Please review and help me with my investments

[cluelesswithcash]

I am looking for some advice concerning investments.  Below are my current investments and some additional info. about them.  I basically am somewhat clueless about what to invest in, how I should go about picking things to put my money in, etc.  I am willing to take risk for high reward, and I understand by doing so I could lose money.  I am 31-years-old and basically want to have my money earn as much as possible.  I would like to be financially independent by the time I am in my early 40’s (not necessarily, retire but just not have the pressure of “having” to have a job).  Over the course of a year, I will put $20,000 into the Vanguard brokerage account listed below at my current savings rate (every year I am working).  I am going to stop putting money into the traditional IRA this year and open up a Roth IRA instead and start contributing to that annually at $5,500 per year (so I don’t have to pay taxes later and after reading more about IRA’s I think a Roth is a better way to go). 

I have a Retirement account through my employer, but that is managed by Morningstar so they pick the funds for me and it performs very well so just keep in mind I have a regular retirement account too outside of these investments below.   

Traditional IRA – TD Ameritrade

Total: $19,653.59

This contains the following funds:
NFLX (Netflix) – 56 shares
AAPL (Apple) – 27 shares
VTSMX – 87.67 shares
AOCIX – 189.97 shares

I am going to be contributing $5,500 into this IRA within the next couple weeks – I am not sure what I should purchase with this $5,500 though so any advice would be appreciated.  I recently purchased the shares of VTSMX with money I had put into this IRA last year.  I previously had put some money into this IRA to just play around buying stocks – which is why I have some Netflix and Apple.  I can’t remember why I picked AOCIX.


Vanguard Brokerage Account

Total: $51,553.98

This contains the following funds:
VTSAX - $41,577.26
VBTLX - $9,973.49

I invested $40,000 in VTSAX and $10,000 into VBTLX about a month or so ago.  I basically did this based on some advice I got in the “ask a mustachian” thread.  I haven’t put any additional money into this aside from the original $50,000 investment.


If you need more information, let me know.  Thanks for any advice.

[tarheeldan]

Have you read: http://www.madfientist.com/traditional-ira-vs-roth-ira/   ?

[Heckler]

I would start by defining your plan.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started

 https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investment_policy_statement

[BTH7117]

Everything you need to know can be found in the JLCollinsnh Stock Series.  Well worth spending an afternoon reading end-to-end.

This forum is near uniform in its support of passive investing, which is generally Total Stock Market fund + Total Bond Market Fund at levels to suit your needs/tolerance.  If I were you (and I'm NOT, so you do you), I would immediately dump those individual stocks in the retirement account and purchase more Vanguard funds.

You may also want to consider the tax ramifications of where you place your bond fund.  See Boogleheads for handy chart on efficient placement.