I have three more paychecks before I retire: June, July, and a smaller one is August. Due to my retirement, I will not be able to contribute to my 457 or 403b after August, thus falling short of the maximum allowed contributions for the calendar year.

To remedy this, yesterday I arranged with the payroll department to deduct more from my last three paychecks so that I will meet the maximum allowances for the calendar year. This will result in much smaller paychecks but I will make up the shortfall by eliminating any deposits to my regular savings, and if need be, making withdrawals from my savings.

Most of my tax-sheltered accounts will earn interest until I am 70 ½ and then I will have to begin mandatory withdrawals. One investment is a Roth and another is a non-qualified annuity, and these can continue to earn interest without concern about mandatory withdrawals. One of my goals in retirement will be to monitor these accounts more closely to ensure I get the best interest rates available to me.

Yesterday I analyzed my portfolio, which consists mostly of individual stocks and a few mutual funds. So far for 2008, I am seriously in the red:

January = down - $25,676
February = down - $7,764
March = up + $7,109
April = up + $11,674
May = up + $6,817

Calendar YTD = down - $7,840

I bought most of my stocks around 1996-2000 and then stopped when the market started going haywire. To date, I’ve never sold anything but know I should do some culling... if only I had more understanding and confidence about what to do and why.

Since January of ‘06, when I started keeping a spreadsheet I update on the last day of the month, my portfolio increased by 9.37% a year. I’m not sure how this compares to indices like the Dow or Nasdaq… all I know is that my portfolio’s produced a better return than anything I’ve gotten from a CD or money fund. To be honest, I do not review my statements from Schwab that are available online. I like to keep track using my own spreadsheet.

While the mutual funds have done OK overall, I have tech stocks that dropped significantly, have never recovered, and possibly never will. Some of these dropped as much as 50-60%, yet I hang on to them. I did get lucky with a couple of stocks bought solely because I liked/used their products or did business with the company (e.g., Apple and Walmart).

My plan is to educate myself more about intelligent investment strategies once I retire and actually have more time, but I’ll probably stick to mutual funds…and maybe I’ll even sell some of my dogs of the Dow. Can anyone recommend a good book/web site on mutual fund investing or portfolio management? I want to get more actively involved in managing my portfolio but don't want to obsess over it, either. There's got to be a better strategy than "ignore and check once a month."