Implementation in a Schwab brokerage 401k

[shoestring]

I’m playing silly games with my 401k.

Here’s the dealio:  When I switched jobs last, I went ahead and did a Roth conversion for my small savings since I knew I’d be in a very low tax bracket that year and I am an optimist who hopes to be in higher brackets in future years.  Ever since then I made retirement savings to either I bonds or the Roth.

So I started up again and got a fresh 401k.  Well all right.  Problem:  Not PP Friendly.  Now the good news is, I have a brokerage window.  It looks like I can buy ETFs inside of it.  Problem solved!

Now there’s some wrinkles in the form of fees.  First the fees are proportionally better once you get so much money into the thing, is what it boils down to.  So in the meantime to let the balance grow up I’m using another allocation that’s not the PP, but I can live with it (1/3 each Total Stock, International, and Total Bond).  I reason once the balance is at the point I can get the more favorable treatment, I'll sell out the other two funds and move forward on this.

Anyway this turkey’s just about ready to come out of the oven, and here’s the complicating factors:

I have to keep a token amount in the 401k’s “core”? funds.  Good news:  One of the core funds is Vanguard’s Total Stock Market, and Admiral shares at that.  Problem solved!  I’ll just hold my stock slice here.
 
The brokerage is at Schwab.  I don't know a lot about them.

It looks like I can buy treasuries directly at no cost.  I think, that's what it seems to indicate.  It seems they make their money when you sell them.  I personally am so lazy I’ve never bothered before, but it looks like buying a 30 year treasury directly is free, and buying TLT incurs a $9.95 trading fee.   But I don’t know, I’m pretty lazy.  I like ETFs.  I guess you pay for being lazy though.  Then again it's not that hard to buy T bill ladders, or buy the bond and sit on it for 10 years, then sell it.

It looks like I can use this free to trade ETF for the cash slice or just buy ST treasuries on my own.

https://www.schwabetfs.com/summary.asp?symbol=SCHO

But you know, I’ve never bothered buying a treasury of this sort directly before.  Well that’s not true, I’ve bought some extremely short duration ones in TD before when I knew I had to pay a bill to pay in a few months or weeks, but already had the cash to pay it, and just thought that was the best thing to do with the money before the bill came due.  I know how to do it in Treasury Direct, but I’ve never bought one from a brokerage.  Is there anything special to it, or is it just like everything else, with market vs. limit orders, etc.?  Do you have to buy in certain increments?  It's my understanding these things are sold to the public with $1000 face amounts.

I suppose for gold I will have to pick an ETF if I hold any of the stuff inside the 401k.

Anyway I’m just trying to figure out my options for how I could use this.  See I understand tax efficiency and all that but I do not make nearly enough money to be worried about running out of tax advantaged space so why not tax shelter as much as I care to?  If I had to push something outside it would definitely be gold first to get more options like physical vs. ETF, then probably cash right now or stocks in a higher interest rate environment.  I do keep a little bit of these in taxable spaces but it’s not like I have some fat brokerage account I can brag about.

I have access to a 401k, a 457, and a Roth IRA and I bonds.  That space combined is more than I realize in what the IRS considers income in a year (hence my user handle), so I wish I had the problem of having to prioritize things!

[KevinW]

So do you have a question?

If I understood correctly, you have access to suitable funds and ETFs and the only issue is the cost/hassle tradeoff of buying TLT vs. individual bonds. That's a nice position to be in.

Not sure if this helps but Schwab's own ETFS, SCHB and SCHO, trade free and seem great for stock and cash respectively.