Consolidating and having fewer funds/stocks/etc in portfolio

[motley]

Anyone been doing this generally (either recently or at some point farther back)? I recently have...I didn't have a ton in the first place, but even then I guess old age kicking in maybe, but I don't have the interest or patience to track and/or otherwise muck around with a bunch of funds, so I've sold or swapped out some which either weren't going great anyway or didn't have a lot of money in them for others. Of course how many is too many is subjective. There is the "three-fund portfolio" train of thought, but to me that's a little too restrictive.

 

[Jerry1]

How about one fund and a cd ladder. Total stock market fund for equities and everything else in CD’s.

 

[Sanstar]

Two ETF funds FXAIX and SP 500 for target 80% equities. Dividends go to cash which is used to rebalance. 20% is CD and money market fund. No bonds or annuities. USA equities only. I do recognize US funds rely to varying degrees on foreign markets. Simple.

 

[pb4uski]

I've been more focused on less accounts. I'm down to 9 and could consolidate a couple more if I really wanted to.

Joint checking, joint brokrage, my brokerage, my inherited Roth IRA, my tIRA, his and her Roth IRAs, his and her HSAs.

The HSAs will be gone in 10 years of so, as will inherited Roth IRA.

Only one common equity fund at this point (VTSAX), About 52 preferred stocks and 55 different brokered CDs and bonds. And one money market fund (SWVXX). The preferred stock portfolio is close to fully funded and after that will be set and forget other than reinvesting calls and maturities.

I might eventually simplify the 55 brokered CDs and bonds to a 7-rung target maturity bond ladder and a 7-rung Treasury ladder.

 

[jazz4cash]

I am paring down on funds and down to 2 stocks which are JNJ and Apple. Held JNJ a long time in tax deferred abd planned to sell today near 52wk high. I got distracted instead. I’m gonna hang on to Apple. My main goal is to simplify for my beneficiaries.

 

[yakers]

There are no wrong answers and things change over time. Three, two or even one fund (plus some form of cash) are all decent options. I have begun simlyfing as DW has little interest in things financial and I am not as smart as I think I am and not as much as I used to be. I considered just using Wellsley in tax deferred and Wellington in taxable, just one idea. But will always have several accounts (his & hers traditional & Roth IRAs, brokerage account, 401k account and Treasury direct accounts) but could hold common investment funds accross accounts .

 

[FlaGator]

I've been more focused on less accounts. I'm down to 9 and could consolidate a couple more if I really wanted to.

Joint checking, joint brokrage, my brokerage, my inherited Roth IRA, my tIRA, his and her Roth IRAs, his and her HSAs.

The HSAs will be gone in 10 years of so, as will inherited Roth IRA.

Only one common equity fund at this point (VTSAX), About 52 preferred stocks and 55 different brokered CDs and bonds. And one money market fund (SWVXX). The preferred stock portfolio is close to fully funded and after that will be set and forget other than reinvesting calls and maturities.

I might eventually simplify the 55 brokered CDs and bonds to a 7-rung target maturity bond ladder and a 7-rung Treasury ladder.

Engineers gonna engineer and finance wizards gonna finance

My hat is off to you, no way this guy could keep with that!

 

[Alex The Great]

I also want to simplify everything but I cannot. I do have 42 positions in taxable accounts (mostly equities and S&P 500 ETF) and 34 in retirement accounts (equities, bond ETF and treasuries). Taxable is hard to simplify because many of those positions has grown up which lead to tax. In retirement accounts, I have a problem to pick a single ETF (or two) which would serve my need. Still, trying to sell those which drop to cost basis. Which is a rare case these days.

 

[CincyDave]

I have too many different mutual funds and have been selling off those with the least tax hit when we need some dough.

 

[Dtail]

Only use 1 fund on the equity side. Various CD's, annuities, one MM fund on the bond side. Spend a minimal time overall on investing and all of it on the bond side.

 

[Gumby]

I am working on consolidating our various 457, 401k and 403b accounts into tIRAs. So we will have only 5 accounts -- his/her tIRAs; his/her Roth IRAs; joint taxable. And within that, we are likely to end up with one balanced fund (VWENX) and a small CD/Treasury ladder.

 

[target2019]

Consolidation has been one of our goals for the past 20 years. With multiple accounts for two investors, it was always paramount to use as few funds as possible to meet our allocation design.

When opportunity came up, combining assets from two accounts to one was relatively simple.

I used a hard limit of 2-3 funds in each account.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

I've consolidated both accounts and holdings between two brokerages containing one Roth IRA, one HSA, and one taxable in addition to my TSP. Just sold my last individual stock and am 100% funds now. The funds dwarfed my individual stocks anyway so other than for fun they were pretty irrelevant to my returns. Just keeping things simple.

 

[Montecfo]

I have a few equity and bond funds within my mostly individual stocks and bonds portfolio. Many are very long-term holdings but some newer.

I do not feel the need to get rid of any of them as each is for a specific purpose.

They are almost all in tax deferred accounts so no tax issues.

 

[Midpack]

I'm down from a peak of 9 funds, but I wish I could further reduce the number of equity funds we own (from 7 to 3-4), but the tax impact isn't worth it to me, especially while I'm in the midst of large Roth conversions. (Un)fortunately I have huge gains in all our funds, so I can't get there with TLH either (I know, careful what you wish for...).

I have kept our fixed income holdings very simple, but since they're all in IRAs I don't have to consider tax impacts.

We have 4 brokerage accts - joint taxable, my TIRA & Roth, and her TIRA. Online savings & brick-n-mortar checking.

 

[disneysteve]

I've definitely been working on this the past few years, both to simplify things and in the process of rebalancing. I've managed to get 8 or 9 line items off my spreadsheet, maybe more. The effort was complicated by the inheritance I received a couple of years ago which added complexity that I had to work on.

I've sold a few individual stock holdings that we had. I noticed that we actually had 2 somewhat similar bond funds in one of our retirement accounts so I eliminated the lesser performing one. Schwab bought TD Ameritrade and we had accounts with both, so that helped with the consolidation as it's all with Schwab now.

I wish I could consolidate even more. Heck if I could have 100% of everything at Vanguard I'd be a happy camper but that's not going to happen. At least I've trimmed it down quite a bit from what it was.

 

[iloveyoga]

One IRA at Vanguard, three funds plus money market, and one checking account. Trying to make it easy for whoever does it after me.

 

[Koolau]

Yes, I have very slowly been either consolidating or eliminating funds. I've now gotten "rid" of virtually all my "small" funds and have only legacy SPDAs/MYGAs plus funds at Vanguard and in my 401(k) - only two funds in it.

 

[Lsbcal]

I have a somewhat complex spreadsheet that employs a mild timing strategy. The end result just puts equities into 2 to 4 funds. Currently I have 3/4 in sp500 and 1/4 in large cap growth. All US at present.

I’m willing to go heavily into small/mid value and small cap international but they have to show some performance before that happens.

 

[skipro33]

My investments are in two positions, both with Fidelity
1. cash (held in a money market account) SPAXX. Currently earning 4.95%
2. Fidelity 500 index fund FXAIX.

The split is 75/25 index/cash. I add to the cash as my local banking account grows faster than I can spend it, funded with pension and social security. That transfer is put into a Joint Community Property account w/Fidelity SPAXX. Since it's after-tax dollars, I had thought of putting it into a ROTH, but that's limited to just one of our names and we want this money available immediately upon the passing of the other. I know too many couples who didn't fund their own deaths for the surviving spouse and they had to put a lot onto credit cards until things were settled.

 

[FiveDriver]

I find 10 to be a manageable number. All held at Fidelity in Trad and Rollover IRA. My big hitters are SPY, SMH, QQQ, IWM and IWF. I mix in a little GLD, and TLT, with XLE and PAVE sprinkled in at the edges. I've got some dry powder in FZDXX when the dust settles after Election Day.

Fido's online statement presents these in an orderly manner, easy to read.

 

[Some_Other_Guy]

(Not yet retired, but doing my best to get there in the next 3-5 years)

I have a Fidelity account that includes:

• 401k
• Trad. IRA (zero balance - Backdoor Roth Vehicle)
• Roth IRA
• Taxable Brokerage

All accounts are on a slightly modified 3-Fund Portfolio (65% US Equities Fund / 15% Int'l Equities Fund / 20% US Bond Fund) with the exceptions of the taxable brokerage, which is 100% in Fidelity money market with a year's expenses riding in reserve/acting emergency fund.

 

[PatrickA5]

We have all of our IRA's (his/hers Trad/Roth) in the same target date retirement fund. Current taxable in is one money market fund. Down to one brokerage and one bank. Don't think I could simplify more.

Might get a little more complicated once rates start coming down, but I like our asset allocation, so I'm not sure I'll change anything.

 

[Koolau]

We have all of our IRA's (his/hers Trad/Roth) in the same target date retirement fund. Current taxable in is one money market fund. Down to one brokerage and one bank. Don't think I could simplify more.

Might get a little more complicated once rates start coming down, but I like our asset allocation, so I'm not sure I'll change anything.

One thing I WON'T do is condense to only one bank. I have two credit union accounts and one bank. I don't consider that excessive. There are too many chances of getting temporarily "locked out" of access like natural disaster, Covid, bank error, IRS error (ask me how I know.) YMMV

 

[VanWinkle]

Reduced to 4 funds, S&P 500 in Roth, Total US market in taxable, Intermediate bond fund and short term bond fund in IRA. I only have 2 different stock funds for tax loss harvesting in my taxable account.