I'd like to request feedback on my tentative investment plan for a $200K inheritance.
My wife and I are both 59 years old and live in New York State. Her father recently died and left us about $150K in an inherited IRA and $50K in a regular brokerage account. The funds were originally with Edward Jones, but our then-advisor became very upset with us when we balked at buying expensive American Funds, so we transferred everything to Vanguard (remind me to tell you sometime about the hour-long, heated argument we had with the Edward Jones guy).
We just finished reading The Bogleheads' Guide to the Three-Fund Portfolio. Here's the plan my wife and I developed (note that our mortgage is paid, and we have no other debt):
We aim to put 49% of our total assets into the Vanguard Total Bond Market Fund (VBTLX). For tax reasons, all of that bond-fund investment will sit in the inherited IRA. With the remaining funds from our two accounts, we'll put 75% into the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX) and 25% into Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund (VTIAX). Then we'll rebalance every year or so, moving a larger portion of our investments into the bond fund over time.
Does that sound like a reasonable plan?
Two other things we wonder about:
Before buying the index funds, should we withdraw any money and add it to the emergency cash in our bank savings account? We currently have enough savings to cover about three months of living expenses.
Through our employer (we work together), we currently have a combined $300K in 403(b) Roth accounts managed by Nationwide. All the funds are invested in Vanguard Target Retirement Accounts 2030. We're continuing to make regular contributions from our paychecks. We're using Roth accounts per the advice made by an account rep from many years ago. Does it make sense to continue putting the funds into Roth accounts, or should we switch to traditional accounts? I was never sure if the decision to use Roth accounts was the correct one, though we've been doing it for the last 15 years.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
My wife and I are both 59 years old and live in New York State. Her father recently died and left us about $150K in an inherited IRA and $50K in a regular brokerage account. The funds were originally with Edward Jones, but our then-advisor became very upset with us when we balked at buying expensive American Funds, so we transferred everything to Vanguard (remind me to tell you sometime about the hour-long, heated argument we had with the Edward Jones guy).
We just finished reading The Bogleheads' Guide to the Three-Fund Portfolio. Here's the plan my wife and I developed (note that our mortgage is paid, and we have no other debt):
We aim to put 49% of our total assets into the Vanguard Total Bond Market Fund (VBTLX). For tax reasons, all of that bond-fund investment will sit in the inherited IRA. With the remaining funds from our two accounts, we'll put 75% into the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX) and 25% into Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund (VTIAX). Then we'll rebalance every year or so, moving a larger portion of our investments into the bond fund over time.
Does that sound like a reasonable plan?
Two other things we wonder about:
Before buying the index funds, should we withdraw any money and add it to the emergency cash in our bank savings account? We currently have enough savings to cover about three months of living expenses.
Through our employer (we work together), we currently have a combined $300K in 403(b) Roth accounts managed by Nationwide. All the funds are invested in Vanguard Target Retirement Accounts 2030. We're continuing to make regular contributions from our paychecks. We're using Roth accounts per the advice made by an account rep from many years ago. Does it make sense to continue putting the funds into Roth accounts, or should we switch to traditional accounts? I was never sure if the decision to use Roth accounts was the correct one, though we've been doing it for the last 15 years.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Statistics: Posted by FeralGuy — Fri Jun 14, 2024 2:30 pm — Replies 4 — Views 343