Best Vanguard funds for an investing novice

VTSMX/VTSAX

I set up a Roth. Target date. Minimum 3k I think to open. Maybe it was 1k. Going to get me funds as I save up the amount to open

Go look at the fees on a site that isn't Vanguard. You'll very quickly become acquainted with what high looks like :ok:

And they are saving in excess of $1,000 a month. I fail to see why we would limit ourselves to very low entry funds when they could borrow from their emergency fund or simply save for a couple months to hit 3k.

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Also, I do not have a feel for what makes an expense ratio 'high' or 'low'? I can't tell if 0.17%, 0.34%, 0.75% is high or low. Is there a rule of thumb to evaluate the expense ratios of these mutual funds?

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Vanguard, by and large, is nothing but low fees. I don't know that anything at Vanguard is even at 1% and up. I believe all or most Vanguard funds are no-load as well, compared to many others in the market with ~5% loads.

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And this is some commentary on expense ratio:
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I think the answer really depends on how complicated you want to get. I have gone around in circles on this @ Vanguard & have settled on the following.

Start w/ Total Stock Market and Total International Stock Market. They're great, low cost ways to get your portfolio started. You really can't go wrong by putting money into these a little at a time over a long period of time. These are for the pure indexer and are already tax & cap gains optimized. I think you have to start here until you reach admiral shares ($10k) at minimum. Consider a split of say 2:1 US/Int'l.

Once you get $30k into your account, then you can start adding a few other things to play around & try to earn another few points.

Some of my favorite actively managed funds are
VDIGX - div growth that has generally outperformed the S&P
VSTCX - heavily computerized approach to small caps
VTMSX - small cap tax-managed -- great for an after-tax (i.e. not IRAs) account but I wouldn't do this until you get about $40k in your Total Market fund & say $20k in international just because you don't want to have a quarter or your portfolio in small caps. Requires $10k, hence the $40k/$20k/$10k split us/int'l/smallcap.

Listen to Paul Merriman's podcast or read his work on the Interwebs. He advocates for a "small cap value tilt" to improve returns over the long term, and I think if you dig into it, you'll see that the historical data suggests he's right. I did not mention the Small Cap Value fund above, but that's another great small cap choice as are VIOV and VTWV ETFs as long as you set a Limit price when you buy.

Just my two cents, but I would not f*** around with trying to get cute w/ small caps or a particular sector of the market until you have the basics established (total stock market & international).

Good luck.

VABDF

Vanguards absolute best dinar fund





healthcare and REIT funds are good. depends what you want exposure to.

I have been following these seemingly weekly vanguard threads closely as i would like to do some investing but have no clue where to start. All of my money is in savings at the moment. How does one add to these accounts i.e. can you put money in at any time or do you have certain windows throughout the year that you can add to them? Also how do you eventually cash our or draw cash from them. I am really hoping that interest rates rise some this year so CD's become an option.

I am not an expert.

Honestly, I signed up, gave them my bank information, and was able to put money into investments within a week.