FatFIRE Community Debates Investment Strategies
Discussions revolve around investment approaches, including Boglehead strategies, ETF selection, and the use of platforms like Robinhood. There's a focus on risk management and scaling trading strategies.
SOURCES (60)
“Curious about y'all's thoughts. Currently, I'm in my 30s with a 100% equity portfolio but ~10-15 years from retirement. Im fairly confident in holding and buying through downturns. However, I'm starting to understand bonds a bit better beyond interpreting them in the same vein as…”
“I’ve been a pretty traditional Boglehead for most of my investing years, but I’m getting closer to retirement and starting to think more about the income side of the portfolio. Rather than simply accumulating and then figuring out withdrawals later, I’m interested in gradually adding some investments that can generate a more consistent stream of income. I’m familiar with the usual Fidelity and Vanguard options, but I’m curious what other Bogleheads are actually using. For those who are retired o”
“I’ve been a pretty traditional Boglehead for most of my investing years, but I’m getting closer to retirement and starting to think more about the income side of the portfolio. Rather than simply accumulating and then figuring out withdrawals later, I’m interested in gradually adding some investments that can generate a more consistent stream of income. I’m familiar with the usual Fidelity and Vanguard options, but I’m curious what other Bogleheads are actually using. For those who are retired o”
“The more meaningful question is “how many Americans have banked a cool $5M liquid?” What is so useful about arbitrarily ignoring liquid, non-retirement assets?”
“Basically I follow the Boglehead philosophy but my FIL does well with his investments with some sprinkling of sector ETFs. Anyone do a similar strategy as their portfolio grows. Something like 90-95 Boglehead strategy. 5-10% of other bets submitted by /u/Remarkable_Lead_4475 [link] [comments]”
“What are the variables that change/add to the fundamental 2-fund boglehead portfolio in this case of very early retirement? An increasing number of financial advisors are now recommending a small bitcoin allocation, to improve both return and sharpe ratio. https://www.blackrock.com/institutions/en-global/institutional-insights/thought-leadership/portfolio-design/sizing-bitcoin-in-portfolios”
“Hey everyone, I'm turning 40 at the end of 2026 and feel filled with regret and embarrassment about my portfolio. I thought I was smarter than the market as a "value investor," and I failed miserably. My goal was to retire by 50-ish off dividend income. Back in 2021, I went big into BABA and China (~$100k position) hoping to buy a house with the proceeds. That failed, and while I caught some gains in 2025/2026, I heavily underperformed. I'm a business owner netting $9k–$10k/mon”
Yeah, the only meaningful different is that giant 0.5% AUM fee for OP.
“My exploration is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RichPeoplePF/wiki/all\_weather\_portfolios/ . I wrote this so I have some advice to give people who ask, since I am not comfortable telling people to SPX and chill. People who give that advice don't realize how hard it is to chill when your net worth is halved over the course of several years. I also wanted a default portfolio for myself, when I don't have something that I'm excited about and as a better benchmark than SPX. I don't”
“I share your concerns about the upside of both stocks and bonds given high CAPE ratios and low (and rising) interest rates. I don’t claim amy predictive ability to know what the near term returns will be but Im conservative with my SWR with these factors in mind. If you don’t mind sharing, what alternatives are you considering?”
“I read it just now. He has a number of methodological issues which I can get in to if you care. But I agree with the conclusion that risk parity and strategies that include overweight small-cap value are questionable. In my link above, I compare several different all-weather portfolios. Risk parity is just one variety, and I like others better. Unfortunately, proving quantitatively that one fund choice is better is difficult. Getting enough data to get low standard error is not possible, and eve”
“REIT and small cap are for diversification and safety not for more growth (that said, I don’t personally hold much)”
“Ive been a follower of the bogleheads for over 15+ years. What’s funny is that when i first started the boglehead strategy, i also had REITs in there. I also had total stock market, intl stock market, emerging markets, and bonds. I think i thought i was smarter than i was and tried to “optimize” my portfolio to get as much return as i could. Now im just in VTI and chill. Think most people see the 2 fund portfolio and think they can do better by doing more.”
“The AUM is a ripoff. You can pay as you go instead. I tried some of those small cap/value/reit complications in my 20s and long since left it behind. TIPS I really like right now though, at 3%”
“You’re overthinking it. You’re unlikely to notice a meaningful difference between any of these options.”
“Nothing in your post indicates you need a professional to buy some ETFs for $40,000 a year. Keep it simple. Retirement is way more enjoyable when it's simple and if you get caught in something that's expensive to unwind it will be no fun.”
“In my opinion there is no single portfolio that is the boglehead portfolio. VT is just getting pushed really heavily on there lately because it is simple and for the people mentioning it, they value simplicity. There are some valid reasons to have more of a breakdown than VT. For instance doing VTI + VXUS is technically more efficient from a tax perspective because of how VXUS gets taxed. But it depends on whether you value efficiency or simplicity. The other reasons might be that you don’t want”
“Bogleheads are people who retire when they’re 60. If you want to be fat fire it involves concentrating your portfolio in individual stocks. Most people get them from either RSUs or businesses they operate. Not from VT.”
“The planner’s allocation honestly looks like they’re trying to justify their fee by making it look complicated. Nothing there you can’t replicate with VT and a bond fund At 8.5M with a 300k spend you’re at a 3.5% withdrawal rate which is already conservative. Adding REITs or tilting small cap value might juice returns a little but you don’t need it. The whole point of the 2-fund is you’ve already won the game, stop playing That 0.5% AUM is 42k a year for something you can do in an afternoon. If”
“The Bogleheads investment strategy, and vast majority of what I see advocated in this subreddit, is to use the 2-fund portfolio (VT+BND and chill) and I'm quite attracted to that strategy. Along with the general flow of choosing cash vs investment %, and then equity vs bond %. Seems accessible, manageable, and successful. But I'm thrown off by things like below: "According to a 2007 forum poll, most Bogleheads allocated up to 10% of their total portfolio to REITs ". The only at”
“The Bogleheads investment strategy, and vast majority of what I see advocated in this subreddit, is to use the 2-fund portfolio (VT+BND and chill) and I'm quite attracted to that strategy. Along with the general flow of choosing cash vs investment %, and then equity vs bond %. Seems accessible, manageable, and successful. But I'm thrown off by things like below: "According to a 2007 forum poll, most Bogleheads allocated up to 10% of their total portfolio to REITs ". The only at”
“I’m a 69 year old with $400K in a Vanguard date-based retirement fund which is invested in US and international stocks and bonds, and 10% in short term funds. Decent social security due to decades of working. About $800K of equity in the house with only $200K left to pay off. The thing is, I feel like we’re heading towards a financial crisis. I’m not an economist but I do follow the economy and world events. Whether this is true or not, I ask you: how would you prepare for this? I’ve only got a”
“Lot of people here thinking this have never lived in a bull market. We’re probably looking at another one similar to 99 or 08. Could take a decade to recover you don’t know”
“My spouse and I (68 and 74) are both retired and have a portfolio of approximately $3.9 million. We are reviewing our overall retirement strategy and would really appreciate an independent Bogleheads critique before making the planned changes. Until recently, my retirement accounts were in the TSP . I moved everything to Fidelity, including initially placing the assets in FDLXX , so that we could look at the portfolio across all of our accounts and make allocation decisions at the household leve”
“How is this fatfire? There's no fat stash, and a lot of it is locked up in conditional unlocks.”
“So let me start out by saying I'm a committed Boglehead, I've been putting most of my retirement savings into a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund every month for 30 years. And I'm not an activist investor, I've got no problem investing in defense contractors and oil companies. But there's a very small number of companies that I really can't own in good conscience. What do you think of buying index funds, while also short-selling the undesirable stocks in a brokerage account”
“Hello Community- lurker here who would like feedback on a Boglehead-inspired strategy, and to see if we are missing anything. Age 45, looking to be able to retire with spouse between ages 55-65. We both enjoy work... depending on the day. Currently using Fidelity for everything; exited Morgan Stanley a couple years ago as we made the naive decision use their financial advisory services when we were in our late 30s. Pulled the plug when I sat down one day and saw how much they had messed up our a”
“Hello Bogleheads, I am brand new to managing my own investments and posting here, so I bow in advance to your collective wisdom! I am 66 years old, self-employed, and completely love my work. Because of that, I am planning a "rolling retirement" where I can easily continue working well into my mid-to-late 70s. My Roth IRA holds $280,000 at Schwab and is currently my only investment vehicle. My primary goal is a long-term, multi-generational one: I want to leave a ~$1,000,000 legacy for”
“To me, it means I’m nowhere near 55 (and I have nowhere near 10M). Anyone who is really age 55 and really has 10M and is really contemplating retirement, doesn’t think there’s even a remote chance they’ll have 50M aside from a massive inheritance. I’m actually 55, not basically 55. Same age as Elon! Fun fact: he and I were born the same week and tougher he and I have over a trillion dollars.”
“Totally fair. But a fattie is someone who could theoretically curate advice and credibly demonstrate they had no financial interest at stake. Problem is every grifter's first words are 'I just want to give back!' before they start rinsing their gulls.”
“So I've been investing / managing my own portfolio for 5/6 years now. I got into more active investing, options etc.. and after lots of stress/watching my portfolio, my returns drastically underperformed the SP500 over a multi year period... Soo.. here I am.. realizing I want to put 90% of my capital into ETF's like VTI, VGT.. and do my best to set it and forget it. However, I have been living off my portfolio for the last few years.. I have a big chunk in MSFT, GOOG, AMZN, META so I alr”
“Why post a wall of text without yearly spend amount! without the yearly spend, no one can advise anything.”
“I’m also part of the Bogleheads community, and I try to approach investing as objectively as possible. I don’t believe investing is a one-size-fits-all strategy, which is why I like reading different investing forums and understanding the reasoning behind different approaches. One argument I see quite often here in the Dividend Investing community is that a dividend-focused strategy may have an advantage over a traditional Boglehead total-market approach during a prolonged bear market, particula”
“30 year career, only made it to VP last year, for the final 6 months. No windfalls ever, whether it be an ipo, inheritance, etc. Retired at 50, a millionaire a few times over. Invest, invest, invest, and be in control of your future.”
“So many of the posts these days are just bots and larpers telling each other "thank you for that insight."”
“Similar situation as me but im 45 with 330k. As long as they start and keep at it they'll be fine.”
“I don’t think you have any idea of what being a boglehead means given your wonky asset allocation, your tendency to chase pennies with options on VTEB, your stock portfolio concentration and your lack of understanding of commercial RE. Which bond fund to invest in is the least of your concerns. I mean this not to be mean but you lack a basic understanding of personal finance. Your luck has held out but it may not. That private wealth management team may not be what you need but you need to stop”
“Nope. I FIRED when my investments assuming 8% average growth with 3% inflation and my pensions (one fixed, others inflation adjusted) minus my current expenses adjusted for inflation still resulted in my net worth trending up forever rather than going to zero at age 102. I used Quicken, esplanner, and a few other online retirement planners to continually model my financial plan. We traveled some before retirement (and did most of those other things) and then cranked it to high at retirement. On”
“I’ve sold off a bit of the TSLA already. It’s like 99% gains. I’m sure NET will correct at some point but I’m a big believer in them for the long haul.”
“I’d prefer to keep individual positions to a max of 5%. Nothing wrong with overweighting large cap tech, lots of people are in a similar position, but I’d want some diversification. If it were my portfolio, I’d add some AVUV, VXUS, bonds, and GLDM.”
“You dont get the point. At 1% SWR and 3% inflation there is no need to optimize anything. Cash would survive for 70+ years. Its a LARP post.”
“I do have a private wealth management team instead of just a single financial advisor - since I have over 16M with one brokage. Reddit has it's own charm and I don't have to sit through meetings. You would be surprised how many people like me don't like to use any financial advisor. I have enough knowledge to filter out internet noise and stick to boglehead principle in general. I sat through an hour long meeting, and passed on the exchange fund my financial advisor think I should do”
“I don’t think a $7M draw down changes my day to day. Probably won’t feel great. What does your allocation look like after rebalancing?”
““At this net worth and spending level, I’m less concerned about maximizing returns and more concerned about avoiding unnecessary concentration risk. At the same time, I don’t want to generate a large tax bill just to make the portfolio look cleaner.” You’re paying a tax bill for “avoiding unnecessary concentration risk”, not “just to make the portfolio look cleaner”. That’s worth a different amount to everyone, and it’s not all or nothing. Reduce what you feel is above your threshold for risk.”
“I think it has changed over time. It used to be very focused on growth, at some point shifted to trying to diversity more and now I’m thinking more about preservation with low / moderate growth.”
“37M, married with two young kids. FatFIRE’d about 5 years ago. Net worth: ~$27M No debt HCOL area NET WORTH BREAKDOWN $19M taxable brokerage $500K retirement accounts / 529s etc $3.5M personal real estate $2M real estate development $1M private equity $500K cash $500K alternatives Annual spend is around $250K, although I expect that to increase over time. THE ISSUE For the last several years, essentially all of my new investments have gone into VTI, so I’ve always thought of my taxable portfolio”
“I know this gets asked every once in a while, curious what the average boglehead is doing. US/International split? I’m at 70/30, thinking of going 60/40. submitted by /u/AudoBell [link] [comments]”
“It's been a fun, wild ride. But, it's time to buckle down as I'm late 30s. I now have 1.2 million invested - half in SCHD and half in VGT. (I also own a home worth around 550k, with around 350k equity.) One is safe, the other risky. We'll see what happens in the next 10 years. I can invest around 7k-8k a month. If the market is normal the next 10 years, I can retire in my late 40s. If it's shit, then I'll keep working until 60. Tbh, if I didn't gamble in stocks, I'”