New to Investing

Discuss all general (i.e. non-personal) investing questions and issues, investing news, and theory.
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YoungandEager86
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 9:33 pm

New to Investing

Post by YoungandEager86 »

Hey Everyone,
I'm 27 and just starting to fund my retirment account. I have been reading some forums and figured Vanguard is the most suggested fund to use for retirement planning. My Situation: The place i work for offers a 403 b where i can elect which funds to select for my retirment portfolio. I have read about the lazy 3 fund protfolio and 4 fund portfolio but am not sure if i have this correct. I have about 10% of my paycheck going into my retirement fund. Since i just started i have around 820 dollars in my retirement account.A fellow colleague suggested the following way to allocate my funds: I should put my age 27% into total bonds, split the remaining amount in half(36.5%) and put that much in international stk, and split the remaining amount in half(18.25%) and put it in extended markets and institutional index. Is this the best way to allocate my funds for retirement? What is a good resource to learn more about managing my profile? Please help i'm new and any input is more than welcomed

The funds I have selected:
---Vnguard total International stk idx Sgnl-36.49%
---Vnguard Total Bond Market Index Signal-26.95%
---Vnguard Extended Markets-18.32%
---Vnguard Institutional Index-18.24%
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youngindexer
Posts: 70
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2013 4:55 pm

Re: New to Investing

Post by youngindexer »

Hi young and eager, welcome to the site! Your portfolio is a little too tilted to small and mid cap for my taste but you could have done much worse. All of your funds should have low costs and your properly diversified which is good in my opinion. Way to get an early start on retirement 8-)
icefr
Posts: 613
Joined: Sun Apr 17, 2011 10:50 am

Re: New to Investing

Post by icefr »

The way that your colleague suggested is a fine approach. Another approach is to try to track the total market, which would be 80/20 Vanguard Institutional Index and Vanguard Extended Markets: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Approxim ... ock_market Otherwise, the approach that your colleague suggested is the exact approach I use.

Are you using a Roth IRA in addition to your 403(b)?
YDNAL
Posts: 13774
Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:04 pm
Location: Biscayne Bay

Re: New to Investing

Post by YDNAL »

YoungandEager86 wrote:Hey Everyone,
I'm 27 and just starting to fund my retirment account.
Welcome to the Forum.

As a Forum, there are several sub-Forums, and your question is not related to "Theory" and should be in the "Help with Investments" section. In that section, I suggest reading through Investment Planning thread (first option).
http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=1

That said,
Since i just started i have around 820 dollars in my retirement account.A fellow colleague suggested the following way to allocate my funds: I should put my age 27% into total bonds, split the remaining amount in half(36.5%) and put that much in international stk, and split the remaining amount in half(18.25%) and put it in extended markets and institutional index. Is this the best way to allocate my funds for retirement? What is a good resource to learn more about managing my profile? Please help i'm new and any input is more than welcomed

The funds I have selected:
---Vnguard total International stk idx Sgnl-36.49%
---Vnguard Total Bond Market Index Signal-26.95%
---Vnguard Extended Markets-18.32%
---Vnguard Institutional Index-18.24%
It seems that Vanguard is widely-available to you in the 403B, so my suggestion is to choose
Vanguard Target Retirement 2060 Fund (VTTSX).

Then, simply focus mostly on increasing your savings rate (the amount you save) and increasing your job skills to help move you up the ladder.

Good luck!
Landy | Be yourself, everyone else is already taken -- Oscar Wilde
Topic Author
YoungandEager86
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 9:33 pm

Re: New to Investing

Post by YoungandEager86 »

Hey everyone, I want to say thankyou for all your feedback im learning alot and loving it. i wanted to see what feedback i could gain with the changes i have made since starting this discussion:

The funds I have selected:
---Vnguard total International stk idx Sgnl-36.49%
---Vnguard Total Bond Market Index Signal-26.95%
---Vnguard Extended Markets-18.32%
---Vnguard Institutional Index-18.24%

Changes i have made
---Vnguard total International stk idx Sgnl-37%
---Vnguard Extended Markets Index Signal-19%
---Vnguard Institutional Index-19%
---Vnguard Total Bond Market Index Signal-12.5%
---T Rowe Price Retirement 2050 -12.5%

My thinking: From what i've been reading and seeing in the market and from colleagues help i came to the conclusion that the market for bonds are not doing great, i didnt want to completely eliminate my bond percentage so according to what basspond stated i could have anywhere from 7-17% so i left 12.5% percent in bonds and allocated 12.5% in the T-rowe price retirement 2050( i just thought it would be safer). I hope everyone can give me some insight and feedback as to what they think
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