r/Bogleheads

I’m thinking we keep 5 years of spending money in some kind of “safe, liquid” account and everything else in VT. Is this a good idea? We are 49/51 and want to retire in 4-6 years. We have enough to retire now but want more to feel safer. The question is what vehicle should we use for our safe / liquid money? I’ve heard bonds can go down.

Getting adds to attend seminars run by ATFA. How do I know if I need this person? How do they charge for services? Is this just another CFP looking to “help” me with an AUM fee?

in my option SpaceX is a $50 billion company and their 1.5 trillion valuation is a scam on VTI investors. It’s my understanding that vanguard will have to start allocating into this relatively quickly without a bake in period of VOO. I don’t like the idea that 3% of my retirement savings is going into this. Am I overthinking this?

E: Thanks to r@rickycrayons for the clarity. VTI is free float adjusted and with only 5% of shares in the offering, SpaceX won’t even make the top 10 holdings.

With Space X, Open AI and Anthropic expected to go public soon I’ve seen a lots of confusion about how index funds work.

A lot of people think that because SpaceX has a massive $1.75T valuation, it’s going to instantly debut as a top 10 holding in VTI. That’s not how it works.

VTI (and most index funds) are free-float adjusted.
This means the index only cares about the percentage of the company that is actually available for the public to trade.

If SpaceX only sells 5% of the company to the public, which is what they are expected to do, VTI treats it like a $50B to $100B company, not a $1.75T behemoth. As they gradually sell more shares over time, VTI will slowly increase its weight.

To put it into perspective, based on what is initially expected to be sold at IPO, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic COMBINED will likely only make up about 0.3% of VTI.

For context, all three of those massive names COMBINED will have around the same weight as Disney, which sits around the 55th largest company in the index.

Just wanted to throw this out there since the media fear cycle is distorting the reality of how indexing actually works!

I have 500k in my checking account. Not good in stock picking, and neither consider myself lucky. What is the best autopilot mode so that this wealth can be preserved? I want some decent growth, but would prioritize wealth preservation over drastic returns. Would you recommend Target Date Funds over VTI or otherwise? I am just looking for a max three stocks or funds which will not need any intervention from my end. Basically invest and forget.

Just an observation. My wife's mother unfortunately died WAY too young. Thankfully, I had a boglehead mentality which I shared with my wife so we didn't squander or mis-use the inheritance. We donated a significant amount in her mother's honor to a charity she would have loved, and invested the rest into VTI/VXUS.

But it's wild to see how a 1% increase in a day shows up as THOUSANDS of dollars difference. It's 1%. But thank goodness I don't check daily, and I trust in the process. Cause normally, seeing a negative of thousands of dollars would be .... puckering. But I understand it's the long term.

Stay the course everyone. And while I check and record my NW monthly cause I'm curious and want to know, I'd recommend not even doing that unless you can be SUPER chill. I'm ALMOST chill enough.... almost. lol.

I have around £80K in my current work pension, its invested in their global index fund which tracks the FTSE global index and this fund costs 0.3% a year. In my SIPP with Interactive Investor (II) I invest in the Fidelity World P fund which cost 0.12%.

I have the option to sell (they don't do in species transfers) my holdings in my work pension and transfer the balance over to II, this would hopefully mean the funds are only out of the market for around 2 weeks, my question is.

Is the risk of being out the market worth the benefits of moving my money into II as they allow me to do the following:

• Invest in my fidelity fund which has much lower OGC, meaning more compounding.
• Buy UK Gilts, I plan to build a gilt ladder when I start getting ready to retire.
• Have all my investment accounts with a single broker for a flat fee of £14.99 a month.

Or should I just keep my money with them until I either retire or leave my current employer. At some point in the future I will need to transfer that pension to II, its a question of now and transfer each year or wait till the pension turns into a SIPP instead of a work pension.

I was recently laid off from my W2 where I already maxed my 2026 401k at the W2.

The same company hired me as a 1099 for 3 days a week.

Can I contribute to a Solo 401k somehow for 2026 as the now business owner of my LLC?

As someone nearing retirement ~ 5 years

I'd really like to hear from some of you who have already retired, or are near retirement.

How has the standard Boglehead strategy worked for you?

Would you have done anything different?

Cheers

Hello all.

New to Bogleheads - the wiki came up in my search for info so hoping you can help point me in the right direction!

About me:

UK Citizen. Tax resident in Jamaica Apr23-Mar25. Tax resident in UK prior to this and Apr25+. Started investing through IBKR in 2024 in US stocks and ETFs.

Current portfolio has c30 stock holdings and the following ETFs:

- 75x VEA

- 9x VOO

- 18x VEA

- 45x VXUS

Query:

After making a stocks sale in IBKR (first time as UK resident) I went to buy more VTI and realised I wasnt able to - found out about UCITS, the inability of UK residents to buy US ETFs, and the potentially significant taxes consequences. But its very hard for me to understand the implications.

It seems as if I should unwind this now, withdraw the money and invest instead in my UK T212 GIA/ISA in UTCIS ETFs (I'd already been investing in FWRG this year so ill stick to that). Problem is, I wasnt aware this was a problem and have not completed any reporting anywhere outside of IBKR for these ETFs.

Not looking for advice on what to buy, but on how to sell and what the potential tax consequences are, forms I need to fill in etc. Current unrealized gain on these ETFs is c$6k. No prior sales, only purchases in 2024 while a Jamaican resident.

If anyone is able to point in the right direction it will be mich appreciated, as I want to ensure I pay & report what I need to, to the right people. Thanks in advance!

Hey! I am a 21 year old that has been investing for a while and wanted to get opinions on my current investment portfolio. The holdings are as follows:

VOO - 38.0%
VUG - 22.8%
VEA - 15.7%
AVUV - 10.0%
CNTN - 7.7%
BE - 5.8%

Would love for any suggestions, opinions, or comments! Always trying to learn more!

My job has a new 401k and I can choose my own investments. I’m a VT and VTI and chill guy. I’ve narrowed down their options to the following:

State Street TDF 2065k (or 2055 or 2060 as well but I want to be a little more aggressive)

Fidelity International Index

Fidelity 500 Index

I’m leaning towards the TDF but the expense ratios with Fidelity are so much lower. Thoughts?

I know the spiel. Bonds are supposed to be there when your stocks take a downturn. But, God, short-term securities seem to be the better investment. In "The Simple Path to Wealth", J.L. Collins (a fellow BogleHead) says that stocks hedge against inflation, while bonds hedge against deflation. Is deflation a serious risk these days? Our government is never going to learn how to quit spending money. They promise. They never deliver. Given that, how the *hell* could we have deflation anytime soon?

I bought BND like I was told. Now someone convince me it was a wise choice. It keeps going down. It has a terrible history. You have to go back 10+ years to even have a scenario where it was growing (except for last 2 years overall.) I'm roughly two years from retiring, btw.

I recently "woke up" per se, im about to turn 21, and have like 400$ in my savings, I have a job and put my money for rent aside, any money I plan on putting into VOO would have just sat there or have been wasted by me on misc stuff, I wanted to know if it would be unwise to invest all 400$ and then like 200 or so from every check I get weekly,

complete beginner, no knowledge on this stuff besides some advice a friend gave me who's been investing since high school. Any advice would be appreciated.

I know this isn’t classic Bogleheads, but I’m curious if others have taken a similar approach.

I’m targeting retirement in 10 years. I’m currently 95% S&P 500, with the rest in cash/SGOV. Over the next decade, I plan to build a 3–4 year cash/SGOV cushion to reduce sequence-of-returns risk near retirement.

Has anyone else stayed nearly all-in on the S&P 500 within 10 years of retirement, or even kept a similar allocation post-retirement?

I’ve recently been tempted to move a portion of my 401(k) into something like RSP, VXUS, or VTSAX to reduce the top-heavy mega-cap tech concentration after this massive run-up. But then I feel like I may be breaking a cardinal rule by trying to time the market, and that maybe I should just keep doing exactly what has worked for us over the last 15 years.

Pls advice is it worth to invest in investment bonds as a high income earners, by following 125% rules for 10 years.
What are the pros and cons

Is it worth when considering tax benefits or focus on shares and equities

Inherited enough money to pay for my college and still have a pretty good nest egg, which I mainly want to preserve for decades to come. However as I am young and won’t need the money in the short term, would it be smarter to consider a higher risk - higher return option?

As the title says: turned 40 years old this year and about six months before that lost my job of the past 11 years! I started late in my retirement funding journey but I'm doing what I can with the time I have left in my working years.

I had to rollover my 401k to an IRA account due to the termination timing with the 401k (and also the money was locked into a TDF fund that was set to be 20 years too early for my retirement that I couldn't change for some reason).

I have my retirement accounts tied to Fidelity at the moment with both a ROTH IRA and the newly funded Rollover IRA. I'm currently holding an 80/20 split in the ROTH with FZROX and FZILX, taking advantage of the $0 cost in the non-taxable account should I need to sell to move it around in the future.
My question with the rollover is what funds/ETFs would you suggest for this account? VTI and chill or some other blend?

Thank you for any advice and really love this community!

I've had an hsa for a little over 2 years and didnt think about investing the cash. My employer provided HSA is with Voya which doesn't have great options for investing so I opened a second HSA with fidelity and just did a cash sweep, leaving about $1500 behind in my HSA just in case. My plan is to do 2 yearly sweeps, 1 around July and 1 around December due to xfer fees with Voya.

My first sweep just cleared at Fidelity and currently conflicted about where to park the money.

My current Roth is 75% VTI and 25% VXUS (just for reference sake)

Debating mirroring this to my HSA, going VTI/VOO, or just VT (and chill).

Per paycheck contributions are enough to max it out at the end of each year.

Any thoughts here?