Mid 30s, HCOL area, married with partner and toddler. Basically a single income household. Income sits ~$250k/annual.
I have been thinking about my different investment portfolios (and cash holdings) and how they should be differentiated (or not). I am a big late to the game funding some of these accounts. I would appreciate whatever feedback people wish to share!
Residence: COVID era sweet mortgage at 2.75% 30 yrs. Mortgage is ~$4400. I have approximately 33% equity in the home, payments include RE taxes and homeowners insurance.
Employer provided 401k: a little over $300k current value, I max my contributions out each year. Entire holding is target date retirement fund by Vanguard.
Backdoor Roth IRA for my wife and I: new this year. I made the $7k contribution for each of us for 2025, holdings are 70/30 US Broad Market / International Markets.
Brokerage account: also new this year. 50/30/20 as US Broad Markets, International Markets, and US Small Cap. Currently 40k funded (see next item).
Money market account: $155k. Plan is to move 1/3 of this into the market over the next several months (my partner worries about the world economy, so we are doing a slower fund).
529 Education account: $190k. Try to fund ~$10k/year, or as extra funds become available (bonuses, tax refunds, etc). I’d like to have this funded fully for college, and ideally to offset private high school if we wish to pursue that.
My question: There is not a ton of risk diversification between these various holdings. If you consider the time horizon for the IRA and 401k are basically the same (this is a reasonable assumption, right?), it would be reasonable to assume these should have similar holdings. While the brokerage account is, in theory, also loosely retirement oriented, it at least has more capacity to be liquidated, if needed. Should this account have such a similar structure?
Broadly: please critique my positions, holdings, assumptions, or behaviors. To caveat, nothing provided to me will amount to financial advice, I am simply keen to hear perspective of others. Thanks!
Critique my investment/retirement portfolios
byu/bikesandergs inpersonalfinance
Posted by bikesandergs
1 Comment
Without doing the math or knowing your future plans, I feel like $190k now and college 15+ years away, won’t that be *more* than enough for 4 years of college?
All the existing funds and the plan for the cash is good.
A clearer picture of the taxable account would be good, what does “loosely” means, what else might it be used for, at what timeframes? Short term should be cash equivalent, known fixed liabilities should be TIPS (fund or individuals held in your Treasury account), medium term can be bonds (matched to the duration; munis if in the taxable, or equivalently use total bond or US treasuries in a tax-advantaged account and just swap holdings in both if you actually sell them)