Where to go post-Facet management

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Topic Author
apadapa
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2022 6:58 pm

Where to go post-Facet management

Post by apadapa »

Hey folks. I'm a mid-30s engineer who just got tired of paying $2400/yr (>2% of my annual spending!) to Facet for "everything looks good" twice a year and left them.

I'm moving jobs, and assessing some future purchase viability, and would love to get anything from gut reactions to in-depth critiques.

I'll try to post in the Portfolio Questions format, whose fields I'm going to bold with as few digressions as possible. But please let me know if I've left anything out or could do better here.

So. My money is broken across a few accounts right now. Most investment is in a set of Fidelity accounts, but I keep a lot of cash in a money market as well.

Cash in money market:
- Emergency fund: 50k
- House down payment: 200k
- Fun money (I'm on the lookout to upgrade a bike and a car, and would like to be able to travel if this pandemic thing relaxes): 35k

The house down payment is a large chunk of the proceeds from my last house sale, which I didn't want to invest into a volatile market in case I found something I really liked and wanted liquidity to make an offer fast. That hasn't happened yet... :|

I'd be okay with investing some or all of it if the destination was sufficiently low-risk and reasonably quick to liquidate. The money market gets a whopping 0.48%

Back to the template.

Current retirement assets

Tax filing status: Single

Tax Rate: 35% Federal Marginal (~27% effective), 0% State

State of Residence: Washington

Age: 35

Desired Asset allocation: Not sure, but maybe something less risky than what I have now. Currently sitting heavy on domestic stock (67% domestic/15% foreign/15% bonds/3% short term).


Taxable Accounts (I have a few, and the more spread ones I'll put into tables for readability, and give quantity breakdowns):

I've tried to use ETFs to keep expense ratios low as possible. All vanguard ETFs sit around ~.15 (as you all probably know) and the rest (some of the IWINs) top out around .5%

Longer Term

Code: Select all

+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------------+
| Symbol  |                         Description                          | Current Value |
+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------------+
| FCASH** | Cash                                                         | $1000.00      |
| BND     | VANGUARD BD INDEX FDS TOTAL BND MRKT                         | $9674.73      |
| BNDX    | VANGUARD CHARLOTTE TOTAL INTL BD INDEX FD ETF                | $2722.00      |
| CGW     | INVESCO EXCH TRADED FD TR II S&P GBL WATER                   | $158.40       |
| GM      | GENERAL MTRS CO COM                                          | $523.50       |
| IWN     | ISHARES RUSSELL 2000 VALUE ETF                               | $14356.41     |
| MUB     | ISHARES NATIONAL MUNI BOND ETF                               | $9225.90      |
| PHO     | INVESCO EXCHANGE TRADED FD TR WATER RES ETF                  | $154.32       |
| VEA     | VANGUARD TAX-MANAGED INTL FD FTSE DEV MKT ETF                | $17382.78     |
| VOE     | VANGUARD MID-CAP VALUE INDEX FUND                            | $8296.32      |
| VTI     | VANGUARD IDX FUND                                            | $20745.15     |
| VTV     | VANGUARD INDEX FDS VANGUARD VALUE ETF FORMERLY VANGUARD INDE | $13849.66     |
| VWO     | VANGUARD INTL EQUITY INDEX FDS FTSE EMR MKT ETF              | $7320.48      |
+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------------+

Total: $105,409.65


Shorter Term:

Code: Select all

+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------------+
| Symbol  |                         Description                          | Current Value |
+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------------+
| SPAXX** | FIDELITY GOVERNMENT MONEY MARKET                             | $499.06       |
| BND     | VANGUARD BD INDEX FDS TOTAL BND MRKT                         | $3486.29      |
| BNDX    | VANGUARD CHARLOTTE TOTAL INTL BD INDEX FD ETF                | $2301.45      |
| IWN     | ISHARES RUSSELL 2000 VALUE ETF                               | $1795.16      |
| MUB     | ISHARES NATIONAL MUNI BOND ETF                               | $5892.84      |
| VEA     | VANGUARD TAX-MANAGED INTL FD FTSE DEV MKT ETF                | $3065.76      |
| VOE     | VANGUARD MID-CAP VALUE INDEX FUND                            | $1304.09      |
| VTI     | VANGUARD IDX FUND                                            | $3039.71      |
| VTV     | VANGUARD INDEX FDS VANGUARD VALUE ETF FORMERLY VANGUARD INDE | $1966.50      |
| VWO     | VANGUARD INTL EQUITY INDEX FDS FTSE EMR MKT ETF              | $1262.56      |
+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------------+

Total: $24,613.42

Memes & Retail:

Not worth a table, just a bunch of junk sitting around $2k. Mostly a playground.

Bezos Bucks

A bunch of Amazon stock sitting from my tenure there. Some is past LTCG, some is not.

Total shares: 31
Total value: $86,087 (wow this was 100+ a few days ago :shock: )

401k:

02315N600, Vanguard Target 2035
Expense ratio: 0.0425%
Total Shares: 1465
Total Value: $152,378

"Backdoor" Roth IRA (2022 Contrib Done):
VFIFX (Vanguard Target Retirement 2050) x 291 = 12702
VFFVX (Vanguard Target Retirement 2055) x 123 = ~5949

Total Value: $~18,700


Contributions
$6000/yr to Roth IRA via backdoor
$19500 to 401(k) (no match at future employer, womp wom)
Remainder (after taxes, expenses, savings, charitable donations, about 150k) to go to a taxable brokerage account?

Questions :
* I got started a bit late in this industry and the higher pay, and am trying to sock away as much as possible while still living well; this doesn't leave me with a concrete retirement date though. I'm considering "coast FIRE", which I should be able to do in a few years, if the markets permit. How - if at all - do my already-schizophrenic Vanguard Target Date Funds (currently have 2035, 2050, 2055) need to change to reflect this?
* Does it make sense now - or would it at some concrete time in the future - to pay for an auto-balancing robo advisor (or another real one, I guess)?
* Is there a good way to put some of that ~$250k house and fun money to work above 0.45% while preserving the key values of liquidity and safety?
* I've just started a new gig that pays a good deal more than my last one. Any suggestions for simple, low-expense-ratio, medium-term ETFs to pump extra income into? My plan for now is to keep dropping cash into the Shorter Term and Longer Term accounts in keeping with existing ratios.
* FWIW I won't consider speculative real estate, rental properties, or REITs, as I consider rent seeking to be immoral.


Again, thanks so much for taking the time. Any and all advice is heartily welcomed.
User avatar
Raspberry-503
Posts: 954
Joined: Sat Oct 03, 2020 6:42 am

Re: Where to go post-Facet management

Post by Raspberry-503 »

Ex-Facet customer here (just 1 year)

Facet advocates (they did for me at least) to maintain the same AA in all your accounts. That may not be a good idea at your tax bracket, make sure that you avoid anything that generates taxable income (bond interest, funds distributions, etc...). MUB probably makes sense to hold bonds in taxable instead of using BND.

You may want to read about asset location (e.g. on the bogglehead wiki), maintain your AA across the entire portfolio but not across each account. For example, hold your bonds in tax deferred and stock in your taxable and Roth, at least to the extent you can.

similarly, target funds may not be careful about generating taxable income since they may assume they are mostly in tax-advantaged accounts (see https://www.wsj.com/articles/vanguard-t ... of%20funds.)

Facet loves to Value Tilt, whether they truly believe it gives you an edge or it makes things more complicated and justifies their existence remains to be seen. you might consider going to a 3 or 4 fund portfolio (e.g. VTI, VXUS, BND/MUB, BNDX in the proportions of your choice), however it means you need to be willing and able to rebalance at least once a year
Topic Author
apadapa
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2022 6:58 pm

Re: Where to go post-Facet management

Post by apadapa »

Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply. I'll check out those wiki entries and see what I can glean from them.
...maintain the same AA in all your accounts. That may not be a good idea at your tax bracket
I don't understand why this'd be. Can you expand a little bit?
read about asset location
:beer

I know that these funds redistribute once per 5 years or so, and throw off taxable bits as a result - my impression was that this wasn't generally meaningful. It sounds like that's wrong.

I'm down to drop my 8+ accounts to 4 or fewer in most cases, if the results are comparable. I have what I have in large part due to - you guessed it - Facet folks.

Thanks again for your insight.
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