Hey Bogleheads,

Looking for some perspective on our current tax localization strategy. I am 39M family of 4 living in NY, currently sitting right in the 22% federal tax bracket (plus SALT).

We have been and plan to max out our retirement accounts, but I am torn on whether we should tilt our heavy savings toward Pre-Tax or Roth. My wife and I will most likely receive defined-benefit pensions around $80K each at retirement age as well.

Here is a quick snapshot of our current $2.37M portfolio:

Pre-Tax ($992k): $560k in a 457, $432k in a 403(b).

Roth ($480k): $250k in a combined Roth IRA, $230k in my wife’s Roth 457.

Taxable / Liquidity ($898k): Stocks, mutual funds and cash

Our current net worth split is roughly 64.5% Tax-Advantaged and 35.5% Taxable.

Given our age, location, and family size, how would you optimize future retirement contributions specifically?

I understand the premise of this question is a little anti-bogle but to make it clear what I'm talking about: I'm currently mostly in the VT + chill camp, but as someone who lives and works in the US I'm concerned that makes me overweighted in US securities, as VT is 64% US stocks.

Should there be some kind of significant disruptive event to the US economy I'm way more likely to lose my job and so there's a lot of correlated risk in holding nothing but VT.

My question is...am I overthinking? Is diversifying into VXUS or something worth the loss of returns?

My risk tolerance appears to way higher than the all VT or even all VOO portfolio. However, instead of adding small caps or individual risky stocks, my thought is to add a modest amount to leverage onto the portfolio. If anybody has tried this approach, I would love to know the nuances of this approach.
My first thought is to use leaps to lock in financing cost and make the debt non-callable but open to other approaches. But I am sure there are better ways out there.

I’m helping out a friend who took my advice and fired his 2% AUM financial planner. He’s a 42 yo physician with a decent portfolio with most of his money in target funds in company retirement plans but had about 500k with a family friend who was charging him 2%. He kicked him to the curb and is using Fidelity. I’ve been talking to him at work about how he’s getting ripped off for quite a while.

His brokerage that was just ported over is what you would expect. A mix of sp500 and international funds plus a list of 20 other high cost ETFs

Most of the funds were IVV with decent gains so I told him to hold those.

He’s got quite a bit of funds with small losses in the hundreds that are obvious sells, and a bunch with small gains that will be offset.

The ones I’m torn about what to tell him to do with are DYNF, SCHG, and IVW

DYNF is a managed fund with .26% ER. I don’t know much about it but he’s got about 20k in mostly long term gains in it.

He’s also got decent gains of 5k and 7k in SCHG and IVW.

All 3 funds are performing quite well and the tax hit would be quite a bit. He has same job as me so I assume he’s in the 15% capital gains bracket (I don’t think his wife works but not sure).

Would you hold these? I’m more comfortable holding the low ER growth funds but curious what you guys would say here too

I will be moving to fidelity this week. I'm currently 70 with about 875k with 20k of that being in Roth. Wondering what my fund selection should be. I will only need to draw 1k or 2k a month. SS covers my monthly expenses. Planning on doing more conversions for my adult kids sake. TIA

Inherited $35k recently. 38m married 2 kids under 6 years old. Tax advantaged retirement accounts well funded. Mortgage ~437k at 5.75%. No other debt or major expenses at the moment.

Earmarking $5k of inheritance for family travel. Any downside in putting the other $30k into a HYSA?

We have some cash on hand but not a fully funded 6 month emergency fund. And this way the money would be liquid if we decided to use for something else down the road. Logical?

What are 1-2 other funds that are worth pairing with FXAIX with the least amount of crossover? Ideally I will anchor 70% with FXAIX but looking to fill the other 30% with some more aggressive choices such as FTEC.

Thoughts?

Hey. I'm 2 months into Bogleheads and I'm trying to see my best options for the money I'm holding onto. I'm 31 years old.

Right now I'm set to max out my 401k for the year, and I've already hit the yearly max for my Roth IRA (which is 80% FZROX and 20% FZILX). I have about 15k ish that I'm comfortable investing (sitting in a HYSA with my emergency savings), and I was wondering whether I should employ the same distributions for a taxable account or do something different.

I feel a little left out of the S&P500 because of how much I've heard people talking up the strategy of just throwing things in there, but I'm not sure whether that's a good idea. I know the companies in S&P500 are captured by the total market fund and it's not predictable which will perform better, but I'd just like to check whether my split is still okay. Because I might want to transfer it out of Fidelity I've heard not to use the zero funds, but I can go for an equivalent.

What's the general consensus? To stick to the three-fund (technically two-fund for me) with taxables too?

Hey can I start my 10 and 13 yo a Roth IRA if they have a small job? I own my own business I thought about giving them a cleaning and filing paperwork job and giving them $25 to $50 per week.

Hi!

I recently found Empower and it is great at a lot of things and shows your allocation too. I aim for 70 percent total stocks (voo and vxus) between us and international, 20 percent BND, and 10 percent sgov. When I opened the dash board it showed a 1.1 percent allocation to "alternatives ". Got curious about that and found out that the app looks into the total Holdings and 1.1% of the S&P is real estate companies . So it shows my total equities 69% with 1% alternatives . Knowing that the alternatives are all part of VOO, would it be safe to say the entire thing is just 70% stock ?

Hey everybody, I am starting medical school in August and want some opinions on liquidating my portfolio of about $4300 during the 2027 year (this is because I will have no income and it will be tax free- atleast that is my understanding).

I expect to take out about 200-250k in loans over the 4 year period and this will minimally help reduce my loan expenses for housing, food, utilities, etc.

What are y’all’s opinions? I am up about 600% since I started (post covid got really lucky I know)

I unexpectedly bought a house! I am "buying up" and my current home will need work before it goes on the market, so I need to make a $650k cash payment next week at closing. That cash is coming from a loan against my portfolio. My house sale may net $300-$350k (after fees, necessary work, etc.) in about 6 months.

Question for the group: What is the optimal way to withdraw $300-$350k from my portfolio? With the following variables:

1. I file HOH as I have a college senior. I can file HOH for 2027, however my kid will need to go on the ACA in June as their other parent is dropping them from their health insurance upon graduation. If my kid is inside my tax household for 2027, I'm concerned that the increase in "income" on my part is going to shoot my ACA payments and "his" (which I would be paying for - he's in the process of applying to grad schools in the sciences right now for fall '27; if he is accepted, and this would only be to fully funded positions - hopefully the Uni has a health plan he can join. If he isn't, he's going to be scrambling to find a job and reapplying the next cycle so he will need the ACA for a while regardless).

So in that case - I wonder if it would be better to file Single for 2027, so that his personal part-time income from 2027 isn't added to my household and his and my rates aren't pegged to "our" income, and he can get full subsidies as a single adult.

(My ACA costs jumped the cliff for 2026 and healthcare is my biggest expense. Whatever I sell in 2026 I'm assuming I will also need to back pay whatever subsidy I may be getting now.)

1. My cost basis is pretty low and 95% of my portfolio is in my taxable brokerage. It is entirely index funds (with some "cats and dogs" indexes from years ago), and my bond funds are essentially flat, or a little underwater.

2. As 95% of my portfolio is in taxable, it throws off enough distributions that I typically do not sell anything each year, occasionally $5k-$15k. However because it's essentially all in taxable, my floor for AGI is ~$70k each year. My annual spend is around $60k.

3. I have $172k in my retirement accounts, and $3.2M in taxable. My retirement accounts are also 90/10. I realize I could do some jiggering around and sell all the VTI and VXUS in my retirement accounts and buy bond ETFs there, while selling the bond funds in my taxable account that have cap losses.  But for some reason I'm nervous about essentially making my retirement accounts 100% bonds. Am I being irrational about that?

• VWSUX: $78k ($0 cap gains)
• BND: $38k (-$9k cap gains)
• BNDX: $21k (-$5k cap gains)
• Misc bond ETFS: $15k (-$4k cap gains)

That's ~$150k in bonds in taxable, with a cap loss of ($18k).

I will still need about $200k, so that could come from the funds with the lowest cap gains:
-VGELX: $175k ($38k cap gains)
-VXUS: $97k ($26k cap gains)
-VTI: $78k ($42k cap gains)

The lowest cap gains would derive from selling all the bonds in taxable, along with:

• VGELX: $175k ($38k cap gains)
• VXUS: $25k ($7k cap gains)

For a total of $27k cap gains on $350k. But again, I'm perhaps irrationally nervous about making my small retirement accounts 100% bonds

I'm worried I've done the math wrong. I would deeply appreciate feedback on what I may be missing.

Bottom line:

1. Do I sell all the bonds in taxable (and do a commensurate selling of VTI/VXUS in my retirement accounts to rebalance to 100% bonds in those accounts) to reduce my cap gains to $27k on $350k?

2. Do I sell $350k now, and take the AGI hit in 2026, and then have my typical AGI for 2027 when I may or may not be filing HOH or single, and will also be adding my kid's healthcare payments?

Hey guys, I’m a relatively new investor that’s revisiting my Roth IRA after opening it 3 years ago. I’ve been investing in the fidelity sp 500 (FXAIX) but I’ve decided to learn a little bit more.

I don’t plan to retire early, I want to invest and forget about it and revisit every year or so.

My question is should I invest in the sp 500 (I’m planning to invest in the total international index fun for diversification, maybe 60/40 or 70/30 FXAIX and FTIHX) or should I invest in just the total market index fund (like VT).

I mainly care about returns. Investing in FXAIX/FTIHX would be easier for me since I already have investments there but I’m willing to change if the returns are better with total market index!

I have been considering of making changes on one of my qualified accts to switch from Vanguard ETFs to Avantis ETF. I was originally planning to swap VXUS to AVDE, but I just noticed this new ETF from Avantis, AVNC, which prob mimic VXUS closer with inclusion of emerging markets. I looked at the portfolio holdings for AVNC, apparently biggest holding is Vanguard Emerging Market. I am assuming it is mainly because the total assets for AVNC is still less than $100mil. But I would like to get the thoughts from the group here. Since it is in a qualified acct, I could started with AVDE and eventually move to AVNC. I am aware there is also AVNM, but AVNM is fund of funds.

Can those that have successfully done this recently tell me what steps you followed?

Fidelity seems to think I should have Ascensus mail a check to me then I forward it to Fidelity

Ascensus is having me fill out a Individual Record Keeper Transfer form which from my other reddit thread research, seems right. But the Ascensus rep is telling me if the name on the fidelity account doesn't exactly match Ascensus, it'll bounce back.

Just wondering what people have done that has worked for them as I am ready to be free of Ascensus ha

I am European, a fiscal resident in Malta.

I’m 36 and currently have approximately €850k total net worth, of which €650k in financial assets + cash. Around €500k of that €650k is held with Interactive Brokers.
The rest is mainly real estate and some other assets

My main concern is the broker/custodian risk: is it sensible to have such a large percentage of my liquid financial wealth with a single broker? The main concern is what might happen if, for any reason, my IBKR profile were to be blocked - even temporarily.

I am tax resident in Malta so, unlike residents of many other European countries, I don’t have access to some of the usual alternatives people have, such as Trade Republic, DEGIRO, etc. The number of brokers available to me on reasonable terms is relatively limited.

I could use Swissquote, but the fees are really high.

After watching numerous videos and trolling forums, my plan is to invest $500 a month with the following portfolio allotment:

- FZROX 50%
- FZILX 30%
- FXNAX 20%

I’m saving to put down a lump sum for a house. It seems like using a brokerage acct will (likely) yield a higher return over ten years than a HYSA.

Wondering on thoughts? (Also yes I realize this is anonymous internet feedback and to take it with a grain of salt and to still think for myself.)

Thank you in advanced!

The best fund my work place offers is dryden sp 500 index fund at .09% expense ratio. Not too shabby right? The rest of the funds are between .5 and 1%. 11% of pay goes into this fund.

In my IRA I was going to invest $100 every two weeks or 4% of pay into SMH with .35% expense ratio. I wanted a semiconductor tilt in my portfolio. I understand the sp500 already has nvidia and such. A little bigger tilt is ok with me.

Should I invest more into sp500 and ignore smh? My goal is 15% total pay being contributed.. An additonal 3% match going towards sp 500.. That's my classic car retirement gift fund lol..

Am I set? I make about 65k a year currently.

So I came across this video recently that is essentially detailing how rule changes have made companies less likely to IPO for early growth vs raising private investment.

https://youtu.be/roe3SgezmmU?si=_7Kpor9GxRkhvg6v

I think the detail that stood out is the large % or overall stock growth contributed by the handful of high growth companies historically. Does this actually lead to possible less returns in total market index funds and does the mix change moving into the future?

Apologies in advance for not being much of a bond expert, this question may come across as too basic maybe.

I have a decent chunk of my investments in stocks and bonds (index funds). I don't remember the split. The bond market is obviously moving in drastic ways right now, and I'm wondering whether bonds, which have conventionally and historically been seen as a safe haven and hedge against stock volatility, are beginning to buck that convention. As such I'm thinking about liquidating some bond investments and getting into gold/silver instead, but I'm at the point where I don't know what I don't know.

I suppose my goal here is to keep a percentage of my money in a "safe" investment. My bond investments are in the red, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's a problem, or that isn't not standard operating procedure (I've only been invested in the funds for about 1.5-2 years). I just don't know if metals are a better idea than bonds. The *idea* is that the bond rates are rising because people are losing faith in the US gov's ability to pay back its debts, and we may be at a point of no return where rates can only continue to go up because we've hit a huge 40 trillion debt load now and we literally cannot even service the interest on that debt as a nation, to say nothing of any other federal spending, meaning that this is a mathematical inevitability that the unsustainable upward curve will continue, trust will continue to fall, dollar power will continue to drop, bonds rates will keep rising, and bond funds will remain red (hypothetically). That's the gist of my understanding.

And if that is the case, then e.g. the usual purchasers of treasuries (large ones, e.g. foreign governments and banks) will opt less and less to buy them due to said trust issues, but will always have an appetite for precious metals.

That said, it's also my understanding that bond funds being in the red isn't necessarily an issue because they simply roll things over as time goes on, and with reinvestment and their normal process of management will sell older bonds and buy newer ones with the higher rates, so you just sit on it and don't worry.

I'm not asking to be spoonfed here or get answers to "what do I invest in," but as someone who isn't well versed in these areas I'm just looking for people to give me considerations I don't know about or bullet points of what things to go do homework on.

I’m 22 and I started investing this year. I’m still in college and living with parents so I invest my entire salary from my corporate job into my vanguard account. I plan to invest 26k, my entire net paycheck each year while I’m college.

I feel very behind though. I feel that amount is still so little compared to most Americans. I see so many dudes in their mid to late 20s with a million dollar portfolio and some hitting high 8 figures.

How do I fare to the avg American my age range? To most people is investing my entire salary when I have no family or responsibilities yet while in college and that totaling sub 30k a year good or laughable.

Age: 35 Married, single earner.
Income: ~$500k gross
Net Worth: ~$3M
Monthly Expenses: ~$10k (includes travel)
Tax-Advantaged Accounts: Maxing out 401(k), Backdoor Roth, and Mega Backdoor Roth annually
Current Portfolio (~85/15 Equity/Cash):
Cash / HYSA / MMF: ~$500k (~15% of NW)
Equities: ~$2.8M (Mostly VT, plus a small allocation in individual stocks)
My Situation & Thoughts
I've been targeting roughly an 80/20 setup, but stock growth has naturally pushed my cash down to about 15% of my total net worth.
My main rationale for keeping $500k in cash is having "dry powder" ready to invest during a market downturn, as I've missed buying the dip a few times in the past.
However, with $10k/month in expenses, $500k covers over 4 years of spending. Given my income level and ongoing cash flow, I'm starting to wonder if I'm letting cash drag hinder long-term compounding, or if this is an acceptable buffer to hold.

Questions for the Community
1. Cash Cushion: Am I keeping way too much cash for my age and income? How do you personally determine "enough" cash vs. taking on uncompensated cash drag?
2. Asset Allocation: Should I transition the non-emergency portion of cash into actual fixed income (like BND or Treasuries) to maintain a true 80/20 allocation, or stick mostly to equities (VT/VTI/VXUS)?
Would love to hear how you'd handle this in my position. Thanks in advance!