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I wrote the following in a discussion on another website. The topic was a development in the stock market. I thought I would share my thoughts here. If it changes your thinking or changes your life please leave a comment.

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I have a portion of my nest egg in stocks I pick. I have been watching for a long time. My first class in stocks and bonds was a short series of classes my junior high principal led. It was his effort to give us students some financial skills. That was 1968. It worked. I have used the basics I learned there ever since. I was so intrigued, one part of my college book-learning is in finance. His little class of the basics changed my life.

So, as a random presence on the internet, I will give you my advice on how to manage your retirement savings.

If you are independently wealthy and can do whatever you like and not run out of money, hire somebody to follow new developments that appear in the financial news. You may be a person who lives for risk and adventure. Go for it.

If you are what I call independently middle class, that is you can probably pay your own bills right through nursing home and your own funeral, diversify well as a hedge against disaster and if you pick any stocks yourself follow a value investor philosophy. Warren Buffett and Joel Greenblatt are authors in this category. Joel has a website where he screens for value stocks at no charge to you. Spend some of the profits on enjoying life and supporting causes dear to you. Prepay for your funeral, buy good lenses when you get cataracts, get good hearing aids, get a good lawyer to write your will and set up trusts that bypass probate, and pay the $99 per month for Full Self Driving in your car. Your old age will be more peaceful if you can do these things without fretting over the cost.

If you are still building your nest egg, spend time increasing your stack of skills and raising your income. Max out your company match in your 401k. Put money into mutual funds where someone else picks the stocks. Also, you may be in the years when you have children at home. If so, build some great memories with them. If not, build some great memories with whoever is in your life. The time will come when your world needs to shrink, quickly or slowly, but inevitably it will shrink.

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