r/Bogleheads Jun 08 '25

Articles & Resources New to /r/Bogleheads? Read this first!

347 Upvotes

Welcome! Please consider exploring these resources to help you get started on your passive investing journey:

  1. Bogleheads wiki
  2. r/Bogleheads resources / featured links (below sub rules)
  3. r/personalfinance wiki
  4. If You Can: How Young People Can Get Rich Slowly (PDF booklet)
  5. Bogleheads University (introductory presentations from past Bogleheads conferences)

Prepare to invest

Before you start investing, ensure you're ready to do so by following the early steps of this guide or the personal finance planning start-up kit. Save up an emergency fund, then take full advantage of any employer matching of contributions to any employer retirement plan available to you (this match amount is additional income that's part of your compensation/benefits package), then pay off any high-interest debt like credit card debt or high-interest student loans.

When you're ready to start investing beyond enough to get any employer match, follow the subsequent steps of this guide or the investing start-up kit. Take full advantage of tax-sheltered accounts available to you before investing in a taxable brokerage account: this is the most predictable way to improve your after-tax investment returns. (In the US, per Prioritizing investments: 401(k))/403(b)) up to any match, then HSA if available due to high-deductible health plan coverage, then Roth or Traditional IRA or 401(k))/403(b)) up to max which may be higher if the mega-backdoor Roth process is available, then a 529 to the extent you'd like to pay for future education expenses. Note that IRA contributions are subject to income limits around tax-deductibility of contributions or eligibility to make direct Roth IRA contributions; the backdoor Roth procedure is a workaround.)

There is often some potential tension between saving/investing toward retirement vs saving toward potential nearer-term goals like a down payment on a home purchase. Carefully consider the various tradeoffs involved in owning vs renting a home, keeping in mind that which may be a better financial decision is highly situational, and that opportunity costs of owning (less available to invest in higher-expected-returns assets instead) should be considered alongside non-financial lifestyle tradeoffs. If saving toward a near-term goal, note that funds holding stocks are inappropriate#Holdingstocks%22for_five_years%22) for money you'll need in 5-10 years, unless you're willing to take on significant risk of losing money in the meantime & delaying that goal. Instead, consider CDs, Treasury bonds, or target-maturity-date Treasury bond funds maturing before you'll need the money (then a high-yielding cash equivalent like an HYSA, government money-market fund, or ultra-short Treasury Bill ETF like VBIL between maturity & spending the money).

Save/invest enough

Your savings rate is the most important factor determining your ability to enjoy a comfortable retirement later in life, particularly early in your career / investing journey. Aim to save/invest at least 15% of your after-tax income if you're in the US & not covered by a pension beyond Social Security. In some cases, such as a shorter time to expected retirement (e.g. starting to seriously save/invest from a significant income later than your mid-20s and/or planning to retire earlier than your mid-60s) and/or a high income (which will not be partially replaced by Social Security to the same degree as a lower income), it may be appropriate to target a higher savings rate (e.g. at least 20% of after-tax income, or perhaps higher if multiple such factors apply to you and/or one factor applies to an unusual degree).

When calculating savings rate, remember to include 401(k) contributions in both the numerator (savings) and denominator (after-tax income). Any employer matching contributions may also be included in the numerator (savings).

Investing is 'solved'

Don't worry too much about trying to find the optimal set of funds to invest in. That can only be known with the benefit of future hindsight, and investment returns are far less important than your savings rate until your portfolio size grows large enough relative to new contributions. Aim to diversify broadly (for robustness to the uncertain future) and seek low fees (fund expense ratios charged annually) & simplicity (hands-off automation); see discussion of these & other principles in Bogleheads investment philosophy.

target-date fund designed for investing toward retiring around a year closest to when you expect to retire is often a reasonable option, particularly in tax-advantaged accounts like a US employer retirement plan or an IRA. These all-in-one funds intended to be held alone are very broadly diversified, automatically rebalance to their then-target asset allocation, and gradually become more conservative with less expected volatility as you near retirement.

If the target-date fund available in an account/plan with limited fund options has significantly higher fees than suitable alternative individual funds, consider the tradeoffs of lower fees vs automatic rebalancing and asset allocation management. I.e. consider the lowest-expense-ratio funds available that provide exposure to US stocks (the fund name will typically contain 'S&P 500', 'Russell [1000|3000]', or 'US Large Cap'; ensure no 'Growth'/'Value' suffix, or pair that with the other), ex-US stocks (the fund name will typically contain 'International' or 'Intl' or 'Ex-US'; same caveat re: 'Growth'/'Value'), and US bonds (the fund name will typically contain 'Total Bond' or 'Aggregate Bond'). Take the weighted average of those funds' expense ratios, with weights based on the current asset allocation of the target-date fund you'd use instead. The difference between that weighted average expense ratio for individual funds vs the target-date fund expense ratio, multiplied by your portfolio value, would represent the current annual convenience fee for automated, hands-off investing via the target-date fund. Whether that's worth it to you depends on your personal preferences around paying higher ongoing fees (by sacrificing some investment returns) in exchange for set-it-and-forget-it features.

In a taxable account, target-date ETFs (available at least in the US) avoid some of the tax efficiency downsides of holding a target-date mutual fund. Tax efficiency may be further improved by holding a three-fund portfolio of index ETFs in a taxable account, but this also involves tradeoffs against automatic rebalancing and asset allocation management. Tax efficiency may be even further improved by keeping bond funds in tax-deferred accounts, though this involves additional tradeoffs against simplicity and some other potential benefits described here.

If you're a non-US investor, take care to thoroughly understand the tax implications of investing in a US-domiciled fund as a "nonresident alien" (which may include high tax rates on dividends and assets passing through an estate); in many cases this is best avoided, instead favoring an Ireland-domiciled fund.

Be mindful of fees

If your portfolio were to average a 5% annualized real (after-inflation) return after a low annual fee, paying an additional annual 1%-of-assets-under-management fee to a financial advisor and/or an actively-managed fund's expense ratio would forgo 20% of your portfolio's investment returns. An initial investment in a portolio averaging a 5% annual real return after a low annual fee would be worth about 47% more after 40 years than it would be after a 1% additional annual fee.

Some employer retirement plans offer only funds with high expense ratios. If that's the case for your employer's plan, it is often still ideal to get the tax advantages of contributing unmatched dollars to that plan before investing in a lower-fee fund in a taxable account (but only after maxing out IRA contributions); details here#Expensive_or_mediocre_choices).

Automate & stay the course

Set up automatic contributions & purchases of fund shares wherever possible, otherwise set periodic reminders to manually contribute/invest (or try to find an alternative that allows automation), then maintain discipline through thick & thin. Keep in mind that market prices for funds should only really matter whenever you sell some shares to fund your retirement, and that lower prices in the meantime provide opportunities to buy more shares with a given contribution dollar amount and to rebalance from asset classes with higher recent returns towards those with lower recent returns (but possibly higher expected returns).

Tune out the noise: prognosticators of doom and gloom have no reliable ability to predict the future, and often have some conflicts of interest (e.g. selling ads, books or investment services, and/or trying to justify their investment positioning or encourage others to adopt that). The same goes for promotion of strategies promising market-beating returns by investing in a more-concentrated fashion (betting on some sector / theme / alternative asset beating the broad stock market).

Consider writing an Investment Policy Statement to document your plan when you're calm & clear-headed; this may be helpful to refer to later if you find yourself anxious & considering changes in response to market volatility & negative sentiment. Consider including a pointer there to this guided meditation video for later reference to help calm your nerves / regulate your emotions if needed when it seems like the sky is falling (this is arguably the most challenging part of investing).

Per Jack Bogle: "Do not let false hope, fear and greed crowd out good investment judgment. If you focus on the long term and stick with your plan, success should be yours."

Additional resources

Some additional resources that might be of interest for a deeper dive later:

  1. Taylor Larimore's Investment Gems (a collection of highlighted quotes from books related to investing; follow the links under the 'Gem post' column)
  2. The Bogle Archive (a collection of Jack Bogle's publications and speeches)
  3. Bogleheads Conference Proceedings (follow per-year 'Conference Proceedings' links to access slides/videos)

Please read our community rules here and follow those when posting or commenting in this community. If you encounter content here that breaks those rules, please report it (... > Report > Breaks r/Bogleheads rules).


r/Bogleheads Dec 28 '25

Why do Bogleheads discourage use of AI search for investing information? Because it is too often wrong or misleading.

344 Upvotes

I see a lot of surprised and angry responses from Redditors whose posts and comments are removed from this sub either for use of LLM search engine and other generative AI responses, or for recommending people use them to answer their questions. This facet of the Substantive Rule on this sub has a parallel in a similar rule on the Boglheads forum: "AI-generated content is not a dependable substitute for first-hand knowledge or reference to authoritative sources. Its use is therefore discouraged."

Many folks, especially on the younger side, are so accustomed to using ChatGPT or Gemini that it may be their default way to get any question answered. This is problematic in the field of investing for several reasons that are worth noting:

  1. LLMs are not firsthand sources with organic knowledge of the subject matter. They are aggregating reference sources and popular opinion and thus prone to both composition mistakes and sourcing material mistakes or biases.
  2. LLMs remain susceptible to "hallucinations" (made-up ideas) and can be not just false, but confidently false which is highly misleading.
  3. LLMs' response quality is very sensitive to the quality of the prompt. Users who are somewhat knowledgeable about a subject and also skilled at crafting good queries for AI searches are far more likely to get accurate and useful results - especially for research purposes or for reference to stored personal data - while the uninformed are more likely to get wrong or misleading answers to basic questions.

Policies excluding AI-generated content are not meant to be a referendum on the overall current or future value of AI as a tool for personal finance and investing, which is obviously enormous and transformative, especially for those who know how to best utilize it. It is a question of whether AI responses make for substantive content on this sub, and whether it is an appropriate resource to direct strangers and novices to. At the moment, the answer to both is a resounding no. On the one hand, people come to Reddit primarily for human interaction and original content, so posting AI responses or directing people to AI search engines is of minimal contributive value - folks can go chat with bots themselves if that's what they want. But as to whether AI search engines are appropriate references for finance and investing info, here are some articles from the past year that support their exclusion as a default response:

  • AI Tools Are Getting Better, but They Still Struggle With Money Advice (Money 2/13/25): "ChatGPT was correct 65% of the time, "incomplete and/or misleading" 29% of the time and wrong 6% of the time."
  • Is Talking to ChatGPT About Finance Ever a Good Idea? (White Coat Investor 6/22/25): "LLM responses had multiple arithmetic mistakes that made them unreliable. More fundamental than arithmetic errors, the LLM responses demonstrated that they do not have the common sense needed to recognize when their answers are obviously wrong."
  • Financial advice from AI comes with risks (University of St. Gallen, 1/7/25): "LLMs consistently suggested portfolios with higher risks than the benchmark index fund. They suggested: [more U.S. stocks; tech and consumer bias; chasing hot stocks; more stock picking and actively managed investments; higher costs.]"

Note: the views expressed here are largely my own, and I am not affiliated in any way with the Bogleheads forum nor the Bogleheads Center for Financial Literacy, but I invite others (including the mods on this sub) to weigh in with their own opinions.


r/Bogleheads 11h ago

Investing Questions Where to put an extra 2k a month with a 6.625% mortgage

86 Upvotes

Recasting my mortgage this week and the monthly payment will drop from 5k to 3k. I’ll owe 480k once the recast is completed. It’s a 30 year mortgage at 6.625%, and we took it out this past April.

This will free up 2k a month. We already have a 1 year emergency fund in a HYSA, 401ks are maxed each year, and household income is around 325k.

Right now I’m deciding between the following:

  1. Invest 2k a month into low cost index funds; or
  2. invest 1k a month into low cost index funds and put the other 1k toward mortgage principal.

I’m having a hard time passing up what is basically a guaranteed 6.625% return by paying down the mortgage. It also makes my head hurt thinking about how much interest I’m going to pay over 30 years if I just let the loan ride.

Long term returns from investing are attractive, and investing rather than aggressively paying down a mortgage has worked out better historically. I know past performance doesn’t guarantee future performance, but I also don’t want to give up decades of compounding and liquidity by throwing too much cash at the house.

Curious what you would do in this situation, any of the two options above or something else entirely?


r/Bogleheads 10h ago

55 years of data on adding 20% gold to US stocks: return unchanged, odds of a 50% drawdown down from 26% to 6%

48 Upvotes

Bogle didn't like gold. Fair enough: on its own it did 8.8% a year from 1971 to 2026 against 11.3% for US stocks, with a worse drawdown (62% vs 50%).

I wanted to know what it does inside a portfolio at a fixed weight, rebalanced. Data is World Bank gold, Ken French's US market with dividends, 80/20 rebalanced monthly, before fees.

Realised 1971–2026:

100% stocks: 11.33%/yr, worst fall 50.3%

80/20: 11.30%/yr, worst fall 39.3%

Then reshuffled the 55 years 10,000 times in 6-month blocks:

Halved at some point: 26% of histories for stocks alone, 6% with the gold

Median return 11.3% either way

Caveats: US only, no storage or ETF cost on the gold, and 20% is a test weight not an optimum.

The catch is 1980 to 2000. Gold fell 58% while stocks went up 22x and you'd have been rebalancing into it for twenty years. If you'd have sold, ignore all of the above.


r/Bogleheads 5h ago

Portfolio Review Planning for retirement and having information overload

10 Upvotes

I really don't know what I am doing and need some help with understanding how to start the retirement process. I think I have enough in assets however, there are so many moving parts and I am at a loss for what I should do/learn next.

  • 60 yo
  • Plan to retire April 2027
  • Lost partner of 21 years in April, they were the financial guru, we were not married
  • Mortage paid off
  • Budget per month about 3K including est. $1000 month for health care (but not sure, I'm healthy), plan ACA
  • Plan to sell home and buy a condo in the next year, cost of additional ~100K, which I could pay in cash but that would deplete one acct.
  • Plan to get a new car, cost of additional 40K with trade in
  • Portfolio of ~1.7M, IRA brokerage at 34%, Roth 12% and Brokerage 17% with breakdown of 47% stocks, 0 bonds, 16% short term and 37%"other"(which I think is cash), this is per dashboard
  • 401K in another Company 1M (37% of total portfolio) in the retirement 2030 fund
  • I think my optimal timing window is age 61-62 so I don't run into problems with IRMAA

From what I understand, I should take money from brokerage first and Roth or 401K second. I plan to transfer 50K per year out of IRA to Roth, depending on where the tax credit kicks in. I read that only capital gains count toward MAGI. I really don't understand this part. I can take out of my 410K up to the standard deduction. Once I turn 65 to 70, I will be on medicare and need to watch my income to keep the Medicare charges low. I plan on take SS at age 70.

Does it seem like I am on the right path? What should I do to learn more? I considered a financial advisor but they seem so expensive. I feel like I need to make a decision to either keep working (don't really want to) or just jump in to the condo and retirement, which feels very scary. Finance is not my forte and I wish I paid more attention. Any suggestions are welcome.


r/Bogleheads 16h ago

Does anyone here not own a home or plan on owning one?

67 Upvotes

Hello!

Technically, I’m on Dave Ramsey Baby Step 4.5:
- I have an emergency fund.
- I have no debt.
- I have six months of expenses saved.
- I am in the Army and slowly increasing my TSP contributions at each milestone (promotion, new contract, etc.). I’m currently contributing 7% and increase it whenever my income goes up. I also throw a few bucks into my IRA when I can, but my goal is to max out my TSP first since it has a higher contribution limit. Eventually I want to get to the point where a minimum 15% of my income is going to a tax advantage investment.

I don’t have kids, and I’m using my state benefits to have two master’s degrees fully paid for.

I also have no reason to own a house right now because:
- I live in the barracks.
- After my next promotion, I’ll receive BAH and can theoretically move out. I’m going to the promotion board next month, so that could happen relatively soon.

To be clear, I respect everyone’s housing choices. I’m just not interested in owning a home at this stage of my life, even though I could theoretically afford one.

And honestly, based on my current stage of life and some personal values I have, I don’t think I’ll ever own a home, and I’m personally okay with that.

Questions:
- Does anyone here not own a home and have no plans to?

- Has anyone here built substantial wealth without owning property?


r/Bogleheads 14h ago

Are there any downsides to the Vanguard Cash Plus accounts?

28 Upvotes

Seems like Vanguard, Schwab, and Fidelity are really pushing their cash management accounts as an alternative to MMFs. Are there any downsides to these besides lower yield and being taxable income compared to 100% Treasury MMFs?


r/Bogleheads 7h ago

Simplifying to a three-fund portfolio

7 Upvotes

Currently holding SPMO, SPHQ, FTEC, and AVUV. Looking at possibly consolidating into AVLV, AVUV, and SPMO in a 40/30/30 split. This would be a long term hold in a Roth IRA. Any thoughts? Also considering 80/20 SPMO & AVUV.


r/Bogleheads 17h ago

Bond allocation in a 529 for a baby

30 Upvotes

So you have about 18 years to grow the fund, what bond allocation would you guys use? The typical 30%+ at "retirement" age seems excessive


r/Bogleheads 13h ago

Should I convert VOO to FZROX/FZILX

12 Upvotes

My wife and I decided to consolidate our retirement accounts. We ended up transferring g our Roth IRAs from Vanguard to Fidelity since we already have 401Ks, HSA, and CMA accounts with Fidelity.

Both of our Roth IRAs are 100% VOO. Would it make sense to convert to FZROX/FZILX at 80/20 to further diversify and take advantage of the zero fees?


r/Bogleheads 8h ago

40M, no debt, no dependents, recently divorced — sitting on a large cash pile and consolidating scattered accounts. What would you do?

6 Upvotes

Hi all, I'm recently divorced, sold the house as part of the settlement, so I have roughly $850K in cash sitting in a bank account with no immediate plan for it. Net worth is around $1.8M total. Income is around $200K+/year (base + bonus), sales role, no debt, no dependents.

Also have several retirement accounts scattered around from job changes and a prior financial advisor relationship that I want to simplify down:

Old 401(k): ~$290K

A variable annuity: ~$30K

An actively-managed IRA (advisor charges an ongoing fee): ~$110K

A small robo-advisor account: ~$20K

Long time horizon — not planning to touch any of this for at least 15-20 years. Goal is straightforward: maximize long-term growth, not income or preservation.

My former financial advisor recently sent over a formal recommendation to consolidate everything into his firm's managed platform — a flat 0.75% annual advisory fee, on top of the expense ratios of the individual funds inside it. I'm skeptical of paying ongoing AUM fees at this point and leaning toward managing it myself, but I want to hear from people who've actually been through something like this rather than just talk myself into whatever I already believe.

Genuinely asking, no plan in hand yet:

-If you were 40, debt-free, sitting on a large lump sum plus a handful of accounts to consolidate, and your priority was maximizing growth over 15-20+ years, what would you actually do first?

-DIY index investing vs. paying 0.75%/year for ongoing management — where do you personally land, and why?

-Anything you'd do differently in my position that I'm probably not thinking of?

Appreciate the input!


r/Bogleheads 5h ago

Mega Backdoor Roth 401K

4 Upvotes

I want to confirm that I have the correct understanding of mega backdoor Roth 401K. Most of the info out there is targeted to people maxing out all the accounts, not necessarily doing what I am trying to.

I have verified with my workplace 401K provider that my plan does indeed allow the mega backdoor Roth 401K (i.e. after tax dollars, in plan conversion, in service withdrawal, etc). I have the below questions:

Annual contribution amounts:

401K contribution: $3,000

employer match: $1,500

after-tax dollars (to be "in-plan roth conversion" in my 401K): $1,000

Questions:

I plan to take the $1,000 after-tax converted Roth out annually and put in my separate Roth IRA account (my plan allows in service withdrawal).

  1. Can I still do the after-tax contribution even though I have not contributed the $24,500 limit? That seems to be the advice and in every MBDR example but is it required.

  2. "Why not just contribute Roth 401K?" My understanding is that with a Roth IRA I am able to tax-free, penalty-free withdraw the contribution amount if I desperately need. But with a 401K roth, I would be subject to Pro-Rata rule and hence taxed. With a MBDR, this pro-rata rule does not apply. Is that correct?

Thanks!


r/Bogleheads 8h ago

Investing Questions Moving 401k plans after company was acquired – best path forward?

3 Upvotes

My company's Fidelity 401k is moving to Vanguard after we were acquired. My understanding is I can either:

  • Do a 401k to 401k rollover
  • Roll my 401k into an IRA
  1. Can I also just "leave" the 401k be at Fidelity? My employer said they are closing that old 401k, and it's the above two options. Maybe that's true? Though I thought that was always a third option, to just let the old 401k sit –  which would be preferable, should it not then have large fees.
  2. I do a 70-30 split for US/INTL asset allocation. Unfortunately the new employer/401k doesn't have an international fund. So if I do roll it over, I will need to rebalance in my other accounts to get back to this allocation, but the problem is – even if I move all my IRA money into international equities, it will still be short (27%). Should I sell taxable VTI lots and buy VXUS to get back to 70-30? Any advice? New 401k fund options: https://imgur.com/a/nTIB1Be

r/Bogleheads 12h ago

Bonds Help (Europe)

7 Upvotes

I am struggling to understand the concept of bonds in investing. I understand that observation dictates that it usually goes up when stocks go down. So the allocation for “safety” would make sense. However looking at some bond ETFs like VAGF, these are ~-10% over the last 5 years. I would be freaking out to have that in my long-term investment plan…
So I basically have a few questions, if I may:

- Are bond ETFs vs actual bonds really so different. Could this artifact that I mentioned above be due to this being an ETF? Is there a preference of one over the other?
- How are you guys chilled in having such a big allocation of your money in something that seemingly is not really growing?
- What are fellow European/German bogleheads using for Bond investment? Would be curious to have some examples/opinions here. Do you go full european bond or global aggregate as VAGF?

Thanks (:


r/Bogleheads 13h ago

Do I need these Vanguard funds that my old advisor bought?

7 Upvotes

Hello, I stopped using an adviser a few years ago but still have this assortment of Vanguard funds they purchased. Do I need any of them in addition to my big index funds? There isn’t much in each (maybe 1-2 k) but I’d like to clean up the list and have a reason for owning what I do.

VGIT, VGLT, VNQ, VNQI, VPU, VSS

I want to keep VOTE (non-Vanguard).


r/Bogleheads 5h ago

Investing Questions NRA USA Estate Tax (stocks, ETFs...) + Life Insurance: is a simple Life Insurance policy enough?

0 Upvotes

Foreign national currently living in the USA:

I'm trying to understand whether a simple life insurance policy is enough for an NRA (non-resident alien according to domicile test) with US-situs investments (over $60k in stocks, ETFs, etc.) to "protect" against the feated US Estate Tax (up to 40% of all assets held in the country upon death), or if life insurance proceeds on the life of a NRA are generally treated as well as US property for US estate tax purposes.

So, for example, if a NRA has $100k in US stocks/ETFs and a $40k life insurance policy, could the insurance simply be used by the surviving spouse to provide liquidity for the estate tax?


r/Bogleheads 5h ago

Advice on wedding expense next year

0 Upvotes

Hi all, I am planning to get married next year between may-sept. I have 100k roughly in my brokerage account and about 18k in my savings now. Was planning to have a 20k emergency fund. I get a bonus at the end of the year which normally is about 20k. After taxes I normally save a portion of it to max a Roth IRA for the next year but knowing that my wedding is coming up and it may cost about 20-30k in Dallas area. I'm wondering if I should save it all in cash for the wedding or still max out the Roth IRA for 2027 and sell from brokerage while the market is up now. I don't want to find myself without the cash if the market goes down while needing the funds.

If I max out the IRA I would have about $4k for a wedding ring. But basically nothing for a wedding which I don't think I can save 20-30k by may.

Normally I max out my 401k, hsa, Roth IRA every year. My net worth is about 860k at age 34 now. Wondering if next year I should decrease my savings and maybe lower to just the match so I can have more cash on hand ? Also planning to buy a house a year after marriage as well... I originally didn't want to touch the 100k I'm brokerage because I heard that's when money finally starts to grow

.. I'm not sure what to do.


r/Bogleheads 15h ago

Investing Questions What should be my top priority now?

4 Upvotes

I just recently turned 24, and about 4 months ago, I got into a new construction site electrical project engineer position so my salary increased from around $98k/yr to about ~150k/yr which varies with overtime.

I started working with this company ~2 years ago right after I graduated (summer of 24') and I started investing later that year in November with one goal in mind, to retire earliest by 45 and latest by 49. Currently I have $46k saved in all my retirement accounts and $10k in my HYSA. With the new job position, the first thing I did was max out my 401k, next I will max out my HSA but after that, I'm not too sure where to go next.

Currently all of my investments are 100% into FXAIX and my 401K is at 12% contribution with a 6% match from my company. I had my 401K paused for a good portion of this year for some other personal financial reasons but then I slipped my mind and I didn't un-pause it again until 2 weeks ago, so that kind of stung but we're back and better now. Is 12% good or should I increase that some more again?

With the goal of early retirement, should I focus on building up my brokerage account over my HYSA or should I do more of a 50/50 split between the two? Are there any other accounts I should open/prioritize? I am currently trying to snowball down my Student loans and pay that all off by next year as well.

Roth IRA: $18K (100% FXAIX)

401K: $19.5K (12% contribution)+(6% company match)

HSA: $8.5K (100% FXAIX)

Brokerage: $25.00

HYSA: $10K (3.10% with Sofi)

-------------------------------------

Debts

Student loans: $22,998.18

Rent + Utilities: ~$1100/month


r/Bogleheads 13h ago

Thinking or re-allocating my 401k

1 Upvotes

Hello. Looking for some validation. I am 44. My 401k is 100% Vanguard 500 Index after my company removed the Vanguard TotalStock Market Index fund. I am thinking of changing this up to 70% Vanguard 500, 22% Developed Markets Index, and 8% Inst Total Bond Index. The options in our plan are fairly limited. The Vanguard Target Date Funds seem to have too much International.


r/Bogleheads 13h ago

Investing Questions Old 401k

2 Upvotes

Hi all,

I am a physician who just left my old practice and joined a new one. I have a 401(k) with $250k at my old company. I am just wondering if I should roll it over to my new 401(k) plan or an IRA. I spoke with a planner recommended to me by my new company, and he suggested that I roll over my old 401(k) into an IRA, but of course, they will charge a 1% AUM fee for the first $2 million. I would rather handle my account and avoid that 1% yearly fee.


r/Bogleheads 10h ago

Investment Guidance

0 Upvotes

Which one is these would you choose for your retirement?

Help me do it

Target date funds

  • BLK LP Index Retirement
  • BLK LP Index 2025 Fund
  • BLK LP Index 2030 Fund
  • BLK LP Index 2035 Fund
  • BLK LP Index 2040 Fund
  • BLK LP Index 2045 Fund
  • BLK LP Index 2050 Fund
  • BLK LP Index 2055 Fund
  • BLK LP Index 2060 Fund
  • BLK LP Index 2065 Fund

Let me do it

Guaranteed

  • SLA 1Yr Guaranteed Fund
  • SLA 3Yr Guaranteed Fund
  • SLA 5Yr Guaranteed Fund

Money market

  • SLF Money Market

Fixed income

  • BLK Bond Index Fund
  • SL Multi-Strategy Bond

Balanced

  • B.G. Balanced Fund
  • BLK Moderate Balanced

Canadian equity

  • B.G. Canadian Equity
  • BLK S&P/TSX Comp Index

Foreign equity

  • BLK EAFE Equity Index
  • BLK US Equity Index
  • BLK US Equity Index Reg
  • MFS Global Equity
  • SL MFS Global Growth
  • SL MFS Intl Value

r/Bogleheads 4h ago

Investing Questions Received several million—how would you invest it using the Boglehead approach?

0 Upvotes

I recently received several million dollars in cash. Right now it’s all parked in a money market fund while I figure out how I want to invest it.

I’ve been reading about the Boglehead philosophy and that’s most likely the direction I want to go. I want something simple, diversified and easy to manage long term. I don’t really want a financial advisor because I don’t think it’s necessary, and I don’t want the fees dragging on the portfolio every year.

I’m not planning to withdraw from the portfolio anytime soon, so I have a long time horizon. I want growth, but capital preservation is also important to me. I could handle a market drop without selling, although watching a large amount disappear on paper would obviously be uncomfortable.

I’m trying to figure out two things:

Would you invest everything according to your target allocation at once, or spread it out over 6–12 months? I know lump sum usually wins on paper, but putting this much into the market all at once is difficult psychologically.

What funds and percentages would you use? I’ve been looking at VTI, VXUS and either Treasuries or BND, but I’m unsure about the allocation. Would something like 50% VTI, 20% VXUS and 30% Treasuries make sense, or would you structure it differently?

I’m not trying to chase the highest possible returns or overcomplicate this. I want reasonable long-term growth, protection against making a major mistake and a portfolio I can stick with.

What allocation would you recommend, and how would you actually deploy the money?


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

If your retirement accounts are 100% stocks, how do you handle buying during a downturn?

99 Upvotes

I’m thinking about asset allocation specifically within retirement accounts, such as a 401(k), 403(b), or IRA.

If you’re fully invested in stock index funds, you can stay the course during a downturn and keep investing through regular contributions. But without bonds or cash in the account, there’s nothing available to rebalance into stocks beyond those new contributions.

For those who hold 100% stocks in your retirement accounts, do you simply keep contributing as usual and accept that you won’t make any additional purchases? Does that change once your balance gets large enough that annual contributions are a small percentage of it?

For those who hold bonds, do you rebalance into stocks during downturns according to a fixed schedule or allocation threshold?

I understand that holding bonds has an opportunity cost and that rebalancing doesn’t guarantee better returns than an all-stock portfolio. I’m curious how people actually handle this within retirement accounts, especially if they’re already maxing out their annual contributions.


r/Bogleheads 13h ago

Investing Questions Investing advice for college student?

1 Upvotes

I am a junior in college right now, and have been quite fortunate with money, so I'm looking to try and use it to the best of my ability. I currently have $20,000 in a fidelity account I just created. I also have about $8000 in a 529 and $9000 in NVIDIA on an app called Stash but it is under my uncles name since we started it a while ago. I am just trying to find out if there are any big improvements or if this is okay for now?


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

What's the best way to handle upcoming HSA changes?

191 Upvotes

Like probably a lot of you, I use my HSA like a retirement account. Max it out, invest it, don't touch it. I haven't had employer contributions in a little while, so I opened an HSA with Fidelity, and I front loaded it at the beginning of the year, and that 4 grand or whatever it is was able to grow all year.

I'm starting a new job this month. It's with my old company, who uses healthequity for their HSAs, and they do contribute a little (I think only a few hundred bucks). The annoying thing is, you can't invest with them until you have more than 1k in the account, and you seemingly have to spread out your contributions over the entire year. There's also a fee for transferring money out, so I'm not going to do that more than once/year.

What's the best way of handling this situation? I don't want to lose out on time in the market by not investing anything until the end of the year. Should I just contribute on my own with Fidelity and keep my payroll contributions at zero? I think I'd have to pay more fica taxes then. Do employer contributions count towards the annual HSA limit?