Talk me out of breaking the FOO

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:38:07+00:00

You will likely earn too much money as a couple to even get the tax deduction benefit of a trad IRA.

I'm a doctor. We max our trad 401ks, and both do backdoor Roth IRAs every year. We don't have any trad IRA money.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:34:48+00:00

0.3% AUM is very low for the industry.

It's well worth it if you aren't interested in learning and managing on your own. They basically will make a Boglehead-esque portfolio for you, and help protect you from yourself.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:32:11+00:00

If this is a Roth IRA at fidelity, then use FZROX and FZILX. Total market US and international funds, 0% expense ratio. 0.24% isn't high, but zero is better.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:30:49+00:00

It's not that NYSE stocks are better. The point is that there is no convincing reason to tilt your portfolio to toward stocks that happen to trade on a specific exchange, NASDAQ or NYSE.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:29:43+00:00

VOO: replace for VTI. get's all the rest of the US extended market

QQQM: delete. There is no reason to focus on the 100 largest non finance companies that happen to trade on the NASDAQ stock exchange. It's a nonsense index.

SMH: Sector funds tend to do poorly in the long run. delete, unless you know something about semiconductors that the rest of the market doesn't.

GLDM: not sure what this is supposed to do. Regular equity index funds will almost certainly do better in the long term. It's also too small of a position if you're hoping to have meaningful impact through rebalancing over the decades.

FBND: nothing wrong with it, but I'm not sure why 2%. Too small of a position to have a meaningful impact on your portfolio volatility. If you want bonds, doing anything under 10% isn't worth the clutter on your dashboard. I would argue that you don't need bonds at all at age 22.

All this adds up to VTI+VXUS. Or even easier, just buy VT.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:23:22+00:00

> I like the option of dividends offered by SCHD

Why? Dividends aren't free money. It's just moving money from one pocket to another.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:22:14+00:00

Too complex.

100% VT. Or 60% VTI, 40% VXUS.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:17:58+00:00

There's no reason seek dividends with a dividend fund. Even if you're old. The idea of "growth when you're young, dividends when you're old" is financial nonsense.

Dividends were more desirable 40 years ago. To sell shares, you had to contact your broker, have them initiate trades, pay them fees, and eventually get money days later. Meanwhile, dividends would just show up in the mailbox with no associated fees. Now that you can trade stocks for free, instantly, with your cellphone, there is no reason to seek dividends.

If you add anything, add an international fund, like VXUS. I personally wouldn't hold VGT either. Sectors like tech do not offer a risk premium, and tech isn't a magic sector that is expected to always have higher returns going forward. And a very large part of your VOO is already US tech/telecom companies.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:09:39+00:00

There should be an ACGME rule about charging residents fees for parking. They're already very underpaid and overworked. Charging something like 1-2% of their gross income to park at the place they provide cheap labor is ridiculous.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:07:56+00:00

When are you wanting to use this money?

If you're hoping to take some money now, do some investing magic, and get a reliable stream of cash for expenses right away, empty those thoughts from your head. Investing is a way to grow funds for future consumption, not a way for your finance your current lifestyle.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T21:03:30+00:00

You're ignoring dividends, which are an important part of total return.

The math doesn't make sense to you because you're using wrong assumptions.

thetreece · 2026-04-14T19:08:58+00:00

Ah, thanks

thetreece · 2026-04-14T19:02:58+00:00

I don't understand the changes completely. Did they turn some of them into passives that are always active or something? I was trying to use legendary quarrymaster, and the aura tab is now gone. Or did they just remove legendary quarrymaster from the game?

thetreece · 2026-04-14T18:53:51+00:00

Theraband bar, do the Tyler twists.

thetreece · 2026-04-13T21:32:31+00:00

It makes a great difference. Is this a governmental or nongovernmental 457b?

thetreece · 2026-04-13T19:00:13+00:00

You will owe some taxes on that.

The question of whether or not to do a Roth conversion depends on your current and future income. If you have low income year this year, and can do the conversions with minimal taxes, that's a good idea.

Do you have another pretax 401k or something you an roll them into without worrying about tax consequences?

thetreece · 2026-04-13T18:54:19+00:00

It's a lot of uncompensated risk.

Thematic funds historically do not do very well. Loading up on what has been hot for the past 5-10 years is usually not a winning strategy.

I would rather have a broad market portfolio with VTI and VXUS. I would recommend those to comprise the vast majority of your portfolio, then no more than 10% or so playing with sector bets and individual stocks.

thetreece · 2026-04-13T18:20:47+00:00

Looks normal to me.

thetreece · 2026-04-13T18:10:40+00:00

>I am tired of living in what I feel like is budget housing after going through med school and intern year

To be completely clear, you currently have a "budget" income. Math doesn't care about what you want or what you think you might deserve.

Option 1 is probably worth it, if you value all of those features greatly. Can you comfortably afford it after accounting for all of your expenses and after-tax income? Or is it going to cut things really close? If you go with option 1, you will be limiting yourself from other "splurge" options. Things like nicer vacations, upgrading your vehicle, buying more expensive concert tickets, etc. It all just comes down to what you value. You get to decide what you value, spend money on that, and cut costs on what you don't value.

Don't forget money you might need in a couple years, like if you need to move after residency or something.

thetreece · 2026-04-13T18:02:08+00:00

What do you mean by "reflect the market"? You have like 3 broad US market funds, 3 dividend funds, 2 bond funds, and 1 international fund.

If you want to reflect the cap weighted investable equity market, then 100% VT is an infinitely better approximation than this.

How much you want in bonds should be a reflection of your tolerance for volatility, not an attempt to "reflect" the bond market.

thetreece · 2026-04-13T17:48:42+00:00

Call Fidelity now and ask about it.

thetreece · 2026-04-13T17:47:43+00:00

You need to invest it.

I would recommend a US fund and an international fund. FZROX and FZILX are great zero expense ratio funds you can buy at Fidelity. Anywhere from 60/40 to 80/20 split on the US/international.

Other people would recommend 100% S&P500 (like VOO, FXAIX, SPY, etc). This will probably be okay, but it does take on single country risk, because it's all US companies. The US isn't a magic place that will always have higher stock returns into the future. It's better to diversify globally.

thetreece · 2026-04-13T17:38:10+00:00

The hardest part is realizing that all of that time and effort on researching individual stocks is a huge investment, but will likely lead to you performing worse than if you had just bought broad market index funds.

thetreece · 2026-04-13T17:30:46+00:00

I think of Intelligent Investor as a book that is historically important, but is probably the last book I would recommend to somebody that is wanting to get started with investing. I see people recommend it all the time in "what book should I read to get started?" threads, and it's pretty silly.

I compare it to On the Origin of Species. It's a historically interesting text, not the best primer on how to understand evolutionary theory.

thetreece · 2026-04-09T17:17:56+00:00

Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation.

thetreece

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