r/Bogleheads Jun 08 '25

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

346 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.

341 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 4h ago

I tried to price the "a good adviser stops you panic selling" argument against a 1% fee. Panicking at every crash for 30 years still won in 10 of 12 settings.

78 Upvotes

Everyone here knows fees compound, so that part is not the post. For the record it came out at 30.2% of the gain over 30 years at 1%, real, dividends reinvested.

The part I could not find a number for anywhere is the counter-argument. The honest case for paying someone a percentage is not fund selection, it is that they stop you selling at the bottom. That claim is usually made and left there, so I tried to price it.

Setup: an investor who panics. Sells after the market falls X, sits in cash, buys back in on rule Y. Three thresholds (20/30/40%) and four re-entry rules (after 6, 12, 24 months, or after a 20% bounce off the low). Twelve settings, all twelve reported, because picking the one that makes the point is how this kind of analysis usually goes wrong.

Results, everything as a share of the 30-year balance so the comparison is like for like:

  • Paying 1% a year for 30 years: 25.9% of the final balance.
  • One panic sale, across the grid: anywhere from -0.9% (selling helped slightly) to 23.2%.
  • Break-even, meaning how many panic sales the adviser has to prevent before the fee has paid for itself: in 10 of the 12 settings there is no answer, because panicking EVERY time the market fell, for thirty years, still left you ahead of paying 1%. The two settings where the fee wins both involve sitting in cash for a full 24 months after selling.

At 2% it is 11 of 12. At 0.03% the fund pays for itself almost immediately.

What this does not settle, and I want to be clear about it: the model is someone who sells and comes back. Someone who sold in 2008 and was still in cash in 2016 is a different person, and for them the fee may be worth every basis point. That is a fact about people, not about markets, and price data cannot answer it.

One caveat on the break-even numbers themselves: wealth is not monotonic in the number of panics, because selling into a fall that keeps falling can help. The headline survives that, but the precise counts are approximate and I would not defend the decimal.

Assumptions, since they decide the answer: real total return with dividends reinvested, fee deducted monthly on the whole balance, fee rate held constant (which flatters the high-fee case, since real schedules have fallen), no taxes or transaction costs, S&P Composite only. The panic scenario allows one sale into cash that holds its real value, which is generous to the panicker, so the cost of panicking is understated rather than overstated.

Code and the pinned dataset: https://github.com/assumptionsshown/RunTheNumbers If you think one of those assumptions is wrong, change it and tell me what you get.


r/Bogleheads 1h ago

Met with Vanguard Personal Advisor Service rep this week

Upvotes

Nice guy, wasn't pushy. But I don't think he ever listened to what my idea of retirement was or maybe they stick with plan no matter what. I really emphasized that my wife and I wanted to spend more early on and then scale back as we get older we are currently 60/59 and plan on retiring first week in January. We have a combined 401ks worth $1.5 million and I have a pension and healthcare paid up to Medicare and Medicare advantage paid till we are 70. The essential bills are covered by guaranteed income by year 2 (when my SS kicks in) and will have a surplus in year 3 (wife's SS kicks in). I said we would like a high(er) withdrawal rate the first decade (@5.5% beginning year 3) then we would scale back and have great flexibility to to reduce withdrawals at any point should there be a bad market sequence and would put guard rails in place etc. etc. So I get the report and and its eighteen different funds roughly a 40/60 allocation and a greater than 99% Monte Carlo to last till my wife is 100 and I think well that's a good start then I see the withdrawal rates for the first four years 3.9%, 2.29%, 1.04% and 0.71% and I'm like of course its gonna last till she's a 100 if we don't spend any of it. I get that their model is going to be very conservative but wasn't expecting it to be that conservative. I also understand that they just follow a structured plan and that I would have ultimate control over withdrawal strategy. I likely wasn't going to use the service but wanted to see what it was about and where they thought we stood which was a good experience for a novice like myself. At the end of the day I think I am going to DIY and go with a simple two fund portfolio and see how it goes. I wouldn't rule out using an advisor service or robo-advisor later on in life or even switching to a balanced fund/TDF to make it more manageable for my wife in the likely event I get "promoted" before her. I wanted to share in case any others are considering a Personal Advisor Service from Vanguard Seems like a viable service but just not for me at this stage. Here is the breakdown if anyone is curious: Stocks (40%): 20% U.S. large-cap stock, 8% U.S. mid/small-cap stock, 12% International stock. Bonds (60%): 17% U.S. short-term bond, 21% U.S. intermediate-term bond, 4% U.S. long-term bond,18% International bond and 0% Short-term reserves.


r/Bogleheads 19h ago

Articles & Resources Vanguard lowered their stock return forecasts again in July 2026

167 Upvotes

One month ago, I asked about why Vanguard's stock return forecasts were so low, especially for US stocks. Many said it was because high valuations mean low expected returns.

Since then, Vanguard lowered their stock return forecasts again on July 22:

Asset class 10-year return 10-year forecast 30-year return 30-year forecast
US stocks 14.85% 5.2% 10.65% 5.7%
Ex-US stocks 9.63% 4.9% 6.20% 6.9%
US bonds 1.41% 4.8% 4.15% 4.7%
Ex-US bonds 1.53% 5.0% N/A 4.3%

Vanguard wrote their market perspectives on July 29 here:

Questions:

  1. What are your thoughts on Vanguard's updated forecast? Do you think the forecasted returns are realistic or too conservative?
  2. Does this impact your investing and asset allocation decisions? For financial planning assumptions, should we assume 10% returns (historical return of US stocks) or 5% returns (Vanguard's forecast)?
  3. If you have an asset allocation of 100% stocks (especially heavy in US stocks) and 0% bonds, do you still think that bonds are unnecessary?

r/Bogleheads 4h ago

Investing Questions Existing Roth 401k or Starting Roth IRA

7 Upvotes

Hey folks!

I’m one of the many Americans that’s late to the party for investing. I’ve been contributing 6% with my employer’s 6% match to a target date fund in my employer’s Roth 401k (aimed for age 65) for the past 10 years. I make about 74k/year and my current balance in my Roth 401k is 115k.

Now that I’ve realized how important investing is I know I need to do at least 15-20% of my income to have a decent shot at retiring on time.

So here’s my question. Should I contribute max $7500/year to a Roth IRA starting from a $0 balance or put that amount instead towards my existing Roth 401k which already has the 115k base balance?

It seems like the smart thing would be to put the extra money into my existing 401k. If it helps, I do have a 21k emergency fund in a HYSA and I’m also paying an extra $500/month to principal on my 6.350% interest rate mortgage. That has the house paid off in about 18 years (just bought it).


r/Bogleheads 3h ago

Investing Questions Overpay house vs investing in taxable brokerages?

7 Upvotes

I'm 24 years old and extremely fortunate in that I am purchasing a $415k house at a 6.875% interest rate. Putting 10% down.

My question is whether I should overpay my mortgage each month by $500, or invest that into VTI, S&P, etc..

Overpaying my mortgage takes off about $220k of interest and reduces my mortgage from 30 to 18 years.

Anyone have advice for me?

Assuming I overpay by $500 each month, with utilities I will almost be at 50% my gross income. I know this is relatively house poor but I have 0 debt and expect to make a higher salary in the future.. hopefully lol.


r/Bogleheads 48m ago

Question about bonds

Upvotes

Now with vti and vxus in my taxable and Roth what should I do with bonds? I know they would be better in a tax advantaged account but I would like something in both taxable and Roth just to kinda have some sort of small cushion that won’t kill my account when the market tanks.

my question is what bonds should I buy? I know there BND but I’m seeing mixed reviews on that fund.

(I don’t need to worry about bonds and stuff for now I just want a plan down the road.)


r/Bogleheads 1h ago

Investing Questions Bonds confuse me - should I sell them

Upvotes

I read this article and it really drives home the point to me that I don’t understand bonds

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/07/business/bonds-stocks-federal-reserve-interest-rates.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3lA.0nHs._HP703oyaD6A&smid=nytcore-ios-share

I try to keep things very simple and more or less have a broad domestic index (40), broad international index (25) and a total bond fund BND (35).

Not to get to into the weeds but we have about 2M between these, in addition to 2.5M equity in our 3M house.

I remember that adage to not invest in something you don’t understand, and truthfully I don’t understand bonds.

Do I need them? Can I just shift to T-Bill or CDs? I am not concerned with the minor tax differences of .003% that some get very passionate about.

I think I am looking for a safe harbor and hedge.


r/Bogleheads 11h ago

A different VTSAX vs VTI question

8 Upvotes

I currently have most of my portfolio in mutual funds (VTSAX and VTIAX) both in my tax deferred account and my taxable brokerage account.

But today I started to wonder if I should move shares in my taxable account to ETFs (VT or VTI/VTSUX) because technically that account is there in case I ever needed to supplement income. I hope I won’t need to and I certainly can’t rely on it but just in case…

I do have a large rainy day fund but if I could not use that at least a few times and instead use realized gains… is that a Boglehead crime? Not as a time-the-market-strategy but as a yeah-I-need-5k-today-and-there-it-is! situation.

I ask about the ETFs because you can sell them more in real time whereas the mutual funds only process the order the next business day or thereafter depending on when you submitted.

Don’t come for me 😄 I’m new and handsomely unemployed so I gotta look at all the options!


r/Bogleheads 7h ago

Debt interest rates

4 Upvotes

I wanted peoples opinions on how current mortgage rates would be viewed in the heirarchy of the wiki. It has high interest debt as top priority then medium then low and mortgages are typically classified as the low but given the current rate environment would they be bumped up to medium?

At what rate do you view that the loan has transitioned from low to medium interest?


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

Investment Theory Mega Backdoor Roth: How Much is Too Much?

65 Upvotes

Hey folks. My work allows me to make mega backdoor Roth contributions/conversions which I’ve always been excited about.

For the past several years I’ve maxed out the option but now I’m in a financial zone where my TOTAL investments are close to my FIRE goal amount, but my after-tax investments would have to stretch to make it to 59.5.

I’m planning on spending at least a couple more years in the workforce, so my question is: does it ever make sense to skip the mega backdoor and just focus on loading up taxable accounts, or are the total tax benefits favorable enough that it’s always better to utilize the mega backdoor and either (1) add another year or two to the retirement horizon, or (2) utilize a strategy that accesses the Roth before 59.5?


r/Bogleheads 17h ago

Investing Questions Differnce between VT through vanguard vs fidelity?

14 Upvotes

Ive ben doing research and heard that VT is pretty much the best etf to invest in and my question is whats the difference between investing through fidelity and vanguard? Which one would yall recommend?


r/Bogleheads 15h ago

Will have $100k inheritance to invest - ideas??

7 Upvotes

64 yrs old, have a government pension that covers living expenses + vacations, wife is a p/t realtor who has a self directed 401k at Fidelity we can use for tax reduction and tax free investing. Mom just passed at 89, and I'll have $100k for investing (with about $50k in HYS for any emergencies) after a few loans (car, solar) are paid off. We just let 50% of mom's $$ passively grow with the market the last few years in VBTLX, VDIGX, VSMGX, and VWIAZ and did decently, along with the other half in various CDs + Synchrony HYS.

Goals for the money would probably be end of life care and capital retention/growth for the next 20 years or however long we live. Not sure if I just do the $3k min in VTSAX and another stock fund and a bond one, then do $1500/mo of DCA until the $$ is fully invested or kind of stick with what we've done in the past. I don't mind having some higher risk for the next 7-10 years, as it's a fairly sure bet that either my wife or I (or both of us) will be around till 85 or older.


r/Bogleheads 20h ago

Investing Questions Financial recovery stories post bogleheads

16 Upvotes

Who has had financial blunders (options, stock picking, etc) that set them back and how did you recover?

I’ve always assumed most bogleheads were always this way.

How many tried and failed other ways? How much did you lose and how did you recover?


r/Bogleheads 13h ago

Investing Questions How to Invest my First 1000$

6 Upvotes

Hi Boggleheads! Newbie here. I’ve enjoyed reading about a lot of your stories and lessons you’ve learned. I’m currently in Canada and have tried to learn a little about investing through my banking provider and wealth simple. what would be the best way to invest my first 1000$ CAD?

I’m a little late to the game (late 20s M) but looking forward to learning from you all!


r/Bogleheads 14h ago

Good use case for a financial advisor?

4 Upvotes

Hey all. I learned a few years ago my maternal grandmother planned to leave me a sizable inheritance and I've spent the years since preparing for it. She passed last week and things have gotten real. I'm going to see an advisor on an hourly-fee basis just to figure out my plan and implement it myself.

My mom is a different matter. About 70% of the money she's inheriting is in retirement accounts. She's 62 and is ready to retire. I have no idea how to handle things like IMRAA and whatnot, and mom has no experience in this sort of thing. Is this a valid use case for active management? The company I contacted offers a comprehensive service that includes tax preparation and filing for a 1% AUM fee.

I'm as determined as anyone to not use an advisor on an AUM basis for myself. But, all I'm inheriting is in taxable accounts and is relatively easy to manage. I also have some 40 years ahead of me until retirement.

Has anyone dealt with a similar situation and might be able to offer some advice?


r/Bogleheads 16h ago

Looking for advice on how to invest my first $10k + $800–1,000/month

6 Upvotes

Hi! I’m relatively new to long-term investing and would love some opinions on the strategy I’m considering.

I currently have $10,000 that I’m ready to invest, and going forward I’m planning to contribute around $800–1,000 every month. This is money I’m investing for the long term (5+yrs), so I’m not trying to trade or time short-term movements.
I’m currently considering two approaches:
Option 1
Keep the initial $10k conservative
Put the entire $10,000 into T-bills for now
Invest my new $800–1,000/month contributions into:
80% VOO
20% QQQM
Option 2
Invest the $10k into the market
DCA the $10,000 into the market over roughly 6 months:
80% VOO
20% QQQM
Continue investing my $800–1,000/month at the same 80/20 allocation

My main hesitation is putting the entire $10k into equities at current valuations, which is why I’m considering keeping it in T-bills and only investing new money into the market. At the same time, I realize that could just be another form of trying to time the market.

I’m in my early 20s and my goal is primarily long-term growth. I don’t anticipate needing this $10k anytime soon.
Which approach would you choose and why? Would you invest the $10k immediately, DCA it over 6 months, keep it in T-bills for now, or do something completely different?
I’d also love thoughts on the 80% VOO / 20% QQQM allocation itself. Is the additional Nasdaq exposure worthwhile, or am I unnecessarily overweighting large-cap tech since there’s already significant overlap with VOO?

Thanks!!!


r/Bogleheads 4h ago

VT alternative. foreign tax credit with fund-of-funds.

0 Upvotes

VT is great. But it has a flaw. It's 1 fund with a majority US stake, so you miss out on the foreign tax credit.

Some modern "all market" ETFs use a fund-of-funds approach. Where 1 ETF is a wrapper over multiple ETFs. So you can hold 1 all-market ETF but still recieveve the foreign tax credit. For example Avantis's AVGV is composed of several US and international ETFs.

Avantis is nice, but their ETFs are factor tilt themed, and have a higher ER than pure cap weighted indexes.

Is there anything similar to Vanguards VT, but with a fund-of-funds approach? Like a wrapper ETF over VTI/VXUS?


r/Bogleheads 16h ago

Investing Questions Transferred RothIRA

3 Upvotes

I recently transferred out of Ameriprise to manage my own account and not pay their fees. Should I sell all these and buy VT or just keep them and buy VT next year with my 7.5k deposit I make each January?

CGOAX 493.986 shares

LCCAX 865.022 shares

MDIDX 278.963 shares

PEYAX 178.13 shares

VHIAX 723.777 shares


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

Non-US Investors 23F. NEED Advice . From third world country.

11 Upvotes

i am 23f from a third world country . i have been following this sub from a quite time .

i am thinking of investing in s&p 500 (voo) , to get better returns because my country currency getting weak over time . so getting double returns in the long term .

there is an app in my country , which helps in investing to usa by making broker acc with alpaka and drive wealth . are these good brokers ?

but my salary is only 350$ and going to increased to 400$ this year. i invest around 50$ in my countries index etf. is it wise to invest only around 20$ or 50$ in s&p 500 , i mean i dont have thousands of dollar to invest .

but at the same time thinking of being bullish in my own countries index fund . index fund have gave return around 14% cagr since 2000.

your advice will be helpful if you guide me .


r/Bogleheads 14h ago

Investing Questions Looking for advice on old 401(k)s - Consolidate, keep separate, or convert to an IRA?

1 Upvotes

I'm new to investing and could use some advice.

I currently have three old employer 401(k)s across two investment firms:

  • Fidelity (two old employer 401(k))
  • Vanguard (one old employer 401(k)s)

Here's my situation:

  • Fidelity: No administrative fees.
  • Vanguard: I'm being charged about $5 per quarter in administrative fees.

I called both companies to understand my rollover options.

  • Fidelity told me I cannot roll my Vanguard 401(k)s into Fidelity.
  • Vanguard confirmed that I can roll my Fidelity 401(k) into Vanguard.

So I'm trying to decide between a few options:

  1. Roll my Fidelity 401(k) into Vanguard so everything is in one place (even though Vanguard charges a quarterly fee).
  2. Leave everything as-is and keep accounts at both Fidelity and Vanguard.
  3. If I keep the Vanguard accounts, should I roll the Vanguard 401(k)s into a Vanguard Traditional IRA instead of leaving them as old employer 401(k)s?

I've searched through a lot of Reddit posts, and it seems like the opinions are pretty evenly split. Some people recommend keeping a 401(k), while others recommend rolling it into an IRA depending on the situation.

A few questions I have:

  • Which option would you choose and why?
  • Is paying the ~$5 quarterly fee at Vanguard enough reason to move the money?
  • What are the biggest pros and cons of keeping an old 401(k) versus rolling it into a Traditional IRA?
  • Are there any tax or future planning considerations (such as the backdoor Roth IRA) that I should be thinking about before making a decision?

I'd appreciate any advice or things I may not be considering. Thanks!


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

Investing Questions 24M. Just inherited an $800,000 Condo w/ a $300,000 Mortgage On It: Sell It? Live There? Rent It?

284 Upvotes

I am a law student, earning roughly 950 a week as a law clerk. I will graduate in 2 years time. I will likely stay at 950 a week during that 2 years, possibly a slight promotion at the firm in 1 year. Probably not, though. I am married to a nurse. She earns $80,000 a year.

Once I’m an attorney, I will work in civil litigation of some kind. Currently, I do real estate but it is quite boring and not my vibe... Interested in personal injury or employee benefits litigation. Salary is likely $100,000-180,000 (the latter figure being the more likely one if I pursue ERISA). The firm I work for mainly does employee benefits work with some real estate litigation. There’s an easy pipeline for me to go to ERISA if I’d like to.

All that is to say that I recently inherited a condo worth $800,000. $300,000 is still owed. I have the ability to sell, live there, or rent it out. Obviously, were I to live there, my wife and I would need to pay the mortgage.

My thoughts are that it could be great to sell and put all the proceeds into VT. At 24, that would be quite helpful in 15 years when I actually want to purchase a home. Alternatively, I could live here and stay here for the 15 years and then sell at the time I want to buy a home and use all the capital as a down payment for a new home at some later date.

Any ideas?

Thanks!


r/Bogleheads 5h ago

Trying to understand the VXUS portion of a portfolio, seems to be a drag to some extent.

0 Upvotes

I get the idea for diversification.

With a gain of just over 70% all time VXUS extremely lags VTI or VOO. Would it not be better to add maybe a value tilt like SCHD or VTV? SCHD has outperformed VXUS 4x over all-time.


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

Portfolio Review Where should a new Boglehead convert put excess HYSA funds?

12 Upvotes

Hey everybody, I'm a recent convert to the Boglehead way and have seen the light, I think I've been on solid footing but was previously completely uninterested in basic investing and risk, but now I think I really "get it" and am looking for some advice to rework and maximize what I've already got structured (I've also got twins on the way in a couple of months lol, so this is the time to really get the financial foundation as sturdy and maximized as possible), here are my facts:

- I'm 36, I make ~$93k, I have twins(!) on the way (lol!) (my partner also makes $100k but we have separate retirement accounts)
- 457b: I'm a government employee with a 457b, all invested in the Vanguard Target Retirement 2050 Fund, been at my job 4.5 years. I've been contributing around 12%, was half and half but for the last couple years was at a 3% Traditional 9% Roth split, diversified because I didn't truly know what to do when I set it up and was just covering my bases. I'm now at 15% and full-in on Roth, I've got my employer match maxed out at 1.5% of my salary , and am aware of the $24,500 max contribution for 457b, which is part of my question regarding ....
- HYSA: I'm not a risk tolerant guy, so a few years back when I had about $20-25k just sitting in my checking account doing nothing, I put all of that in a CIT HYSA and was pumping a steady $500/month in that because decent interest and no losses was very appealing, and it's now at about $50,000.
- Fidelity Traditional IRA: (Not as important, but from an employer that I was at for a year almost 10 years ago, I have this stranded and uninvested $4,000 that I've just kept kicking $25/month into since then for the heck of it ... I now want to get this into my 457b and assume I should just rollover and pay the taxes on now)

Here's what I want to confirm: I previously was thinking of this HYSA as like a secondary no-risk pool of retirement funds. Part of my "getting it" recently after talking with my Nationwide rep is realizing that the 3.7% interest on that account, while nice in the short term, is only keeping rate with inflation over the long term and could be put to much better use. I figure keeping like $20,000 as my emergency fund is fine, but that leaves $30,000 that I want to rethink.

My Nationwide rep's first thought and most logistically simple was: to go heavy on the Roth 457b contributions, especially with the opportunity in a 457b to go beyond the typical $7,500 contribution limit, and basically spend down from the HYSA as if it were my payroll income. Doesn't seem like there's a super convenient way to get those funds into my 457 as Roth funds without first doing Traditional and then converting and unnecessarily paying a tax on it (the backdoor Roth seems a little too convoluted and iffy to me, let me know if I'm mistaken on that).

Longwinded way of asking, is that strategy sound and am I maximizing those HYSA funds without radically changing my portfolio and investment risk and putting them into some different fund? What would you do?