Is Bogleheads slightly biased toward Vanguard, or is it really a great source for general investing? If I’m looking to go with one company, should I look any further than Vanguard and Fidelty? I see them mentioned more than T Rowe Price or Charles Schwab. I guess I will head on over to Bogleheads and start posting.
Bogle was the founder of Vanguard. The Bogleheads are disciples. I happen to agree with them and Bogle so I do not find them biased.
@1214mom, yes, Bogleheads is biased towards Vanguard; it is, after all, the company that John Bogle founded. You will find Fidelity fans there also, some Schwab, and iirc, there’s even a prolific poster who likes the brokerage at Wells Fargo. But, given the Bogleheads core belief in low cost funds, Vanguard is a natural favorite.
So yes, it is biased, but based on performance: Vanguard has a track record of reducing cost. The forum is still a great resource for general investing. I hope you enjoy it there 
A third of my $ is in Vanguard. I started with Fidelity because I lived in Boston and I like sitting face to face with someone. With Vanguard, I schedule phone meetings. Well, I do that too with Fidelity sometimes but it is nice to have a rep to chat with face to face. Both companies are good.
I also have an account at Fido (DW’s old 401k). If you shop carefully, you can find fine, low-cost index funds at Fido (Spartan funds). Their marketing is not high-pressure, and they leave me alone after I ask them politely when they reach out twice a year; Vanguard does the same.
I have a Fido office in my town, and they are very pleasant there. Otoh, when I wanted to do a mega backdoor Roth move, they couldn’t handle it in person, and put me on the phone to a rep, so that’s not an improvement over Vanguard, and they did deviate from my explicit instructions for no discernible reason, and made a 4 digit error (non-harmful error, but it means I have to “do it again.”)
If a pleasant face-to-face interaction is more important than a pleasant phone interaction (and you have a nearby office), go Fido. Otherwise, go Vanguard. If you go Fido, beware of their active and high ER funds; stay with the passively managed indexed and broad market funds.
I’d recommend Bogle’s Little Book of Common Sense Investing.
In it he does a masterful job of explaining why he believes indexing is the best approach for equity investments. It is not as simply written as the title might suggest, and therefor is useful to intelligent people. Everyone should read it if you have any savings at all.
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Is Bogleheads slightly biased toward Vanguard, or is it really a great source for general investing?[/quote[
Of course they are. John Bogle is the creator of index funds and their hero. He started Vanguard non-profit and preached how cost and asset allocations are bigger factor than stock picking. We’ve had 500 index fund since the 80s. I trust them more than anybody. I think there are fewer unpleasant surprises with Vanguard.
Some great advice on this thread. It always helps to gather information and get the 411 on what to look for as far as opportunities and threats on keeping your investment healthy.
I agree with you @shawbridge about good tax advising being worthwhile - the one firm charged me a crazy high amount though (over $1700 and my return was not complicated, I was just sick with cancer and had to have them done), so it really soured me. My brother, who was earning over 3X our household income and lives in a higher cost area only paid like $400 for his taxes to be done (his firm did his for years, but still, his tax return was a lot more work than mine…) Glad I found Joseph and his firm through my FA. What I will do is have my taxes gone through by me and have him ‘fine tune’ it - which will use his expertise on doing what he likes w/o wasting time shuffling paperwork and going through info that I can have organized. It will save me money and he will enjoy doing the final steps. Also as a very happy client who knows a lot of people, I can refer others to Joseph and his two partners.
What do you “experts” think about the year targeted plans with Vanguard? That way I would be getting both US and Int’l stocks and bonds easily. We have our retirement funds maxed out, so should I be worrying about something to help with taxes?
I’m no expert, and I do manage our money, most of which is in Vanguard mutual funds or ETFs. I do have some money in Vanguard target date funds, but only because the 401(k) plan didn’t have much of a variety of Vanguard funds. What I like about them are that you don’t need to rebalance. What I don’t like about them is the type of bond funds they have money in - mostly in Total Bond market funds (domestic and international); given the interest rates now, I’d rather have the bond component in their short term bond fund.
This is probably not a big deal since Vanguard has very low expense ratios, but being truly cheap and fortunate enough to be able to be eligible for their admiral funds, I find it more economic to buy the funds or ETF components. Their domestic admiral funds have really low expense ratios.
One other comment regarding an earlier question - when you use an advisor, please make sure you don’t get pulled into load funds - front or rear. I don’t remember, but I think there used to be a Class-A/B type designation for the front and back loaded funds. Just check the fund details for expenses, 12b-1 fees, etc.
edit - ps - since you’re talking about non-retirement accounts, you may also want to read up on the tax efficiency considerations of mutual funds and their equivalent ETFs - I mean capital gain distributions due to trades involving other shareholder transactions.
Hi again. The cold weather must be bringing us back to our computers.
“The other big change is that at retirement I qualify for health care at no cost but while I work I pay 35% of the premium” - That caught my attention. Such a deal!
(Do double check that before you make final retirement plans Some companies have beem cutting back on formerly generous retirement healthcare benefits. The biggest hit is usually in the pre-65 Medicare-less years.)
Colorado-mom - I follow the benefit plans very closely. I do believe there may be changes to retiree health plans so I have to consider that.
No one on either the employee or employer side knows for sure whether that benefit can be changed for those who qualified.
For example I received a letter after my 25th year that stated I would receive health care per my contract at no cost when I retired. Can the employer change that now. Some say yes some say no that both parties would have to agree to changes.
I was not in any union when I received the letter about health care so this is not about unions.
@1214mom Not an expert. I don’t like target funds for no particular reason. I would think it’s convenient if the money invest is not large to spread over 3 different funds. If the sum is large, one could select three funds to their liking and balance once every year or two. Or if you don’t need money in the near future and can take the risk, you could just buy total stock market index fund and leasve it alone.
@1214mom, the target funds are an easy and relatively inexpensive way to diversify and have someone else worry about Asset Allocation (AA) and glide path. They cost a few basis points more than the weighted sum of the component funds. A 3-fund portfolio is great, but only if you aren’t tempted to tinker all the time, or even worse, panic when stuff hits the fan, as it sometimes does.
For those close to not having enough for monthly expenses, a SPIA is a good idea. For most others, an AA that won’t cause you to panic in a downturn, or a target fund that you don’t look at all the time, is good enough. Retirement shouldn’t be consumed with counting your nickels.
Speaking of retirement, today’s Mother Goose and Grimm has a dog at the mailbox looking at his letters and he says, “Hey wait, I’m still a pup!!” next frame, "Why do I keep getting letters from AARF ? LOL!
Until Medicare coverage changes, right now if one gets to Medicare age, usually can buy a supplement fairly reasonably.
H has a work meeting today, and the word is out that the medical insurance employee payments are going up substantially. He probably will bring the paperwork home for us to make our elections - and they usually give us a very short window to decide how much to put in medical spending account, etc.
Brother in Alaska still has company health care coverage (he was an owning partner, and he negotiated insurance on his buy out) because the docs there do not accept Medicare because they don’t pay enough to cover expenses (I imagine the hospitals take the Medicare coverage) - wonder what he is going to do later, or if he has very extended company health care coverage. There are a lot of people in Alaska that do not have health care coverage - don’t know if this will change with getting penalized w/o medical coverage.
I found out something disturbing the other night - did you know that if they don’t catch lyme disease when it is treatable (28 day course of antibiotics) all the chronic problems (very severe) health insurance doesn’t want to cover! I was in a meeting with a gal that has had lyme disease for 14 years - very bad health issues; they cannot rid it in her body - in her spinal fluid etc. Another lady has an 18 YO son that has some chronic issues from lyme disease - they didn’t know he had lyme until years later, and it also is way chronic now. Very sad medical future. One has Government Blue Cross and also Tri-Care and she said Tri-Care is actually paying some. Her son who is over 6’ tall had a medical crisis and had ambulance and ER and hospitalization and lots of tests - Blue Cross was wanting to deny for out of network, etc. I know there are areas of the country that lyme is much more prevalent. Just a head’s up. I am really sick about what these people have to go through, not only medically, but financially. The gal that had lyme now for 14 years, at one point she was head to toe in rash, and the docs were trying to tell her it was all psychological! The psychiatrist evaluation was that it was clearly medical…ugh! We have a cousin’s daughter in WI that was diagnosed maybe three years after contracting lyme disease - she has health issues, so we will ask next time we see them about her medical coverage.
I think I am going to watch more of mystery diagnosis shows! Have to maintain physical and financial health!
My haircutters young high school son has Lyme and they didn’t know what was wrong all these years. I believe it is very hard to detect. She had tons of testing done and they figured it out. He’s taking three different antibiotics the same time and he’s doing better. So that’s good news.
Sooooo, as of today DH is officially retired. His (energy related) co has been shedding people since spring. He had been lobbying for a lay-off package months ago since he had to cut a lot of his people and felt he wasn’t given enough work to justify his salary. Turned 62 last week. But we surely won’t start SS.
Been getting ready for this for years but DAMN, it’s here today!
Good luck, dragonmom.
Thanks. We have our weekend set aside to evaluate all this.