I have a simple question related to savings, and perhaps I haven't read far enough through MMM blog posts, but where do I put my 'savings' funds? Or more specifically, after maxing out Roth IRA/401k contributions, where can I store my other 'funds' that will benefit me most? I assume this has something to do with liquidity versus gains versus loss tolerance... I have seen mention of Betterment/Vanguard, but where do I even start?
For example, beyond the normal expenses (rent, groceries, etc) I have monthly budgets for...
* Car ($500)
* Vacation ($600)
* Restaurant ($200)
* Misc. - (House savings? $920)
I don't actually have a car payment, but at some point in the future I will need another car, and this enables me to pay cash.
I, like the rest of the world, enjoy vacations. I have no target destination in mind, but at some point I'm going to want to go away.
My 'end of the month' bottom line is quite large, which is currently filling up a year-long emergency fund. I assume at some point this will go towards house savings.
I just don't know where to put these funds, aside from a savings account. I feel I should put these into a brokerage account and start investing, but some items are more risk-tolerant than others. On one hand, I wouldn't want to have 5k stashed for a vacation fund in a brokerage, only to see the markets take a dive and consequently cancel my vacation that year, for example. On the other, it seems super wasteful to have giant chunks of change just lying around at .09 interest. Thoughts?