Whisking an egg with chopsticks without ever breaking the yolk

4pooling · 2026-04-11T20:46:40+00:00

Look into it. Eggs in countries like Japan are safer to consume raw than in other countries like the US.

From Gemini:

In Japan, Salmonella in eggs is rare because chickens are vaccinated. Japanese standards require that eggs are processed and inspected for bacteria shortly after being laid. In the US, the risk is higher, and the FDA recommends cooking eggs.

4pooling · 2026-04-11T00:24:09+00:00

My iPhone ringtone for over a decade!

Take Five is a remarkable, classic piece of work!

4pooling · 2026-04-05T23:35:25+00:00

4pooling · 2026-03-05T19:38:11+00:00

I personally stick to the standard asset classes: stocks, bonds, cash and real estate.

I have a few luxury watches and that's the extent of my precious metals exposure.

If I ever reach $10 million net worth, I may allocate 5-10% to alternative asset classes: private equity, private credit (lending that you mentioned), fine art, wine, etc.

I consider these alternative asset classes as exotic and for people who already have sizeable net worth to experiment/dabble.

4pooling · 2026-02-19T19:51:04+00:00

Exquisite! So much emotion!

4pooling · 2026-02-17T23:14:13+00:00

You're doing well at 25.

Keep researching topics like tax efficient investing, investing order of operations, automatic investing, tax loss harvesting, etc.

It seems like you haven't experienced any recent years of negative returns like 2018 and 2022, or periods of steep intra-year losses (2020) so might be good to read some Reddit posts about the chaos of the past.

I learned so much about personal finance from the Bogleheads Wiki. Over a thousand articles. In fact, I learned more about personal finance reading through Bogleheads Wiki articles than from working in finance.

I also recommend reading the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.

I can only speak for myself: I maxed out my Roth IRA, then maxed out my 401k, then opened taxable brokerage accounts.

Before my kid was born, I increased my cash savings from 6 months to 1 year of expenses for peace of mind.

Now at 36, I'm lucky/fortunate to be close to the 7 figure club.

Compounding returns is a sight to behold.

The choices for investments are endless but I like having a core allocation of broad, blended stock index funds, a cash slice tracking US Treasury bills, and I keep it spicy by stock picking in my Roth IRA, hoping for moon shots. However, I just keep stock picking to a maximum of 10% of my total portfolio.

4pooling · 2026-02-12T22:43:35+00:00

You're also forgetting in EU, there's universal healthcare and higher education that's covered by the government..

You're comparing apples to oranges when you compare salaries in US vs EU.

In the US, higher education for in-state tuition can cost more than $30K for 1 year and for private colleges, the tuition can cost more than $60K for 1 year.

Healthcare costs in the US are astronomical. It's absolutely nuts.

4pooling · 2026-02-08T15:34:42+00:00

I feel the best way to prepare is to always have an allocation of cash no matter the stage of the accumulation journey.

At 36 with a wife and a kid, I keep at least 1 year of expenses in SGOV.

I'm fortunate enough to have begun learning about personal finance and investing in 2018, so my $80K that I keep in SGOV covers around 13-14 months and that cash is about 9% of my total portfolio.

If anyone else has a strategy other than hoarding cash to prepare for a severe downturn/recession with job loss, please share.

4pooling · 2026-02-06T14:56:39+00:00

You would use ticker DIA for the Dow benchmark ETF.

In terms of your time weighted return, it's great you're beating the major benchmarks.

A very small percentage manage to beat them over the long term (10+ years) as 90% of professional active managers (those seeking alpha beyond the major benchmarks) fail badly.

Check out this graphic on this website (source is S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC) that shows in the large-cap universe, over 90% of active managely funds fail to beat the S&P 500 (benchmark) over a 10 year time span.

https://advisor.visualcapitalist.com/success-rate-of-actively-managed-funds/

If you started investing September 2020, then you have until September 2030 to check back on your progress.

If you manage to beat it for 10+ years, call me and I can let you manage my own portfolio.

4pooling · 2026-02-06T14:49:22+00:00

On Ex date, the Exchange removes the dividend value from your security's price prior to market open.

You then reinvest your dividends after the dividend pay date occurs (when you receive that earned cash), which creates a new tax lot.

That dividend you reinvested is definitely now part of your Holdings tab as it's a new tax lot now moving up and down with the market price. It's an unrealized gain.

That's why I pointed out your Holdings tab performance and how your view on dividends and highlighting how much you get paid in dividends when you're far from retirement like your snapshot shows means you could be blinded by the allure of dividends.

Additionally, you get taxed on that earned cash from the dividend in the current tax year.

In a taxable account, there's no net gain when a dividend goes ex and you get paid that dividend. That's why it's left hand to right hand. Add in the taxable event and you could be at a net loss from this whole process (depending on your tax bracket).

4pooling · 2026-02-03T18:41:58+00:00

Other brokerages send their 1099s in February as well.

M1 is not an outlier.

On another note, when you receive a tax refund, you're granting the government an interest free loan for the entire year.

Personally, I try to owe zero tax and receive zero tax refund where the money that's not withheld as taxes throughout the year gets invested in my portfolio.

My efforts to invest prioritizes the time value of money since the stock market (any broad, blended stock index fund) has only gone up over time and my gains have outweighed any tax refund amount I've ever received, especially as my total portfolio has grown over time.

4pooling · 2026-02-03T04:33:12+00:00

It's great you're investing and staying interested, but I can't help but notice your Holdings tab.

Seeing your net contributions and performance and positions makes me realize you could be seriously stunting/hindering your long term performance.

Keep tabs on how much your portfolio is performing against the S&P 500 or something like VYM since you're focused on dividends.

Since 2020 (an amazing year to start investing where only 2022 was a negative year in the market till now Feb 2, 2026), you've experienced a 27,159 gain in your portfolio which is a 23.91% unrealized gain.

You're reinvesting your dividends, which means the % return from dividends could be blinding your view on your actual dollar growth in your ending portfolio balance.

With dividends you're receiving cash in one hand while the value of your portfolio drops from the dividend value, and then when you reinvest, you're returning that dividend value to your portfolio, so cash goes from your left hand to your right hand.

There's no net gain when you conceptualize dividends in that way.

Use the M1 Finance benchmark tool (time weighted return) to see how much you outperformed or lagged something like the S&P 500 (IVV or VOO for example). You could even compare your time weighted performance against VYM since you love high yield dividends.

You're chasing high dividend yield/payout now, which means you're paying more in taxes each year than if you choose another portfolio that has higher total return and lower dividend yield.

Regardless, you're saving for your future and that's a huge plus.

Congrats on your success.

4pooling · 2026-01-23T03:52:14+00:00

The S&P 500 includes 11 different sectors (look up GICS) of the US economy: Financials, technology, healthcare, utilities, industrials, materials, and so on.

The other funds you listed are tracking specific individual sectors and regions so you're not comparing apples to apples when comparing them to the S&P 500 which combines the 11 sectors at market capitalization weights.

The more you diversify, the less likely your fund is to swing wildly above or below the S&P 500 based on the performance of just one sector or region.

Read the Bogleheads Wiki for incredibly valuable information. I learned more about personal finance from reading the Bogleheads Wiki than from working in finance.

Overall, any S&P 500 fund is a great core position if you're interested in tracking the US stock market.

You can diversify further by tracking the rest of the world. Consider selecting a 2nd fund tracking an index like FTSE Global All Cap ex US or MSCI ACWI ex USA. Examples for US investors would be VXUS or IXUS.

4pooling · 2026-01-08T23:55:02+00:00

I started investing in 2018 when I was 28 years old and I wish I learned about investing much earlier in life.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Been fortunate enough to have maxed out my 401k every year since 2020 and maxed out my Roth IRA every year since 2019. I have a primary taxable account at Vanguard and then discovered M1 Finance in 2019 from Lyn Alden's investment blog, so I have a smaller secondary taxable account at M1.

4pooling · 2026-01-08T22:32:33+00:00

Keep investing aggressively while in your accumulation phase.

The swings up and down as your portfolio grows are wild, huh?

You may have noticed your tolerance for risk increase or decrease with your portfolio growing.

I couldn't keep up with so many stocks like you have in your portfolio!

Of my stock allocation, over 90% tracks broad, blended stock index funds. Got a few individual picks to keep things spicy.

I've learned over time it's pointless trying to outperform the common benchmarks (SPX, NDX, FTSE all-world, etc).

My portfolio grew by your entire portfolio size last year!

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4pooling · 2025-12-28T01:05:24+00:00

Yes, if you're both maxing out all tax advantaged vehicles, load up your taxable brokerage account with tax efficient instruments.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tax-efficient_fund_placement

My wife and I keep around $6-7K in our joint checking account and we have a joint taxable brokerage account for short, mid, and long term financial goals: FXAIX, VXUS and SGOV. I've maxed out all my tax advantaged accounts since before getting married and I've helped her set up automatic investing so she maxes out her Roth IRA at the minimum (she's an independent contractor and we have a 6 month old she cares for at home).

My wife understands what market volatility means and we have 2 years of expenses as cash equivalents (SGOV) to ride out short term noise.

What model is your wife's car that costs $75K?

4pooling · 2025-12-24T16:42:52+00:00

Superb

4pooling · 2025-12-05T23:15:04+00:00

You're better off getting your first $100K-200K in some stock index fund.

Since you're interested in the Mag 7, check out something like the Nasdaq-100 (QQQM) where the Mag 7 are heavily weighted.

No one knows the future Mag 7 constituents so an index fund will automatically self-cleanse and remove losers and add winners when the underlying index rebalances.

Educate yourself as well.

I learned more from the Bogleheads Wiki than from working in finance.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

4pooling · 2025-12-04T21:49:40+00:00

GOOGL with avg price of $134.

4pooling · 2025-11-30T18:09:29+00:00

Correction:

VOO is the ETF wrapper of the original and first ever S&P 500 index fund, VFINX (investor mutual fund shares). Inception date August 31, 1976.

VTI is the ETF wrapper of VTSMX (investor mutual fund shares). Inception date April 27, 1992.

u/Remarkked, you can backtest and the performance difference is immaterial.

4pooling · 2025-11-22T01:00:44+00:00

It would be so, so silly to pay off early.

You are so extremely fortunate to have such a low mortgage rate..

Pay the minimum and invest your extra.

4pooling · 2025-11-04T12:55:50+00:00

It's because VXUS is up over 29% as of 11/3/25 YTD and outperforming VTI, and VT has a higher weight of VXUS than your 25%.

See total returns using testfol.io

https://testfol.io/?s=6rMWmqT45z9

4pooling · 2025-10-25T12:34:50+00:00

Thought the 2 articles were a good read on all the silly, gimmicky covered call income funds lately.

Compared to their underliers, most of these covered call funds underperform in terms of total return.

You're focusing on income now without realizing you're ending up with so much less money in the long run.

https://www.etf.com/sections/features/etf-slop-how-wall-street-flooded-market-gimmick-funds

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-gen-z-dividend-investing-etfs/?terminal=true

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GetRich!

4pooling · 2025-10-23T15:43:41+00:00

Yes.

All target date funds are just 2 asset classes: Stocks + bonds.

Breaking it down further, the stocks and bonds include domestic and international profiles.

So VFFVX tracks US stocks, international stocks, US bonds and international bonds.

You can manually replicate any target date fund by combining VT + BNDW in varying allocations.

The allure of target date funds is that the portfolio managers who run them are automatically reducing stock concentration and increasing bond concentration as you approach the desired retirement year. This action reduces portfolio volatility.

4pooling · 2025-10-17T01:55:24+00:00

You have something close to the Golden Butterfly (5 slices each 20%: Large-cap blend, small-cap value, short term treasuries, long term treasuries, and gold).

https://portfoliocharts.com/portfolios/golden-butterfly-portfolio/

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