For those who self-manage their nest egg - what funds do you use??

[albireo13]

I have just retired.

 

[SoaringEagle]

Simple Bogle 3 fund Philosophy. FXNAX, FTIHX, FSKAX. Asset allocation 80/20 to 60/40 stocks to bonds depending on age. Easy. Set it and forget it. Unless you want to rebalance once per year.

 

[jollystomper]

Before I got sensible about this, my initial foray into index funds was all over the place. I had funds from 6 different mutual fund companies. Eventually as I became more educated I focused on index funds within the two companies. Vanguard due to low cost. Fidelity in truth because I opened my first MM account with them back in the 1980s, and then Megacorp started using them for 401K so I decided to look for funds there. Fidelity also became more competitive in cost with Vanguard. I still have two funds from another company (American Century), primarily because, having owned them for so long, selling them nowt will incur a lot of capital gains. I am trying to balance that with doing Roth conversions and not exceeding my current tax bracket.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

I manage all of my own money. I have a slightly more complex portfolio than some but its all indexed (except for a bit of play money).

I maintain the diversity of funds because it does seem to create re-balancing opportunities by putting new money into the weak spots.

Full disclosure:
1) I'm a few years from FIRE but have a NQDC plan that will pay me for over a decade, so this is a very long term portfolio
2) Not having a mortgage makes me smile, so I'm a bit more aggressive here
3) Dividends make me smile, so I hold more dividend bearing things than others
4) You really have to pay attention to sticking the right things in IRAs
5) This is my managed account structure...in my 401K I've just got things stashed in a couple of Fidelity target date funds

Large Cap: 40%
DIA
SPY
QQQ
DLN

Small Cap: 15%
VB

International: 20%
FNDF
SCHE
VYMI

Fixed Income: 15%
SWAGX
PFFD
SCHP
VTEB

REIT: 10%
SCHH
VGSLX

 

[DrRoy]

Index ETF's and a mix of investment grade corporate bonds at Fido.

 

[mrfeh]

Ditto, but not as many index funds. At Fidelity;
SPAXX for cash
FSKAX for Dow
FTIAX for international
FXAIX for S&P 500
FXNAX for bond

FSKAX is total US market, not Dow.

To answer OP's question: index funds (total US, total ex-US and total bond).

 

[target2019]

VTRIX	Vanguard International Value Fund
*VEMIX	MSCI EM Indexed Equit
*VTMGX	Developed Markets Index
*PEOPX	EQ/Equity 500 Index
*UMAFX	USAA Managed Allocation (S/D IRAs)
VTSAX	Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Adm
VGSTX	Vanguard STAR Fund
VWIAX	Wellesley Income Fund Adm
VGSLX	Vanguard REIT Index Fund Admiral Shares
*VEXAX	Small/Mid Cap Index Eq Fund
VSIAX	Vanguard Small-Cap Value Index Fund
*VASGX	Taxable Brokerage
VBTLX	Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Adm
VNJTX	Vanguard NJ Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Inv
*BSV	Stable Value Fund
*VWSTX	Guaranteed Interest Account

*PROXY

Cash is invested in money market, CD, Discover and checking.

 

[racy]

My Vanguard holdings:
Bonds
High-Yield Corp - because I'm chasing yield
Intermed-Term Corp - good balance of yield & duration
Total Bond Market Index - I need some govt w/ my corps

Stocks
Total Stock Market Index - because I'm supposed to
Int'l Growth Fund - want large company developed & emerging
Health Care Index - I need a little sector action!
Explorer Fund - a dose of small & midcap to offset FAANG
Wellesley Income - I just like 'em.

REIT Index fund - I pretend it's a diversifier, not a stock.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

For both my Roth IRA and my 401(k):
75% FXAIX (S&P index)
25% FXNAX (bonds)


(I do have some inherited accounts that I didn't sell off and reallocate, and while they've done well, if I had to do it again I would have reallocated them right away. But I'm not counting those because 1) they're all over the place, and they would be a pain to list here, and 2) I didn't actively choose their allocation, so in a way they're not relevant to your question.)

 

[rkser]

Thanks for starting a good thread

I have 5 Vanguard Mutual Funds in total, which I manage with the help of members on this & Bogleheads Forums.

Taxable Accounts -
VTSAX - Total Stock Market Index Admiral
VTIAX - Total International Stock Market Index Admiral
VWIUX - Tax Exempt Intermediate Term Bond Fund

Tax Deferred Accounts -
VBTLX - Total Bond Market Index
VTABX - Total International Bond Index

Bank Accounts have Online Savings & CDs

Overall Asset Allocation = 55/45, retiring next year

During Accumulation Phase, I had around 10 Vanguard Funds, finally pared them down to 5, achieving diversification in most markets,( but not all ) & also to make it easier to manage it by myself.

 

[GATime]

So far manage my own but have talked with several financial advisors for information. Also not retired yet, but have Q1 target next year so reallocating and adjusting holdings for that event.

IRA
Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF
Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund
Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF
Vanguard Information Technology ETF
Delta Airlines
Vanguard Intermediate Term Corp Bond ETF
Vanguard Intermediate Investment Grade Fund
Vanguard Short-term Investment Grade Fund
Vanguard Total Bond Index Fund
Vanguard Total International Bond Index Fund

401k
AB Growth I
T. Rowe Price Retirement 2030

Brokerage
Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF
Apple
Cash

 

[phil1ben]

No mutual funds or ETFs.

In the stock/bond portion of my portfolio, I only own individual stocks and individual municipal bonds. I do my own research and trades. No FA.

Currently 60 years old and retired at 57.

 

[madsquopper]

Like most here, I use whatever index EFT's/funds have the lowest expense ratio. I hold about 6-10 asset classes and most of the items are either Vanguard or Ishares (via Fidelity). FYI - when I started doing RMD auto-withdrawals, I found that Fidelity, at least, won't do an auto-pull from an ETF; only a fund, because of the intra-day timing issue of fluctuating price. So for those accounts I need enough in ETF's to cover that, if I want to hold those.

 

[brokrken]

I'm not retired yet. Still have ~5 years until that happens. However, I do have a decent sized portfolio (+7 figs) and manage it myself.

Asset allocation is 86/5/9/3. The 3% is some small private equity investments.

The 85% Equities is split 55/45 funds/stocks and roughly 88/12 domestic/Int'l. The funds are all Schwab and Vanguard index funds with the exception of some legacy American funds that I still hold due to large long term capital gains. The stock portion consists of about 40 names that rarely changes.

The 5% fixed income portion in made up of a handful of baby bonds, preferred stocks and some private debt.

Cash is all in SWVXX

 

[38Chevy454]

I 100% self manage. I am Fidelity guy, and use broad widely held diverse mutual funds. Mix of the zero funds, lower fee funds and some other funds with a bit higher fees; guess I satisfy my desire to play in some sectors or specific objectives. Some are just old from 401k and have left them, so it does have some duplication areas. This shows I probably could reduce and simplify some. Overall AA mix is currently 78/20 with 2% cash. Here are what I have, in no particular order of amounts:
FNCMX - NASDAQ composite
FPURX - Puritan 60/40 nominal mix
FZROX - Zero total market index
FBGRX - Blue chip growth
FAGIX - Capital and income
FBIOX - Biotech
FDGRX - Growth company
FBALX - Balanced 60/40 nominal
FTBFX - Total bond
FSMVX - Mid cap value
FLVEX - Large cap value
FZIPX - Zero extended market index
FTIHX - Total international index

 

[deserat]

I am still working but consider myself FI - I have a small non-COLA pension, a future COLA'd pension in 3.5 years and SS in 10.5 or 13.5 years. I have calculated using many different retirement calculators (and REWahoo has kicked my a$$ in PMs) that I could probably spend twice what I spend now and not draw down much of my portfolio, even if I retire (quit) now before pensions kick in.....

I do manage my own portfolio and have the following holdings currently:

Taxable at Vanguard
VFMXX
VWIAX

TSP
F Fund
C Fund
S Fund
I Fund


Roth IRA at Vanguard
VTSAX

SEP IRA at Vanguard
VFORX

I am aiming for a three fund Bogle portfolio with eventually a 70/30 or 60/40 AA when I retire. My significant cash holdings are due to timing a house purchase in the near future.

I have modeled my situation in FireCalc, i-ORP, Retiree Portfolio Model (RPM), Vanguard's Retirement engine (when it was offered), VPW (thanks Running Bum for that tip!) and with a fee based financial planning firm when they were courting me. All have said I'm doing more than fine and will do more than fine financially.

I am lazy - I have not re-balanced this year - I did move the SEP IRA to VFORX (2040 versus previously 2030).

I've found that having pensions takes the pressure off having one's portfolio perform to cover lifestyle costs. I consider myself a 'tweener' generation (between baby-boomer and GenX) when many societal changes occurred with regard to employment and retirement funding (gradual phase-out of defined benefit pensions to defined contribution plans) therefore I have had to cover myself in both 'value' systems. I have been very fortunate.

You can't go wrong hanging out here or at Bogleheads - lots of good information with regard to financial management in all areas.

 

[OldShooter]

@albireo13 (OP), one of the problems with building a portfolio is knowing how it is doing compared to some alternative portfolio. If you don't do this, though, you really have no idea how your strategy is working.

One of the ways I check various portfolios' equity portion performance is a home made benchmark. On 1/2/2015 I bought $35K of SWISX, an international fund, and $65K of VTSAX, a total US market fund. Since then there has been no rebalancing and all dividends and interest reinvested. Hence, total return. The funds were picked without much thought other than low cost and to make sure that I was not using them anywhere else in our portfolios. That way I can just transfer the $ totals from my brokerage reports to a spreadsheet. I do that quarterly. Here is the data:

My suggestion is that you pick some simple benchmark and backtest your portfolio ideas against it at portfoliovisualizer.com. You can use this one if you like; just start portfoliovisualizer on 1/2/2015 with the 35/65 ratio.

 

[SumDay]

I retired in 2018 and modeled mind after this. I've done some venturing out since, but it's worked for me:

https://www.morningstar.com/articles/762379/retirement-bucket-portfolios-for-vanguard-investors

Also, this article may be of interest to you. https://www.theretirementmanifesto.com/a-simple-guide-to-targeted-asset-allocation/

Good luck! It will be fun to all all that extra money you were paying to have your portfolio managed. You can do it!

 

[PaunchyPirate]

I'm on my 2nd year of early retirement (now age 58) and I am fully self-managed. Here are my investments and the approximate % of my total portfolio for each. Overall Target Asset Allocation is 55/45 Stocks/Bonds.

Taxable Account - 64% of my portfolio
VTSAX - Total Stock Market - 28%
VBTLX - Total Bond Market - 9%
VFWAX - FTSE All World Ex-US - 7.5%
AAPL - Apple - 5%
CRM - Salesforce - 3%
V - Visa - 2.5%
VIG - Vanguard Dividend Appreciation Fund - 2%
JENSX - Jensen Quality Growth - 2%
RPG - Invesco S&P 500 Pure Growth - 2%
PWV - Invesco Dynamic Large Cap Value - 1%
CZA - Invesco Zacks Mid-Cap - 1%

Traditional IRA - 33% of my portfolio
VBTLX - Total Bond Market - 27%
VTABX - Total International Bond Market - 9%

Local and High Yield Savings
Cash - 3.5%

In my taxable account, the 3 individual stocks and the 5 ETFs/Mutual Funds with the lower percentages of my portfolio are remnants of my earlier investing days. I no longer invest more money in these and I move all dividends from them into my low-cost index funds or take the dividends out for living expenses. Through time, these will be the first investments I will sell off to live on. There are substantial capital gains in each of them, so I've been balancing the tradeoffs of selling or not with them for several years.

 

[racy]

@albireo13 (OP), one of the problems with building a portfolio is knowing how it is doing compared to some alternative portfolio. If you don't do this, though, you really have no idea how your strategy is working.

One of the ways I check various portfolios' equity portion performance is a home made benchmark. On 1/2/2015 I bought $35K of SWISX, an international fund, and $65K of VTSAX, a total US market fund. Since then there has been no rebalancing and all dividends and interest reinvested. Hence, total return. The funds were picked without much thought other than low cost and to make sure that I was not using them anywhere else in our portfolios. That way I can just transfer the $ totals from my brokerage reports to a spreadsheet. I do that quarterly. Here is the data:

My suggestion is that you pick some simple benchmark and backtest your portfolio ideas against it at portfoliovisualizer.com. You can use this one if you like; just start portfoliovisualizer on 1/2/2015 with the 35/65 ratio.

+1 on having benchmarks. I studied these Lazy Portfolios when I was constructing mine: https://tinyurl.com/y7csl5ym

 

[eytonxav]

Mix of index & active

VTI
FXAIX, IVV
FCNTX
FLPSX
VDIGX
VWENX/VWIAX
FRIFX
FXNAX
FUMBX
DODIX
TIP/STIP
PONAX
CDs/FZDXX

 

[vince]

50/50 + 4 years of cash YTD 5.5%
IRA Accounts
VFSUX...Short Term Bond
VFIDX....Intermediate Term Bond
VTABX....Total International Bond
VBTLX....Total Bond
VTIAX....Total International Stock
VTSAX....Total Stock

Taxable Account
VIGAX

I'm old and have become a firm believer in keeping it simple.

 

[sengsational]

I had never heard of this, so I did as you suggested. His suggestions seem, ummm, unduly complicated to me:

The complexity comes because rather than plain international, specific countries are used (freedom investmenting, as I warned about).

The 10ths of a percent are only because It's a calculator which changes with age.

 

[OldShooter]

The complexity comes because rather than plain international, specific countries are used (freedom investmenting, as I warned about). ...

This is equivalent to saying "it's complex because the plan was designed to be complex." Nearly a tautology.

IMO @Out-to-Lunch's comment "unduly complicated," stands. And I agree.

 

[frugal-one]

It's only a problem if you want to assess the performance of the equity portion of your investment. You can't.

Why not? Morningstar allows a person (for free) plug in the symbol and it shows the breakdown.