Awesome Tips To Simplify Your Finances

Our strategies to streamline and simplify your finances will free up both time and cash.

- Ryan Ermey

INVEST IN A DO-IT-ALL FUND

Whether you’re a brand-new investor or an old pro, corralling a significant portion of your assets in the same fund can simplify your financial life and give you a clear picture of what you’ve saved and how close you are to meeting your goals.

With an asset-allocation fund, you get a stake in most major investment categories without having to shuffle the assets yourself. For example, FIDELITY FOUR-IN-ONE INDEX FUND (SYMBOL FFNOX) holds four Fidelity index funds, with an overall mix of 85% of assets in stocks and 15% in bonds. The fund charges 0.11% of assets annually for a portfolio that includes stocks of large, midsize and small U.S. companies, shares of foreign companies in developed markets, and corporate and government bonds. VANGUARD STAR FUND (VGSTX) is more conservative, with 60% of the portfolio in stocks and the rest in bonds. Star invests in 11 actively managed Vanguard funds and charges 0.32%. The 15-year returns of both the Fidelity and the Vanguard funds place them in the top 25% of similar funds.

Target-date funds, like asset-allocation funds, hold a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds, but they shift toward a more conservative asset mix as you approach retirement age. VANGUARD and T. ROWE PRICE both offer solid, low-fee options.

Investors who are more hands-on can build a diversified portfolio on the cheap with exchange-traded funds. Just two Charles Schwab ETFs—US BROAD MARKET ETF (SCHB) and US AGGREGATE BOND ETF (SCHZ)—give you a piece of some 2,000 stocks and 3,200 bonds. The funds charge expense ratios of 0.03% and 0.04%, respectively. 

PUT ALL YOUR INVESTMENTS IN ONE BASKET