Finally Close....Need Final Push & Opinions Please!

[MeDebtFree]

The topic of this thread is extremely timely, as I am ready to take the plunge into a 100% taxable early-retirement PP and am paranoid about the tax-related complications.  Loving the idea of keeping it simple & reallocating on a yearly basis, I have the following allocations in mind:

25% Gold - IAU
25% Bonds - TLT
25% Stocks - VTI
25% Cash - mix of high-yield savings slush fund account (30%) & SHY (70%)

Any huge tax red flags here? 

Also, I have gotten the impression from my extensive lurking that a simple traditional PP allocation is preferable to PRPFX (or 90% PRPFX & 10% EDV), again assuming a taxable account.  Is this a correct assumption?

Thanks for any input you folks may have!

I'm with moda.  Consider directly owning some physical bullion coins in place of some of the IAU.  Other standard advice from this forum would be direct ownership of some long term treasuries in place of some of the TLT.

Disclaimer: My current portfolio is almost identical to what you suggested above.  I am currently in the process of finding a gold dealer I like and learning more about directly buying Treasuries so I am not yet "walking the talk" that I am providing.

[bigamish]

Thanks for the feedback MeDebtFree & Moda!

Physical gold is on my radar (primarily because there are no expenses involved to keep it), but I am waffling on the % holdings to make yearly re-balancing more convenient.  I am entertaining an initial 50% bullion/50% IAU buy-in, simply because PP re-balancing from the ETF strikes me as easier to do.  I can always crank up the physical holding % over time, if necessary, as I get used to PP re-balancing.

I keep hearing that holding physical treasury bonds is a good idea, but I am completely at a loss as to what to do after they are purchased to maximize profit & minimize tax-burden.  I wonder if there is a "treasury bond best-practices" FAQ out there...I'll have to so some Googling.  I admit that TLT is *really* appealing because of its fire-and-forget simplicity in the PP, but if the expenses & tax savings gleaned from having physical holdings is worth the trouble, then I will also consider a 50% physical/50% TLT initial buy-in, and then modify allocations as my comfort level with physical holdings changes.

As far as my rationale for cash in a high-yield savings account is concerned, I wanted to insure I had a pool of money to draw upon with minimal complications, should a catastrophic event happens that wipes out my normal savings nest egg.  I have no experience working with ETFs, so I assumed that drawing funds from SHY in an emergency would be slow & possibly expensive.  Is this assumption valid?  If not, then I am much more inclined to increase my % SHY holdings.

Again, thanks for the feedback & I apologize if some of my statements seem a bit naive.  My investment experience consists solely of dumping pre-tax money into a 403b account whose allocations are automatically determined by TIAA-CREF based on the # of years until retirement.  In other words, I am a complete noob.