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Comment by sgoraya | Hacker News Reader

I subscribe to the John Bogle school of passive index fund investing (Rebalancing once a year) - Currently have a 401k that I max out using Vanguard funds. I'm also working on saving a 12-month 'emergency' fund. When the emergency fund is complete, I'll move on to adding more funds to my taxable account that I have with Scottrade.

For whatever it worth, my current asset allocation is:

Vanguard Institutional Index VINIX 25%

Vanguard Extended Market Idx Instl VIEIX 15%

Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Index Inst VFWSX 35%

Vanguard Inst Total Bond Market Index VBMPX 25%

I use the following site and forums for my investing questions and info:

http://www.bogleheads.org/

I've found it to be very informative and the forum participants to be helpful.

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Also worth a look is FutureAdvisor (disclaimer: YC S10). Bo and Jon are working on helping people answer these questions - they're both very smart guys who really know what they're talking about (the latter is a surprisingly rare quality in both the financial and startup communities, in my experience).

I take the same approach of a diversified, low-cost ETF portfolio, but a different allocation than you have. Googling for "lazy portfolio" is a good starting point to find out more about this.

In general, I prefer to think about "saving for the future" instead of "saving for retirement". You never know what's around the corner and what you might need, so having a buffer when you need it can make your life a ton easier.

A fairly financially sound hacker! Nice work! I have some what similar portfolio like yrs, I take on a bit more risk. I also have one small portion to kiva.org .. I have my own property, so that's taken care too. You could look at real estate too.

You are all bonds and equities. This is betting on the previous 30 years of financial history going forward. You will be wiped out in a deflationary environment or in a very high commodities inflationary environment.

Harry Browne's "Permanent Portfolio" is a wiser mix. You need at least some precious metals and commodities specific exposure.

Personally, I've been thinking a couple acres of black walnut saplings might be one of the best long term investments.

I hold commodity ETF's in my taxable account. No reason behind it other than they were in my scottrade account prior to me getting behind the index fund strategy.

> This is betting on the previous 30 years of financial history going forward.

How does that old yarn go, past performance is no indication of future return. ;)

Harry Browne can work but it takes amazing patience that most investors will never be able to muster.

Wild about Harry William J. Bernstein http://www.efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/harry.htm

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