What's in your after tax portfolio?

[Linney]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nun I have a MM and Total Stock Market and Total International Stock Market index equity funds. Does it need to be any more complicated?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pb4uski No. In fact, I think your taxable portfolio is too complex. Mine is only Total Stock and Total International. Actually, instead of MM I have a Discover Bank savings account yielding 1.2% or so.

Three's a crowd. I try to keep my after-tax portfolio simple too. I have Total Stock Market + Total International + Limited Term Tax Exempt Muni. The rest of my funds (small cap, corporate bond, TIPs, etc) are in tax-deferred portfolio.

Although I'll admit I am now intrigued by freebird's High Yield Tax Exempt Muni. Time to go do some research . . . .

--Linney

[DayDreaming]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nun I have a MM and Total Stock Market and Total International Stock Market index equity funds. Does it need to be any more complicated?

That's exactly what I have.

[scrabbler1]

I have about 58% in Fidelity's Focused High Income Fund, a fund which generates about 75% of the dividend income I use to cover my regular expenses. The remaining part is nearly evenly split between Fidelity's Equity-Income II fund and a pair of muni bond funds, one long-term and the other intermediate-term.. Those 3 funds are holdovers from my working days but the munis have quite a bit less now than they did while I was working.

[freebird5825]

Quote:

Originally Posted by youbet I didn't think that Janus funds were load funds. I own some JABAX and it's no-load. Where did you own the Janus funds where you paid a load?

Some Janus funds had loads, some did not back in the late 90s. I was so inexperienced I didn't understand the silliness effect of paying a front load. A beginner's mistake...
I just looked up some Janus funds on M* and several of them are showing loads. Some are tagged as Load Waived.

[freebird5825]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linney Three's a crowd. I try to keep my after-tax portfolio simple too. I have Total Stock Market + Total International + Limited Term Tax Exempt Muni. The rest of my funds (small cap, corporate bond, TIPs, etc) are in tax-deferred portfolio. Although I'll admit I am now intrigued by freebird's High Yield Tax Exempt Muni. Time to go do some research . . . . --Linney

I like the diversification of national muni fund vs a single state muni fund.
This fund is rated higher risk due to credit risk of some of its holdings, so be careful. The worst case loss I've ever seen was -10.5% in 4Q08. It quickly recovered.
I have positioned this particular fund to be a backup "income generator" until I can draw my deferred retirement in 4 years. I haven't had to tap into the dividends so far. My stake in VWALX pays approx $400 every 30 days. For me, there's nothing so nice as free TE dividends to keep building up my retirement portfolio.

[Zero]

MM 5% (used as my cash holdings and for checking and savings)
VTI 60%
VEU 35%

I have a Fidelity Ultra Services Account so all my checking, CCs, ATM cards, and brokerage are in one place. No bank accounts at all.

Simple is best for me.

[Major Tom]

My taxable accounts consist entirely of VTSAX, with about 2-3 years worth of cash in a high interest bank savings account.

"High interest" is currently 1%, which is about as much as you can get in a regular savings account these days

The tax deferred accounts have bond funds and more equity funds.

[nun]

My VMMXX, VTSMX and VGTSX pre ER couch potato portfolio works very well in the accumulation stage. I just put after tax savings into equities and keep my portfolio at 50/50 by putting more into bonds in my tax deferred accounts.

However, should I adjust it when I ER. I'll probably hold 6 months rather than 2 months cash in the MM, but other than that I don't see much reason to change it. If I need cash in a bad market I'll just transfer some of my bonds to VTSMX in my tax deferred account and sell the same amount of VTSMX in after tax.

[Ronnieboy]

Just want to get verification on a theoretical retirement account.

If I have $1,000,000 in a Roth IRA (various funds/stocks) that was throwing off 4% in dividends yearly, would that total amount be tax free since I have it in a Roth?
Is there any situation where it wouldn't be tax free (if congress keeps the rules the same)?

[freebird5825]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronnieboy Just want to get verification on a theoretical retirement account. If I have $1,000,000 in a Roth IRA (various funds/stocks) that was throwing off 4% in dividends yearly, would that total amount be tax free since I have it in a Roth? Is there any situation where it wouldn't be tax free (if congress keeps the rules the same)?

Look here...see Figure 2-1

Publication 590 (2010), Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)

[Ronnieboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by freebird5825 Look here...see Figure 2-1 Publication 590 (2010), Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)

Thanks Freebird for the info.

From what I can tell, if I meet the age and time-frame requirements, then everything would be tax free. I need to focus on funding ROTH IRA 100%.

We make too much as a married couple to do direct contributions but we should be able to do tIRA and do immediate rollover.

[Chester_A._Riley]

Vanguard Total Market
Vanguard Life StratMod
Janus Contrarian
Vanguard Europe
Vanguard Pacific
I Bonds
Cash

[RetiredGypsy]

My after tax portfolio:

Vanguard:

Small-Cap Index
Mid-Cap Index
REIT
Emerging Markets Index

Plus Berkshire Hathaway

Vanguard ROTH:

Wellesley
S&P 500 Index

I wish I'd known more before getting out of the Navy, then I would have maxed out the IRA every year.

[steelyman]

I have in my after-tax portfolio: Vanguard STAR and Total Stock Market, Royce Premier and then about 14 or so individual stocks at a brokerage account.

[steelyman]

This is kind of related and may be of interest to people here. There is a finance professor at the University of Illinois who appears on a public radio program once a month to discuss things related to personal finance. He also maintains and updates a sample equity portfolio, which can be found here: The Custom Portfolio for Savvy Long-term Investors | Focus | Illinois Public Media | University of Illinois

The monthly programs are quite interesting (I think so, anyway) and are archived at the station's website. Searching for "personal finance" should bring up a list.

[yakers]

VT mod afl hnz wec syy pgn exc sph pey dvy mdt

[travelover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by steelyman I have in my after-tax portfolio: Vanguard STAR ........

STAR has a bond component. Wouldn't it be more tax efficient to just hold equities in the after tax and the bond portion in tax deferred?

[M Paquette]

Stocks/Bonds: 60/40
Stocks Domestic/Foreign: 70/30
Stocks Domestic Total Market/Small Value: 80/20
Bonds Treas/Corp/Inflation 25/25/50

60% stocks, 40% bonds

The stocks are 70% domestic, 30% international (ex US)
The domestic stocks are 80% total stock market, 20% small cap value (That is, I overweight small cap value. The fraction was too small to bother with for international.)

Bonds are split 50% TIPS and 50% intermediate term (in a fund with little in the way of mortgage-related instruments)

All multiplied out and assigned to accounts by tax efficiency, this gives me:

Tax Deferred account
20% Vanguard Intermediate Term Bond Fund

After-Tax account
20% Vanguard Inflation-protected Securities Fund
33.6% Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund
8.4% Vanguard Small-cap Value Fund
18% Vanguard FTSE All-World Ex-US Fund

[Marc]

I just have three ETF in after tax portfolio: IWM, QQQQ, and SPY. They throw off some dividends but the great majority are qualified dividends. The rest is in Fidelity Cash Reserves; I need to find and switch to one of those high yield savings accounts instead.

[kaneohe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronnieboy Thanks Freebird for the info. From what I can tell, if I meet the age and time-frame requirements, then everything would be tax free. I need to focus on funding ROTH IRA 100%. We make too much as a married couple to do direct contributions but we should be able to do tIRA and do immediate rollover.

If you put your funds in the Roth from Roth conversions, it's a little bit more complicated because every conversion has it's own 5 yr clock . However if you are only talking about taking out the 4% /yr. , most likely you'd be ok since the ordering rules considers the withdrawals to be contributions first,
then conversions (oldest first), and earnings last. So most likely, by the time you get to earnings, you will have aged out all the conversion clocks.