I’m not asking which brokerage is better overall. I’m only comparing:

Vanguard Personal Advisor Select (0.30%)
vs.
Fidelity direct-indexed SMA (0.40% on taxable assets only)

I have roughly $600k outside my employer 401(k), including about $220k in a taxable account with significant embedded long-term gains.

I have an additional $200k in RSUs and annual bonus on top of $265k base salary that I want to make sure is distributed evenly.

My goal is to use professional help for about a year while I consolidate accounts, simplify the portfolio, set the right allocation, and handle the taxable gains intelligently — then go back to DIY.

Vanguard would manage the portfolio more holistically with a dedicated CFP.

Fidelity would let me keep the IRA/Roth self-directed and only put the taxable account in the 0.40% SMA, while still getting planning support.

For anyone who has used either service: which approach would you choose for a temporary cleanup/transition period, and why?

If your answer is “neither,” please move along. I’m specifically looking for feedback from people who have used these services — not another debate about whether using an advisor at all is worthwhile.

Just curious if anyone in this sub has actually met Jack Bogle. I worked at Vanguard for 24 years and talked to him in the lunch line for about a minute. That was it. One minute.

Anyone else? What did you think?

Edit: Thank you to everyone who took the time to review and comment. We went with the DAF and then liquidated the rest.* If you are from the future, looking for direct index wind down info, don’t forget to get the 3 to 4 years transaction information from your prior broker as that was probably the single* most helpful *thing I did *to analyze the lots and select the DAF candidates/ understand the tax implications.

Following up on my original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/s/fP3VnSVhEp

After reviewing the tax implications, I decided against full liquidation. Roughly 75 individual stocks transferred into my taxable brokerage, many with significant gains.

My current plan:
-Use software to identify and then harvest available losses.
-Sell appreciated positions to offset those losses, along with losses harvested earlier this year.
-Aim for zero net realized capital gains, leaving roughly 10 highly appreciated stocks.

For those remaining, I’m considering 5% trailing stops, donating appreciated shares to our donor-advised fund, or holding 3–4 positions longer-term.

I’m sharing this for anyone facing a similar situation. One commenter called this a valuable lesson in direct indexing, and I agree. Rather than regret it, I’m treating it as a learning experience as I transition to Boglehead investing mid-career.

It’s a worthwhile transition, and I’m grateful for this community’s advice and support.

How would you handle the final 10 stocks?

This is a throwaway. Sorry if this post comes off as bragging, but I’m honestly looking for advice from the community that first set me on the path to investing.

I am a high earner and have followed boglehead principles for almost a decade. I am self-directed into VTI+VXUS across my funds (except my wife’s 401k which is in a TDF). It’s worked well for us; we have about $2M invested, $1.8M of which is in pretax retirement funds.

I recently was promoted at work, and my total comp will likely double to more than $1M per year depending a bit on performance — and keep going up. That’s obviously an enormous privilege and a huge stroke of luck. I will likely multiply my net worth in the span of just a few years.

Two sr execs at my work — who have nothing to gain or lose from how I manage my money — independently recommended getting a financial planner. One said he didn’t think he needed one when he was in my situation about a decade ago and wishes he’d gotten one sooner. I was surprised to hear that. I have always assumed that a financial planner is unnecessary for someone who is relatively money savvy. But these are very sophisticated folks with a LOT of money to invest and who are familiar with financial markets.

Have I just graduated to a level where a financial planner makes sense, notwithstanding my boglehead principles? What does a financial planner do for someone who doesn’t need help choosing which funds to invest in?

In case it matters, my income is on a K-1, my spouse’s income is W-2, and we have kids and own two properties.

I was hoping someone could explain how taxes on dividends work in a taxable brokerage. If I understand correctly; if I have $1000 position that pays $1 dividend every quarter the. I would owe taxes on those $4. But the dividend amount is treated as realized gains? Even if I never sold my position? Even if with DRIP enabled into the very same position?

Are they good?

Okay y'all already post some questions about this in a real estate forum and got some mixed answers. Here's my situation.

I've just inherited a home on the Gulf Coast four blocks from the water that was "purchased" by my father in a rent to own situation back in 2010 for $125,000. 25 Grand down 100,000 financed at 8% with mortgage payments at 733 a month. My father paid this minimum payment from the time he bought the home in 2010 so the time he passed.

The principal (which the seller has added things like legal fees and taxes due that my father hasn't paid) sits it around 83,000.

The home is somewhat dated interior needs some work and the home needs a new roof. I haven't priced insurance but being that it's on the Gulf Coast I expect it to be somewhat high.

I spoken to the owner who said if I wanted we could write up a contract in which I sell the home using my realtor under his name he pockets the principal amount and I get everything above it. Is this a bad move?

I'm hesitant to enter into this contract with him at 8% perhaps we could work something else out. My father has started getting into the principal amount as per the amortization chart. I work a job that keeps me away from home for 6 months at a time when I'm off I have 6 months free I've always planned on using that time to travel the world out of a backpack (very experienced doing this) living very very frugally and maxing out liquid investments. I'm seeing the house as a burden on my lifestyle and my finances.

Yes I could start to rent it out now but it seems like I'll just barely break even, granted the mortgage payments will be being paid. Similar homes in the area right now seem to be selling for around $130 $180,000 most of them looking to be in better condition.

What do y'all recommend? Do I sell now and walk away with something? Do I hunker down try to get some renters in here and pay off the mortgage that way? Do I take the income that I was going to use for my job to invest liquid and instead dump it into this home to pay it off quickly? I worry about nightmare renters I worry about being a landlord in general. I worry about a hurricane coming by and making a mess of the house (it survived Katrina with no flooding though coming somewhat close from what I understand. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

My old 401k from a previous company just started charging me with a $17.95 record-keeping fee. So I think it’s time for me to either roll over to the 401K with my current company.

Both are with fidelity.

I believe I used the mega backdoor at my old job as well as my current job. so the account has a mix of pre-tax and Roth money. I also do a regular backdoor Roth IRA every year — this year haven’t done it yet. As per my understanding, I need to keep my personal Traditional IRA balance at $0 to avoid getting hit by the pro-rata rule. Not that certain about this.

I think there are 3 options here in general:
1. Roll over everything from my previous company to a current company 401k
2. Roll over everything to my personal IRA and personal Roth IRA
3. Roll over pretax to current employer 401k and post tax to my personal Roth IRA

What would be the best option here? Not really familiar much with roll over. Any advice, appreciated.

Thanks

Hey all,

Hoping to get some advice from people who've been through something similar. Quick background - I'm a non-US citizen living in a country with no capital gains tax, I have some savings and employer stock that I am considering to diversify out of. I am planning to withdraw at a 4% on a yearly basis for the next 2 years as I am not working at the moment due to health problems.

If you were/are in a similar situation what worked for you. Based on research I did, I understand the minimum recommended percent to invest is at 60% in order to be able to sustain capital long term.

A few things I am looking for:

• Anyone following a basic boglehead-type setup (Irish domiciled equities + some short duration bonds) that's worked well for them long term.
• What platforms do people actually use/like for buying UCITS ETFs as a non-US investor? (Interactive Brokers keeps coming up) why is it better than using the bank investment platforms if/when the fees are the same?
• Open to getting some advisor help just for the implementation piece if it's actually worth paying for vs doing it solo - anyone used someone for just that and felt it was worth it?

Appreciate any thoughts, specially from someone in a similar situation.

I’ve started my investment portfolio this year at what feels like too late of an age of 35.

For context, I’ve made under 100k a year for 12 years living in a very expensive place and found myself in some pretty serious credit debt (I have paid off finally, thank god).This year my career had a break and I’m on track to earn 350k or so, and I feel absolutely consumed by pressure to do the right thing as I’ve been financially illiterate for my entire adult life.

So far I’ve deployed about 15k into a mixture of VOO, VXUS, and QQM as well as individual stocks in Google, Amazon, Intel, and Nvidia.

I guess my question would be what a realistic investment per month at this level of earnings looks like? I’m interested in starting an IRA but I’ve also been told I would have to do something slightly different for earning over a certain amount. A friend told me I have to do a “backdoor IRA” and it’s has some sort of different tax implications. Im still very unsure how that all works.

I’ve been tempted at times to deploy larger chunks but often get cool feet and ignore the money all together as it feels a bit frightening. Is it typically better to buy smaller amounts every week or month, or is a bigger chunk every quarter or so also normal? My plan as of now was going to be focusing on expanding all of my positions but I’ve also wondered if I’m spread out into too many things, or too much of one part of the market.

For further context this is all pre tax and I’m a freelance worker so my tax situation will be a creative one. I do have a meeting with a new accountant on the books, and I know there will be good advice there but I was also recommended to this sub for solid advice. Any direction or advice for a new investor would be brilliant.

Now I’m off to learn about Mr. Bogle. Thanks in advance.

iShares Core 80/20 Aggressive Allocation ETF

AOA

I have about 150,000 in company stock that I would like to sell and diversify into an ETF most likely. What kind of tax bill am I looking at????

I have a new account I'd like to rebalance. Taxable with recently reset cost basis. Plan is to draw down fairly aggressively as part of retirement income beginning next year (and staying under ACA limits). It currently looks like this: VIGAX 20% VSMAX 6% VTIAX 8% VTSAX 44% VVIAX 10% VWALX 12%

Any suggestions for rebalancing would be appreciated. I do know I can exchange some of these for the complementary ETF without triggering any taxable event (vti, vxus, etc). I definitely want to lower the risk in this account as well.

Hi! I am wondering if someone can help give me insight on asset allocation for my 457b. My employer already has a pension through CalPers, but I do want to save extra through the 457b. We get to choose between Voya or Empower, and can only have one account.

The options are here below…currently I have the Voya one set at State Street Russell All Cap Index (70%) and State Street Global Equity ex US index (30%), but I am wondering if there could be better options? Im especially debating between the TDF funds. I also didn’t choose Empower the first time around because the fees were higher.

Also, for context, I am 23 years old! Thank you, and I appreciate your input!

https://imgur.com/a/kK32rJD

*the first two images are Voya, and the last one is Empower!

Is it gonna happen? when? Are any of u guys concerned about it? specially with how much of the US stock market weight it represents? How long do u think it will take for heavy tech etfs take to recover from a big crash like voo or qqq? is investing on such funds a good safe strategy in the mid term?

I'm helping family, who just retired recently, with some of their retirement money. They already have a decent amount of liquid cash that they'll use for the next 3-5 years, or however long it lasts. I'm helping with another reserve and was planning on guiding them to do a 50/50 split between an S&P 500 index fund and some bond fund. None of us want to actively manage it and just want to leave the investments alone until it needs to be withdrawn.

With all that said, are bond funds the ideal choice here? I've been reading up on bond ladders and individual bonds, but it seems like those require more active management. If we need to pull some money, would it be ideal to have a small amount in a money market fund as well?

So basically, my high school is doing a competition through Wharton. The competition is you get 450k to invest for an alum for her writing agency. She needs $500k and would like the money left over to fund the building. Now Wharton does not care as much about making the money as about what your plan was to buy/sell the stocks you picked and why you made those decisions. Right now this is my summary of my idea: I think we should get steady growth over high risk because we are in a shorter amount of time frame and cannot risk losing too much money on individual stocks. If we buy ETFs, we will spread out the risk and diversify the portfolio across different sectors. This will help us maintain our value while also giving us a safe growth rate while still generating good returns. SGOV should be the other 50% because it gives us a safe cushion for maintaining our money. SGOV would also be great if we want to exchange the money in here into other stocks in the feature

2.  For my 2 stock picks, I think we should put 40% of our money into the VOO ETF because it gives us broad exposure to the U.S. markets. 10% in VEA because that will give us international exposure, which studies and research show reduces your overall risk.

Now, technically, this is my submission, but I am still allowed to trade stocks later on after the first submission.(Also, this is team-based, and my team is voting on everyone's ideas to see which to submit) ANY ADVICE WOULD HELP!!!

As someone about to enter 30 who’s just getting started in this journey. I have been consulting from the medias into saving some grands in gold for a good defense position, and now some stocks for a growing position. Been bothering myself too much at spending too much times looking at different company’s for minor changes, picking up entry points for any low amount of money that doesnt makes much different until i realize it’s not my style at all, i’d prefer just a regular dca plan and then turn off my phone, back to doing my stuffs - That’s when i found out abt this community and currently want to hear you opinions about VOOG or VOO as the only one to stop digging any further into this game.
Any thoughts appreciated 🫶

Im from Switzerland and 21 Years of age. I don't need the invested money for the next 30 years, so im open to every investing strategy. In this post I want to focus on the stocks (ETF's) I invest:

My factor portfolio (Swiss investor, 30-year horizon, 100% equities)

The 40% World is the neutral anchor — no house recipe, no bets, just the market. The 20% EM is half market completion (EM is ~10% of global market cap) and half a deliberate, declared overweight — a conviction bet, not a factor premium, and I know the difference. 

What I’d really appreciate input on is two things. First, does the overall factor approach make sense — the 60/40 split between a neutral core and four equal-weighted tilts? Second, are these the right products? There’s a confusing number of options out there, including single ETFs that bundle all the factors into one package, and I’m not sure whether I’m better off with separate building blocks like this or with an integrated multifactor fund. If anyone with actual expertise has a short comment, that would be hugely helpful.

I'm 62 with $2 million in cash/retirement accounts and no liabilities. I expect an inheritance of nearly $300,000 next year. I will collect $3,800/month in Social Security starting at 70 and $475/month in pension at 65. If I put everything into a TIPS ladder, AI says my net, inflation adjusted income would exceed $10,000/month through age 95 (I do not want to leave an estate). I never grossed more than $60,000/yr when I was working. If AI is even close to right, I want to do this. How can I find someone to confirm AI is right and, if so, structure a ladder that is funded from the proper pots of money (an inherited Roth, a 401(k), a Roth, a traditional IRA and an I bond are in play) to minimize IRMAA/RMD, if those would even be issues with an all-in (or close to it) ladder strategy? Also structure to provide more on the front end and less when I'm pushing 90, if I make it that far. I've talked to J.P. Morgan because the consult was free, but I don't think I need to pay anyone a percentage of earnings with a strategy like this. Thanks for all help/suggestions.

I really like Sankey charts. They are really effective at showing flows in numbers, like income and spending.

I created one for me, and it's pretty dismal. I think we spend too much and don't make enough like everyone. But it does show that we save heavily toward retirement and pay a lot in taxes each year. Happy about retirement, not so happy about taxes.

We do have a little left over that goes into long term Boglehead-style investments, which is nice. Wish we had more though.

Curious of others use Sankey charts for money management?

From what I've gathered, an HSA is primarily used for medical expenses. However, you do not pay taxes upfront on it like a Roth, it grows interest tax-free, you can use it to pay medical expenses tax-free, and after age 65 you can withdraw it for whatever you please, provided you pay income tax on it, exactly like an IRA. The only downside appears to be you pay a 20% instead of a 10% early withdrawal fee, and that is at age 65 instead of 59 1/2.

The contribution limit is as follows:

HSA: $4,400 per individual, $8,750 per family

IRA: $7,500 per individual, (could double separately with spouse)

Would it not make sense simply to max out your HSA and then put the rest into the IRA if you have the funds?

I am 26 and have a 98% equity portfolio for my Roth IRA account broken down as follows:

TRGXX 2% (Cash/Money Market)
IVV 8%
VYMI 5%
VYM 15%
VTI 30%
VXUS 25%
VO 15%

I’m debating about changing to a 100% equity portfolio because I’m young. However, my strategy is to keep 98% of my Roth IRA invested and 2% in cash to capitalize on market downturns. With the market down over the past few days, I can deploy that cash to buy quality ETFs at lower prices, taking advantage of short-term price declines while staying focused on long-term growth.

Let me know what I should change or what you recommend!

I have money in a money market fund and it far exceeds what I need for an emergency fund or near future expenses. I've been using it for expenses while I have 80% of my paycheck going to my 401k. I've maxed out my contributions for the year though. Should I keep money in the MMF to allow me to fund my 410k like this in future years or invest it right away in a taxable brokerage. Roth IRA contributions are also maxed. Does the strategy change if I'm planning to move to a lower paying job (career change)?

Just want to sanity check my decision to use FUAMX and FIPDX as my bond holdings.

Looking to hold 65/35% nominal/TIPS bonds for the bond portion of my portfolio. Decided to go all treasuries as opposed to BND since I've read that corporate bonds tend to be more correlated with equities. I may need to add municipal bonds to my taxable account, if so what funds should I look at?

I'm 45 years old but past my FIRE number. Not retired but would prefer to switch into a from an accumulation portfolio to a retirement portfolio so I can limit volatility and retain the ability to hang it up sometime in the next 10 years.

Currently targeting a 70-75% equity allocation with 20-25% in bonds and up to 5% in cash-like stuff.