Bogleheads.org

This is hard to explain. I do try to time the market a little by using weekly charts, but I have been invested almost all of the time since I started in 2010. For some reason, I moved all of my money out of the market except for a 10% position in EDV (bought at $110, today hurt a little), and now I...

From /r/financialindependence, a SubReddit he co-controls with some other similarly-minded bloggers: This is a place for people who want to become financially independent (FI), which means not having to work for money. Financial independence is closely related to early retirement (ER)--actually not...

See page 24:

http://www.ici.org/pdf/rpt_11_dc_401k_fee_study.pdf

According to this, for a company with $18 million in AUM, your plan seems to be better than average.

First of all, you should be thanking the Man because you have an incredibly low cost plan, assuming the total fees are what's listed in the fund expense ratios. Your outrage on behalf of others is appreciated. Unless you don't like the underlying composition of the LifePath funds (have you looked ca...

I do think that there is room for debate in the choice of the EAFE index as the I fund benchmark, rather than a broader index, one that includes Canada, for instance. I think this has to do with what types of indexes were available and commonly used back in the 1980's. I suspect the broader indexes...

I love Jack, but I had to do a double take around 34:40-34:50 when he said: “Get Wall street out of the equation, get trading fees out of the equation, get management out of the equation. You own American business and you hold it forever. That’s what indexing is. Own a fund that owns the entire US ...

Seems like the solution is incredibly simple. Just change the law so that everyone is entitled to shelter say $25,000 of income in whatever combination of vehicles they chose (401(k), IRA, ROTH etc.) You don't like your 401(k), fine. Just take your $17,500 and put it in an IRA instead and dump anot...

I love Mr. Money Mustache. I discovered his blog from this post on Bogleheads.org and I credit his extremeness, joy-of-frugality, and anti-mindless-consumerism for helping motivate me to spend less. I think he's my generation's YMOYL (Your Money Or Your Life) evangelist. That being said, like many e...

Some industry rebuttals.... http://www.plansponsor.com/Documentary_Critics_Inaccurate_Portrayal_of_Fees.aspx BruceM That's a very weak rebuttal IMO. They dismiss the claim that fees are the most important category for choosing funds and say that they are offering a very important service or value, ...

Just saw it. Very educational. I'm sharing it with my mother-in-law -- an Edward Jones client. If she watches it be sure to connect the dots for her -- the prominent case study about the investor who loses 60% of their portfolio to 2% of fees would apply to clients of EJ and similar. Most EJ funds ...

If you'd received the inheritance as a diversified portfolio of funds/etf's, would you liquidate those and buy the portfolio as currently constructed? Excellent question! I think the OP's answer to empb 's question gets to the heart of this thread. Given that you have little or no taxable gains on ...

By forced out, do you mean they roll it into a TIRA, or they cash it out completely & cut you a check minus the withdrawal penalty & taxes? Based on everything I have read, for people with balance between $1000 and $5000, the plan should give forced-out people the option of opening a TIRA (...

Be aware that there is a trend among 401(k) administrators to close out small-balance accounts of former employees because of the admin costs of maintaining small-change accounts. So you might want to check that out with the Fidelity plan before going through the trouble.

OP, around a year ago I was in a similar situation to you: trying to convince my mother to dump Edward Jones. I wrote about it here . Just a few thoughts that you could get Mom to read. Maybe the data and charts and expense ratios don't resonate, so go for the jugular with these more personal takes ...

This article reminds me of the Harvard Medical School with no aid vs Penn Medical School with full scholarship thread. http://nyti.ms/Z8StzA NYTimes: Measuring College Prestige vs. Cost of Enrollment Many students face a choice between a college that offers little financial aid but has a superior re...

.... But to get my generous salary I work hard and long hours. .. Everyone is focusing on saving vs spending but what about your quality of life? What does "long hours" mean? 60 hours per week and one vacation week per year? Or do you mean you have a demanding job 9-6 job? If you're slavi...

At your tax rate, I would not convert and would probably prioritize Traditional over Roth. See nirveness88's comments in your earlier post for why: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=107347&p=1559658#p1559741 There are around 1,000 other posts here on Roth v Traditional. The...

Just a quick sanity check -- I didn't plug your actual holdings into a spreadsheet, but assuming you did the math right and your actual holdings are in the percentages you listed as targets in the "Stocks" and "Bonds" sections, then it looks OK to me and I don't see anything glar...

Before you write off the 403(b) plan, can you confirm that the expenses and choices are truly that bad? I'm not an expert, but when I google "ohio teacher 403(b)" the first hit is this page: K-12 Educators - State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio If you're a K-12 public school teacher, a...

I am extremely skeptical of consultants and have had a few bad (but thankfully minor) experiences. Im considering rolling that 40K into a Annuity. One consultant i spoke to recommended an Indexed annuity.I have a meeting with him on Monday. I also plan on contacting another consultant with UBS that...

You could do a 3-fund portfolio with MXBIX for bonds, an 82/11/7 mix of 500/400/600 index, and MXINX for international. The international fund is not very diversified, but good enough for now. If you can eventually open up an IRA, then you could hold Vanguard total international stock market index f...

TVKNSC, it looks like you aspire to a 70/30 stock bond asset allocation but you've gotten yourself into a very aggressive portfolio. If my math is right, you look like you're 91% stocks, 9% bonds. I'm not including the $15K emergency fund in this, just the assets in the TSP, IRAs and the two Vanguar...

TVKNSC, could you post your entire retirement portfolio in the format described in this post: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6212.

It's hard to give advice without understand all your accounts (IRAs, TSP, taxable, etc.) and their relative weights.

Hello, what works for me might not be right for you, but I thought I'd share a link to a post I made last year on the same topic. Our situations are fairly similar, especially in that switching from spousal Roth IRA to TIRA pushed us further down the tax child credit phaseout. I know there isn't alw...

Bob smith, when I first started "taking control" of my investments, I was under the impression that you need to very precise about asset allocation. I spent many hours in Excel trying to make everything compute just exactly right. I was afraid that if I didn't have the ratios right, that m...

If you're smart, you'll update your post title to Yet another FORMER Ameriprise customer... :) Maybe your former salesman was better than some of the examples we've seen on this site, but when I read threads like this recent one , I would run from Ameriprise. Based on the many threads I've seen here...

Lucky, if you want a 3-fund portfolio, which would typically be the default recommendation here unless there's some reason to do otherwise, I'd suggest using Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth in your IRA. This is an 80/20 fund that is--you guessed it--a three fund portfolio with Total US Stock Market In...

That really is an astonishingly low ER for an actively managed balanced fund. Vanguard's target retirement date funds, which are built on index funds, now has a minutely higher ER than Wellington. The target date funds have an ER of 0.18%.

No

Lucky, if you want a 3-fund portfolio, which would typically be the default recommendation here unless there's some reason to do otherwise, I'd suggest using Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth in your IRA. This is an 80/20 fund that is--you guessed it--a three fund portfolio with Total US Stock Market Ind...

[Fidelity Total US Stock Market] ER is 0.10% versus 0.17% for Vanguard. many little wins make a big one. One more thing I forgot to mention about the Vanguard fund -- as soon as your fund balance gets to $10,000, then the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund can convert to Admiral share class whi...

luckystripe, first of all, don't beat yourself up! You're a 24-year-old making $75k and you have $91K saved in tax-advantaged retirement accounts. You're doing great! If you want a 3-Fund portfolio, you should be able to do this between your IRA and your 401(k), but it would be helpful to see what o...

24% Fidelity Spartan Total Market index - TAXABLE: I wanted to go with vanguard but I just can digest the fact that apple has 3.17% of that big fund. when apple sneezes, the whole fund gets the flu. Fidelity comes allotted a generous 2.51%, which is not much different from vanguard, but again, its ...

Good job. For many passive investors, a 500-index fund and a total bond fund could make up half your portfolio, so that's a good start. I'm glad people post these success stories as a way to motivate others to agitate just a little bit.

Recently retired from a government, open top cubicle workplace. Constant two, three and four person loud conversations in Spanish from the next cubicle. I don't know if it is rude or not ..... I do know that twenty + years of it becomes extremely annoying. That's rude in any language! Although you'...

I was thinking TRSPX, TRIEX, and PRTNX. What would you do? You might want to consider adding this as well: Tiaa Cref Small Cap Blend Idx Ret (TRBIX) Hold one part of this for every four parts of the 500-stock index fund so you get some small-market exposure to get a little more diversification. For...

I work in a tech company in the Washington DC suburbs. In my department, there are more non-native-US people than native US-people. As a native-born American who speaks English (and some French), I'm used to hearing conversations in Turkish, Hindi (or maybe a different Indian language?), Arabic, Man...

I am in my ~10th year of retirement, 73 no w2's. I am in the Vanguard 3 fund portfolio with cash in the vanguard MM for emergency :happy I keep track of the balance % info about every month on a spreadsheet. The percentages have not changed that much since inception. I have not decided on how much ...

Slow n steady, yes you're right, thanks for the correction. Got mixed up with my brackets. I corrected my early reply.

Wow, whoever came up with lineup should be whipped. What a plan. Anyway, I think you're right to go with the mid cap fund (assuming its a suitable index fund as we just have the name to go by) and work around it with your IRA.

I did just read this post on the Bogleheads wiki (http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Roth_IRA_conversion), so now I understand what you are saying: 1) roll over 401(k) to Traditional IRA, 2) convert some amount each year ( however much I think I'll need 5 years down the road ), 3) wait 5 years and make...

nkaufman, just a couple of observations. You write: Would like to explore some options to see if I can get around 5%+ i.e. conservation of principal/low risk etc. so that after taxes I would still make around 4%. preservation of capital is paramount. What you're asking for might be impossible, to ge...

So I could either live off my taxable accounts or my existing Roth IRA for the first 5 years, until I can take penalty-free disbursements from the rollover Roth. This is an interesting thought, and I will have to look into it more (thanks for the link to MMM, it was very clear-cut there). I had pre...

My only comment is that since you anticipate retiring early, then I wouldn't do Roth 401(k) contributions today. After early retirement, your income will go down and you'll be able to convert some of your Traditional balances each year into Roth at a low or even zero percent tax rate. Are you talki...

If you believe in above, that means your REITs are at least 10% and your SV are at least 10%. With 3:1 ratio, your TSM is at least 30%. So your your US stock market investments should be at least 50% of your portfolio... For what it is worth, i initially set up my portfolio as 60% TSM, 30% ITSM, 10...

Hello and welcome to the forum. You seem to have a pretty good handle on what you're doing. My only comment is that since you anticipate retiring early, then I wouldn't do Roth 401(k) contributions today. After early retirement, your income will go down and you'll be able to convert some of your Tra...

I would follow the suggestions of John and Defualt User BR from your first post. Without any context it's hard to answer your question. A portfolio that might be appropriate for one investor profile might be wrong for a different investor.

Chris, if anyone knew the answer to your question, they'd be a millionaire (or billionaire). To avoid a lifetime of regret, frustration and despair, I recommend that you acknowledge that this question is unanswerable and follow an investing philosophy that doesn't depend on knowing the answer to thi...

Great will do! Thanks for help, everyone. Given the listed alternatives with much lower fees (I've tried to re-add the benchmark counterparts, above), I've grown less than pleased with the TD type funds. I'm still having a hard time deciphering all the listed fees ratios and types (and more importa...

Can you determine what "BTC" refers to? What are the ticker symbols for those 3 funds? BTC = BlackRock Trust Co. These funds might be trusts and therefore there will be no ticker symbol. For those funds, if you can tell us the benchmark the fund follows then we might be able to give you m...