We have the same level of funds you do. I manage it without trying to reduce the number of mutual funds.
Our allocation is
45% large cap domestic
15% mid cap domestic
15% small cap domestic
15% foreign large cap
10% foreign small cap and/or emerging markets
75% domestic, 25% foreign
If a bond fund is held, it reduces the domestic large cap position
basic idea behind that allocation of the wilshire 5000 is about 75% large cap, and I want a heavier small cap weighting than the overall market.
We have 6 accounts
My 401k
wife's 401k
My rollover
Wife's rollover
My Roth
wife's Roth
If I were to try to put large cap in just one or two of those, and small cap in another, and foreign in one, with bonds in another I would get lost anytime I rebalanced. Especially since (in the past) my 401k turned over 3 times in 5 years (4 different providers over 5 years). Wife had a similar period where she had 3 jobs over 6 years (some of this overlapped my issues), so I would not want to make one decision, only to have a job change require me to "re do" the whole portfolio.
So what I do is I try (my best) to mimic the whole portfolio in each account.
My wife's 401k is about 1/4 what my 401k balance is
but both 401ks are allocated 45-15-15-15-10
In my case, I have no mid cap fund, so I have 30% small cap. I have no foreign small cap, but I do have an emerging markets fund.
In wife's case her 401k is thru Fidelity, and she has no good small cap fund, so she is 30% mid cap, she has no foreign small cap and no foreign emerging markets, so she is 25% foreign large cap.
Both 401ks are 75%-25% domestic-foreign and both are overweighted to mid caps/small caps relative to wilshire.
My rollover is quite large- it is about the same size as my 401k which is 4X bigger than wife's 401k. So I chose an allocation which is 40-15-15-15-5-5 (the last 5% is a bond fund I am in which I like).
My Roth is decent size, not quite as big as my rollover... it is 45-15-15-15-10 allocation exactly how I want it.
My wife's Roth+Rollover is small... her $5000 Roth deposits might be 25% of her IRA balance each year, so spreading it out could work, but I chose to use sector funds to make up the 75-25 allocation, and I try my best to weight the small caps more, but with sector funds. What we do is buy a sector which is low (for example right now we buy real estate, health care, and tech) relative to what we think market is doing. In 2008 and 2009 we were buying real estate and financials. As the sector recovers, we change to the sectors which are underperforming at that time. We own natural resources, emerging markets, africa/middle east, tech, health care, a global tech fund, a value fund, a growth fund and a few others. We BUY low and "hold" when that sector is high. If we xray portfolio it comes real close to 75-25 allocation, and also comes really close to 45% large cap/30% small cap and 25% foreign.
We are not ready to FIRE yet, so its OK for us to own 25+ funds. As the 401ks get rolled over into IRAs, the fund count drops by 5 or 6 and that works to simplify.
If you know the order you will liquidate accounts, that helps to know as if a rollover was used, make sure there is a money market account in that tax shelter.
