Vanguard Mutual Funds Recommendation

[Candyland33]

Hello,
I'm looking for recommendations on vanguard mutual funds to invest some money. I"m 36 year old and i maxed out 401K, roth, HSA but i want to save money to be financial independent. I would like to retire by 45 if not sooner.
Thank you

[zolotiyeruki]

I just plow it all into VTI and call it a day.

[Abe]

Consider what amount of risk you are willing to tolerate.  Vanguard has a decent, simple survey that gives you a starting point in their retirement tools section. You’ll have to be on the aggressive side with your timeline.  This calculator is made by one of our forum members and is a very good tool (as is the rest of the site).

Once you know what your tolerance and goals are, you can split up investments into the total stock market etf VTI and total bond market etf BND. For reference on allocation, I am the same age with the same financial independence goal age (but not planning to retire), and am 80% stocks, 20% bonds because my job and salary are such that I can weather significant short-term volatility. If I was more concerned about downsizing, volatile or low salary I may be more weighted to bonds for more stability in my investments.

[Candyland33]

Thank you so much. I'll take a look Vangurd retirement tool.  I did some research and found below mutual funds have low expense ratio and good returns. Have you invested any of these? Any feedback?

[LateToTheParty]

My recommendations:
1.  Keep it simple at first.  Start with a total stock market (90%) and a international (10%).  The Fidelity ones you have listed are great.
2.  You can add the alternatives in as your portfolio grows.
3.  If you have a long time horizon, stay away from bonds for now. As interest rates rise in future, bonds are going to underperform.
4.  Consider doing ETF Versions to the mutual funds (if you are able- is this in an after-tax account or employer account?). The ETF versions will better allow you to harvest capital losses (and gains) when in after tax account. Also you can buy or sell mid-day (ETF) rather than end of day only (your price is the end of day for mutual funds).

[maizefolk]

How much are you looking to invest per year above and beyond your existing IRA/401k/HSA?

If it's less than, say, $50,000/year I agree with the advice below. Just invest in a single simple stock fund until your taxable investments hit $100,000-$200,000 and use that time to read up on investing and portfolio diversification.

Diversification can be a misleading concept though, keep in mind that almost all the benefits come from dividing your investments among 2-4 broadly uncorrelated categories (for example domestic stocks, international stocks, and cash/bonds). Sometimes people go overboard and try to slice and dice their portfolio into 20-30 different mutual funds that are all pretty correlated with each other. If you start saying things like "I'm thinking about putting 7.5% of my portfolio in mid-cap international value ex-europe" you've gone too far.

I just plow it all into VTI and call it a day.

VTI is the ETF. If you really want to invest specifically in mutual funds the equivalent is VTSAX. Whether you buy it as an ETF or mutual fund, it invests in almost every company in the USA, has an extremely low expense ratio $4 per $10,000 invested per year, and is likely something you'll want to continue to hold throughout saving for FIRE and living FIRE, reducing the need to trigger capital gains by selling to buy other investments later.