Decumulation: No Cat Food retirement portfolio – Year 2 checkpoint [Members]

For MAVENS and MOGULS by The Accumulator on September 9, 2025

Hello Mavens and Moguls! We’re halfway through year two for our model retirement portfolio and I’m happy to report that its vital signs are looking good.

After years of accumulation, it’s hard to get used to the idea of extracting great chunks of your portfolio to fritter on items such as food, electricity, dental fillings, and whatever peculiar habits you’ve carried into your golden years.

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Maven
1 Paul_a38 September 9, 2025, 4:38 pm

Thanks, as always, for your hard work.
I bought a multifactor fund for my SIPP – because you did, and now look :).
If AVSG is the Avantis fund I had a look and it’s 69% US, 10% Japan, 3 countries ( including UK) at 3% then every other country 1% or less. I know the US is a powerhouse so fair do but not sure I would view the fund as global.
Maven
2 DavidV September 9, 2025, 4:48 pm

Sorry to be the pedant here, but my remaining hair is white enough without ever having been hit by a lightening bolt (or, for that matter, a lightning bolt) 🙂 .
Maven
3 Mr H September 9, 2025, 5:09 pm

Hi Accumulator –

I love the simplicity of the portfolio. I am gradually working towards a “slimmed down” retirement portfolio for ease of maintenance.

Question – are you actually using / or intending to use this for your decumulation?
Mogul
4 The Accumulator September 9, 2025, 5:49 pm

@Paul – Yes, AVSG is developed world more like. US dominates of course. I still think a multi-factor ETF is a good choice – I think a lot of retirees would probably appreciate low vol exposure in their portfolios.

@DavidV – Blimey, that was a stinker! My editor should hang his head in shame 😉 Corrected! Thank you.

@Mr H – Yes, Mrs A and I are in a very similar portfolio. Asset allocations differ somewhat. I’ve personally split out global equities into Dev World and Emerging Markets ETFs. And I’ve recently extended the length of my linker holdings. I did trade FSWD for 50/50 AVSG/IWFM. Fair dollop of cash hanging around.
Mogul
5 Delta Hedge September 9, 2025, 7:44 pm

@Paul_a38 #1 & @TA #4: AVSG might be nearly 70% US but….Between 1926 and today, the 10% smallest US companies outperformed US large caps (the rest) by 4.4% per year (for 99 years!) on average. The smallest of the small (nano caps) and, of course, small value and nano value, all did even better. Put $1,000 to work in 1926. By today, you’d have:
Large caps: $8.7 mn
Small caps: $430 mn
Nano caps: $860 mn (nano = <$300 mn capitalisation)

Still, it's quite a bold call (as Sir Humphrey would say, "very courageous Minister") to ditch FSWD for AVSG. I've backed up the truck with AVSG, but I've still held onto all 3 of my multifactor ETFs, including FSWD.

Interesting you’ve kept Momentum exposure through IWFM.

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Decumulation: No Cat Food retirement portfolio – Year 2 checkpoint [Members]

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