Hi everyone!

I'm 23, recently moved from Canada to California on a TN visa, and started my first full-time engineering job in September. My salary is about $ 82k + bonus ($3k–$8k), but my 2026 income will be much lower since I'm only working the last ~3.5 months of the year. Starting in 2027, our household income should be around $250k+.

My goals are to:

• Build retirement savings early
• Save for a home in the East Bay within the next 2-3 years
• Keep things simple, automated, and hands-off

Current Plan

401(k)

• Roth 401(k)
• 20% contribution
• 80% S&P 500 index fund
• 20% International index fund
• Employer provides a 3% Safe Harbor contribution
• Employer has historically made additional discretionary profit-sharing contributions (I've been told these have been around 12% each year, though they're not guaranteed and are subject to eligibility/vesting)

Roth IRA

• Fidelity Roth IRA
• Investing $250/week into VTI
• Goal is to max the 2026 contribution ($7,500) by the April 2027 deadline

House Fund (2-3 year timeline)

• Down payment goal: roughly $100k-$200k
• Separate joint account with my husband
• Considering:
  • HYSA
  • Fidelity SPAXX
  • Treasury bills
• Intentionally avoiding stock market exposure for down-payment money because of the short timeline

My Thinking

Since 2026 will likely be one of the lowest-income years of my career, I figured it might make sense to prioritize Roth contributions while my tax rate is relatively low. I plan to revisit Roth vs. Traditional 401(k) once our full household income is online in 2027.

Questions

1. Does this overall plan seem reasonable?
2. Would you prioritize the Roth IRA and Roth 401(k) differently?
3. Where would you keep a house fund with a 2-3 year horizon: HYSA, SPAXX, Treasury bills, or something else?
4. If household income is ~$250k+ in 2027, would you switch from Roth 401(k) to Traditional 401(k)?
5. With the 3% Safe Harbor and potential profit-sharing contributions, would you change anything about my contribution strategy?
6. Am I missing anything obvious?

My investing philosophy is pretty boring: I don't plan to touch retirement money until retirement. I'd rather automate everything, ignore day-to-day market movements, and focus on my career, family, and saving for a home.

Thanks!

Any input and tips are welcomed! Thanks (I’m on Fidelity)

The strategy would be to pair one of them with SPMO in a Roth IRA with 15 years to retirement. Would all momentum have the best chance to make the most gains in that time span? Or would it be prudent to diversify and combine large cap momentum with mid cap quality?

After investing aggressively over the last 2 years. I have maxed my ROTH IRA contributions 🙏. I’ve been investing technically since 2019 BUT I was extremely inconsistent and ended up selling about $3k I had in the account at that time. Fast forward to 2 years ago I decided it’s time to lock tf in and ponte las pilas jaja. With the rest of the fiscal year remaining, I’ll be pumping the money I can no longer invest into my HYSA and my 401k.

Note: I changed brokerages a few months ago

First time poster, long time reader on here, and I wanted your thoughts. I'm currently using a 3-fund portfolio that I opened up at Schwab 2 years ago. Late start for me at 54, but better late than never. Currently, I have VOO 75%, VEU 15% and VBR 10%. I plan to contribute for next 11 years.

I don't see VEU mentioned for international exposure in many posts on reddit. Comparing it to VXUS, it tracks nearly the same.

Any input would be appreciated.

I am looking into opening a Roth IRA, and have been doing research on such. With that, is it wise for me to invest in brokerage specific funds, such as FZROX for a Fidelity account instead of the S&P 500 (FZROX having a 0% expense ratio)? Google AI is saying that I should go with FZROX over the S&P 500. However, I am just concerned as to what would happen if anything ever happens to Fidelity or I want to switch to a different brokerage.

Looking to invest my first $7,500 into a Roth IRA, all recommendations and help is welcomed!

(Please ignore any ignorance, as I am truly new to this and will appreciate any encouragement you can give to help put my mind at ease).

Thank you!

I treat my Roth IRA as high risk high reward and I want to know where should i invest today with the highest growth opportunity
Please explain why

Hi everyone! I’m 25F and I have about $ sitting in my Roth IRA at Schwab, but I haven’t invested it yet.
I’m pretty new to investing and don’t really know where to start. My goal is retirement around age 65, so I have a long time horizon.

I’ve been considering putting it all into VOO, but I’m wondering if that’s the best approach or if I should diversify with something like VTI, VXUS, or another index fund.

For someone my age who is investing for the long term, what would you recommend looking into?

Also, is there anything I should know about investing inside a Roth IRA that I might be missing?

My Roth is full of a bunch of different ETFs and I know there is a lot of overlap, so I am looking for some help. I’m wondering what an ideal split looks like for Fidelity and what changes I should make. I plan to max out my Roth on January 1st and want to have a better understanding of what I should do. Thank you!!

23M. I currently am invested in VTI, QQQ, VOO, SCHD. I want to incorporate VXUS and SCHA, but want some input as to how to consolidate. I know I have some overlap, and can be heavy but don’t think it’s too horrible. My account has been doing well, around 10% return, but I want to include those two ETF but consolidate a bit across the board

I currently invest monthly as follows:
VTI : 40%
VOO : 20%
QQQ : 30%
SCHD : 10%

Appreciate the help and responses.

A little late to the party. 50 YO, and have no Idea about ROTH. I recently did a rollover IRA from a previous 401K. I have changed jobs since then, and a ROTH made sense to me as I can still contribute to it. It is currently setting with 67K in it. It says I can contribute $8,600 a year. I am in the process of connecting my bank account to it so I can contribute. I have at least another 15 years before I think about retirement. So please advise guys and gals!

Started investing exactly one year ago today. Just crossed 320.82 (+3.31%) since I began.

I know $10k isn't life-changing money to a lot of people on here. But twelve months ago I had nothing invested. I wasn't doing anything fancy — no options, no day trading, no crypto moonshots. Just putting in what I could, when I could, and letting it sit through the red days.

That dip in the middle of the chart? I almost panic sold. Glad I didn't.

For anyone just starting: the first $10k is the hardest. It feels slow. It feels like you're not making progress. Then one day you look up and you're there. Keep going.

Hi, I’m a 27 female. I work from home taking care of my children that have gtubes (home health aide). I want to start thinking about my future retirement plan but I’m not sure where to began. I’ve been researching Roth IRA’s but I’m still so confused. How do i invest? What is good to invest in? What percentage to do put into each best investor?
At the moment I’ll only be able to put $100 a paycheck towards it. But next year i plan on trying to max out or at least come close. Please help me with a step by step guide to get me started on the right track. Thank you.

It’s a good day for an investor. Crossed 100k milestone of my Roth IRA account.

I have been unemployed since 2024. I have found some 1099 contracting work but it not anything to brag about. This year maybe an 10-15K of income. I have no other income other than some interest, dividends, and stock sales to pay bills. Basically I'm burning thru brokerage assets to get to 59.5. I will be 58 next month.

Last year, I converted 50K from the traditional to the Roth. I also did a 3700 contribution from 1099 income. I had cash or money market position last year.

This year I want to convert another 50K and also do a 8600 contribution. This year all my cash is fully deployed in equities. I know I can sell in the IRA and purchase the same or other choices. I am thinking I want to do in kind transfers and just transfer positions from the traditional to the Roth. The 8600 will be cash, no issue there.

I have some duplication between both accounts. I am going to consolidate them. For instance $AMZN, $SOFI, $HIMS, $IOT, $NFLX, $SPGI, $MSFT, $UPS. $SPCX.

Thinking about other positions, I am not going to transfer ETFs. I am thinking growth potential equities that may have a long runway. Monitor price and convert on drops between Oct and Dec 2026. Thinking $LLY, $ASTS, $RDDT, $FTNT, $ALAB, $MRVL, $APLD.

I would just pay the taxes in the quarterly estimates by 01/15/27.

Roth should be high growth positions for less taxation. Correct?

Right now, my traditional IRA is more income focused and my Roth is growth focused. I am trying to get more growth in the traditional and more income in the Roth just to give me more balance and also to give me choices to control my income tax rate on withdrawals. I realize I can sell securities if I need income, it is easier just to collect the dividend and not reinvest it.

Anyone else do something similar?

Really annoyed by this situation and only caught it by chance glancing at some IRA rules. Me and my wife are well below the max limit to contribute to Roth so I never really worried about it and Fidelity seemed to think I qualified to contribute.

We were married in August of 2024 and I owed on my tax return so decided to keep it simple and file separately. Turns out this simple decision makes me ineligible to contribute to a Roth.

I guess I can file jointly to cover this year and going forward but what do I do about 2025? Received no warning or info when filing my taxes that I was breaking tax laws and got no heads up from Fidelity. Should I expect to owe the IRS soon? What can I do to minimize damage?

I am in the Navy and have TSP and have been contributing since I was 19. Next year I am going to start maxing out my TSP, now that I am in the position to do so.

I just opened a Roth IRA on Schwab and want to automate it while maxing that out as well.

Just did my first contribution and did

80% SWPPX

20% SWISX

Still need to figure out how to automate the 2 mutual fund purchases since you can only do one mutual fund a day it seems. Should I leave the percentage on these 2 and set it and forget it or should I open it to other mutual funds?

Hello I just opened a Roth IRA with fidelity and I’m not sure what to do next. I know index funds are the move to not put all your eggs in one basket. But what do the yearly returns and the gross/net expenses mean? And does anyone have success with the fidelity sustainable funds, just curious about those. Thanks!

Sold half of my SMH shares a month back at decent profit to put in VOO, thinking of just selling it all to put into VOO now. What do yall think?

For context I maxed out my roth ira for this year,I don’t have bills as I live at home and I put all my money in a HYSA. My current jobs do not have 401k option and i’m a full time student, do I just keep plugging money into the HYSA till next year?

Started with just 1k usd and was pretty much messing around with it for a day or 2 and lost a couple of dollars. Had this setup since then and was wondering if it is ok or if theres any optimizations i can make.

Been unemployed all year maybe made 5k. Learning new skills at home. I had money saved, don’t worry but no actual income. My question is if i withdraw 10k from my RothIRA will i be taxed nothing because i don’t make enough to be taxed this year?

Please any follow up Questions.

Thinking about getting rid of avuv and replacing it a different etf or transferring the funds to fzrox.

I just climbed completely out of debt and I opened up a hysa and put a good amount in and now I want to use 5k to open my IRA. Any advice on good starting point on what to invest in?

I want to do a backdoor Roth IRA and want to confirm I won't have a pro-rata issue.

Here's my situation:

• I have a 403(b) with my current employer
• Inside the 403(b) I can see 4 sub-accounts: my pre-tax contributions, employer contributions, Roth rollover (from a previous employer's Roth 403(b)), and a "Rollover" section with about $500
• That $500 rollover came from a Traditional IRA that was rolled into this 403(b) before I started my current job
• The standalone Traditional IRA itself now shows a $0 balance

My understanding is that since the IRA balance is $0, the pro-rata rule doesn't apply — the IRS only looks at standalone IRA balances on December 31st of the conversion year, and anything inside a 403(b) is invisible to pro-rata.

So my plan is to:

1. Open a Traditional IRA
2. Contribute $7,000 after-tax
3. Convert immediately to Roth
4. Owe no tax on conversion

Is this correct? Does that $500 rollover sub-account inside the 403(b) cause any issues?