Personally I'm a big fan of Jack Bogle's Investment Philsophy, which emphasizes long-term buying-and-holding of low-cost index funds — and I highly encourage anyone who hasn't started planning for the future to set up an account on Vanguard and do exactly that.
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Witch's 80/20: [70% VT] [10% BNDW][20% FLEX] |
VT (Vanguard Total World Stock ETF) is an index of every stock in the stock market, and BNDW (Vanguard Total World Bond ETF) is an index of every bond in the bond market; owning both is the most dead-simple way to own the whole haystack. My blueprint allocates 80% of its space to that powerfull 2-Fund, with 20% as FLEX SPACE one can season-to-taste with tilts and speculation (or follow the KISS principle by filing it with more VT).
I forgo BNDW in taxable accounts and keep a small emergency fund in VMFXX (Federal Money Market Fund).