The power of planting your feet

Change is exciting. Sometimes it is tempting to change for the sake of it. You realise that things aren't ideal, and then you start looking at the options. Some of us who are overly bright may spend years assessing opportunities before making a single move. I think its wild how much fun planning and preparing can be.

I'm currently paying too high a price for an underperforming mutual fund portfolio. If your objective is to meet or exceed the yield of a benchmark, and you have never yet done so, where do you get off charging 1.75% for all that wasted effort? Shame on you! Now the return lags 2.75% instead of the disappointing 1% you started with. Now it's just a question of finding an ideal match. I plan to make this move in the next few weeks. Convenience for something that can be better managed with a little effort is crazy.

Take the same point on a larger scale. Our very comfortable house is ridiculously far from a city we never see as a consequence, but we pay for its 'nearness' all the same. Although my fixed rate mortgage won't budge, and taxes are low, the interest will likely drop below the standard deduction in a year or so, so try not to get all worked up about the deductibility of interest from my taxes. The real annual difference is closer to $300 than $3000. A few trips to the pump more than drains that away. The annual return on real estate in the near term future will likely not be as great as some expect, and may not be disastrous, lets say 2-3% per year.
That's maybe a few thousand dollars, which compared to the price of gas (which will likely as not rise more than that) is still not exciting. Better to move to a rental and take some time to watch what happens.