Author Topic: Taking control of my retirement accounts  (Read 1311 times)

Dieselfuel

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Taking control of my retirement accounts
« on: September 14, 2018, 10:43:51 AM »
First time posting - I'd like some advice on which funds to move my Roth/IRA funds into. I have finally gotten rid of my financial advisor and moved those funds into Vanguard, but have not yet changed the fund selection.

33 years old
Last year W2 income $135k
Side business income approximately $20k
Single, itemize deductions
Mortgage is my only debt, owe $94k, and I pay more than double each month.

Current accounts:
Roth, fund $5500 each January, current value approx 23k, in American Funds GFACX
Rollover IRA $38k, in 5 different American Funds
Brokerage: 78k - 10k in VFIAX, the rest in VTSAX. I put another 1k in monthly to VTSAX
Profit sharing plan at work - 35k, I cannot contribute to this

Should I move both the Roth and IRA into something like the Life Strategy Growth Fund? Or put it all in VTSAX?
I would like to add in some REIT's too at some point.

TIA


« Last Edit: September 20, 2018, 09:05:36 AM by Dieselfuel »

Much Fishing to Do

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Re: Taking control of my retirement accounts
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2018, 11:50:51 AM »
It sounds like you want to keep things pretty simple, which after a lot of learning and complicated investing I've fallen to myself.  I don't see anything wrong with any of your ideas so just consider the differences:

I love the LifeStrategy Growth fund and have ended up there, though I'm nearing FIRE.  If I was still years away and my current nest egg is just a small percentage of what I was shooting for (I assume thats where you are) I'd probably choose VTSAX (or even VFIAX which is gonna perform very similarly anyway and has that tiny expense fee, kinda along the lines of when Warren Buffett said to put your first $1M in the s&P 500 and get back to work, though for this community the $1M is akin to $100k).  Do understand that the Lifestrategy Growth fund is not only more diversified b/c of the bond component, but a pretty large percentage of the equities is international making it more diversified, but also another reason it has underperformed VTSAX for a while now.

Just things to consider, again I dont think any of this a bad idea, when your assets are 1x your income cutting spending/increasing income is infinitely times more important than these other investment choices.

zeli2033

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Re: Taking control of my retirement accounts
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2018, 02:19:28 PM »
I am a complete newb to investing so i won’t pretend to have any solid fund-picking advice to give.

However I do recommend JL Collins book, The Simple Path to Wealth. Or heading over to his blog and reading his stock series. That might help craft a simple framework for you to choose an investment strategy in the meantime.