Answers to the 2026 Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test

Answers to the 2026 Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test
 
 
1. What does rebalancing mean? Rebalancing is doing a review of our wealth plan at least once a year to ensure that our current equity and fixed income holdings are age-appropriate, properly diversified and in line with our goals.


2. Why do we need to rebalance? Stocks and bonds gain or lose value throughout the year(s). Regular rebalancing of a properly diversified nest egg ensures that our wealth plan remains age-appropriate and properly diversified. Rebalancing is also a buy low, sell high plan on auto-pilot – a disciplined way to ensure that we keep our wealth growing, instead of riding the Wall Street rollercoaster up and down. Also, each year we get older. As we get closer to retirement, we want less “at risk,” and more of our money earning a steady income without losing our principal.


3. How often should we rebalance? 1-3 times a year. Why? If we’ve made a lot of gains, we capture them at the high. If the markets drop, the safe side of our plan protects us from losses, and gives us the liquidity to buy low. (Most people don’t buy low because they can’t. Buy and hope investors can lose half or more in recessions.) More than three times a year would be overkill. We’re more likely to make mistakes, or be driven by emotions. Our nest egg should be money while we sleep, not an obsession that we have to babysit. Most of us have day jobs.


4. What is the easiest way to rebalance our nest egg? Print out a sample pie chart of what we “should have.” (We have a free web app where you can personalize your sample pie chart.) Mock up a pie chart of your current holdings and their value. Compare what you have to what you should have. Sell high in the slices that are too large. Buy low in the slices that have become slivers. Simply email [email protected] with FREE SAMPLE PIE CHART in the subject line to receive a link to the web app.
 
If you’ve never organized your holdings, then consider having an unbiased 2nd opinion from me in my private coaching program. Email [email protected] for pricing and information. What you receive:

1.     An easy-to-understand pie chart of what you currently have.
2.     An easy-to-understand pie chart of a plan that has worked great over the past 26 years, earning gains in the bear markets and outperforming the bull markets in between.
3.     A Word document where I outline the areas of strength and weakness in your current plan and offers other time-proven strategies to consider incorporating into your current plan. This is an easy-to-follow action plan of how to protect your wealth. You’re the boss of your money. You can choose what you wish to incorporate and what you don’t. It’s much easier to make decisions about your wealth and future when you know what you own.
 
FYI: you can have 18 pages of holdings, and still not be properly diversified and protected. It’s always a good idea to know exactly what you own and why, rather than relying on the word of someone else. No one cares about your money and future more than you do.
 
5. What are some of the fundamentals to properly diversifying our nest egg? Always keep a percentage equal to our age safe. Overweight or underweight safe based upon market conditions. Know what is safe in a Debt World. (What’s hot and what’s safe changes every year.) Diversify your at-risk equity holdings into ten funds – large, mid and small caps, value and growth, and four hot industries or countries. At our Investor Educational Retreat, we also teach you how to lean into the future and make sure that you are not investing in the typewriters of yesteryear, or companies that are drowning in debt, losing sales/revenue, and not making enough profit to meet their massive debt and overhead obligations. Check out the 10 Wealth Tips of the Rich at the top of this blog.
 
6. Which assets go into our nest egg? Liquid assets, such as stocks, bonds, funds, REITs, cash, money market funds, annuities, savings, cryptocurrency, etc. are all part of our nest egg. We often have multiple accounts, such as our employer retirement plan (401K or RSP), our personal IRA or TFSA, our checking, our savings, our crypto account, etc. All of these accounts are combined into one pie chart to aid us in getting a better understanding of how our current strategy measures up to an age-appropriate, time-proven system.
 
7. Which assets do not go into our nest egg? Hard assets, such as our home, income property and other real estate investments, with the exception of REITs (which are paper assets and go in our nest egg). Our business is also separate. Nest egg investments are “money while we sleep,” whereas our businesses and jobs take up a lot of our time. Our wealth might also include art, cars, jewelry and collectibles. These are part of our estate, but tend to be less liquid and are not able to be “rebalanced” in a nanosecond as most stocks and funds are. The same is true of our real estate – which is an illiquid asset. I often do, however, put gold or silver coins as hot slices of the pie chart. Precious metals are very liquid and experience volatile price swings. Having a plan for capturing gains, such as is outlined in our pie chart system, helps tremendously.
 
8. Should we invest in individual companies in our nest egg? Funds offer more protection than individual stocks, and require less babysitting. Most of us should not have individual companies in our nest egg – at least until we get as great at picking stocks as Warren Buffett. If you do wish to purchase an individual stock, think of it as Vegas Money – not our nest egg and future. We’ll need to babysit individual stocks, using many of the strategies that I teach in my annual Stock Masterclass.
 
9. What is the difference between value and growth? Value funds should have companies that are on sale. Value funds often pay a dividend. Growth funds include companies that are experiencing strong sales/revenue growth year over year. Growth funds typically offer more upside in capital gains, with more modest income.
 
10. What is the difference between small, mid and large cap funds? Small companies typically offer better performance. Trillion-dollar companies offer stability. So, it’s important to have both performance and stability in our plan.
 
11. Why do we evaluate the funds we own? There are many reasons to know what you own. The Magnificent 7 5 doubled in 2023, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average earned less than 14%. (We spend a day teaching this at our Financial Freedom Retreats.) We can lean into the products and services of tomorrow, and avoid last-century products and companies, many of which have an alarming amount of debt, with some losing a notable amount of money. We can begin to green our investments, and ensure that we are not profiting from polluters.
 
12. What kind of funds do we want to avoid? Some funds are filled with debt-laden, slow-growth companies that are paying dividends to keep investors interested, while putting their principal at risk of large losses. Just as with bonds, the higher the dividend the higher the risk of loss of principal. (Bonds lost -26% in 2022 – more than stocks! This is one reason why we spend a full day revealing what is safe in our 3-day Financial Freedom Retreats.)

 
13. What kind of funds do we want to own? The fund company itself should be a creditworthy company that has been around for decades, that is well-capitalized and is managed by a respected CEO. When diversifying, we can include foreign countries and hot industries, allocating four of our slices to performance funds. Never just search for a fund online and go with whatever the search or sponsored results reveal. We might end up with IJustStartedMyFundYesterday.com or a company that is highly leveraged and at risk of going out of business. A strategic plan might also help us to avoid capital gains in our crypto investing.
 
14. What is an “everything and the kitchen sink” fund? Is this a fund we want to own? Why or why not? These are funds (like target date retirement funds) that try to do everything in one product. These were designed for a Buy & Hold strategy – a last-century game plan that hasn’t worked in the 21st Century. They also tend to charge more in fees and pay higher commissions – incentivizing broker/salesmen to sell them, even if they aren’t the best choice for many investors. Many bond and target-date retirement funds have lost money over the last five years, at a time when the S&P500 doubled.
 
15. When do we switch out funds and pick something new? What’s hot changes every year. So, evaluate your hot slices when you do your rebalancing. If you don’t know what’s hot, this is where you can rely on an analyst with a great track record, or consider adding in an investment that you really believe in (such as a Bitcoin, artificial intelligence, copper, or a Magnificent 7 ETF).
 
16. What are some key dates to consider rebalancing? Why? September is historically the worst performing month. The Santa and Spring Rallies are typically the strongest. So, we might find some Back to School Stock Sales (fund sales) at the end of September. Early January and early May might be good profit-taking rebalancing times.
 
17. What kind of return are we aiming to achieve in our nest egg? 10% annualized gains, which is what stocks have done over the last 30 years (and used to be something we could count on for the fixed income side as well.). The Buy & Hope system has been losing more than half in recessions, and using the bull markets to make up losses.

Between 2022 and 2024, the fixed income side of our wealth plan earned a safe 5-ish% yield – but was tricky. As interest rates have gotten cut, the income drops as well. However, it’s important to remember that a 3.5% return on $1 million is $35,000. We want to achieve that without paper losses, which is only doable if we keep the terms short and the creditworthiness high. There is still too much credit and duration risk. Again, we spend one full day teaching what’s safe at the Financial Freedom Retreat. I also host a bond/fixed income masterclass each year.
 
FYI: between 2009 and 2016, we encouraged people to avoid the risk of long-term bonds and lean into real estate instead. Real estate more than doubled. (As we say, “What’s hot and what’s safe changes every year.”)
 
18. How can dollar cost averaging help our strategy? If we want to add in a hot industry or fund that is trading at an all-time high, we can dollar-cost average, rather than just buying everything at once. That way if the markets keep going up, the gains fill up our slice for us. If the markets go down, we buy more at a lower price, instead of buying high and losing money. 
 
19. How do we determine when to capture gains or buy more? That’s the beauty of the pie charts – they show us how to do the right thing. If our slice is too large, it is prompting us to capture gains and trim the slice back to where it should be. If the slice is too small, it is encouraging us to buy more low. This system smooths out volatility and keeps us on the right side of the trade – even in industries like technology, clean energy and cryptocurrency, which experience wild swings. Technology and cryptocurrency were the worst performers of 2022 and the best of 2023. Clean energy tripled in 2021, was back to all-time lows in 2024, and then performed exceedingly well (+45.20%) in 2025. Clean energy’s returns in 2025 were higher than Nvidia and more than double the performance of the S&P500.
 
20. What is the difference between a “Stop Loss” mindset and a “Capture Gains” mindset? Stop losses can actually increase your losses, rather than protect you, in a market that is such a rollercoaster, as Wall Street has been in the 21st Century. In a volatile market, if we set stop losses, we will be losing time and again. On the flip side, if we are anticipating the volatility and capturing gains during our rebalancing sessions, we will be winning over and over again. Regular rebalancing allows us to adopt a “Capture Gains” winning game plan.
 
The best protection against a downturn is to have an appropriate amount safe – not at risk. So, the pie chart system protects our wealth better than a stop loss. When we we keep an age-appropriate amount safe, we are automatically protected from market volatility and losses. If we see economic storms on the horizon, overweight more safe.
 
 
Bottom Line
Of course, the devil is in the details. Implementing this strategy will be easier if you attend our Investor Educational Retreat. We also offer a Rebalancing Master Class every year. The next online courses are listed below.
 
Rebalancing Masterclass ONLINE Jan. 10, 2026
https://www.nataliepace.com/rebalancing2026.html#/
 
Financial Freedom Retreat ONLINE Jan. 17-19, 2026
https://www.nataliepace.com/retreat202601.html#/
 
 
If you are a busy professional, or if you want to gain greater clarity on this plan (which is the life math that we all should have received in high school), consider getting an unbiased 2nd opinion from me in my private coaching practices. Email [email protected] for pricing and information. You’ll receive personalized pie charts and a wealth game plan in the 2nd opinion, which allows you to be in control and be the boss of your money – even if you have a financial advisor. (I don’t sell financial products, which is why my 2nd opinion is unbiased.)
 
 
Email info @ NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to register for one of our online training programs. These time-proven, 21st Century investing, budgeting, debt reduction and home buying solutions will transform your life. You can even learn to save thousands annually in your budget with more-informed big-ticket choices.



Why not treat yourself to the gift of financial freedom to create a New Year, New Me in 2026?
Register now to join us at our online Financial Freedom Retreat Jan. 17-19 2026 where you'll learn how to protect your wealth, save thousands annually in your budget, invest in hot industries like AI, gold, crypto and more, and how to be in the best seat during our volatile Debt World. Register by Dec. 1, 2025 to receive the best price. Email [email protected] to learn more and register now.

If you'd like a life-changing adventure of a lifetime, be our guest at a royal manor house in Cornwall, England, March 12-19, 2027. (With just eight rooms available, this exclusive, private, bucket-list adventure sells out a year in advance!) Call 310-430-2397 or email [email protected] to learn more. The 2025 Restormel Retreat was a magical and royal experience. Click to learn more. 

Receive the best price when you register with friends and family for the ONLINE Financial Freedom Retreat Jan. 17-19 2026. Request testimonials at [email protected]. You can also view some on the flyer page of the retreat. 

Learn how to:

* Invest in hot industries, such as cryptocurrency, Nvidia, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing,
* Save thousands annually with smarter big-ticket choices
* Hedge against a weaker dollar,
* Invest and compound your gains,
* Green your retirement plan,
* Easy and efficacious nest egg strategies,
* Get hot and diversified (including in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and crypto),
* Evaluate stocks,
* Avoid capital gains and financial predators,
* Keep an age-appropriate amount safe, and,
* Know what's safe in a Debt World.

Yes, it's a complete money makeover. 
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Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more and register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. ​

"Ten minutes into the first day I was already much smarter about investing than I ever thought I would be in my life and I knew I was in exactly the right place at this retreat. I am amazed at how EASY and FUN it is to make my money work for me and those I love. I think this kind of information should be compulsory in schools. I wish I'd learned this sooner." CM

If you’d like an unbiased 2nd opinion on your current wealth plan, email [email protected] for pricing and information.

​

Click through to the flyer to learn more. Call 310-430-2397 or email [email protected] for pricing, additional information and to register. Register with family and friends to receive the best price. Teens and college students can attend for just $99.

Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. Spring Equinox 2027. Email [email protected] to learn more. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. Register now to receive the best price, the best room and four private, prosperity coaching sessions. There are only 6 rooms available. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two. Considering the perks, you're receiving a 65% discount to learn the life math that we all should have received in high school, and the room is free! Email [email protected] to learn more. The best rooms at the 2025 retreat were sold out in 2024! Yes, it's a great idea to register and start transforming our lives now.

​Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of The ABCs of Money (6th edition) and The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. She has been ranked as a No. 1 stock picker, above over 835 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency (TipsTraders). Her book The ABCs of Money remained at or near the #1 Investing Basics e-book on Amazon for over 3 years (in its vertical), with over 120,000 downloads and a mean 5-star ranking. The 6th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) are the most recent releases of these books. Follow her on Instagram. 
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Natalie Pace's easy as a pie chart nest egg strategies earned gains in the last two recessions and have outperformed the bull markets in between. That is why her Investor Educational Retreats, books and private coaching are enthusiastically recommended by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, TD AMERITRADE chairman Joe Moglia, Kay Koplovitz and many Main Street investors who have transformed their lives using her Thrive Budget and investing strategies. Click to view a video testimonial from Nilo Bolden.​​

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Important Disclaimers
Please note: Natalie Pace does not act or operate like a broker. She reports on financial news, and is one of the most trusted sources of financial literacy, education and forensic analysis in the world. Natalie Pace educates and informs individual investors to give investors a competitive edge in their personal decision-making. Any publicly-traded companies, funds or projects mentioned by Natalie Pace are not intended to be buy or sell recommendations.

ALWAYS do your research and consult an experienced, reputable financial professional before buying or selling any security, and consider your long-term goals and strategies. Investors should NOT be all in on any asset class or individual stocks. Your retirement plan should reflect an age-appropriate, diversified wealth plan, which has been designed strategically, with the assistance of financial professionals who are familiar with your goals, risk tolerance, tax needs and more. The "trading" portion of your portfolio should be a very small part of your investment strategy, and the amount of money you invest into individual companies should never be greater than your experience, wisdom, knowledge, patience and diversified strategy.  
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Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, NataliePace.com does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Opinions constitute our judgment as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument.