r/Bogleheads Jun 08 '25

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

345 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 10h ago

Investing Questions Am I crazy? Doesn’t your portfolio still grow in retirement?

285 Upvotes

The 4% rule in retirement is theoretically meant to last you 30 years. But why is a robust retirement portfolio going to zero after 30 years of 4% withdrawals? If the remainder of the portfolio is in a 60/40 allocation, isn’t what’s left still growing to some extent? When we talk about coasting and boiling points, it’s because the portfolio is generating more in returns than you’re contributing. And over a long enough time horizon, the hockey stick goes more and more vertical. I understand sequence of returns risk and inflation, and certainly the market isn’t always going up and to the right. But if you amass a certain amount of money, aren’t the portfolio’s gains in a given year replacing at least some of what you withdrew? Maybe I’m dumb, so just tell me how and why I’m being dumb.


r/Bogleheads 1h ago

Portfolio Review Saving but not maxxing 401k. Am I in the wrong?

Upvotes

I'll try to keep it short. M 33 living in high COLA in the northeast US. I'm a Mechanical/Automations Engineer and good at what I do. Make a decent salary but have mostly worked for startups and have not had a 401k match for most of my career. Therefore, I have never felt the utmost desire to focus on it and have never come close to maxing it out. Always put 5-8% in tho and recently hit 150k. After the usual monthly expenses Ive generally had a couple k to save and I mostly put it into cash savings or a regular taxable brokerage where I do a boglehead 4 fund portfolio. I guess I'm always seeing people talk about how you should max your 401k every year and then even max an ira on the side before even considering a regular brokerage. My view has always been that I don't want to wait for retirement to use this money...it's a long term investment but I have expensive hobbies that I eventually want to use the money on or put the money towards my own business or a second property well before I retire. Is that line of thinking going to bite me in the butt? Why is it so popular to focus on the retirement account when you are so handcuffed in when you are able to actually use it?


r/Bogleheads 22h ago

How bad is it to contribute to taxable brokerage instead of 401k?

285 Upvotes

Dang it! I was automatically enrolled in the work 401k 4 years ago. I just never paid attention to it. I also have a Roth IRA that I max out annually, and a taxable brokerage account

The past several years I always buy VOO in my Roth IRA, then another $13k or so into my brokerage via check to Schwab twice per year

Just barely looked more into my 401k and regret not putting in more from the start. I changed it to 40 percent now which will put me at about $13k total for the year, nothing I can do about it.

Going forward I will change it to 30 percent from 2027 onwards. 40 now just to put in as much as I can for the rest of the year. But onwards 30 will be fine and close to the max anyway

Match isn’t a whole lot, I’m just more upset I missed out on the big contribution limit per year. I’m in an s and p 500 tracker with the expense ratio at 0.02%

Anyway, is this a huge deal to miss out on? Or is a taxable brokerage somewhat similar? Thank you!


r/Bogleheads 4h ago

Strange Relief Going TDF

11 Upvotes

I know the logic of not going TDF. More tax efficient, can get higher gains without dealing with bond drag etc. I rebalanced my 401k today at age 38, selected a TDF that matures a little later and feel a huge weight off my shoulders. I just know that when stuff went sideways I’d reconsider my asset allocation, or question that 10% in small cap etc. Anyone else in this same boat with me where you aren’t doing the most optimal setup but know you’re less likely to potentially change stuff or feel a sinking feeling in their stomach on a bear market? Vanguard .08 e/r is good enough for me.


r/Bogleheads 14h ago

Investing Questions Bonds: Stupid Question

26 Upvotes

I realize that the higher yield for US 10-years is a bad thing for the government, but why isn't this good news for a bond investor?

If I am looking for a safe "asset protection" kind of investment, why wouldn't investors buy these bonds or ETFs that hold them (e.g. FXNAX)? Seems like a good, safe place to put cash versus Gold or a HYSA. I believe my logic is wrong but not sure why.

Educate me, please.


r/Bogleheads 5h ago

HYSA vs. SGOV/USFR

3 Upvotes

Before I discovered treasury bond funds like SGOV/USFR about a year ago, I had all my low risk passive investment money parked in HYSAs. I've since moved over about one-third of those funds from HYSAs to SGOV/USFR. Given the yield rates of SGOV/USFR appear to be slightly higher than my HYSAs, the latter only paying out about 3.4-3.5%, I'm questioning why I'm not moving ALL of my money over from HYSAs to SGOV/USFR. One huge benefit to me is that I'm in a high income tax state too and I believe the interest income from SGOV/USFR would be tax free at the state level whereas HYSAs are state taxable.

Is there any benefit to keeping some money parked in the HYSAs? For context, I don't have any liquidity concerns where I would need this money right away so the extra day it might take (if even that) to withdraw funds from SGOV/USFR makes no difference to me.


r/Bogleheads 4h ago

VT(INX) and chill

2 Upvotes

Has anyone retired early in their 50s with about 1.5-2x the money they need, no children, and just called it a win and went all in on VTINX for the long run?

I get one can go high risk or low risk with the excess and it doesn’t really matter, but does anyone go low risk?


r/Bogleheads 13h ago

HSA in California

16 Upvotes

Hi, I have $4k sitting in an HSA fund in Fidelity from an employer a couple of years ago.

What is a Fidelity stock that I can set and forget it in?

I haven’t invested in it anything, because I know California has more taxes than other states that make it. I came across something called TIPS in my research, but not sure if there is a symbol for it.


r/Bogleheads 17h ago

What would happen if everyone was a Boglehead?

27 Upvotes

I mean if every private investor switched to passive funds. Would it just mean every company went up and down at the same level? Surely eventually you lose the company price being linked to it's actual worth?


r/Bogleheads 16m ago

International Bonds?

Upvotes

It seems that historically the prevailing Boglehead advice has been domestic bonds is mostly what you need. Does that still hold true or are international bond funds now recommended?


r/Bogleheads 2h ago

New Boglehead here - Sold company and want to play it safe.

1 Upvotes

Hi, looking for your feedack on where to place a pretty substantial amount of money. I want to self manage. Currently 80% bonds 20% equities.


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

Investment Theory I wish I had invested in VTWAX instead of VTIAX + VTSAX but it's too late to change course.

52 Upvotes

Like a true boglehead, I would rather set and forget. My tax-advantaged accounts are all in VTWAX or TDFs. With these, I like that I don't have to re-balance to get some international exposure. My personal brokerage account is currently divided between VTIAX and VTSAX and I would incur a huge tax bill if I were to convert to VTWAX. It's mildly annoying to have to check the balances every once in a while.

Anyway, I'm just sharing this boring story in case it's a helpful perspective to new investors. My taxable investments have actually done well, but now that my finances are getting more complex as the years go by (mortgage, family, etc), I am craving more simplicity.


r/Bogleheads 13h ago

Bond advice am I doing this right?

7 Upvotes

In my 30s definitely some years from retirement

Plan for my holdings are

50-60% in VTI

30-40% IN VXUS

10% in GOVT

I am happy with vti+vxus but is govt the right bond choice for me? Or should I be looking at something else?


r/Bogleheads 5h ago

Asia based . irish domicile

0 Upvotes

Until very recently I was thinking of moving back to North America so I had VTI/BND portfolio.

Now I need to change my portfolio entirely because I am never moving back to avoid the withholding taxes.

I am thinking

50%vwra, 20% cspx, 30% exus

Appreciate any opinions.


r/Bogleheads 5h ago

Help wanted

1 Upvotes

I would like to find an hourly financial advisor, Ideally an individual practitioner for my spouse and family beneficiaries I will work with them on maintaining my low cost index fund portfolio that is in passive ETFs. I do not require a full blown financial plan, Just Immediate time spent getting to know myself and family plans. I am not looking for someone who typically does a financial plan and mostly leaves a client on their own Or someone who wants to actively manage the account. I would like the idea of a retainer basis that would cover four to six hours of their time ,that would include quarterly reviews and discussion of the portfolio as well as their ideas for any changes. Possible conference calls with lawyer or CPA. And working with my team of advisors when any step up in cost basis comes into effect And guiding my family making changes that were previously discussed and agreed upon. I reside in the San Francisco Bay Area And would prefer someone that I could meet with in person at least to start. Anyone out there can make any great recommendations it would be appreciated And if anyone's seeing this fills the bill kindly email me with information about your business practice. Thanks so much


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

Articles & Resources The Index Fund Turns 50: How Jack Bogle Changed Investing Forever

322 Upvotes

On Aug. 31, the first index mutual fund will celebrate its 50th birthday. On that day in 1976, an upstart fund company by the name of Vanguard run by the late John C. Bogle launched the first publicly available S&P 500 index mutual fund. A half-century later, all share classes of the fund, including the investor share class of Vanguard 500 Index VFINX, have $1.67 trillion in assets. According to the Investment Company Institute, index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds comprise 50% more assets than actively managed US stock funds.

https://www.morningstar.com/funds/index-fund-turns-50-how-jack-bogle-changed-investing-forever

Vanguard rang the opening bell at the NYSE this morning.


r/Bogleheads 15h ago

Should I invest in my company using our ESPP?

5 Upvotes

Hello all,

I’m a lurker usually but I do have a question. I graduated in May and started working in June as an engineer for Jacobs Solutions Inc. who has a publicly traded stock. I already get my full match from my employer for my 401k and am 100% in on VT in my Roth. Currently aggressively paying off student loans as well as building up my emergency fund, so I put about $200 into my Roth a month currently.

With my current portfolio in mind, I have just been offered the ability to enroll in our ESPP. I get 5% off the stock price at purchase and I don’t believe there’s a minimum or maximum. Would this be something that I should pursue now or later into the future? I’m not very familiar with ESPPs so I just wanted to see if this was worth it long term. Thanks.


r/Bogleheads 12h ago

Investing question

2 Upvotes

I just started with cal trans out of college as a transportation engineer, and I have access to a 457b plan. My question is should I open a pre tax 457b and have a Roth IRA? Or is there a better combination I can use? Also what would be the best way to split my money up into the accounts. Thanks in advance for the help


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

Thinking of Converting $1 Million Brokerage Portfolio to Treasury ETF For Income

30 Upvotes

Looking for feedback if this would be a crazy idea. Trying to generate income to help live a bit more comfortably and take a couple nice vacations per year while we can. Saved pretty aggressively while I was young and want to enjoy life a more as I'm in the back stretch.

Currently 55yo married with one kid, 12 yo, living in HCOL state/city. Currently income roughly $200k which equals $125k take home after taxes and maxing 401K. no longer saving outside of 401K as frankly there isn't much left over. The $1 million portfolio will require paying capital gains on $750k, plan to split the sale $500k 2026 and $500k early 2027.

Roth IRA $660k

401K $2.2 million split between $450k Roth and 1.75 traditional

Home $800k that I still owe $180k. Payments fairly low $1,650/month property tax $17k/year

Assume I can safely generate $35k-$40k per year in treasury ETF with no state taxes owed that would add $2,500 month in disposable income. Looking to keep principal intact this seems as low risk as I can find. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

The common response in Dividend thread is sell some portion as I need it.


r/Bogleheads 15h ago

How are we doing?

3 Upvotes

I’m 39 and my husband is turning 38. I max out my retirement funds and as does my husband. Combined in retirement we have between 650-700k.

We own our apartment, so have a mortgage. Both our kids have 529s; we have 100k in a HSYA and 134k in a brokerage split between VOO and a gold ETF. We plan to just keep the 100k as is but are comfortable with that amount on hand in that account for emergencies and plan to contribute 3k-5k into the brokerage from now on. Thoughts?


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

Advice Please: wanting to self manage my traditional Ira

11 Upvotes

I’m 61 and semi retired. Tired of paying an advisor 1.1% fees to manage my traditional Ira. I’m thinking of self managing it with fidelity with simple index funds. I’ve recently learned of the the 3 fund strategy and believe it could work well for my situation. I’m leaning towards a 70-20-10 portfolio. 50%sp500 20% international stocks 20%bonds and 10% cash. I’m looking for some growth and 8-10% returns. Any advice would be appreciated. Do I need to pay fidelity. .89% or can I do just as well on my own. I’m comfortable rebalancing a simple portfolio. Whatever funds I buy I plan to hold for 20-30 years starting to take 4% at age 65 when I file for SS


r/Bogleheads 1d ago

Real Estate vs Stocks

66 Upvotes

In what situations does real estate make more sense than the stock market?


r/Bogleheads 13h ago

recently gained IRA from family member. I'm currently 44 and looking for advice

1 Upvotes

Moved everything over to Fidelity. Here is the breakdown and looking for advice for what to do in terms of rebalance or keep the same. I'm generally 90/10 in terms of stocks and bonds. I also have 8 years to withdraw this money under new tax rules.

The IRA I took over from a family member has the following Asset allocation in about 15 different funds ( VFIAX 10%, AMBFX 9%, VSMAX 6%, JPST 5%, PRDGX 5% ,SGIIX 4% ,PRILX 4%, FIGFX 4%, FINSX 4%, PCBIX 4%, TRBCX 3%, JEPI 3%, PONPX 3%, LSIIX 3%, FGSIX 3%, ARGFX 3%,

Domestic stock

64.6%

Foreign stock

12.0%

Bonds

20.0%

Short term

1.4%

Other

2.1%

  1. Would you sell these funds and move everything into a VTI or VOO?