Post by Roy » Fri Jul 15, 2011 3:34 pm

letsgobobby wrote: Having become a Boglehead ~ 2 years ago, my financial life is infinitely better. But there have been costs... there is no free lunch! That said, here is my Top 5 list of disadvantages I've seen since going Bogle...



1. my portfolio is stupid boring... nothing to fix, fiddle with, adjust, make a note to look at, or tweak. The most exciting thing I've done in the last 9 months has been to reinvest quarterly distributions.



2. I can no longer derive even guilty pleasure from watching CNBC.



3. Social awkwardness. When coworkers sigh, "I can't retire, I lost all my money in the 2008 crash, didn't you?" I squint dumbly at them and tend to mutter things like, "You mean you didn't have your portfolio in an age-appropriate, risk tolerance-adjusted, diversified, low-cost portfolio and use market losses to rebalance in at favorable prices?" This inevitably leads to disinvitations from future social events.



4. instead of substantive advice about basic investing, I find myself engaged in 200 post threads about whether being 60/40 or 50/50 has a noticeable impact on risk and returns, key emphasis on the semantics of the word 'noticeable'.



5. my wife no longer complains about how much time I spend managing our portfolio, but now complains about how much time I spend on Bogleheads.



What other drawbacks to adopting Bogleheadedness have you seen?

Bobby,Instructive points. I like the post. While it is true that you (you meaning anyone) can always learn something else, it seems you (in particular) already have a firm grasp of just about all you need to know about managing your portfolio—the factors that provide the greatest impact, by far—and beyond which, any theoretical added improvements are unlikely to help much. You seem to know that most of the fiddly discussions are likely now just a waste of time, better spent in activities that would remove your wife's objection to that indulgence.Based on your #4 awareness, you (you meaning anyone) can indeed become hampered by knowledge.I have arrived at the same CNBC place. I used to watch because I thought it was info I needed to have. Then, I stopped cold as part of "the cure". Then, fully cured, I returned to it solely as entertainment, only to find it no longer provides that.Maybe it's time to declare victory—and let it go until meaningful events suggest a return is advisable.