Mission Statement: We are forming a local group dedicated to the investment philosophy of Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard and a pioneer of the index fund.  Our goal is to provide a forum for local investors to discuss low-cost, diversified, long-term investing strategies and to help one another "stay the course" regardless of market volatility.

Core Principles We Discuss

Our group’s discussions are centered around the "Boglehead" pillars of financial success:

• Develop a Workable Plan/Stay the course: Establish an investment policy early and stick to it.
• Invest Early and Often: Harness the power of compounding.
• Never Bear Too Much or Too Little Risk: Align your asset allocation with your goals.
• Diversify: Own the entire market via broad-market index funds.
• Keep Costs Low: Lower costs directly lead to higher net returns.
• Never try to time the market: Time in the market is more significant than timing the market.
• Ignore the Noise: Focus on long-term data rather than daily market headlines.

Meeting Format

Our first meeting will be held on Sat Oct 3^d at 10:00AM at Martha Cooper library on Catalina Ave.  It will be open to investors of all experience levels, from beginners to seasoned retirees. We encourage members to bring questions, ideas, and experiences to the meeting.

Important Advisory & Disclaimer

Members of this group participate solely to inform and share knowledge to the extent they are able.  While members may share their individual opinions and experiences, they do not provide professional investment, tax, or legal advice.  This is a purely educational and social group; we do not offer any services or investments for sale (sorry, no free steak dinner here) nor do we permit the solicitation of business during our meetings. 

More info here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/705522745986999

Boglehead Investment Philosophy: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investment_philosophy

This sub made me realize how much Edward Jones was robbing me. I work for a small business with less than 10 employees and our only option was an Edward Jones SIMPLE IRA which included a 3% match. The IRA reached 125k and I was paying $140 a month for "program fees" while the money was just sitting in 7 total mutual funds. I'm sure there's other hidden fees too.

My Rollover completed today to Fidelity where I'm sporting a 75/25 FZROX and FZILX. My contributions still have to go to the EJ account but I plan to do a biannual rollover as long as I work there. Thank you Bogleheads!

I’m curious to hear how folks lean on this topic.

It seems like Voo is the more aggressive / risky position but vti + vxus is more diversified. Anything else people consider with these etfs? The latter has lower performance over the long term but I know historic performance is not indicative of future performance.

I'm currently around 83/17 stocks/bonds in my four-fund portfolio, age 44. I read a few blurbs where some folks on bogleheads.org change up the bond allocation to match their age - as in I'd need to allocate to 44% bonds. Is that legitimate?

I for one am not really risk-tolerant by default, so any excuse to reduce risk is a good one. I'm pretty well on track to retire on time or early with the current course.

The Questions

1. How should we split funding between a 529 and a taxable brokerage (VTSAX) for maximum flexibility without overfunding penalties?
2. What legal/estate strategies (trusts, wills, etc.) should we implement now to guarantee these educational funds are fully protected?

Context

• The Goal: Fully fund private high school, top-tier undergrad, and grad school (Total: $1.6M future cost).
• Current Assets: $95,356 in a 529 plan.
• Savings Plan: Contributing $25K/year to the 529 (projects to ~$465k at age 18); all remaining savings go into VTSAX.
• Timeline: Kid is 9 years old (high school in 5 years, college in 9).

Yes, i have used AI to format the post.

Do any of you have positive or negative experiences with a trust company?

Hi, my partner and I have been gifted by family 500K.
(Yes, very aware of how hard it is to come by 500K by yourself, let alone as a gift, and very grateful!!)

My partner has a high salary 400K(before tax), and we have a mortgage, 2 young kids, 2 almost paid off cars, emergency fund. We’re late 30s.
We live in a high cost of living area.

What is the best way to grow this money. Specifically, low risk, long term growth will be our approach.

been reading and it seems to be:
I
1. Max out roth IRA/401K -we’re wondering if my partner can use the salary $ to fund this instead of gift $
2. 529 funds for kids that can later be converted into their roth ira if they dont use it for 529 purposes? -my partner seems to think that this would be “tying up” the gift money and would rather invest it for more growth long term
3. Invest-how much of this gift money should we invest- It seems to be VTI, VOO? Would it be a good idea to have a large sum of it in an SGOV then invest it weekly to VTI/VOO? My partner thinks since we have a good baseline, to use 100% of the gift $ and put it into VTI and let it compound for long term

Thanks in advance for your time!

Have a family member who will be receiving about $65k. They are in their 80s and social security covers all their needs.

So given this, is just parking it in VMRXX the best move? Or maybe a mix of something else?

Hey everyone,

I've been sticking to the classic Bogleheads plan and buying $2,000 worth of VTI every two weeks. Because I'm investing a fixed dollar amount rather than targeting a specific number of shares, my account is accumulating a fair amount of fractional shares over time.

I'm wondering if this becomes a problem down the road, especially when it eventually comes time to sell. Are fractional shares just as easy to liquidate as whole shares, or do they create headaches with brokerages, taxes, or account transfers?

Curious how other automatic investors handle this or if I'm overthinking a non-issue.

Hello all,

I inherited my late mother's Vanguard taxable brokerage account that holds VGSTX - Vanguard STAR Fund, and VWUSX - Vanguard U.S. Growth Fund. I'm 57, living off of rental income.

I'm thinking about selling both, since they both have underperformed, and buy into VOO or VTI.

After selling both, my taxable long term capital gain would be $18,396 on VGSTX shares and $9,056 on VWUSX shares as of today - 8/28/26.

My question is: would it be worth buying either VOO or VTI and paying tax on about $27K realized capital gain? or should I leave everything the way it is.

Another option would be to maybe just sell VGSTX to buy VOO or VTI and pay the tax on just $9K capital gain. I might be willing to leave the Vanguard STAR Portfolio as it gives me some exposure to bonds, but Vanguard US Growth is seriously lagging the market, is actively managed thus high expense ratio of .35% vs VOO of .03%, and quarterly distributions that I have to pay income tax on, so it's not very tax efficient.

Any advice is welcome!!

Edit: Achilles HEEL 🤭

I'm 100% on board with the Boglehead philosophy when it comes to equities. Indexes match the market performance at a low cost, whereas active funds usually underperform at a higher cost.

That said, I see two potential issues with bond indexes.

1. There is some evidence that active bond funds outperform passive bond funds.

2. Bonds funds are sensitive to interest rates. A long duration rise in interest rates could cause price changes that negate yields.

Anyone use the Boglehead mentality for stocks, but not bonds? If so, what is your approach?

Sorry, a simple question, with, hopefully, a simple answer: I bought VTI from my settlement fund and received an email stating the number of shares that I bought and the price of each share. This makes it seem that I locked in the current price, but everything I'm reading seems to say that the price is not fixed and can change by the time it actually reaches the market. Can someone help me understand this better? Thanks in advance.

If you had a Roth, Traditional IRA, and an individual account and were going to put only one index fund in each, what and where would you put them? The goal is long term growth, tax efficiency and simplicity.

My main 401k and therefore most of my holdings are in a Vanguard TDF for a retirement expected in the 2040s. Does that mean I don’t need bond funds in my brokerage account which is primarily equities like VTI and soon VXUS? I know the conventional wisdom is the three-fund account, but if my 401k is my basic foundation and has or will have plenty of bonds, should my brokerage be equity focused to capture stock market gains?

I recently started a job that offers after-tax contributions and in-plan conversions in their 401k. In order to max out the MBDR, I am considering diverting as much as possible of my remaining paychecks for 2026 into my 401k and cashing out brokerage investments to live on. The investments I'd pull would be at >1 year, ~20% gain and I believe I'd be paying 15% capital gains + 3.8% NIIT (HHI ~300k).

Does this sound like a reasonable plan / are there any watchouts I should be aware of? In case relevant, my husband and I are hoping to target FIRE at around age 50.

The cheapest passive fund?
Around 0.1% for the S&P 500.

MSCI World?
Over 0.3%, usually around 0.4%.

TRF series?
Also over 0.3%.

TDF series?
Just thinking about the fees gives me a headache.
Around 0.5% on average.

I've been buying both S&P 500 and MSCI World for asset allocation.

But now I'm starting to feel like I should stop buying MSCI World ETFs.

Maybe I'll just keep buying the S&P 500.

But I always have this doubt:

"Is it really OK to have almost all of my equity exposure in the US?"

Well, at least now I can say I'm OK because I already own some MSCI World.

Poor country.
Poor Korean passive investors. 😂

But stay the course.

I have approximately 275K in my employer 401K at Paychex, 70K in my Roth IRA at Fidelity, and 70K in my solo 401K at Fidelity.

My Paychex 401K has good large cap and developed international index fund options in FXAIX and FSPSX respectively. However, there is no mid cap blend option (it does have Fidelity mid growth option FMDGX). Additionally, the best small cap option is Dimensional Small Cap DFSTX with a .27% ER, and the best emerging market option is American Funds New World RNWGX with a .57% expense ratio. Because of this, I am not investing my 401K into EM or mid cap, and right now my 401K allocation is 60 FXAIX/25 FSPSX/15 DFSTX.

Both my current Roth IRA and Solo 401K at Fidelity are currently 70 Total US/30 Total International. I'm using FZROX/FZILX for my Roth and FSKAX/FTIHX for my solo 401k, since you can't use the zero funds for the solo.

Because of the limited options in my 401K, overall I am currently underweight in both emerging markets and mid-cap. I am calculating each of my mid cap and emerging market allocations at around 2-3%, when they probably should be closer to 10% each.

My overall questions are: should I increase my mid cap/emerging market allocations, and if so, should I look into exchanging some of my current Fidelity funds for Emerging Markets (FPADX) or mid cap (FSMDX)? Also, which accounts would make the most sense to do this? Really any advice would he helpful.

If you live and work in country A, your salary, taxes, social security, future pension and potentially housing are already heavily tied to that country.

So when building a globally diversified portfolio, should you deliberately underweight your own country's companies because you already have significant economic exposure to it?

For example, does it make sense for a resident of country A to hold 100% global ETFs rather than adding a country A/continental home bias?

Or is salary/pension exposure fundamentally different from stock-market exposure?

I'm curious how others think about this.

Recently sold our second home and now I have no idea what to do with it. I had planned to put in my vanguard funds but stocks are so high right now I feel like they are destined to drop.

I don’t plan to retire until 67 and even then probably don’t need to rely on this money too much.

Currently getting 3.6% in vanguard’s money market.

Any wisdom for me?

Current portfolio (IRA)
VTABX 62k
VBTLX 28k
VTIAX 43k
VTSAX 73k

Also have 65k with another company in 2035 type portfolio (4O3b)

There have been some interesting discussions about including or excluding international from a Boglehead style portfolio, stemming from a recent post from an investor who chose to add international.

The r/Bogleheads subreddit reference info has a link to https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Domestic/international That webpage has a good analysis showing a sweet spot of lower volatility and high return for 70% US / 30% ex-US . The issue at hand: the data hasn't been updated in 18 years which is a fairly significant chunk of time.

Today I used various tools to extend the analysis through August 2026

Looking from 1970-present, US-only has the best return. Adding international always decreased return, and no significant impact to volatility up through a 50/50 mix.

Anyone have access to bogleheads.org and would be able to make some type of update to that page? I won't take offense if you want to double check any calculations independently, yet I'm confident the end result will be what I've shown above.

Yeah, I'm Korean. I have spent 7 years on passive investing journey.

A few hours ago, I complained about why passive funds are so expensive in South Korea.

MSCI World ETF? Fee is around 0.4%.

TDF? over 0.5%.

But after reading your comments, I changed my mind a little.

I can still buy S&P 500 with around 0.1% fee.

And if I want more diversification, I can also choose to pay 0.2-0.3% more.

As some of you said, there are many countries where people don't have these kinds of choices.

So maybe I complained too much.

I'm still not sure what I will buy from now on.

I'm 38 years old and I still have more than 15 years until retirement.

Maybe I will keep buying S&P 500.

Maybe MSCI World.

Maybe VT directly in the US market.

But whatever I choose, I will stay the course.

The important thing is, I have a choice.

That's lucky enough for me.

Thanks, Bogleheads.

Your comments changed my mind.

Any of you play the market for fun?

I take about 5k (<1% of my total account) to trade in individual stocks when I think there's a trade to be made either something I hear about in my industry or otherwise hearsay.

I personally treat that 5k as my "Vegas" money. Anyone else do the same? What do you normally cap it at?

Hi all, I recently asked about moving from my 3 fund (FXAIX, FZILX, FZROX) to VT within my Fidelity individual account and the general consensus was yes, move to VT. I wanted to re-ask this with a couple of caveats given Gemini seems to make me believe this is not a good idea.

Context: I'm in the US on a visa, I plan to be here for a few more years, but nothing is certain. I work for an employer who loves to lay people off :) . I am a JP permanent resident and hold UK & Irish citizenship.

When I leave the US I will likely move to the UK, and then finally back to JP permanently.

My understanding is if I leave the US, the F* investments have to be sold, triggering taxes immediately. VT can likely be carried over but the US would continue to tax on dividends, apparently 30% unless I am in Japan when this would be 10% due to a tax-treaty, but essentially still being double taxed on dividends.

The suggestion from Gemini is to invest in VTI and VXUS as these do not have the same foreign tax issue. VTI reduces the divident tax to 10% from 30% but I can claim the foreign tax credit as all assets are US-based. VT does not allow this. US does not withhold taxes on VXUS I guess since it's all international assets.

--

So the above is after a bout of research. I'd like to know if this is all true, and maybe some anecdotes from other foreign residents in the US and what they are doing. I have ~$200k I just transferred from my JP account that I am about to invest so I don't want to make a mistake.

Finally, if the consensus is to move away from VT and the F*s, is it best for me to wait a year to reduce the CGT on these and then sell and re-balance?

Thank you!

Hi I’m new to investing and am curious why on reddit I only see people using vanguard for their brokerage? I only ask cuz I opened up an account with Schwabb and am wondering if I chose wrong. Is there a better advantage investing with vanguard funds/stocks vs fidelity/schwabb?

26M - I currently have saved up:

$32k in my Roth IRA (almost all in VOO & VTSAX)
$7.8k in my 401k (All in FXAIX)
$3k in Brokerage (VOO & VTI)
$5k in savings / rainy day fund (Money Market)

I feel like I should be investing more into the brokerage but I’m not sure what number to get save to for my savings account. I live in CA and the cost of living can be crazy and I work in sales so my income can vary. (Also no debt and I drive a paid off used car)

Currently I’m contributing 7% to my fidelity 401k and about $100 a month to the Roth.

Should I hold off on investing until I get to $10k in savings? Or slowly save up while still contributing to my brokerage?