Currently I'm 35 years old, and starting a Roth IRA brokerage fund with Vanguard. Im essentially starting from scratch ($1500), and will be maxing out the account well before year end (limit is $7500). All of my money is in VTI at this time. Take home is around 5k-6k per month (I'm an automotive tech, so monthly income may vary).
Outside of where I have started, does anyone have a resource a any advice on how to maximize my current self managed portfolio? Looking for a bit of volatility as there is some ground to recover since I'm starting at a bit of an older age…. kinda scared since time isnt on my side.
I plan on opening an additional account with place of work as a match is offered.
If there is any more information I can provide to better help, please let me know. Still a bit green at this.
Investing with Vanguard for Retirement
byu/bigolsexy ininvesting
Posted by bigolsexy
6 Comments
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Rather than give you specific advice, let me just correct a misconception: time is in your side. You are young still. You **do not** need to gamble to play catch up, you just need to maximize your contributions in smart ways. The 25+ year headway you have is *plenty*.
By all means, invest! Do not chase gains because you think it’s necessary. If you have a **high conviction** bet, go for it – it’s your money. Just don’t think it’s necessary. Resist that idea.
Boring investing is good investing.
As someone who is working a blue collar job too, I would advise against speculative, high risk investments. I’ll rather hold boring VTI and not worry then look every day to see if I maybe made money on a risky trade.
Keep 60% of your portfolio in US stocks, 20% in international, 10% in precious metals like gold and 10% in a riskier investments like growth stocks, crypto, IPO, you name it. You need a strong base investment which VTI is and then once that is built, you can mess around. I advise against any risky investments with your IRA since that is meant to compound for 30 years. I’ll rather hold just a normal fund and contribute over time.
I’m a 30M blue collar worker and I would say you are still young. A lot of people I work with are 40 or so and barely have anything at all. The best way for you to truly grow rich will be to figure out how much extra money you have every month and invest all of it. Obviously keep 6 months + cash emergency but everything else invest if you want to maximize your wealth in the future. Have weekly buys set so you are consistently buying. Never stop buying especially in the red years that’s when you will see your biggest gains. I started investing in March of 2021 and I’m up 19% ytd and that’s with everything down like crazy right now… when Nvda was up to 200 I was at like 27% per year.
At 35 you don’t need to play catch up by taking extra risk.
35 is not late at all. You have 30 years until retirement, that’s plenty of time for compounding to do its thing. Don’t let the “starting late” feeling push you into chasing unnecessary risk.
One thing that helped me is looking at 13F filings to see what big institutions are actually holding. Not to blindly copy them, but to understand where the smart money is positioned and why. It takes the emotion out of it and gives you a more grounded starting point for your own research.
Take your time, learn the fundamentals, and don’t rush. Consistency beats trying to make up for lost time with risky bets.