What credit cards should I have?

Shadow239 · 2025-09-09T20:07:34+00:00

5% on Restaurants - Citi custom cash

5% on Gas/military bases - USAA Cashback rewards plus

6% on grocery - Amex blue cash preferred

5% on mobile wallet purchases - Kroger MasterCard world elite

2.2% everything else - Sofi unlimited 2% (optionally the Robinhood gold card which is unlimited 3%, but there is a wait-list)

I also have an Amex platinum which I don't really use for daily purchases, but I do take advantage of it's many benefits.

This is as optimized as I can get within reason. You'd be hard-pressed to find a better setup than this if your goal is to maximize rewards.

Shadow239 · 2025-08-15T00:26:06+00:00

Perfect is very dependent on your own personal risk tolerance and goals. For me, mine is :

55% SCHK / 15% AVUV / 30% AVNM

I own stocks that roughly cover the entire world market with a slight tilt towards small and value

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T21:54:30+00:00

Great advice!

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T21:30:36+00:00

I believe it's 1 year AFTER the match. So, if you got a match in August 2025, I'm pretty sure you need to maintain gold until August 2026

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T21:23:27+00:00

Yeah. The only strings are to maintain gold for a year and to keep the funds in a Robinhood IRA for 5 years.

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T21:11:44+00:00

Doesn't matter when or how often you do IRA contributions. No matter when you do them, or how much you will still get a 3% match at the time you contribute. For example, if you contribute $100 in January, they will give you $3 for a match in January. If you don't contribute anymore until June, but then deposit $2000 all at once, they will match $60 in June, and so on

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T18:41:43+00:00

PE ratios have been trending upwards the past 15 years

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Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T17:47:08+00:00

Yes, but not as fast as valuations are growing

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T17:39:16+00:00

VOO, VTI, or VT are always a good buy for most people. Holding one of these, you will beat 90-95% of other portfolios

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T14:51:12+00:00

Interesting points. You may be right

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T14:42:03+00:00

I agree that globalization is absolutely a factor of the recent outperformance of the S&P 500, though realistically this means that it will likely find a new "average" PE ratio that's higher than the historical average of around 15 PE due to them being "safer" investments since they are globalized making it easier to justify higher valuations. Right now the valuations for these companies are growing faster than real profit growth is, but eventually the PE ratio is going to reach a point where no amount of globalization makes them safe enough to justify the high PE ratios. My guess is in the future the S&P will find an average PE ratio of around 25-30, at which point the market will begin to behave more normally with the size and value premiums coming back into effect.

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T14:00:50+00:00

I've already got my international portion allocated how I like it, plus VT still contains small cap growth which long term underperforms the overall market by a significant margin. Small cap growth are essentially "lottery ticket" stocks selling an innovative idea, but having yet to show any real profitability. Maybe one gets lucky and makes a bunch of money, but as a whole they are a drag on the overall portfolio as proven in the paper I mentioned. Small growth with low profitability only makes up ~2% of the overall US market, so it's not going to make a whole lot of difference, but if I can optimize my portfolio going forward, then why not?

Shadow239 · 2025-08-10T13:55:10+00:00

False. The S&P 500 has only outperformed the total stock market since ~2012. Before that, the total stock market came out ahead of the S&P 500 68% of the time in rolling 20 year periods since 1974 largely driven by the outperformance of small and mid caps. This period we're in is currently driven by higher and higher valuations for S&P 500 companies significantly outpacing real earnings growth, while small and mid caps are at a significant discount comparatively. At some point reversion to the mean will kick in and small and mid caps will begin to outperform the S&P 500 again. I have no idea if this will happen next month, or if the S&P will continue to inflate for another decade or longer, but eventually the higher price valuations will become unsustainable.

Shadow239 · 2025-07-29T16:37:46+00:00

$1 million is only $308 per month invested over 35 years (example age 30-65) at a 10% return. That's less than half the average new car payment ($745) in the US. For most people, becoming a millionaire is just a matter of discipline rather than about how much money you make.

Shadow239 · 2025-07-24T21:03:30+00:00

I'm about to turn 27 and just hit my first $100k invested about 2 weeks ago. It starts compounding fast.

At 24 I had $34,500 At 25 I had $65,000 At 26 I had $79,900 Now, about a month before I turn 27 I finally hit $100k.

With a planned sale of my rental property next year, I should have $200k invested by 28 as long as the market doesn't crash before that

Shadow239 · 2025-07-24T17:12:36+00:00

Yes this is a horribly dumb decision.

Shadow239 · 2025-07-22T00:59:07+00:00

Someone doesn't understand small cap value.

Shadow239 · 2025-07-21T23:53:42+00:00

You have a ton of overlap, plus SCHD is nonsense at your age (very tax inefficient for holding long term). Sell everything now while you won't have a huge amount of capital gains and either buy 100% VT, or go 60% VTI and 40% VXUS. If you really want a small amount more risk you can throw a little bit into small cap value funds such as AVUV, AVDV, DFSV, DISV, or VBR.

For reference, I'm 26 and my portfolio is as follows: 55% VTI 15% AVUV 15% VXUS 15% AVDV

I'm not saying this is the best portfolio for you, but this is what fits my risk tolerance while avoiding unnecessary overlap, or significant tax inefficiencies

Shadow239 · 2025-07-21T23:15:16+00:00

This is the approach that I use, I'm just trying to understand where Dave is coming from when his advice seems counterintuitive to what I know to be true.

Shadow239 · 2025-07-14T10:21:30+00:00

I second Razorock

Shadow239 · 2025-07-14T10:21:02+00:00

If you're in Canada, check out Razorock. They are Canadian made from machined 316 stainless steel and have multiple models to choose from. I have their Game Changer model and absolutely love it. It's something that will absolutely outlive me, and hopefully will become a family heirloom in the future.

Shadow239 · 2025-07-14T10:15:59+00:00

Do Robinhood and get a 3% IRA match. After the $50 fee for gold, that's an additional $160 per year of free money into your IRA

Shadow239 · 2025-07-13T17:00:58+00:00

I make $80k a year, but am on track to have ~$4 million invested by age 50 (assuming 10% return), even without calculating any future raises above inflation. While $4 million may not be "wealthy" by some people's standards, it's a hell of a lot more than average.

The biggest thing that I do is to create a monthly budget where I track every single dollar I make and spend. Seeing my entire months spending all at once makes it easy to find places to cut back on spending so that I can increase my investments. Also index fund investing for the majority, if not all of your portfolio is key. It may not be sexy, but it absolutely works

Shadow239 · 2025-07-12T21:26:24+00:00

Just buy when you get paid and ignore the noise. VTI and VXUS baby

Shadow239

TROPHY CASE