I'm a single man, 40, no kids, with gross wages of about $85k/year. Occasionally I have consulting income, which can be anywhere from 0 to $20k in a given year. Right now the assets are around $25k in cash, $250k in other investable assets in tax-advantaged accounts, and a house/mortgage (10% equity, 30 yrs @ 4.5%) but no other debt. Currently I contribute a (mandatory) 10% to a 401a; my employer contributes another 11%. I also max out my Roth IRA and governmental 457b each year. Any extra goes to a 403b. I have a self-employed Roth 401k for income from consulting work. As of this year I'm eligible for additional contributions to the 403b under the 15-year rule (extra ~$3k/year) but don't currently have the extra income to do anything about it. All told I'm investing about 35-40% of gross, not including the employer contributions.
As far as asset allocation, according to Vanguard's portfolio analysis right now about 7% is in bonds (BND, BNDX), 48% in large cap stocks (VTI, FUSVX), 15% in mid and small cap stocks (VTI, FSEVX, VNQ), 29% in international stocks (VXUS, FSIVX), and 1% is in cash (VMMXX). I'm more or less tracking VTIVX (Vanguard Target 2045) at a lower expense ratio, with some additional real estate exposure from VNQ. I've been rebalancing once per year. The $25k e-fund cash is a mix of I-bonds now returning 1.94% and checking returning essentially nothing (0.2%).
I have a fairly secure position in an academic setting (but not tenured faculty). It's mostly self-directed and for the most part my time at the office is spent doing interesting things that I enjoy. A decade from now I'd like to have an inflation-adjusted $1MM in investable assets (a nice round number that turns out to be 25X current annual spending), which would allow some flexibility if I'm less happy with my work at that time. Otherwise, though, I'd be happy doing what I'm doing for another 20 years. With my current rate of savings I'd need a real rate of return of about 6% to pull this off, which is probably optimistic. 2024 isn't a hard deadline for ER, more of a milestone goal, and I could end up below my goal at that time but still be on target for a very comfortable retirement in 2034 or 2044.
My balances have benefited from the 2009-present bull market but all I really did was throw as much money as I could into index funds after the crash. I think I'm doing OK, but then, what do I know? My question is a two-parter, and not very specific: what am I doing right, and what am I doing wrong?
As far as asset allocation, according to Vanguard's portfolio analysis right now about 7% is in bonds (BND, BNDX), 48% in large cap stocks (VTI, FUSVX), 15% in mid and small cap stocks (VTI, FSEVX, VNQ), 29% in international stocks (VXUS, FSIVX), and 1% is in cash (VMMXX). I'm more or less tracking VTIVX (Vanguard Target 2045) at a lower expense ratio, with some additional real estate exposure from VNQ. I've been rebalancing once per year. The $25k e-fund cash is a mix of I-bonds now returning 1.94% and checking returning essentially nothing (0.2%).
I have a fairly secure position in an academic setting (but not tenured faculty). It's mostly self-directed and for the most part my time at the office is spent doing interesting things that I enjoy. A decade from now I'd like to have an inflation-adjusted $1MM in investable assets (a nice round number that turns out to be 25X current annual spending), which would allow some flexibility if I'm less happy with my work at that time. Otherwise, though, I'd be happy doing what I'm doing for another 20 years. With my current rate of savings I'd need a real rate of return of about 6% to pull this off, which is probably optimistic. 2024 isn't a hard deadline for ER, more of a milestone goal, and I could end up below my goal at that time but still be on target for a very comfortable retirement in 2034 or 2044.
My balances have benefited from the 2009-present bull market but all I really did was throw as much money as I could into index funds after the crash. I think I'm doing OK, but then, what do I know? My question is a two-parter, and not very specific: what am I doing right, and what am I doing wrong?