Where to Start Out...

[KaizenKings]

Well I'll be a little more to the point for a starter PP implemented by using ETFs:

Long Treasuries: SPTL or TLT
Short Treasuries/Cash: VGSH, SHV, BIL or a savings account/CD at a bank (any of these will be fine for your cash)
Gold: SGL
Stocks: VTI

25% each, rebalance annually or when one gets to 20% or 30%.

M1 Financial is basically a free brokerage and has the capability to put the whole thing on autopilot for you.

Once you get more knowledge under your belt by reading some of the key posts here, you can branch out to actual treasury bonds, bullets vs. barbells for bonds, physical gold, various cash management approaches, tax/account type strategies and several rebalancing strategies you can study up on.

For sure all the questions raised earlier about your specifics are completely on point and humans love to dissect and tinker with the basic machine (lots of that here), but a do it now and make it easy for me PP, there you have it.

Ok thanks for the help guys.

I do have a Roth 401k and Roth account at my job. I save 15% of every check in it. I do receive a employer match. Currently, these are the options offered by Voya (the admin company in charge of the 401ks etc)


STABILITY OF PRINCIPAL
4062 Voya Fixed Account (4062) 0%

BONDS
0898 Vanguard Total Bnd Mrkt Ind F Adm
6081 Western Asst Core Bond Fund Is
6589 PGIM High Yield Fund R6

ASSET ALLOCATION
1971 American Funds 2010 Tdate R6
1973 American Funds 2015 TDate R6
1975 American Funds 2020 TDate R6
1977 American Funds 2025 TDate R6
1979 American Funds 2030 TDate R6
1981 American Funds 2035 TDate R6
1983 American Funds 2040 TDate R6
1985 American Funds 2045 TDate R6
1987 American Funds 2050 TDate R6
1989 American Funds 2055 TDate R6
9639 American Funds 2060 TDate R6

BALANCED
7027 American Funds Am Balancd R6

LARGE CAP VALUE
0899 Vanguard 500 Index Fund Adm
1990 American Funds Wash Mtual R6

LARGE CAP GROWTH
3665 MFS Growth Fund R6
7577 TRowePrc Blue Chip Growth Fund I

SMALL/MID/SPECIALTY
0756 Vanguard Mid-Cap Index Fund Adm
0757 Vanguard Small-Cap Index Fund Adm
1438 DFA Real Estate Securities Port Inst

GLOBAL/INTERNATIONAL
1723 American Funds EuroPacific R6
1960 American Funds CapWld G&I R6
3491 American Funds New World R6
9889 Vanguard Total Intl Stk Index Fd Adm
C380 MFS Intl Diversification Fnd R6



They currently just moved the entire company to Voya. They have me 100% in 1987 American Funds 2050 TDate R6 (target retirement date asset allocation). I am looking to change of course.

Using the Permanent Portfolio mentality, I would like to put 15% into the Vanguard 500 Index Fund and then put 5% into the Global/International Vanguard Total Intl Stk Index Fd Adm. This would cover the 20% stocks (5% international optional).

Maybe keep the other 80% in the target fund and hit the other aspects of the portfolio outside of the 401K?
Maybe look into M1?

Anyone out there?

[Kbg]

Depending on what you are trying to do (but I will assume as close to a PP as you can given your limited options)

25% in the Vanguard related stock funds (25% in the S&P500 is "the" PP choice)
VOYA fixed for cash
Vanguard Total Bond for the bond component
The closest thing to gold (though not the same at all) would be the DFA REIT fund

You could do worse for sure. If you cross account your PP then of course you have other options.

[Dieter]

Do you have access to self directed brokerage? Many 401(k)s do. Could get GLD or IAU ETFs through those.

I never have -- have IRA I can use for that.

[KaizenKings]

Hi,

Unfortunately, it isnt self directed :-(

I ask them and they said nope!

[Dieter]

Are you IRA eligible? (You or a spouse). Based on earning / marital status. And different levels for Traditional vs Roth IRA.

If company doesn't match every dollar that you put into the 401(k) and you are IRA eligible, you could put enough into the 401(k) to "max the match" , and then put up to $5,500 (?) into an IRA. Anything after that back into the 401(k).

To make math easy, if make $100k and company matches up to 6% of Salary (and under 50, which I think I saw in an earlier post), IRA eligible:

$6,000 into 401(k) (6% of salary that is matched)
$6,000 into IRA (Vanguard, Fidelity, etc -- Roth if single as cutoff for traditional being tax free is $74k)
$3,000 into 401(k) -- might have less after taxes by contributing to Roth IRA....

$15k if I did the math right.

Can have lots more options in the IRA. Would want to look for a provider with free trades on IAU or GLD or whatever. Might need to but only a couple times a year if not. (Not free at Vanguard).

Note - depending on state, may have slightly lesser protections against lawsuits for funds put directly into IRAs vs 401(k) / 404(b).

And do more research of course -- this be but one option a random person on the internet thinks is something to look into....

And I tend to go more Golden Butterflyish so not assumed that since I post (rarely) here that in pure PP....

[Dieter]

Depending on what you are trying to do (but I will assume as close to a PP as you can given your limited options)

25% in the Vanguard related stock funds (25% in the S&P500 is "the" PP choice)
VOYA fixed for cash
Vanguard Total Bond for the bond component
The closest thing to gold (though not the same at all) would be the DFA REIT fund

You could do worse for sure. If you cross account your PP then of course you have other options.

Note that as KGB says, REIT is not gold. Would be more a 50/59 stock / bond portfolio. Fine if that is what you want with a huge REIT tilt. I guess I understand why no Gold in 401(k)s. I do wish more had Treasury bond options.....

[pmward]

Yeah 401k's are not PP friendly at all and it's a major headache trying to implement a 401k into a PP. When setting mine up recently I decided to just keep my 401k as a separate portfolio and only include my IRA's and taxable funds in my PP. It was just too large of a hassle to try to balance between the two. Fortunately, my IRA's and taxable accounts combined are and will continue to be a much larger chunk of my assets than my 401k. As a tradeoff, since I couldn't hold gold in my 401k, I took a larger international allocation than I otherwise would to help hedge against U.S. specific political and currency risks in that portfolio. I also had to settle for just a total bond index fund, as I had nothing limited to treasuries and all the other bond funds expense ratios were not worth even considering. It's not ideal, but good enough is good enough for the time being.

[Kbg]

Depending on what you are trying to do (but I will assume as close to a PP as you can given your limited options)

25% in the Vanguard related stock funds (25% in the S&P500 is "the" PP choice)
VOYA fixed for cash
Vanguard Total Bond for the bond component
The closest thing to gold (though not the same at all) would be the DFA REIT fund

You could do worse for sure. If you cross account your PP then of course you have other options.

Note that as KGB says, REIT is not gold. Would be more a 50/59 stock / bond portfolio. Fine if that is what you want with a huge REIT tilt. I guess I understand why no Gold in 401(k)s. I do wish more had Treasury bond options.....

Actually, if you look under the hood VTB is like 60%+ US treasuries IIRC. In the backtesting I've done a total bond fund vs. LTTs at the end of the day ends up in about the same place performance wise. You do lose some of the negative correlation to stocks when the market tanks hard/panics. But if you can ride that out, the arrival point at the end of the journey is going to be very close either way.

[Dieter]

Depending on what you are trying to do (but I will assume as close to a PP as you can given your limited options)

25% in the Vanguard related stock funds (25% in the S&P500 is "the" PP choice)
VOYA fixed for cash
Vanguard Total Bond for the bond component
The closest thing to gold (though not the same at all) would be the DFA REIT fund

You could do worse for sure. If you cross account your PP then of course you have other options.

Note that as KGB says, REIT is not gold. Would be more a 50/59 stock / bond portfolio. Fine if that is what you want with a huge REIT tilt. I guess I understand why no Gold in 401(k)s. I do wish more had Treasury bond options.....

Actually, if you look under the hood VTB is like 60%+ US treasuries IIRC. In the backtesting I've done a total bond fund vs. LTTs at the end of the day ends up in about the same place performance wise. You do lose some of the negative correlation to stocks when the market tanks hard/panics. But if you can ride that out, the arrival point at the end of the journey is going to be very close either way.

Did you just replace LTT with total bond, or LTT+cash to TBM to keep the duration closer to LTT+ Cash? (I think usually see 50% TBM in place of LTT + Cash.

[sophie]

Yeah 401k's are not PP friendly at all and it's a major headache trying to implement a 401k into a PP. When setting mine up recently I decided to just keep my 401k as a separate portfolio and only include my IRA's and taxable funds in my PP. It was just too large of a hassle to try to balance between the two.

Yes, most of us ended up being unable to implement a PP in employer-sponsored accounts. I set mine up with a standard 3 fund portfolio and I limit my PP to accounts under my control. Once I retire I'll be able to fix that situation, but I'm not sure exactly how. I have an idea to hold some of the funds to convert to a fixed annuity, and roll the rest into an IRA which will merge with the rest of my portfolio. Just hoping that the timing won't be a problem - I may delay the merging if the 3 fund portfolio is in a drawdown while the PP is having a good year.

[pmward]

Yeah 401k's are not PP friendly at all and it's a major headache trying to implement a 401k into a PP. When setting mine up recently I decided to just keep my 401k as a separate portfolio and only include my IRA's and taxable funds in my PP. It was just too large of a hassle to try to balance between the two.

Yes, most of us ended up being unable to implement a PP in employer-sponsored accounts. I set mine up with a standard 3 fund portfolio and I limit my PP to accounts under my control. Once I retire I'll be able to fix that situation, but I'm not sure exactly how. I have an idea to hold some of the funds to convert to a fixed annuity, and roll the rest into an IRA which will merge with the rest of my portfolio. Just hoping that the timing won't be a problem - I may delay the merging if the 3 fund portfolio is in a drawdown while the PP is having a good year.

That's an interesting thought. I haven't even begun to think through how I will merge my 401k portfolio into my IRA at retirement. I probably would just purchase the assets to the desired percentages with the one exception being that I would likely hold some extra cash. Maybe hold my first year or two of retirement expenses above and beyond my cash allocation, just because unlucky drawdowns in the first year or two of retirement have an outsized effect. In the meantime, it has been kind of interesting to see how much different my GB performs day to day vs my 3 fund portfolio. I can kind of benchmark the two against each other. It will be especially interesting to see first hand the way the two portfolios diverge when the next bear market hits.

[Dieter]

In the meantime, it has been kind of interesting to see how much different my GB performs day to day vs my 3 fund portfolio. I can kind of benchmark the two against each other. It will be especially interesting to see first hand the way the two portfolios diverge when the next bear market hits.

Yeah, similar here -- GB-ish vs Swenson-ish.

[Kbg]

Note that as KGB says, REIT is not gold. Would be more a 50/59 stock / bond portfolio. Fine if that is what you want with a huge REIT tilt. I guess I understand why no Gold in 401(k)s. I do wish more had Treasury bond options.....

Actually, if you look under the hood VTB is like 60%+ US treasuries IIRC. In the backtesting I've done a total bond fund vs. LTTs at the end of the day ends up in about the same place performance wise. You do lose some of the negative correlation to stocks when the market tanks hard/panics. But if you can ride that out, the arrival point at the end of the journey is going to be very close either way.

Did you just replace LTT with total bond, or LTT+cash to TBM to keep the duration closer to LTT+ Cash? (I think usually see 50% TBM in place of LTT + Cash.

I assume this is a question to me...Total Bond & LTTs perform very similarly over the long haul, not over the short haul. So, total bond only as you have a bunch of ST bonds in the TB mix as well (govt and commercial).

[KaizenKings]

Took me about a year to wrap myself around this!!!

YEESHHH!!!

I am definitely not an expert at this stuff but I keep returning, learning, and will being to pull the trigger.

Ok NOW I understand why you can't go all in and just pick one portion of the PP! Thank you all for your insight! Thank you! Thank you!

Here are my choices:

20% Stocks: 95% VTI and 5% International VGTSX
20% Bonds: TLT. I NEED SOME HELP HERE: Sounds crazy, but I do not understand "rebalancing every 5-10 years? What does that mean? How do I do it? Also, I don't get how to do the whole Treasury Direct stuff? I tried researching it on the forum and it made me more confused. Is there a thread someone can guide me to?
20% PM: I own some physical silver and gold ounces and am slowly starting to stack. I will also occasionally invest in IAU/SGOL/PSLV
20% Cash: I NEED HELP Here Please: Which one do I pick and why? SHY? SCHO? SHV?
20% Misc: Will invest in some digital currency, tech stock, AI stocks, Cannibis stocks. My picks: GBTC (Bitcoin ETF), ETFMG (Marijuana ETF), GrubHub, ARKQ (AI chip stock), Uber stock, and IQ stock. Digital coins I will purchase: XRP, ETH, LTC, BNB, Link


**************************************
I currently have about $20,000 saved in an 1987 American Funds 2050 Target Date R6 through my job that matches.

Breakdown: Employee PreTax: $6,800. Employer Matching: $4,500. ROTH: $8,000
I take about 6% of every paycheck and pay it towards my 401K Roth through my job.
I ATTACHED THE FUND INFO TO THIS POST IN A PDF

[Kbg]

Instead of TLT go with VGLT. Go with VGSH or SCHO for cash. These are all more cost effective.

You will need to figure out a rebalancing strategy...5-10 years probably isn't it.

Throw the bottom 20% into your "VP."

For the other 80%...consider it 25% to each asset class and either A) rebalance annually or B) when one of them gets to either 15% or 35% of the portfolio.

If you are still adding $$$ to the above 80%, then there are several threads for that. The simplest is to just add to the lowest percentage asset.