anesthesiologist
You have no doubt been given plenty of advice on how to invest your money. Some advice is helpful. Some of it is garbage. It can be difficult to discern which is which, especially when you’re starting to learn and the learning curve is steep.
I’ve found it helpful to look not only at what others recommend you do with your money, but also at what others are actually doing with their money. Our Ether to FI series has been enlightening in this regard, and I regularly share my investment portfolio with you.
I keep $25,000 (about three months’ expenses) as an emergency fund, and the rest is saving up for a house downpayment. I’m currently directing $2,000 a month toward this goal.
Our retirement investments are comprised of my 403b through work, our two Roth IRAs, and a taxable brokerage account. Across all of these investments, I try to maintain an overall asset allocation of 60% US stocks, 20% international stocks, 10% US bonds, and 10% real estate investment trusts (REITs).
For this savings goal, we’ve opened up 529 accounts for each of our children. We can get a nice state tax deduction per parent per child, so we’re using that to guide the size of our annual contributions.
We have the entirety of these accounts in Fidelity’s zero-cost VTSAX equivalent, FZROX. I don’t know if we will contribute to these accounts every year, but whatever we put in should be able to grow untouched and untaxed for ~60 years, providing a nice cushion for their future.