew about but hadn't thought about recently is that if you look at the performance of a bond fund over a long period of time, as long as your holding period is at least the amount of the duration of the fund, in which case we're talking about 17 or 18 years with respect to VGLT, that's its duration. You are going to be better off holding the bond fund, even if interest rates are going up. And in fact, you're probably going to end up with more money if the interest rates are going up during that period just because of the way the bonds roll over over time. That's one of those interesting observations that's really not very intuitive. But it just comes out of the fact that, as Ben Carlson has written, I'll link to this again in the show notes, there is no financial difference between holding individual bonds and holding a bond fund. They're just in a different wrapper, and they may be recycled or rebalanced in a certain way, but it does not change the underlying performance or value of the bonds themselves. To the extent you think it does, that is illusory. I think you're going to be coming out the same either way over the long term, but it's just more complicated and more unnecessary. And at some point somebody else is going to have to deal with these individual bonds, and no executor or heir really wants to deal with that sort of thing. So if you're not doing it for yourself, do it for the next person who has to deal with these assets because it's much easier if they're just sitting there in a few funds than if they are in illiquid instruments that are difficult to transact with, or relatively difficult to transact with. I know it's not that difficult to buy and sell individual bonds, but it's more difficult than it needs to be. So those are my preferences and observations, and you can take them or leave them as you will. I think you're going to be just fine any way you go here, because your setup seems to be quite robust, both with the Social Security and the portfolio.

Voices [38:40]

You're not going to amount to jack squats! You're gonna end up eating a steady diet of government cheese and living in a van down by the river.

Mostly Uncle Frank [38:53]

So thank you for being a loyal listener. Thank you for your donation to the Father McKenna Center, and thank you for your email.

Voices [39:03]

I like you, Betty. It's Danny, sir. Danny. I'm gonna give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it. Stop thinking. Let things happen and be the ball. Danny? Danny. Sir. Where's the uh wedge? Right here, sir. Thank you, Danny. Find your center. Hear nothing. Feel nothing. That was kind of incredible, sir.

Listener Mail CTA And Sign-Off

Mostly Uncle Frank [39:46]

But now I see our signal is beginning to fade. If you have comments or questions for me, please send them to Frank at RiskPardyRare.com. That email is frank at riskpertyraer.com. Or you can go to the website www.riskparty.com. Put your message into the contact form, and I'll get it that way. If you haven't had a chance to do it, please go to your favorite podcast provider and like, subscribe, and some stars, a follow, a review. That would be great. Okay. Thank you once again for tuning in. This is Frank Vasquez with Risk Party Radio. Signing off.

Mostly Queen Mary [41:22]

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