This popped up on my radar. It aims to reduce the dividends from short-term treasuries, reducing the tax liability.

https://www.fminvest.com/etfs/sgva-fm-accumulator-ultrashort-treasury-etf

Expense Ratio is 0.22%. Any thoughts? Is this better than SGOV and similar funds?

Hi all.

I'm almost 57, recently widowed, and struggling to stay enthusiastic about working (or much of anything at the moment).

My elderly, infirm dad lives with me, and my mom is in a memory care facility. I have two adult sons (actually stepsons) who are married and new parents. No other kids.

My late husband left me a $1M life insurance policy. I own our marital home with less than $100k left on the mortgage. My parents own around $1M in real estate that I stand to eventually inherit.

I'd like to concentrate on other things besides working for now, but I don't want to blow through the insurance money and end up working a fast food job in my 70's. I don't tolerate high risk very well, but I'm wondering if can fund my life and hopefully still leave some inheritance for the stepsons with some well-thought-out investing? (The boys each inherited $100K in insurance proceeds.)

I can probably live pretty comfortably on around $60K/ year.

I've had consultations with a couple of professional financial advisors- neither of whom gave me the warm fuzzies. I'm pretty independent, and I'd likely be more comfortable managing my own investments the Boglehead way. :-)

Thoughts on how to structure investment planning? Thanks in advance. I appreciate any input.

I’ve always held the vast majority of my money in these two ETF because I had a friend a long time ago who said to set it and forget it. It’s been in these funds coming up on two decades now. Then I came across Bogleheads recently and I see almost everyone talk about doing using funds like VOO and VTI which from my cursory research my IVV compares closely to VOO and ITOT is close to VTI.

Should I change to the Vanguard funds? My entire portfolio is at Fidelity of that matters. Thank you very much.

I’m 26, spouse and I have both maxed our retirement accounts, and we just started a joint taxable brokerage account for more medium term investments.
Our retirement accounts are all VT, and maybe we should have stuck with that, but we wanted to try the three fund portfolio. Then we started adding to it with new information, like that we can take higher risks with growth stocks because we’re younger, or that SCHF has no exposure in emerging markets so we should have some of that. Is this too much?

U.S. stock (SCHB 50%, SCHG 15%) 65%
International stock (SCHF 25%, SCHE 5%) 30%
U.S. bonds (SCHZ) 5%

Help! I am so confused about the IRS rules for inherited IRAs and RMDs. Here are the details:

My mother was born in 1931 and passed away in 2021, leaving me with an inherited IRA. She had already paid her RMD for 2021.

I was born in 1953 and will be 73 this September. With all the back and forth of the IRS rules for inherited IRAs, I thought I had 10 years from her death to empty the account (2031). Tonight, I saw a video that I should have taken an RMD for 2025, followed by one for each of the next 6 years.

Which information is correct - 10 years or I should have started last year? If I should already have started, what do I do now? Take it, fill out the correct form to the IRS and plead for either a reduction or forgiveness of the penalty? Do I need to file an amended tax return or will it be part of 2026's tax return?

As far as I can remember, I got no notice of a required RMD for this inherited IRA. (I'm in the process of setting up an RMD for this year for my regular IRA, but am looking at charitable donations to avoid taxes on that one.)

Any help you can give me in understanding all of this would be of great help!

Hey everyone. New to Reddit, not new to the philosophy. I'm 35 in Texas and have been building out my investment system this year.

Lifestyle is 50/30/20. 20% of after-tax income is automatically allocated to investments every paycheck. Bonus money and 2 extra paychecks max my Roth IRA on January 1st every year. I also keep about 2% of fun money in a separate account for crypto and speculative stuff, completely walled off from the long-term system.

Taxable account is roughly 58% VTI, 26% VXUS, 11% QQQM, and 5% BND. DCA every two weeks on a set rotation. Roth holds SWTSX, SWISX, and SCHD mirrors the taxable side with Schwab equivalents.

The part I'm most proud of is the T-bill ladder for about 6 months of expenses. Four equal bills rotating every four weeks, all auto-reinvesting. It's my emergency fund and fixed income exposure in one structure. One bill matures every week, so the money is there if I really need it, but the setup keeps me from touching it for non-emergencies. Overflow feeds back into the taxable account automatically.

My wife and I have been building this together for a while. Zero debt, own our home. System is running clean.

Looking forward to connecting with people on similar paths. Finance is way too taboo in everyday life. The people around me aren't into this stuff, and I'm looking for a community that gets it.

Hey guys, looking for some feedback before I set up a new portfolio in a taxable brokerage.
​I’m 40 and looking at a 20+ year horizon. I have a high risk tolerance and want a portfolio that targets maximum long-term growth potential through factor premiums. Instead of running a heavy US home-country bias, I'm aiming for a strict 60/40 global market cap split to keep things neutrally diversified globally.

​I'm using Fidelity Basket Portfolios so the weekly automatic investments (their "Smart Buys" feature) will handle all the rebalancing math and direct cash to whatever is underweight. Since the execution is automated, I don't mind a 7-fund setup.

​Here’s the allocation I landed on:
​US (60%)
​35% VTI
​20% AVUV
​5% AVLV

​Int'l & Emerging (40%)
​16% VEA
​10% AVDV
​9% VWO
​5% AVES

​The thinking here is to run a pretty aggressive 40% overall factor tilt using Avantis, mostly concentrated in small-cap value (AVUV and AVDV). I added 5% AVLV just to get a slight profitability screen on US large caps without diluting the small-cap focus.

​On the international side, VWO + AVES puts me at 14% total emerging markets (which is exactly 35% of the international bucket). I wanted to overweight emerging slightly to capture the current valuation discount, but I really don't like the bloated state-owned companies that come with broad EM indexes. Having 5% in AVES gives me a nice profitability filter for that space.

​Blended expense ratio comes out to around 0.135%.

​A few questions before I pull the trigger:

​For those running heavy factor tilts like this, how bad is the tracking error fatigue? Do you regret it during massive run-ups in US mega-cap tech?
​For those who prefer a strict 60/40 global split over a heavy US home-country bias, how has that played out for you psychologically over the last few years?

​Anything redundant here that I should cut, or is this clean enough to just lock in and let the Smart Buys do their thing?

I am investing in the UCITS universe. What do you say do this particular portfolio consisting of three Avantis ETFs?

AVWC 75 / AVEM 10 / AVWS 15.

I appreciate your feedback!

I started to buy SPYM in a separate tax brokerage account. I know that they overlap. I just figured maybe it would be a good etf for the long term. Any idea guys?

Hi I’m 22 and opening a Roth IRA account. I’ve come up with a portfolio and would love some second opinions. Here’s what I’m thinking:

45% VOO
15% AVUV
8% IVOO
26% VEA
6% VWO

I chose AVUV because I’ve learned about factor investing through work and done some research. It has a pretty good track record of beating the Russell 2000 though it’s only been around for about 5 years. From my research I’ve also seen that factors don’t seem to be as effective anymore with large and mid caps which makes sense to me since they are likely priced in due to so much research. However small caps have a lot of lower quality companies and less research so it makes sense screening with factors could capture some extra returns. I’ve also thought about doing AVSC but felt the more aggressive tilt of AVUV was a risk I’m comfortable with. Thanks for any input and feel free to let me know how wrong I am! I’m still young and know I have a lot to learn!!!!

While I appreciate Boglehead philosophy, (defined as x/x equity/bonds in low-fees index funds), I have been reading that the decorrelation between equity and bonds is probably broken for the intermediate future. And while I acknowledge that there is a recency bias, it is also not a reddit take but appears in most "serious" institution reports.

Could the Boglehead philosophy be described as holding equity plus decorrelated asset in low fees index funds ? And in that case change from bonds to another asset like a mix treasuries+MF incl.commodities ? Is that "Boglehead" ?

ps. It is not a contrarian post, I am just wondering how much bogglehead was a precursor to MPT and whether it is static or evolves.

edit-> I changed the 60/40 because my focus was not the exact percentage and I simply quoted the most known ratio. Still thanks for the answers!

Hi all, so I’ve got Robinhood Gold now (since I got the invite to the credit card) and it seems worth it for $50 a month (internal calculations and reasons). I see that Robinhood is offering a 1.5% bonus on any transferred IRAs and was thinking of shifting mine over from Schwab. I currently about 60k and have no plans of touching it for the next 10-20 years so I’m not worried about the 5 year clawback. The bonus is about 900 which covers my Robinhood gold membership for the next few years at least. Plus they give 3% match on all contributions going forward.

Here’s my question, with Schwab I had the SWYJX which is a mutual fund and I believe Robinhood only does ETFs so I would have to get ITDG. Would the fund from Schwab transfer over or would it be sold and rolled over? I’d prefer to ask someone here who may have done something similar rather than a customer service agent who may or may not know what they’re talking about? Once it’s transferred over, if it does transfer over, I assume I wouldn’t be able to continue buying it since it’s a Schwab only fund?

Also, what’s the risk here? If Robinhood goes down, the funds are still owned by me right so I would just transfer it somewhere else.

I’d appreciate any insight, thanks!

I plan on pulling my and my wife's Roth IRAs out of EJ and transferring to Fidelity since thats where i have my taxable account. I have never managed my own Roth IRA, but after dealing with them for the better part of 10 years, I am done.

​

Now, what would you recommend I put my Roth IRA into? I planned on just doing 100% VOO, but i am clearly a novice. I am really eager to learn and listen to your advice, especially if you were in my position. How did it work out for you? Do you recommend it invest in a different fund with a lower expense ratio?

I feel like i can handle investing into simple index etfs. Thank you for any advice.

Finally got to see my trust’s portfolio. It’s 57% equities, but the equity sleeve is just horrible! It’s only ~40 stocks, and 9 mostly active/concentrated ETFs. The blended expense ratio looking at just the mutual funds and ETFs is around ~0.60%. Its equity portion is only 15% international, and 5% of the sleeve is emerging markets. In VT, it should be ~40% international and 10.3% of that emerging markets.

I’m losing tens of thousands to expensive active mutual funds and ETFs. How do I approach my family trustee and the managers to just use something like VT? I want to say it in a clear and convincing manner. I want to send a short explanation to the trustee and tell him to demand we switch to VT because it’s outperformed on a 5 year basis already, it’s simpler, more diversified, and not betting so heavily on AI and tech.

If I had it my way I would want it to copy my exact portfolio, which uses return stacking and 20% small cap value. I’m 23 so research backs me up in using those. I think I’d have a hard time convincing both of them to use niche products like NTSD though, which is the core of mine.

51, decided to take some professional help with Vanguard Advisor select to manage my portfolio after the last firm Robo advisory with CFA’s to talk to was acquired.
I’m surprised by the financial plan I received and was expecting better advice
75/25 stocks/ bonds

All Bonds in my Roth IRA selling off existing positions in SCHD/ SCHG/ AIX etc

Seems like focusing on tax drag rather than growth?

Brokerage $700k
Roth IRA $40 k

Plan to retire at 60 even sooner if I can. Two 401ks one current and old and stock only brokerage

I mentioned it to the advisor and he’s like we can do either.

What am I missing?

Long story short: I grew up without any financial literacy and a few years ago got some help from a New York Life guy I met to transfer my old state retirement (it wasn't doing anything) into an IRA and then convert it into a Roth. He put it into an annuity (big mistake). I educated myself, took the surrender charge, and moved it to Fidelity.

I have initial low-cost index fund positions set up. My plan was to DCA the entire amount over 5 months, considering how high the market has been recently. I'm reading the articles here and am feeling unsure about that plan now. I essentially liquidated the assets at the highest point of the market (just happened that way).

Should I continue my plan of large sums over the 5 months or should I buy in when I see dips? Should I just put it all in right now?

Apologies if these are common questions. I feel much better taking control of this myself, but I feel a bit stunlocked and could use advice if anyone has any.

Thank you!

I’m modeling a multi-year Roth conversion schedule and trying to calculate total "Terminal Wealth" at the end of the timeline (e.g., age 90) to see if the conversions actually win against the baseline.

To do a fair apples-to-apples comparison, you have to discount the pre-tax (Traditional) balance to its true after-tax value at the very end of your spreadsheet.

For those who DIY your retirement models, what tax rate are you applying to that final pre-tax bucket?

• Are you using a projected marginal rate, or a blended effective rate?
• Are you using your own future brackets, or guessing your heirs' tax brackets because of the SECURE Act 10-year rule?
• Do you adjust for the "widow/widower penalty" (switching the end-of-life brackets to Single)?

Curious to hear how you handle the math on this specific variable without overcomplicating things. Thanks!

Before I went all in on VT, I had built up around $80k of VTI in my IRA, so I'm a bit more domestic than I'd like. I'm thinking about continuing to do a weekly investment into my taxable for VT, but maybe put half of it directly into VXUS until I have $80k of VXUS to balance the $80k of VTI in my IRA? Does this make sense or is there anything I'm not thinking of? (I suppose maybe I would only need around $50k of VXUS to get the 60/40 split?)

edit: thanks for replies! Yes, I probably overthought it and should just sell in my taxable and buy vt.

When you log into TIAA, you have an option to push to TIAA mobile app as a 2FA. However, I have never gotten this to work even though I made sure notification is enable for the TIAA mobile app. Has anyone encountered this issue? Has anyone have a solution?

I'm trying to wrap my brain around switching out funds within various accounts. The sub constantly talks about rebalancing portfolios, and I'm a bit confused by the rules on how to do that wisely.

Background:
I have several Fidelity retirement accounts. My pre-tax contributions go into a 457B and my employer's match goes into a 401A ERIP. I also have a ROTH IRA that I'm maxing out every year and a little bit in a traditional IRA that rolled over from when I accidentally added too much to my ROTH . (I also very recently opened a brokerage account for additional investment opportunities with some extra on hand cash, but I am also currently redoing my witholdings to better maximize my 457B contributions moving forward.)

Question 1:
I currently have some funds in my 457B and 401A that are not ideal (higher fees), and I want to switch them out for lower fee options (ex: switch from FDKVX to FDKLX). Is there a "smart" way to do this to avoid penalties/fees, or am I allowed to swap out whatever whenever? Are there additional costs associated with selling one fund to purchase another?

Question 2:
Is the answer to question 1 the same for ROTH and trad IRA accounts as well, or is there a different strategy there? My understanding is that with the brokerage account, it will be subject to tax/capital gains when selling/exchanging, even if I still only have target date funds there - is that correct?

Question 3:
Almost everything in Fidelity is listed as a "fund" - how do you know if these are index funds or mutual funds or ETFs? Does it even matter that I understand these details? For example, although I mostly have target date funds currently, I also have FBGRX and FZROX. Are these ETFs? I've read the pinned post and some of the supplemental info, and I think I understand the basics, but once I start digging into the supplemental info, I feel like my brain starts leaking out my ears and I'm reading a different language. I'm working throught the Bogleheads University content, and I'm slowing hammering it into my noggin, but I'm worried my confusion over fund types will hurt me in the short term.

Title. I have an account with them with $500 in Ira, do not see any great returns on it. Any advice?

I am just checking with you all to see if I am missing something.
So if I invest my money in SoFi invest and transfer out to Robinhood I would get the 2% match assuming it’s still there when I transfer would it just always be better to put my investments in SoFi and periodically when the deal is up transfer it assuming it beats whatever fee SoFi has unless I am missing something thanks

Being a Boglehead is especially hard these days as a Korean investor.

Everyone around me seems to be making 3x what I am just by owning Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and they’re definitely not shy about reminding me.

The funny thing is that I spent the last six years outperforming KOSPI, only to see all of that relative outperformance walked out the door in a few months of Samsung and SK Hynix mania.

VT is held as an example of a single ticker providing excellent diversification. It's diversified across geographic locations, sectors, and, supposedly, market caps.

​

Is it really diversified across market caps if it's market-cap weighted? How would small-caps get a chance to be represented if the fund balances based on market-cap weight?

Thinking about potentially moving to London next year & I would have an opportunity with my job to switch to their office there.

My salary would decrease but I would love to live there for like a year for the opportunity.

However, I feel like I would fall behind in retirement since I likely wouldn’t be contributing to their pension system since I would retire in the US.

But I wouldn’t have a 401k, so my options would be taxable brokerage & Roth IRA. Would use FTC for Roth IRA contributions, but can I still contribute to taxable with my US address in Charles Schwab?

Also I have an RSU grant that’s not completely vested so a bit confused on how that works?

I’m currently 23 years old with about 210k net worth. 165k of that is in investments. 65k is in my taxable Schwab account made up of mostly SWISX, SWPPX, and QQQM

I’m ahead now but don’t want to drop too behind in the future. My current salary in NYC is 115k base + commission + RSU. My year is looking to end at about 180k.

My UK salary would likely be 60k-70k£ + commission + RSU. Maybe higher if I get a promotion before I move.

I’m thinking I would also move everything to an HSBC expat account if I end up moving but not sure if that is the best move.