gofi

We’re down 3.04% for the year which isn’t so bad considering we were down 22% in Q1. That was a quick recovery – one I thought would take two years. It’s almost as though it never happened. So in my head, I’m thinking that a recession is still overdue.

We’re not conservative in anyway – we’re about 87% stocks. But there’s more at stake now – a bit more money than in years past and a baby that’s brought about an increase in expenses and a decrease in income with Mrs. Gofi working slightly less. The baby starts daycare this week, and that costs about the same as our mortgage.

We increased our cash holdings this quarter to about 12% of our net worth. We sold out the non-retirement portion of Mrs Gofi’s Betterment account. It was a 70% stock allocation over the last few years that didn’t meet our expectation.

Besides, we want to keep it simple and move everything to Vanguard. So now only a part of our Roth IRA accounts are still with Betterment. We’ll move those to Vanguard too, as soon as I start working from my office where I have access to a printer. It is a poor excuse for not having done it already.

The cash holding does a few things for us. We now have some fodder in case the market dips again, this winter, should covid strike back, and after the elections.

We are also not averse to buying a single family home in the suburbs. We are currently in a 2 bedroom town home with no space for the baby to run around. Also, our town home would be our first foray into rental territory. We’d just about break-even after expenses and property management. Our initial plan was to start looking once the baby turned 3-4 years old. And that is still the plan, but should we come across something that suits us, the cash holding will help.

A rental property would also diversify our asset allocation.

Compared to past quarters, our investments in Q2 slacked a bit. Mrs. Gofi was on maternity leave so only a part of my income went into my 401K.

So what do we have?

My retirement account is 100% invested in WellsFargo’s S&P 500 tracking index fund (no ticker symbol). Mrs. Gofi has hers with Fidelity – 100% FXAIX. We have our Roth IRAs in Vanguard (100% VTI) and Betterment (pending roll over into Vanguard).

Our non-retirement investments are 82% VTI/VTSAX (82%), 10% VYM (10% ) and 8% VGT.

Our cash holdings are parked in VMMXX.

We do not have any bonds, or international exposure (other than those that come via VTSAX) at the moment. There is a case for strong home bias, but we believe the US to do well on the long run.

I am a little vary of covid, and how it’ll behave this winter. The year is already half over – and we still don’t have a remedy.

Our plan for Q3 are to continue saving as much as we can. It won’t be the same as before, but we should be able to max our 401 Ks by Q3 end. We’ll then split whatever remains between VTI and cash.