- Simple plans are easy to understand, implement, and stick to.
- Simple plans often have the lower costs.
- Simple plans are less error prone.
- Learning about 529 plans and opening accounts for my kids.
- Switching jobs and getting access to a 401k, which meant a new account at a new financial institution.
- Seeing my first market correction, which led me to try tax-lost harvesting, and therefore got me out of my simple target date fund.
- Another correction, which led to more TLH and even more funds being held.
- Learning that, due to my tax bracket, I should look into tax-exempt munis.
- Learning about state-specific risk, so restructuring my bond holdings to hold fewer munis.
- As wealth grew, deciding to do some estate planning, which led me to move everything into a living trust (which in turn led me to switch banks).
- Getting a mortgage for the first time.
- Needing to do some foreign currency transfers which led me to open an account at Interactive Brokers (which in turn led me to buy my first ETFs because I wanted to meet the minimum balance requirements to avoid monthly commissions).
- Needing some cash at regular intervals, so buying individual treasuries, held to maturity.
- ...
In order to simplify, I took some long-term capital gains and put my ducks back in a row with a three-fund portfolio set-up, and this time I'm really serious about keeping things simple, not just starting simple.
What do you do to stop complexity from creeping into your portfolio? Or don't you care?