Here is a little background:
My husband (35), me (29), toddler (2), and one on the way. We have roughly:
401k - $230,000
Roth IRA - $17,000
IRA (401k rolled over from my previous employer) - $53,000
Managed ETF account (trying to figure out if we should switch this to Vanguard) - $65,000
Managed Brokerage account (also possibly switching this to Vanguard) - $110,000
Cash in Savings/Checking - $405,000
529 Account - $34,000
we spend roughly 47k a year because our rent is 24k, and we can't seem to get around that unless we move very far away from my husband's work.
We've been back and forth about our future and possibly buying a house in the last few years, so we were afraid to do anything with our cash. We still aren't sure what we want to do, but have decided we need to at least move most of our money out of our savings account. We also would like to move to Vanguard, and have with our IRA, but haven't done the same with our Roth or other two accounts (can't move the 401k).
In the last few months, we have tried to learn as much as we can about investing, since neither of us had much knowledge at all about it. I feel way more aware than I did before, which is great! BUT, I still feel like I have a lot to fully understand, which is where I get nervous about actually investing the cash we have. I don't want to make a mistake because I wasn't educated enough to understand everything about the choices I was making. I was going off of the jlcollinsnh stock series because simpler is better for us in terms of our knowledge level of investing.
SO! A few questions... here is our target AA:
50k in savings for emergencies (lost job, etc)
75% stocks (possibly VTSAX?)
25% bonds (I was going to do VBLTX, but after doing more research, am wondering if VFIDX would be better because of the length of the bonds? Or maybe a mix of the two?)
From what I've read (please, correct me if I'm wrong!), it's best to put bonds in tax-advantaged accounts... but does anyone else feel weird about having an IRA be 100% bonds? I keep trying to look at our money as one big pile, just divided up, but should traditional retirement funds be separate from taxable accounts?
Another question... if we invested our money now, and in 2 years wanted to buy a house, would taking out 80-100k from our investments be awful because of capital gains? If we knew for sure we were going to do that, I would probably keep it cash, or in a CD, but we don't know if we will need it in 2, 4, 6 years, etc. Or would it be better to invest it all now, and instead of adding to our investments monthly, save that money for our downpayment? (we save roughly 30k/year, excluding possible bonuses)