by Welcome to the monthly update of our Nuestra Casa Fund (NCF), our dedicated savings plan for purchasing a home after early retirement. This month, we’re excited to share some significant changes to our strategy and progress.
Key Updates:
- We’ve increased our target savings amount
- We’ve allocated more funds to the account
- We’ve added bond funds to diversify our savings
Why the Changes?
As we’ve continued to research the real estate market, we realized we might need a larger budget to secure the home we want. This led us to increase our NCF target by 25%. Initially, this seemed like a setback that might delay our early retirement plans. However, thanks to some strategic moves in our investment portfolio, we’re actually closer to our goal than ever before!
Our New Progress
We’ve now met 78% of our new, increased goal. How did we manage this? We sold some small-cap and high-dividend yield funds from our taxable account, reallocating this money to the NCF. We also added some existing bond funds to this goal.
This shift serves two purposes:
- It moves us towards a more conservative asset allocation as we approach retirement
- It significantly boosts our progress towards our home savings goal
| Year-to-date NCF Update | |||
| Month | Percent of Goal Met | Benchmark | Percent Increase towards 100% |
| January 2017 | 23.9% | 23.9% | This is when we started tracking this goal. |
| February | 25.1% | 26.5% | 1.2% |
| March | 28.5% | 29.2% | 3.4% |
| April | 28.8% | 31.8% | 0.3% |
| May | 30.2% | 34.5% | 1.4% |
| June | 39.1% | 37.1% | 8.9% |
| July | 46.1% | 39.8% | 7% |
| August | 49.1% | 42.4% | 3% |
| September (new target) | 78% | 77.2% | 28.9% |
| October | 79.3% | ||
| November | 81.4% | ||
| December | 83.6% |
The Power of Long-Term Investing
This progress highlights the benefits of long-term investing. Some of the funds we’re now using for our NCF have been growing for over a decade. In fact, a substantial portion of our future home purchase will be funded by market gains!
Our New NCF Strategy
To balance growth with security, we’ve adjusted our NCF asset allocation:
- 80% bonds
- 20% cash
This approach aims to keep pace with inflation while minimizing risk as we near our purchase timeline.
Timeline Update
With these changes, we now expect to meet our goal by August 2018. That’s less than a year away!
Final Thoughts
This month’s strategic shift in our Nuestra Casa Fund represents more than just a numerical adjustment—it’s a reflection of our evolving understanding of what we truly want in our post-retirement life. While increasing our target by 25% initially felt daunting, the process of reallocating our investments and reassessing our goals has actually strengthened our confidence in our early retirement plans. By maintaining flexibility and being willing to adapt our strategy, we’ve positioned ourselves to achieve an even better outcome than originally envisioned.
The journey of building our NCF has taught us valuable lessons about the relationship between risk, time, and financial goals. Our decision to shift toward a more conservative allocation with 80% bonds demonstrates how investment strategies should evolve as major life changes approach. This experience has reinforced that successful financial planning isn’t just about hitting numbers—it’s about creating a robust framework that can adapt to changing circumstances while keeping our core objectives intact. The fact that we’re able to fund a significant portion of our future home through market gains is a powerful testament to the value of patient, long-term investing.
The increased target gives us more flexibility in our home selection and potentially reduces the need for future compromises. While the path to our goal has taken some unexpected turns, each adjustment has ultimately made our plan stronger and more resilient. We’re more convinced than ever that our methodical approach to saving and investing will lead us to that perfect moment: sipping our first morning coffee in our own backyard, knowing we’ve built a solid foundation for our post-retirement life.
