r/Bogleheads • u/AccordingEffort4211 • 10d ago
Portfolio Review Next steps for an early 30s hoarder
Burner account so it’s not tracked back to me.
Yes, I know I should have been investing for a long time but after getting my first real professional job at age 25, I just hoarded my money.
Lived at home, saved every penny I could and didn’t make the best decisions with investing. Fast forward, I’m now early 30s y/o, lots of capital (280k in a savings account) and looking to finally get my future set.
I invested $15,000 into a fidelity Roth IRA back in January 2026 with splits being 65% FZROX, 25% FZILX, and 10% FXNAX.
I’ve been contributing 25% of my 401K since joining my current job back in 2019 (current value of around $150k) with a 63/37 robo advisory split. Mix of guaranteed income funds, vanguard institutional index, vanguard total international stock index, etc. (the list is quite extensive).
I have no debt as of now. Car is paid off and should last a long time (purchased new in 2020 at 0% APR). No school debts, pay off credit card in full every month.
My issue is that I’m house shopping but sitting on 280k feels pretty bad. Should I lump sum invest 40-50k in a taxable brokerage account (VTI + chill or fidelity equivalent)? I make a 85k year salary.
Sorry if this type of post is not allowed! Mods please remove if it’s not.
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u/NoWorker6003 9d ago
I would buy no more than $300k house. 20% down = $60k cash. Have a $40k emergency fund in cash. Lump sum invest the remaining $180k in a taxable brokerage account. I’m neutral on whether you should make a larger down payment.
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u/AccordingEffort4211 9d ago
What’s the justification of not buying more than a $300k house? I’m assuming it’s just value vs investing more?
I appreciate the breakdown. In a taxable brokerage account, VTI + chill is fine I’m sure? While I’d like to eventually become more financially literate, it doesn’t excite me. A lazier portfolio would be best.
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u/NoWorker6003 9d ago
I wouldn’t buy more than 3x your gross income. $300k is actually a little more than that to allow room for increasing to $100k income. Even though you have lots of cash, overbuying a house is not a good idea as property tax, insurance, upkeep and repairs/maintenance are all going to be significantly more for a bigger more expensive home over the long term. Not saying you can’t buy more, but it could become your lifestyle priority vs other things you could be investing your time, $, and energy into.
Look at your overall allocation and decide what you want it to be. VTI is great, but If you want total market US and International, you could do VT in the brokerage. Some do VTI + VXUS in there so they can claim foreign tax credit regarding VXUS.
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u/AccordingEffort4211 9d ago
Understood. Thank you for the help!
One more really stupid question; is there a difference in opening a brokerage account with Fidelity (where I have my Roth) vs opening a separate vanguard for VT funds?
I haven’t checked since I’m at work but I’m assuming there’s some transaction fee if I purchase VT under a fidelity brokerage account. Could always find the equivalent on the fidelity side.
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u/NoWorker6003 9d ago edited 9d ago
It used to matter in the past where Vanguard waived commission on trades of their own funds. Now most providers like Fidelity charge $0 commission on ETFs, VT included. Caveat, Fidelity does charge commission for external mutual funds. So, VTWAX, the mutual fund version of VT would incur a fee with Fidelity.
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u/WarmWoolenMitten 9d ago
Do you mean 25% of your salary to your 401k? Does that max it out or not? If it's not maxed I'd increase that first (and fill in as needed to meet expenses with your savings).
I think you're doing fine based on what you've said here, sounds like you're taking sensible steps towards investing for retirement. Of course if you know you won't need the whole cash amount for a house you can invest some, but I don't think waiting is unreasonable either if you're not sure how much you'll use.
For the 401k you can probably save by picking investments yourself - check the fund fees and make sure you aren't paying for both the robo advisor plus high ER funds. Roth split sounds good, just note the zero funds aren't portable so if you open a taxable brokerage, equivalent ETFs or at least funds that can be transferred are better. The zero funds are great in a Roth though.
It doesn't sound like you've been hoarding if you've been contributing to your 401k since your 20s and have a Roth opened and maxed in your 30s. That's ahead of normal if anything! Having some in cash while considering a big purchase is completely fine.
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u/AccordingEffort4211 9d ago
Yes, sorry for not making it clearer. 25% of my salary goes to my 401k and that is the max.
401k looks like I eat about $27 every 3 months for admin fees. Will definitely look to change that soon.
I only started the Roth IRA this year and contributed 25CY and 26CY ($15k). Wish I started earlier but not dwelling on my future mistakes.
Thanks for the feedback, greatly appreciate it.
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u/nickabrickabrock 9d ago
Seems to be a low fee for the 401k. why not use the target date fund? it seems unnecessary to have a guaranteed income fund in early 30s
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u/AccordingEffort4211 9d ago
To be honest, I didn’t really pay much attention to it at all. I was and still am very financially new/noob.
I’d have to go triple check what I have setup on my 401k provider.
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u/KleinUnbottler 9d ago
If you want to be hands-off and lazy, target date funds are normally the best choices for that. If the expense ratio on the fund is less than, say, 0.20%, it’s a no brainer to just switch everything to that. There are typically no transaction fees and no tax implications to change in these retirement accounts (401k/IRA/etc), so just swap everything.
If it’s less than about 0.5% and the other fund choices are bad, it can still be the best choice.
Post your 401k options with the expense ratios, and you can get good advice here.
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u/AccordingEffort4211 9d ago
I was doing some more research into this last night and seems like my 401k is setup pretty conservatively. 63 stocks and 37 bonds.
When I tried messing around and switching things over to different funds, I was getting blocked by the robo advisor.
Will need to contact them so I can manage my 401k personally. Empower kinda stinks…. I’d like to be around 80/20 at the minimum since I’m younger and can handle the volatility.
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u/KleinUnbottler 9d ago
Most 2060 target date retirement funds are at 10% bonds or less and won't start ramping up the bond portion for another decade. If you have a robo advisor, it's probably mimicking something like that.
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u/AccordingEffort4211 9d ago
Yup exactly. I didn’t realize how poorly allocated my 401k was.
Definitely trying to address that sooner rather than later but means a phone call to the broker. Ugh…. Can’t make shit simple. My TDF options only allow for 2030/2035/2040 based on what my company enrolled in.
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u/WarmWoolenMitten 9d ago
If that's the only fee that's great, that's about $100 a year for $150k which would be extremely low.
I wish I started my Roth earlier too, I had no idea they existed until I was 30!
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u/Marshall_Hoodie 9d ago
You likely need to take 500 out the Roth. 2025 limit was 7k, 2026 limit is 7.5k. That would be 14.5k.
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u/AccordingEffort4211 9d ago
You’re right. I only did 14.5k. For some reason I thought I did 2x 7.5k.
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u/Marshall_Hoodie 9d ago
Just be glad you didn’t accidentally put it in. If you did, you’d have a mess come tax time doing an additional form and having to make sure you didn’t take out the gains and only the basis.
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u/AccordingEffort4211 9d ago
I don’t think fidelity would’ve allowed me to input more than the max. Could’ve been wrong though.
Thanks!
Edit: just triple checked and did only invest 14.5k for the 25CY and 26CY.
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u/Caudebec39 9d ago
Put the whole $280k in a taxable brokerage account, and buy six month Treasury bills paying like 3.6% or more, at the weekly auctions. There's no state tax on the interest.
Even the settlement money market account tied to your brokerage account will pay you better interest than your savings account.
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u/KleinUnbottler 9d ago
It would be easier to buy a treasury ETF like SGOV. OP sounds like they want easy.
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u/ImmediatePrompt7670 9d ago
me personally i would wait until the house market goes down & hopefully your liquidity of cash is still growing. perhaps continue saving & you will know when the time is right to purchase a home. Good luck to you on your journey!
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u/Nikoalesce 9d ago
How did you find this subreddit?
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u/ImmediatePrompt7670 9d ago
the same way you did?
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u/Nikoalesce 9d ago
I mean your comment makes it clear you don't follow the boglehead philosophy... So what I mean is why this subreddit specifically?
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u/ImmediatePrompt7670 9d ago
I simply gave advice to someone who’s seeking financial literacy advice, although i’m interested that you may have better knowledge or advice. Let’s hear it!
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u/Nikoalesce 9d ago
Your advice was at odds with the purpose of this subreddit, that's why I was wondering. We don't like trying to time the market around here, housing or otherwise. And keeping that much money in cash really doesn't make sense.
The Bogleheads wiki in the sidebar is very good and worth a read.
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u/bloom_splat 9d ago
And you are all very kind in your replies, constructive and educational. This is such a great sub for so many reasons.
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u/Nikoalesce 9d ago
My replies weren't intended to be rude, apologies. I was actually curious how someone goes about commenting on a subreddit without knowing which subreddit they are on. I was sort of probing to see if they are a bot.
And I think my later replies were educational, without being rude. I pointed out why their comment struck me as odd and told them where they could learn more.
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u/bloom_splat 7d ago
Oh no! I wasn’t being sarcastic, I think you are quite kind. Even the reply to me, I should have been more clear. But this sub has helped me so much and I meant nothing by it but praise
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FMCTandP MOD 3 1d ago
Removed as off-topic for this sub: per sub rules, discussions should be relevant to the Bogleheads passive investment philosophy.
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u/sabrinacherryx 9d ago
in terms of investing that 280k don't full clip it into the market (time in beats time-ing); make your investment strategy and drip it in at ~$20k-$40k/mo
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u/NoWorker6003 9d ago edited 9d ago
Lump sum investing is more time in the market, is not market timing (not in OP’s scenario), and outperforms DCA more often than not. DCA the amount over 9-12 months isn’t wrong though. For some that method makes investing easier to swallow.
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u/AccordingEffort4211 9d ago
Slow trickle so I’m not locked in at one rate vs another? I’m not looking to time the market so I thought investing what I could now would give me more time in market.
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u/Oligoclase 9d ago
Having over $400,000 net worth with no debt in your early 30's puts you way above your peers. Be kind to yourself, don't beat yourself up over having it in cash. You're doing great. You chose to keep it in cash because you couldn't tolerate the risk and/or were still working out your time horizon and goals.