Bogleheads.org

I sincerely appreciate all the valuable advice I've received so far. Why a five-year horizon? I started investing in 2006, but I have yet to be able to reach the 300K. Despite my efforts, I've seen minimal progress in my investments, and I recognize that I must be making some mistakes. I hope that by maximizing my returns over the next five years, I might have better luck than the laissez-faire approach I held for the past 19 years. Any advice or suggestions you can provide regarding portfolio simplification and maximizing returns would be beneficial. @arcticpineapplecorp My goal is to maximize returns for the next ten years. And yes, I have at times considered going 100%. @ Johm221122 Hoping to break into 500k by then. Thank you @Doctor R...

CookieDough wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 8:08 pm If you're ever going to be on an ACA health plan, and if your MAGI is low enough during those years, you might want to compare ACA subsidies against future tax savings by doing Roth conversions in order to prevent future tIRA withdrawals from bumping you into a higher tax bracket. That can be a complicated question regarding whether you come out ahead doing the Roth conversions or taking the highest possible subsidy.

This.
I try to 'walk the tight-rope' each tax year, considering ACA subsidies and paying 12% (or less) for each dollar converted to Roth.

johnpau wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 8:00 pm Hi All,


I currently have brokerage account with Vanguard ( 3 fund portfolio) invested heavily.

From 2-3 years I have savings account in Ally bank just for peace of mind, in case stock market takes wild dip.

With all the recent banking news going on, I was wondering its time for me to move $$ away from Ally bank anything in excess of $250K (FDIC limit).
I know Ally started to pay 4.75% for 11-month no penalty CD.

Does it make sense to move excess $$ (above 250K) from Ally to Vanguard money market ?

If yes, which one do you recommend.

Or completely go with a different place (Fidelity ...etc)

Any other suggestion are welcome.

Unwise to exceed FDIC insurance limits by any material amount, in my opinion.

drramey wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 8:06 pm I like the idea of living off of dividend/interest if the saved amount at retirement allows it instead of selling off assets. In tax deferred accounts one could easily exchange holdings for something more income focused with no tax consequence. My taxable account is mostly VTI. Is there anyway to restructure holdings in a taxable account without a heavy tax penalty? In my case changing from VTI to corporate bonds, dividend stock funds, preferred stock funds, etc….

Hard to beat the tax efficiency of VTI in taxable.
If you haven't already, learn about tax-efficient fund (or ETF) placement.

So after taking five years to pass through Rick Ferri's stages of indexing ... ... Asset Allocation = 50/42/8 Looks really good. Just a few thoughts, since you asked for any suggestions: ... Overall, well done! Thanks and yes any suggestions welcome! 3. Would it be unreasonable to put MMF cash in my Rollover IRA (and buy Total Market in taxable with it instead of S&P), sell S&P when I need cash, and purchase total market with the MMF in the IRA to keep things balanced out? That would reduce cash drag if I have it right. Thanks again. Understood on the first 2. ... 3) That is how I handle our fixed income. I keep everything other about a month of expenses in tax-deferred accounts. When I need more money to spend, I sell some equitie...

I currently have an HSA plan through my employer(School District), but I don't know if the fees with investing my HSA is too high. The HSA funds is sent to a credit Union called "Gulf Coast Educators Federal Credit Union and the Credit Union offers a 3rd party on their website called, myHSAinvestments to handle the HSA Investments. There are some fees through the 3rd party that's in addition to the standard expense ratio of the investment fund. It does have Vanguard Index Funds which is great since Vanguard is my Brokerage and as far as I know, Vanguard doesn't have their own HSA option (why?!?) And this is the fees incurred by the 3rd party: 0.50% Annual Fee Fee invoiced quarterly (0.125% per quarter or $1.25 per $1,000 of account va...

berg wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 8:23 am Tomorrow marks the ten year anniversary of my first post on Bogleheads! I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to everyone on this forum who has taken the time to help me secure a better future for my family. I made so many better decisions, with much more confidence thanks to all of you! My wife calls you my money friends on the internet. I can't thank you all enough!
...

I was just lurking back in 2013, reading so many of the historical postings.
Truly amazing the amount of knowledge available on this forum!
'Thank you' to all contributors and moderators.

Redlee wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 1:16 am Vanguard and Fidelity are popular with Bogleheads and for good reason. But which firm would be in third place after them? If they closed tomorrow, where would you move to?

This would be for a "three fund" style portfolio of ETF's but with access to the most popular tax-loss-harvesting pairings. So access to those at low or no cost would be a priority.

The one that comes to mind is Charles Schwab. But is there something better?

Schwab is fine.

jebmke wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 10:38 am I only take losses in my taxable account.

Bingo.
I, too, prefer losses in taxable.
TLH is my friend.

aboose wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 7:47 pm I've never sold funds before so I am curious about this.

Say I sell on Business Day 1. I believe it takes 2 days to settle, so it will reach the settlement fund on BD3. then I ask for a transfer to my bank account. On what BD do I expect the cash to land in my checking?

Sell one share and try it.

Hi, With interests so high right now, what might be a better new investment, index funds or CDs? I just opened a Roth IRA at Vanguard and I also have an account at Ally Bank, which has one offer of 5% APY fixed rate for an 18 month CD. At Vanguard I saw some offers on their CD page of 5.35%. Would it make sense to invest in one of these CDs as long as rates are high, then maybe change to an index fund once rates are going down again? Or would investing in an index fund now still be better (and more profitable) in the long run? At Ally Bank the APY on my regular savings account (40,000$) is 3.60% currently as well and it's nice to get paid a chunk of interest every month without worries, while the stock market seems to be going up and down ...

TinyHouse wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:17 pm After over a decade of learning from and reading this forum ...

Especially for traditional 30 year retirement horizons, you can probably withdraw much more than you think. Check these out and let me know your thoughts, and take care!

Early-retired already, with perhaps more than 40 years before my funeral.
Basically a 3-fund portfolio, with overall AA ~60/40, spread across HSA, 401k, taxable, and traditional/Roth IRA accounts.
No way I am going to withdraw anywhere close to 5% annually, unless something catastrophic happens.
If said catastrophe strikes, I will likely begin working again for a paycheck.
Best of luck to you, if you enact your proposal.

Charles Joseph wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:59 pm

John Z wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:25 pm Short term (1-day, 1-week, 1-month, 3-month and YTD are in the bottom 2 quartiles of performance which is a good thing, you would be buying in low.

Or, manager risk is showing up. Matt Hand just recently took the helm with Michael Reckmeyer's retirement (equity side).

I sold Wellesley a few months ago when I finally surrendered to all index. I miss it, but for me (and me only) I had to pick sides in order to keep sane. Active? Or index?

Isn't it nice to no longer need to care about manager movements?

A most classic RBD play just happened. Remember that Fridays cannot be bona fide RBDs, but Monday was a great RBD for AVUV when it dropped an additional -3.85% by the close though it was down even further intraday. And the next day AVUV has traded as high as 75.62 though it has slacked off to 74.11 as I type this. BND even cooperated by going up 1%+ on Friday and 1%+ on Monday, though it has gone down more than 1% from it Monday high. In any case, selling BND on Monday to buy AVUV, then selling AVUV on Tuesday has been profitable. Should BND be rebought? I'm gonna wait for now. Added: these kinds of trades can not be backtested with the current version of PortfolioVisualizer.com because it (a) doesn't have intraday numbers and (b) only has...

hotajax wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:29 am ,,,,, are you a little bit satisfied?

Surely you jest.
I assume you have used the search box and read prior threads about Fisher.

LITeacher wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 11:39 am

wilked wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 11:38 am Is this to compare yourself against?

Some advice would be not to do so. Focus on your financial goals and compare yourself vs those goals, not vs others

My two cents...

Not necessarily --- more to see what is possible at specific income levels.

'Tis possible to retire with a portfolio more than 20x one's highest annual salary, without any windfalls.

Stanczyk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:50 am Should I prioritize retirement accounts, or should I just do taxable?

Whichever is most advantageous tax-wise.

grandnexus wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 8:35 am Schwab has fallen over 20% in a few days due to the banking fiasco, seems like a good buying opportunity. Thoughts?

Edit: It is now down 37.75% since Thursday as of 9:43am EST

Introduce single-stock risk to my portfolio?
No can do.

Charles Joseph wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2023 10:32 am

retired@50 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2023 10:09 am This sounds like some sort of security protocol to me.

Regards,

Agreed and thanks. My thought is they have the checks but wouldn't confirm receipt unless I could give them the exact amounts, due to security reasons. Should probably hit my IRA next week (I hope).

I hate rollovers. The money disappears into the vortex for a while. I think this should be my last one (will likely leave my 401k at Fidelity in there. It's got excellent options; all low-cost Fidelity index funds).

FWIW, when I have done rollovers from 401k, the 'FBO' check comes to me, and I drive it to my local Schwab office and deposit.

Hi, I posted a question regarding balancing my 401K back in 2019. I was 59 1/2 at the time ... ... Questions: 1) Should I move all my Vanguard accounts into a three fund portfolio and similarly with Fidelity? I am worried about more volatility but the target funds seems too conservative to me. 2) I estimate I need $85K in retirement and that does not include medical costs. I've read a few posts regarding Planvision services. For someone like me who has not seen much improvement in my accounts and does not have anything left to invest, can anyone tell me if that would be a viable option vs. PAS? I'm really lost about distribution, taxes, etc. when I actually retire. I I stick close to a 60/40 asset allocation for my whole portfolio, but eac...

Elm195b wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 12:52 pm Asking for a friend! Any recommendations between the three for an individual who isn't interested in managing their own investments. Has anyone closed out their Personal Capital account and moved everything to Vanguard or Fidelity? How easy was the transition? Did it require you to sell any investments or were you able to just transfer holdings to new company? He is holding the majority of his investment in IRA's and 401K.

I moved from Vanguard to Schwab many years ago.
Has been a good move for me.
I self-manage basically a 3-fund portfolio, with AA of ~60/40.

I’m 55 and just retired. Because I have Roth conversions planned until RMD I also decided to open an HSA, which if I’m correct will allow for $4850/yr to “add” to the conversion within my desired bracket. My question is what to invest in. I’m generally healthy and my HDHP has a $7k deductible. My AA is 60/40. Unless I incur more than the usual annual costs (eyeglasses, maybe a prescription, etc) I was thinking I’d just let it grow for 10 years while funding until 65, at which point I’d use it for Medicare premiums etc. Do I load $7k into a MM or bond fund, then go 60/40? Just dump it into a target date fund? Some other approach?? My HSA is 100% equities (VITSX), except for the required cash amount. My overall portfolio 60/40 AA is achieved...

As a fellow 31 year old, I recommend dumping everything that you can into VT Vanguard Total World and think about bonds in 10 years. If VT isn't available, then the cheapest target date fund available. Considering we have a long runway, I'm not going to assume the US dominates the stock market our entire lives. With VT, you're covered no matter what happens, but this is debated ad nauseam here; you'll have to come to your own conclusions. Keep things as simple as possible and worry about saving more than investing right now, as your savings are likely to outpace any investment gains. Thank you! Yeah, I ended up going with a strategy of 60% domestic and 40% international stocks as an overall in my portfolio. When you say, "worry about ...

I am 78, wife is 75. Have small ($50K) IRA, paid for (~$250K) home and ~$200K in taxable brokerage account with a 1.25% fee. And, that account is entirely ETF’s and MF’s. No need to leave any funds to kids. They do quite fine. Simply want to gradually withdraw $7K-$10K annually to live our years. And with lower or no fees. Think I could do fine with the appropriate ETF’s in a robo account or a zero cost brokerage account and be rid of the advisory fees (or have a significantly lower annual fee with a robo). I really do not want to spend much time to manage an account. Did that for the better part of my life. Looking for advice on my fee reduction ideas and thoughts on where (robo or self)? TIA I am early-retired. I have my traditional IRA,...

saycanyouc wrote: ↑Mon Mar 06, 2023 2:11 pm Basis of this question: I'm getting what I consider unacceptable customer service from Vanguard. For convenience's sake, lets not discuss why I feel that way. My interest is in competence and low fees. For those of you who are Vanguard customers, if you HAD TO move your account, where would you move it to?

Schwab.

dlm2827 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 3:36 pm What suggestions would you have for me to share with her for better use of that money?

Sorry, I have no suggestion.
Just writing to say that you are not alone in this situation.
I gave up long ago.
We each do our own thing.
Life goes on.

Ask the person living in the next house over if there is a 'Millionaire Next Door'.
(Sorry, could not resist.)

TheTimeLord wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 5:33 pm Personally, I prefer to have a different index in my Taxable accounts as my Tax Deferred accounts to avoid unintended wash sales during TLH.

Bingo!

I am early retired, and my ~60/40 portfolio is basically three index ETFs, mainly at Schwab (plus my 401k still residing at former employer).
My Roth IRA, HSA, and taxable account are all ~100% equities.
~100% of my fixed income is in tax-deferred accounts, plus some spillover equities.
When I need spending money, I simply sell a few shares of VTI from my taxable account.
If that causes my whole-portfolio AA to be out-of-balance, I simply re-balance in tax-deferred.
Portfolio is easily self-managed.

tibbitts wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 5:30 pm Is TD login down just for me or everyone? The site is up but when I enter my account number, there's an outage message.

I had no problems around noon ET today.

OP, I am at a similar income level to you. Cook and eat at home until the situation stabilizes, I mean don't eat out or buy drinks out at all. Grocery is one area where savings can usually be found. Take all the food in the house out of the refrigerator, freezer, and cabinets and put it on the kitchen table, then make a plan to eat it, even if it means having cooked carrots, baked beans and pickles for a meal. (This is temporary. We're trying to get out of a jam here.) When you do go grocery shopping, the first purchase should be a box of quart-size freezer bags. If you buy a pound of ground beef, the minute you get home cut it into four quarter-pound portions and freeze two of them. Eat ONE hamburger for a meal, not two, and skip the mult...

Postings like this cause me to consider buying more stocks.
(Not single stocks, but broad-market index ETFs.)

firefi1983 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 4:40 pm Need suggestion on allocation and % for the allocation. Here are my 401k fund options(with expenses) I am interested in:

1. DODGX - Large cap value (0.51%)
2. FXAIX - S&P500 (.02%)
3. VWUAX - US growth (0.23%)
4. OTCFX - Small cap growth (0.85%)
5. FSMAX- Extended market (.04%)
6. FTIHX - International Index (.06%)

My 401k stocks are 100% S&P500 index, because like yours, it is the least expensive ER of all my options.
(Of course I do have other monies (some outside my 401k) which bring my overall portfolio AA to ~60/40.)

giantgreenanemone wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 5:24 pm Thanks for the valuable input and well wishes, everyone! Far exceeded my expectations which were already high.
...

I recognize that I ultimately will need to decide what to do, but I've learned lots from this thread that I had not even considered before (such as prenup and umbrella insurance lol).

Thanks again, and cheers everyone!

Impressive.
Yes, it's like trying to drink from a fire hose, with all these replies.
With time and reading here, you will be all set.
(Just FYI on AA - During the stock market drop in 2008-09, I was almost all stock ETFs, which meant I had little money to buy equities while they were cheaper. Since then I have kept at least 25% in fixed income so that I would always have some money to re-balance with.)

albireo13 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 4:18 pm The 1% ….

They could put a pile of bricks, or a chimpanzee, in charge of my portfolio and I'd still lose 1%.

I am barely into 7 figures so 1% is roughly 10k.

Yes, $10k per YEAR that you have a million dollars there.
And I bought a nice used Toyota for about that amount.
Raymond James is not for me.

I just do not pay for beverages at all, and drink only tap water.

Hi, Due to the recent loss of my parents, we have an inheritance of ~$7.5M coming in. Our situation is as follows: Emergency funds: Yes, credit union checking account Debt: None Tax Filing Status: Married Filing Jointly State of Residence: NY Age: 51 / Wife's age: 49 I'm recently out of work, and while I'm figuring out next steps, I want to generate $150k/year in income from the portfolio for the next 1-2 years. I was thinking of opening a Fidelity account, and maybe figuring out a ladder of CD's/bonds in the shorter term. I'm interested in learning about what other possibilities could provide income/inflation protection in the short term as well. What is the best place to get guidance there? This would ideally be someone I could pay who i...

hudsoner wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:37 pm Hi,

My wife and I (52 & 49) are both applying to this: https://wealthforlife.net/tax-free-matching-overview/... which seems like it's a no-brainer, if we can pay into the 5x annual installments. The downsides I can see are:

+ The distributions are fixed, not adjusted for inflation
+ There are 5 years of paying in, with penalties if those payments aren't made

This seems like an excellent option to augment our retirement income. Am I missing something?

I only skimmed the website, but my skepticism alarm is still ringing.

Hoping someone can give some suggestions for ETF choices for my husband's HSA. We're both in our early/mid 30's and have a simple portfolio with 90% stocks (25% international)/10% bonds across our retirement accounts. We've only used mutual funds before though so these ETF choices aren't as familiar to me. Our total retirement portfolio is around 600K. Since the HSA is a relatively small part of that portfolio (just opened it last year, contribute the max with part contributed by his employer), should we keep it simple and just invest in a US stock fund? These are his choices: Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT) ER 0.07% Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) ER 0.03% iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) ER 0.03% Vanguard Extended Market ETF ...

My daughter just graduated and is starting her career as a Radiology Technician. Her starting salary is around $55K a year. She's been offered two health plans; a standard PPO Plan the covers 100%, no deductible, for $110/month, and an HSA Plan that has a $1500 deductible at $55/month. She is 22 years old and in great health, no prescriptions. Single with no children. I'm inclined to advise her to go with the HSA plan and sock away as much money as she can while she's young and her expenses are low. She will also be contributing to their retirement plan at the maximum allowed. I don't know much about health plans so any advice would be appreciated! I always chose HSA, and treated it like a 'Roth IRA on steroids' (supreme tax-deferred accou...

For those of you that have a budget / track expenses what are your categories and why? I used to track expenses many years ago but I had 45+ categories and it became too much. While it was nice see how much I spent on coffee, cable, dry cleaning, gifts, groceries, electronics, eating out, household items, clothing, insurance premiums, federal taxes, state taxes, etc. - it often became too time consuming to break down the $400 receipt from Costco, Amazon, Target, etc. and I gave up. I’m looking to take a more simplified, sustainable approach but provides meaningful data points. My goals for tracking expenses: - Track total annual expenses and create several years worth of data to form a view on what expenses might look like in retirement - ...

'Staying the course' with my ~60/40 asset allocation.

Hello bogleheads, I am 22 years old and very recently received a $2.5 million dollar windfall due to the death of someone I love in my family. Not taxable based on my research and the circumstances (meeting with someone this week to verify this). I know there was a similar post here a few years ago (https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=301519) but I decided to make a new one since my situation is a bit different About me -Currently no stable income as I am finishing up my Masters this spring. Have a bachelors degree. $20k in student loans -$500 a month rent, paying using savings from previous internships -Plan on getting a permanent job in my field that pays $55-60,000 this summer -No credit card debt, good credit score -Planni...

I am in the process of retiring in about a week at age 56. Since it is a bit early, my plan is to live off fixed income return for the first 3-5 years and preserve capital. At 4% income return, I will generate about 160% of my pre-retirement spending. I bought my first sizeable 5 year CD (non-callable) at 4.3%. I'll be picking out other CDs and Treasury notes over the coming months until I have everything setup. The way things are going with rates, I might be able to at least look at 7 year notes. I'm trying to work out in my head the right way to think about things. Longer for less $, or shorter for more $ (yeah, that is inverted alright). I like the idea of having things settled for at least 3 years or longer. I'm pretty happy with that ...

I can stop pulling from Wellesley at any time and begin pulling from Cash savings. The negative is we will be depleting cash which means less readily available for home repairs etc. The questions are: Do I need to alter my current withdrawals from Wellesley or is it just best to stay the course with the expectation that Wellesley will absorb a downturn and bounce back? OR do I start pulling from cash immediately when I see a a market crash and then return pulling from Wellesley once the market rebounds? I’ve read that others that use Wellesley as their retirement vehicle just stay the course no matter what the market is doing. They are confident that Wellesley will get them through the downturns without need to switch out and back in. I se...

In the past, I've been fairly lazy with my fund placement because I was in a low tax bracket. But now that I've started doing my taxes for TY2022, I've gotten annoyed at trying to compute what proportion of my dividend income is taxable where, and have realized that I should probably improve the efficiency of my fund placement, but I'm not sure what changes I should make. I'm in my very early 30's, single, and as of TY22, am in the 35% Federal and 9.3% California tax brackets. Here's a breakdown of my accounts, of which the investment ones are pretty much all in Vanguard funds: I-Bonds: 15k Checking/Savings: ~50k Brokerage (Taxable): ~90k BND: 7.2% BNDX: 1.8% VTI: 62.0% VXUS: 28.4% Roth IRA (Tax-Exempt): ~190k BND: 7.7% BNDX: 1.9% VTI: 63....

A different but related question: How do people think about the money they set aside for retirement, (if not in % of gross income terms)? E.g., we pick a target amount (not percentage) each year, automate it, and then spend from what's left. Our savings are then distributed among 401ks, Roth IRAs, 529 plans, and our taxable account (in roughly that order). I'm curious how many people do something like that instead of thinking in percentage terms. The debate regarding the definitions of income, some including dividends in retirement accounts, etc., makes me think that nobody really thinks about setting aside money for retirement as some specific % of their gross income. I could be wrong. True, 'percent of income saved' often doesn't mean a ...

I have come to realize we have a lot of (I won't say too much) money in tIRAs. We're retired (65 and 66) and can convert funds to Roth IRA and stay in 12% bracket for two or three years using cash to pay those taxes. Would it ever make sense to convert up to 22% and use tIRA money to pay taxes. I understand the arguments against doing so but wouldn't it help reduce the amount of tIRA faster. And yes that bumps the taxes on qualified dividends and capital gains. First world problem. Not to be morbid but when one of us kicks it the survivor's tax bracket will jump! Not to mention SS at 70 and RMDs at 72. Thanks. Paying the tax from traditional IRA (instead of from taxable) effectively diminishes the amount within IRA status. But maybe you ar...

Hello to all I opened a Roth IRA at work, in 2020. As I was no longer working for the company, I asked the fund manager to deposit the funds into my checking. To my surprise I receive a 1099 with the full amount ($20,000) as taxable. 1. I thought that Roth IRA's were non taxable once we cash them. Was not aware of the 5 year rule. 2. Should I be paying taxes on the full amount, as I already paid payroll taxes on this. Federal and state tax. Something does not seem right to me.. 3. I asked the vanguard advisor team to help, but they told me that I need to speak to a tax accountant, which I was not going to use this year, as my taxes are very straightforward. Can someone help me understand this. Thank you so much for all your help. 'I opened...

preciseman wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 4:30 pm Hi all.

I've received a 250k bonus check and want to invest into VTWAX. Would the community still recommend doing a lump sum one shot go? Or should I break this up into chunks. If breaking up into chunks, whats the recommended amount per chunk and what period? 50k/week or 50k/month?

Thanks!

For me, it would depend on what percent $250k is of my whole portfolio.
Small percentage, probably lump sum.
Significant percentage, half lump sum, and half DCA.
(FWIW, I buy a bit of equities every day, and in certain conditions twice as much.)