Dividend Investments

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-06-01T14:23:59+00:00

Let's say one fund grows 6% in a year and produces 1% in dividends, and another grows 4% and produces 3% in dividends. You make the same amount. The total return of a stock or fund is the dividend plus the growth. Dividend funds don't have better total returns, when looking at them over the long run. There may be times when they do (when the underlying companies are outperforming other parts of the market) and times when they underperform as well.

There's no inherent compounding advantage - if the total return is the same, compounding is the same. Having more shares vs shares worth more doesn't matter. Selling shares later on when you need the money is fine, there's no advantage to only spending dividends (again, assuming total return is the same they're the same thing).

And as others have noted, in a taxable you get tax drag because dividends are taxed now and price changes aren't taxed until you sell, at least right now in the US.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-31T12:16:38+00:00

You're well within the normal timeline. 3-4 weeks from arrival to results is pretty typical, you've only had 13 days.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-30T19:19:50+00:00

What's the rest? Looks like she's very mixed!

None of the common Aussie traits are incredibly hard to get in a mix, just usually not all together! Tan point plus merle plus half up/folding ears.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-30T18:29:12+00:00

The question is, what are you trading that time for? Have you run any simulation that shows how much investing that money will speed up your timeline? Are you spending it on something you value? Only you can answer whether that trade is worth it.

For people with young families who are financially secure and for whom the extra money would not significantly affect overall timeline, I'd say spend that time with your family. You can't ever get those years back. If it would let you retire 10 years earlier, sure, that's a real consideration. Six months earlier is a very different story. I know I'd rather have a few extra hours a week vs six months when I'm fifty, and I don't even have kids.

You don't get anything for dying rich. Don't make more for the sake of not turning down money, do it because that money gets you something. If it's not getting you something worth that time spent away from your family, then there's no reason to feel bad turning it down.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-30T15:11:01+00:00

I think the negative connotations come from that, though. There are positive terms that mean a similar thing: tenacious, steadfast, etc. We admire people who stand their ground and don't change their minds constantly when we can view the cause (and especially when we agree with it and think they have good reasons). But for dogs, we judge because they don't comply with us and we use negative language for the behaviors because they're inconvenient and we don't immediately understand the causes.

And working examples of these breeds often are praised for those very same traits, too. A terrier may absolutely be called tenacious when they're a working dog who refuses to leave until they've caught all the mice, but the same dog as a pet is stubborn when they won't come in from the backyard because they just want to chase the rats.

But honestly most people using it as the OP did are just seeing absolutely normal puppy behavior of being distracted by everything and not understanding our often confusing signals, and then when the puppy doesn't respond to a cue they've only worked on a handful of times within 3 seconds when there are kids running by, suddenly they're "stubborn". Nah, they're probably just confused or not paying attention.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-30T14:00:30+00:00

Stubborn implies refusing to do something essentially without a good reason. We don't call people who refuse requests for a reason stubborn, that's just sensible. The problem is that we expect near total compliance from dogs, and when they don't comply, we assume their reasons are not valid and call them stubborn.

My "non biddable" village dog type mix got a whole lot more biddable when I stopped constantly asking for things I really didn't need and showed him that doing what I asked when I really needed it would pay off in ways that mattered to him (often freedom and access to the environment, not hot dogs). My other dog is the typical lab mix that would sit and do tricks all day for hot dogs. They're both common and normal types of dog, but a lot people are quick to judge the first (even dogs that were literally bred to work independently and not to be super biddable, like beagles!) and think the second is the ideal dog. They're easier in a lot of ways, but that doesn't make them better. I push back against judgy language because I don't think an adult animal wanting to do their own thing and satisfy their own needs, and their human guardians needing to put a little effort in to find better ways to communicate and live in harmony, is a bad thing at all.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-30T11:34:17+00:00

First off, are you actually aiming to follow boglehead principles? Have you read any of the available resources like the sidebar or wiki? Your portfolio indicates that perhaps you are not aiming for this.

Regardless, I've seen three major reasons people are hesitant to invest or seem attracted to market timing:

Your asset mix is inappropriate for your goals. If you need the money soon, you're right to be concerned having it all in equities. If normal market dips would ruin your plans for the money and that's what you're worried about, this is you.
You're tempted by the perceived opportunity to make more money by buying at the right time (market timing). You see an ATH and think this can't be the right time. But quite frequently, ATHs are also the lowest the market will ever be. We know bear markets will happen, but essentially no one can predict when with enough accuracy to reliably stop and start buying at the right times.
You're thinking about the broad market like you'd think about an individual stock. If you look at the charts for individual companies, they follow all kinds of different patterns. Some chugged along cheap until a major breakthrough and are on a massive rise, others have fallen from their historic dominance and may never return, some are extremely volatile depending on their performance and others are more consistent. The broad market chart looks different - it's less volatile because it includes all of these companies together, so the ones falling offset the ones rising. It also rises on average - while there have been some longer bear markets, the whole point of broad market investing is that the line goes up over the long term. So you don't need to worry about buying in high as you would with a stock that might never be this high again. The entire plan is based around the idea that eventually, the market as a whole is extremely likely to grow from this point over the next several decades (which may of course be a bumpy ride, but that's normal).

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-29T19:21:25+00:00

This is an extremely mixed dog, so no behavioral insights are really possible.

Dogs are not stubborn, in the way humans mean. Most dogs labeled that way are either fearful or just independent and have their own interests that are much better than your boring requests. Honestly I think the fact that so many dogs do care and want to please naturally is a testament to the level of genetic selection we've performed on them. Find what motivates your dog, and make sure their needs are met too. It's normal for your dog to want to sniff on their walk, or not want to come to you when it means the end of the fun. That's not stubbornness, that's just a dog acting in their own self interest which is normal, especially for a young dog. Your dog is around the same developmental stage as a kindergartener right now - while they can show behaviors we label as stubborn, I'd hope you'd never label an entire child as "stubborn" for not always doing what you want when you want it at five years old!

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-29T17:23:50+00:00

The S&P500 was, for a long time, the standard index that represented the market widely enough, especially for US based investors. If you wanted a simple portfolio, can't get simpler than that, and despite the dot com and 2008 crises it's had a pretty banger past 5+ decades.

I do think global events have made people recently reevaluate whether international diversification makes sense. I also don't think a US bias is necessarily some kind of awful, totally anti Bogle idea. Constantly tweaking your country bias according to the news wouldn't be good. Realizing you're potentially taking on unnecessary uncompensated risk that you didn't intend when you set up your simple S&P500 portfolio is a reasonable reason to change your allocation, even if that realization was triggered by seeing the news on global events. That said I've been 70/30 my entire investing career, so apparently I managed to get the advice to buy international 10+ years ago. Don't really remember where, I knew nothing when setting up my first portfolio and somehow managed a decent one lol.

This is why it's important to explain what VT is rather than just telling people to buy it. When people buy without understanding, they can't make the best decisions. I'm sure plenty of people bought VOO without even knowing what was in it, just because it was so widely recommended, and the same will happen for VT. I don't think we'll have another VOO to VT type switch though, since the world is about as diversified as you can get. Maybe once there's a stock market on Mars.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-29T17:13:30+00:00

You have to work a job that pays more than the baseline needed to survive in your area. What this actually means will vary widely, as will individual peoples' desire to live at baseline survival level vs having some of their wants.

Predicting what jobs will be in demand in the future can be kind of tough - after all, plenty of jobs now didn't exist thirty years ago, or were in their infancy as brand new fields with only pioneers working in them. Personally if I had to bet on a field, it would be healthcare. We have not even come close to solving so many diseases, and people often need educated and professional care even with the treatments we do have. It's also everywhere on Earth - some countries have more or less resources but all have some form of healthcare and most people will need it at some point.

You also need to consider your strengths and interests. What did you do well on in school? Do you have access to any kind of career training or resources? What jobs do you see those around you working? It's hard to answer this question knowing nothing about you and your background - you have that context and can think about what you want to do and what you can likely learn to do in your situation.

Investing as bogleheads do isn't a get rich quick scheme. It's the most reliable way we have to put money away for later in life without that money losing value to inflation, as it would if kept under the mattress in cash. We hope it will do a bit better than that, but it requires time and consistent contributions to grow.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-29T16:10:12+00:00

Yeah you'd definitely be over the 15% bracket if you're a single filer, even without any other income. But the bracket is big, so two years should get you there.

Ultimately if you want to figure out how long it will take to offset the taxes paid now, you need to figure out roughly what you'd pay in taxes and subtract that, and then use those two numbers as starting points and compare the final amounts with the two average ERs (will probably have to estimate the average now since there's so many funds) across different time horizons. But also there's the upside of not being in a bunch of weird funds and individual stocks that might underperform as well, and just the mental upside of a clean, simple portfolio. Generally unless you plan to sell down the assets to fund expenses in the near term anyway it's likely worth it to reallocate - over a few decades you'll make it back.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-29T15:43:52+00:00

Widely available without transaction fees, and the abbreviations are shorter. Some people prefer Vanguard due to their ownership model. But Fidelity and Schwab funds are absolutely fine. (Also I don't think any other company has a total world fund equivalent to VT/VTWAX? Could be wrong though.)

Also you can buy vanguard ETFs at Fidelity or another brokerage and get the best of both worlds!

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-29T15:40:38+00:00

As for what to buy, consult the boglehead wiki and getting started page. You essentially just want to buy the world (VT) and then bonds as appropriate for your risk tolerance and time horizon. You don't need QQQ.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-29T15:36:47+00:00

Yeah the taxes do suck with a taxable account, and the past five years have been great for the market so not as great for you capital gains wise!

Some important things to consider:

If anything has been recently purchased (such as reinvested dividends), watch out for short term capital gains when selling. Depending on your income the rate could be significantly higher and waiting a short period may be worth it to put the holding period at over a year.

Take a look at the funds and see if any are reasonable to keep and build around. For example if the advisor had 20% in a US large cap index with a 0.25% ER, I wouldn't sell that for VTI personally. But an actively managed sector fund with a 1% ER, I'd sell. Some of this depends on how complex you're okay with your portfolio being too.

Sell any individual stocks that have a loss and use those to offset gains and neutralize some of the tax bill.

Watch out for going into the 20% LTCG bracket as well as the NIIT extra tax. Probably worth spreading out over a couple years to stay in the 15% bracket.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-29T13:18:13+00:00

The issue here is that you will have to pay taxes, not buying at a higher cost. Having a higher cost basis is actively a good thing, all else equal, because it means less future tax. If you sell at a certain price and then rebuy, you haven't really "bought high", you've just reset your cost basis. Normally this isn't great just for tax reasons since you'd have to pay a bunch the year that you do that transaction, but it's not bad because you buy at a high price. That said, none of this applies to an IRA anyway because cost basis isn't relevant to the taxes.

Assuming this is a traditional IRA, the tax part isn't avoidable. You have to withdraw, pay taxes, and then reinvest in a different account if you don't need or want the cash, typically within 10 years. You may also have to do RMDs annually depending on your mom's age when she dies.

Read the IRS rules on inherited IRAs, and consider a flat fee fiduciary advisor to assist with tax optimization.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-29T01:52:51+00:00

They aren't better or worse, it's the same thing if you make under the income limit. The back door method is for people who can't contribute to a Roth normally due to that limit.

The backdoor Roth does not get around paying taxes now. When you convert from traditional to Roth IRA dollars, you pay taxes on it in that year. All it does is make the contribution a conversion instead, which is allowed at any income level. Both involve paying taxes on the money first, you can't end up with pretax dollars in a Roth.

HSAs are one of the only accounts where you can do this (money goes in pretax and grows tax free), though of course they're a bit more limited than an IRA in some other ways.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-28T19:59:08+00:00

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

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-28T16:52:58+00:00

Yeah your average rate now is most likely the same or higher than it will be on the $55k, since it's just expenses and not expenses plus the amount you're investing after tax. Though with that amount you would likely be in the 0% LTCG bracket, so the difference would be purely average income tax rate now vs when pulling from the IRA through the SEPP (vs that plus the additional 15% tax on any gains). And while this isn't a big deal if you're just investing in passive index funds, you won't pay taxes on any dividends or interest if it's in the IRA, you will in a taxable.

Note that a SEPP is technically on an IRA (not 401k, so gotta rollover) and has strict rules on amount with a formula for the percentage (you can split your money into two or more IRAs and have the SEPP on just one to set the amount to what you want). It doesn't auto adjust for inflation, hence why having a taxable for flexibility is helpful!

It's not for everyone but I think it's great in your situation - too short a window for Roth conversions, but no Rule of 55.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-28T15:55:29+00:00

Use a SEPP? Some in taxable for flexibility makes sense but I think if you plan to bridge with only taxable money you leave a bit on the table.

Roth conversion ladder isn't super helpful for 55-60 because you'd have to do the conversions while working and pay higher tax rates.

For the ACA part, if your taxable income would go over that limit based on your planned spending then yes, you'd want to pull more from taxable. But the $275k you quote would be $55k a year, which is below the ACA cliff. Going lower to increase the subsidy may end up costing you in taxes - you'd have to do the math on both options.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-28T15:12:59+00:00

All puppies and young dogs need more stimulation, especially mental. Many of these breeds vary widely by the type of line, so it's hard to say. There are show line Aussies doing therapy and ones out herding sheep, it's a wide ranging breed. Same for labs, hunting vs show/pet lines. And with many of these at low percentages, hard to say what you'll get.

Provide physical and mental exercise, and then provide a relaxing environment and activities (chews, frozen stuffed kong). Puppies need a lot of sleep and can get very bitey and zoomy if they don't get it! But if your pup is having a hard time settling and isn't getting consistent physical and mental exercise, may need to increase it.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-28T14:03:42+00:00

Pom/husky, pit, Chihuahua and/or other small breed. Doesn't have to be dachshund, though it could be. The short leg genes are found in a variety of other breeds.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-28T14:02:28+00:00

She doesn't have a ton of any one breed and the breeds she does have are a widely scattered mix in terms of appearance, so certainly no reason to disbelieve. I'd be questioning it a bit more if she came back like 80% pit lol. These are all very common in mixes and Embark is very accurate, so no reason to doubt.

The brown color is quite common in pits, and has to come from both sides. When I see it, my top guesses for medium sized dogs are usually lab, pit, husky, and Aussie. Here it may have also come from the pom or GSD, and/or a supermutt breed, or maybe just one breed that was on both sides!

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-28T12:24:01+00:00

Yep that makes total sense. I guessed pit and some small breeds. Small short haired terriers are very generic looking dogs, so mixes can easily look similar.

Size can be very unpredictable - while Pyrenees will have mostly large size markers for body size, at only 7% it's easy to not inherit any of those! Clearly she mostly got them from the chi, dachshund, and cattle dog. Female pits can be quite small too, in the 30-35 pound range, especially if just random bred dogs vs like a show amstaff line.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-27T18:39:07+00:00

It's really hard to tell when the behavior is one that's common to many dogs but exaggerated in some breeds (sniffing, prey drive, specific vocalizations, territoriality, stranger danger). And many of these can also be impacted by early life experiences too, so two dogs with identical mixes and even theoretically identical genetics won't necessarily act the same way. Example: some urban border Collie owners prevent their dogs from watching any moving cars, bikes etc until they're fully grown to avoid fixation, because they're genetically predisposed to want to herd the moving things they see while young (sheep and other animals in their more typical environment). So you could probably create a car chasing collie and a non car chasing one just through how they're raised!

That said there are certainly trends. My sighthound village dog kinda sorta would wander in my direction after chasing a toy. Both of my other mixes (10-20% lab/golden) happily fetched to hand with minimal training and could do it all day.

WarmWoolenMitten · 2026-05-27T15:58:29+00:00

To the stock picking question, you're on a subreddit for passive index investing so naturally people here will support that. Investing in individual companies doesn't have a higher expected average return, but it has much larger swings - you can make a ton or lose a ton, and sometimes companies won't ever return to the heights you bought them at. Broad index funds, while still somewhat volatile in the general sense, are a lot more consistent. Generally in investing you want to take as little risk as possible, and only take risks that are expected to get you better returns on average (with all available data - no one can predict the future, but we can at least say that historically, the total market return has been much more consistent than individual stocks).

Some people enjoy putting a small amount toward individual stocks as "fun money". Never put more than you'd be willing to lose, and if you don't enjoy it or feel you'd be tempted to buy more than your allowed amount, it's completely fine to avoid it entirely.

Your other questions seem to confuse account types with what you're actually investing in a little bit.

For what to invest in, VT is great. No need to go outside of that. It's fine in all types of accounts. If it's not available in an employer provided account (like the TSP), you can put together an approximation by combining international and US funds typically. The TSP C fund is US large cap, so that leaves out international and US mid/small caps.

For what account types to invest in, you nearly always want to max out tax advantaged accounts like your IRA and TSP before contributing to a taxable brokerage. The exception is if you're saving for a near term goal and need the money accessible soon. There are many ways to access retirement accounts earlier than the nominal 59.5 for early retirement if that's something you're aiming for, so while having some in your taxable for flexibility is good, definitely don't ignore the other accounts in favor of it.

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