re: Best vanguard fund

FWIW, in my Roth I use a STAR fund as my non liquid portion of my emergency fund (Funded by income earned over the marginal tax rate that I no longer feels advantageous to forego the immediate tax break.)

My "real" retirement portion of the Roth I am half and half wirh contributions in a Wellington and Target Date Retirement fund.

For a taxable account that is in excess of retirement net worth, for long term "maybes," I would do the S&P 500 index fund (either mutual or etf).

Not a huge fan of "total" funds.

Be very careful as to which funds you use in a taxable account. You typically will want to stick exclusively to index funds or purchase stock directly. Purchasing actively managed funds in a taxable account opens you up to getting eaten alive by short term capital gains taxes as the fund manager is constantly buying and selling.

If you want to really dig in and do your homework, the stat you are interested in is called turnover rate.