nyboglevestor wrote: Fri Sep 26, 2025 9:49 am
Desired Asset allocation: unsure – part of what I want guidance on.Desired international allocation: I think at least 35%, maybe more.
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-What are people’s thoughts on the overall asset allocation?
Well you have whatever it is you have, but what you want is your desired/target Asset Allocation (AA), which is the blue-print for self-managing your portfolio. That’s based on both your remaining life-expectancy (for the retirement portfolio) and your joint personal risk-tolerance (you & spouse). That risk-tolerance part is unique to the indivudal/couple, so nobody here should tell you what the right AA is for your age (there’s generic guidance, but that should be tailored to your risk-tolerance). If you’re asking this question, then I’d suggest one or both of the exercise below to come up with a target AA, that considers your risk-tolerance (as well as your time-frame).
nyboglevestor wrote: Fri Sep 26, 2025 9:49 am
-Can I / should I withdraw money from our main brokerage accounts to fund expenses? If so, what is a safe amount so that those portfolios continue to grow?
Is the goal/purpose of your main brokerage account: a) for retirement; or b) for augmenting current expenses (which suggests you’re not adding to this)?
If Taxable is discounted from the retirement pool, then sure you can use it for current expenses or some other goal besides retirement. If you’re thinking you can dip into your Taxable retirement funds and not impact your future retirement spending, that’s a mistaken concept.
If this is just a short-term bridge until you start working again, it’s probably fine, but your 12-month Emergency Fund (EF) in cash should be covering expenses while you’re unemployed, not assets in Taxable earmarked for some other purposes than a short-term lay-off/termination.
nyboglevestor wrote: Fri Sep 26, 2025 9:49 am
I think our brokerage accounts spit off ~$50k/year in dividends.
If that’s nearly all qualified stock dividends, that’s fine. If that’s mostly from ordinary interest generated by bonds & cash, then that’s not tax-efficient placement of bonds & cash (which should be in Trad Tax-Deferred accounts if feasible).
nyboglevestor wrote: Fri Sep 26, 2025 9:49 am
If/when I go back to work, how much do I reasonably need to earn? Assume we want a 150k/year spend lifestyle.
@KlangFool’s formula is : Annual Expenses = Gross Income – Taxes (1040, Line 24) – Annual Savings, we can put all the terms on the left side and solve for zero, with a simplifying assumption that your average tax-rate = marginal 22% rate (up to $206,700) and a savings rate of 20% of gross. That provides a “ball-park” figure around $259K household, which less $185K gross for your spouse is $74K for you (the taxes are more complicated than a flat 22% and your desired savings rate might be more or less than 20%).
I used the Data / What-if? / Goal seek to set the Net (A5) = $0.00 by changing the Gross (A1). It should be easy for you to replicate that and adjust it for your desired savings rate and you could even use a lookup table to get the exact tax.
nyboglevestor wrote: Fri Sep 26, 2025 9:49 am
Any other life advice? What would you tell your 43 year old self?
Simplify, Simplify, Simplify! – “Simplicity is the master key to financial success.” — John C. Bogle
I counted 101 holdings (so I didn’t bother with a deep-dive portfolio analysis since it’s so complicated), yet you could have a simple, effective 3-Fund Portfolio that could reduce your holdings count from 101 down to around 7-10. All that complexity is just making it tedious to assess what your actual AA is against your target AA (the blueprint; see the template sheet at the bottom of this post) without providing any improvement in total return or tax-efficiency (and I see Wash Sales between Taxable with VTI + VEA and His Rollover IRA; there are probably lots more such Wash Sale concerns).
If you’d like a deep-dive, then say so and I’ll get around to it when I can, but with this many holdings it could take a while. I know you have issues with your current layout. An example layout of the 3-Fund Portfolio that adheres to Tax-Efficient Fund Placement and also avoids Wash Sales might look like this (these ETFs could be swapped for similar ETFs or mutual funds based on whatever funds/ETFs you prefer or have available):
Taxable
Total Stock Market (VTI)
Trad Tax-Deferred
S&P-500 (VOO)
Total Int’l Stock Market (VXUS)
Total Bond Market (BND)
Roth Tax-Free
S&P-500 (VOO)
Total Int’l Stock Market (VXUS)
———-
On assessing your current AA annually and then planning a rebalance if needed, this might help.
A template spreadsheet (not your data) to help with asset allocation assessment and rebalance planning is linked below. Make a copy in your local GoogleSheets space to edit (or download to your local machine if you have Excel). It should only take about 10-20 minutes once a year to update your balances and plan a shuffle among funds if any deltas are off by more than ±5% (or whatever your personal rebalance threshold is).
Asset Allocation Sheet
