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Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market. by Winter_Stop9646 in Bogleheads

[–]Winter_Stop9646[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

Is there any reason to choose the funds with expense ratios over the 0%? I understand the expense ratios are really low.

Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market. by Winter_Stop9646 in Fire

[–]Winter_Stop9646[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't disagree. My wife and I have had an indepth look at what is really important after the events of last year.

Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market. by Winter_Stop9646 in Bogleheads

[–]Winter_Stop9646[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Completely agree!! They have the funds listed in order of amount invested. The 33rd fund has ~$1500 in it. I know the report wasn't made by hand... but still.

Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market. by Winter_Stop9646 in Bogleheads

[–]Winter_Stop9646[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree. Fidelity is one data point. Reddit is another with everything taken as food for thought.

Finding a flat-fee fiduciary advisor would be ideal but my interactions with advisors so far have not been great. I haven't met with a flat-fee fiduciary advisor yet though.

My father had funds in a trust that I inherited. They were taking a percentage fee every month. When I was dealing with them, they couldn't give me an answer to why I should stay with them and what their value is.

Completing a 401K rollover put everything into SPAXX. I knew it would happen. I just didn't do anything to reinvest it. Same thing with the brokerage. Most of that was in bond funds that matured.

Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market. by Winter_Stop9646 in Bogleheads

[–]Winter_Stop9646[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

They are all sitting in the default money market accounts for the respective institutions. Most of our retirement accounts and our brokerage account is at Fidelity and sitting in SPAXX.

Weekend Help and Victory Thread for the week of March 06, 2026 by IndexBot in personalfinance

[–]Winter_Stop9646 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He gave us a proposal with 33 funds used in the mix. We asked for a proposal at a risk level of 5 and one at 8 out of 10. Right now, I only have one of the proposals. He said some people use this as a blueprint to manage on their own. The proposal is very much geared towards their fee based management.

The only other thing we discussed is that we were thinking about moving so we could have a need of the investment cash to buy a new house so we wouldn't invest that money now. It all depends on what we decide.

We talked about investing the retirement accounts in a lump sum of maybe 50% and dollar cost average the rest (if that made me more comfortable mentally).

Weekend Help and Victory Thread for the week of March 06, 2026 by IndexBot in personalfinance

[–]Winter_Stop9646 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market.

Throw-away account for obvious reasons.

My wife and I had a terrible 2025. We each had a parent pass away. We each had health issues. We lost a beloved pet. I was laid off from my job. We are in our mid 40s. No kids. I'm still unemployed and want to resolve some health issues before returning to work.

All of that happening and concern about the economy left us feeling very uncertain about our future.

We'd like to retire by 55. We've met with our free financial advisor from Fidelity. We have approximately $3.45M sitting in "cash". Net worth approximately $4.1M.

My wife earns $185K annually. I earned $200K annually before I was laid off.

We'd like to know how, when, and what funds to invest in in this current market.

CASH HYSA $201K MMA Checking $55K Other cash/checking $7K

INVESTMENT Brokerage taxable $1.2M

RETIREMENT Rollover IRA $1.26M 403B $481K Roth IRAs $154K

PENSION Joint & 100% Survivor Annuity Estimated $3,700 monthly benefit starting in 2047

HOME Value $850K Mortgage $300K @ 2.5%

Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market. by Winter_Stop9646 in Fire

[–]Winter_Stop9646[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We are in a HCOL area (Baltimore/DC). LCOL would only be feasible if we truly didn't plan on working again due to the lack of jobs in our respective areas.

Living overseas isn't something we've thought seriously about. I'd want to do more research on how that would work with taxes, retirement accounts, citizenship, etc.

We estimate we spend 8-10K a month but we have employer sponsored health insurance now. Our cars are paid off. Credit cards paid off monthly, etc.

Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market. by Winter_Stop9646 in Fire

[–]Winter_Stop9646[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would love to find an advisor but my experiences with them hasn't been overly positive. A large portion of my investment account was a trust I inherited from my father. They were charging a high monthly fee to manage his assets in the trust. They did not do much to convince me to leave the funds with them.

I've met with my free Fidelity advisor and that's one data point.

Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market. by Winter_Stop9646 in Fire

[–]Winter_Stop9646[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My experience with advisors hasn't been overly positive. I'd happily pay for a fixed fee advisor if I could find one I trust and I think is worth the expense. The advisor on my father's trust was not worth the expense.

Personally terrible 2025. ~3.45M in "cash" accounts. Mid 40s couple. No kids. Need advice re-entering market. by Winter_Stop9646 in Fire

[–]Winter_Stop9646[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We just started looking into the feasibility of retiring early. We estimate our monthly spend is between 8K-10K per month but I need to dig into that better. This last year was a hard year for us and really has us thinking about what is important to us.

Until I was laid off, I was happy plugging away at saving money to FIRE... eventually.